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FEATURED TRAILERS1 of 4
Louder Than A Bomb - The Poet and His Poems: Lamar JordenPosted: Thu 01/05/2012 10:55 AM
SHOOTER By Lamar Jorden 2:56 PM Bullets bask in barrel before booming Students zooming towards exit run rampant like thoughts in my head Any student not thought to be dead Gets shot again Students think "not again" as my tech shoots shades of Virginia Within the mutual minds behind mines Blacksburg turns into DeKalb Students scream aloud as rounds rip through the crowd The scene is wild But for once I get to be center stage Behind my blank look I'm in a rage A renegade Tamed but in a cage I stand Stance stiff as a statue starin' at chu Shots and shotgun shells fly like pterodactyls The scene is so thick Which fits cuz I'm an outcast But this is no "Player's Ball" This is a scene of prayers, calls and screams Anybody from teens to professors to football players crawl and I spray em all Lay em all down in a timely fashion As they're dashin' to safety I'm safely solid as a mannequin Brandishin' 3 handguns and a shotgun The world is goin’ crazy The world is goin’ crazy I'm just a daily reminder Scrutinize my autopsy you still won't find a spine to justify my acts You run from my bullets but can't escape the fact that this goes back This goes back to the 19th century in elementaries around the globe 1891 St. Mary's Parochial School Fools before me used shotguns to empty a class Fast forward 36 years 1927 2nd to 6th graders were the targets 45 were martyred 58 more wounded at the hands of school board member Andrew Kehoe Y'all upset at me though This coward killed kids because his farm was being foreclosed These were the same people chose to own slaves at the time We’re all slaves in the mind I swear the world is goin' crazy The world is insane School shootings are more overrated than Lil' Wayne So tell his fans at Northern Illinois that I'm the shooter Skin Thicke like Robin and matches in pigmentation Tell his fans at Northern Illinois that I'm the shooter Gunsmoke and sudden death make the atmosphere putrid Today's Valentine's Day homie I wanna be Cupid Slugs replace arrows Icebox replaces heart that I can't seem to find No one seems to mind that students show more school spirit when someone is dead Who was Dan Parmenter before he bled Husky Red? Shots to the head seemingly make you more popular That has to be why most the shooters kill themselves Resembling suicide bombers from countries we are brainwashed to think is a threat We are fighting over oil My blood boils at the realization that you can get killed for nothin’ in college Just as easily as you can in a war or in jail But we're still more concerned with weed sales and pushin' the whip I guess this is what happens when a country is run by a Bush and a Dick
The world is beyond crazy Why are we overseas when the real war is in front of us? The real war is in the institutions that are supposed to build a better tomorrow The sorrow is in the hearts of those who fall victim to those dimming bright futures We fight foreigners when we are the ones who will shoot cha I'm sorry This is a life in the day of a resentful shooter This goes out to the victims at Northern Illinois Virginia Tech Columbine High School University of Texas Bath School Poe Elementary Cologne The list goes on I'm sorry Because guns don't kill people We kill ourselves but the world is going crazy Crazy like myself Crazy like the fact that if Bush cared for my mental health Five innocent lives Woulda been spared. I'm sorry.... I’m sorry...
Louder Than A Bomb - The Poet and His Poems: Adam GottleibPosted: Thu 01/05/2012 10:48 AM
MAXWELL STREET By Adam Gottlieb This is the poem the blood in my hands has been waiting to write since my last Yiddish-speaking grandparent died.
My dad says when he was too little to see above a deli stand, his dad would let him take a quarter from that day’s earnings and let him make his way through the stampede of brown-eyed brownian motion that was Jewish Maxwell Street. He’d lift his arm to the invisible vendor, the quarter would transform into a hot dog. No ketchup.
But now my dad’s people are receding north as fast as his hairline. Maxwell Street became Rogers Park, Rogers Park became Devon, became Arthur, became North Shore, became the North Shore.
And it seems to me that this is the way we Jews have always lived – always leaving our homes, wandering through the world as if through deserts, crossing from one place to another. Even for all that Pesach prattle about the glory of freedom, Jews are still among those who cross the street from a dark face, apparently honoring our ancestors who escaped from Africans by walking the length of a sea.
And while my grandma struggled as an immigrant, I think she at least was free, a Jew who understood that in America being Jewish is not as hard as being black, that the two don’t even compare, that the bible goes so far back that they don’t even really have slavery in common, just Maxwell Street.
And even if I never called my grandma bubbe, I want to write this poem in the spirit of remembrance. When I was on the SkoMor soccer team, I was the only Jew, the kids asked me if I picked pennies from the ground, teased me about going to hell, and I only wondered where all the Jews who were supposed to be in Skokie actually were.
From Egypt to Israel, from Israel to Russia, from Russia to New York, to Maxwell Street, to Devon, to Skokie, to wherever the hair on my dad’s head will go by the time he is buried in the soil from the Mount of Olives, I hope for these Hebrews who can’t seem to stay in one place an exodus only from the same mistakes.
And grandma, who never hated anyone unless they hated someone for no reason – you were Maxwell Street, your heart a place that anyone could call home – where crossing the street meant saying hello, merhaba, or Evanston chanting STEINMETZ! or doing anything that brought you closer to someone else, and all I wanted to ask you before you died was how I could find God as clearly as you did, so that I could be a prophet, and bring your love to the chosen people, deemed such by their meeting your standard of having a heartbeat.
Louder Than A Bomb - World Premiere January 5!Posted: Tue 12/13/2011 11:35 AM
Louder Than A Bomb chronicles the stereotype-confounding stories of four teams as they prepare for and compete in the 2008 event. By turns hopeful and heartbreaking, the film captures the tempestuous lives of these unforgettable kids, exploring the ways writing shapes their world, and vice versa. This is not "high school poetry" as we often think of it. This is language as a joyful release, irrepressibly talented teenagers obsessed with making words dance. How and why they do it—and the community they create along the way—is the story at the heart of this inspiring film. Louder Than a Bomb is honored to be the recipient of the 2011 Humanitas Prize for Documentaries. The Humanitas Prizes celebrate films and TV shows that are both entertaining and uplifting and reveal our common humanity. This OWN Documentary Club film premieres Thursday, January 5, 9/8c. Watch the Trailer! Visit the Louder Than The Bomb Website! 
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