There is something about the actual speaking of words that adds depth and purpose. Additionally, writing and performing transports me to a place where everything about me fits and matters, a place where I feel like everybody is pulling for me, a place where I feel distinctively beautiful.
Sitting in Circles With Rich Girls: Memoirs Of A Bulimic Black Boy is a collection of autobiographical poems and monologues which explore the process and pattern of identity construction, specifically how growing up fat, dark-skinned, gay and adopted by white folks affected and shaped my maturation. This project began as a five minute performance piece and over the past two year, it has grown into what it is now, an eighty minute solo show. Along the way, there have been several successful milestones. Including: affiliations with The Pat Graney Company; Seattle Poetry Festival; Seattle Poetry Slam; Voices Rising; and, The CD Forum’s Creation Project, which was funded by the National Endowments For The Arts (NEA), Target and The Microsoft Corporation.
Throughout this process, my intentions have for the most part remained the same: craft and perform compelling and entertaining works. Regarding my audience intentions, for you I simply hold fast to the possibility that you will get/take from the show what you want/need. If it is entertainment you seek it’s here, education, it’s here, healing, it’s here, reconciliation, it’s here. Of course at the end of the day Sitting in Circles With Rich Girls: Memoirs Of A Bulimic Black Boy is simply the reclamation story of a 15-year-old boy who hid in the bathroom stall for more than a decade.
