jessica Care more is no stranger to the stage; she first gained recognition as an Apollo legend after becoming the first poet to win a record five consecutive weeks on the nationally televised It’s Showtime at the Apollo in the 90s. Now, she takes to the stage again – in the parks no less. Starting at Von King Park, Brooklyn tonight, then heading to Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan, her one woman show God is Not An American fuses poetry, video, and live music to explore the concept of God, race, the war in Iraq, genocide, and other social and political issues.
To say that she is a writer assumes she has a choice in the matter; However, Dream Hampton, journalist, said that jessica Care moore “writes to remind herself that she is a writer. Yet her writing has always leaped from the page like a healthy compulsion. To read her work is to understand that there are writers who do so for their very survival; to cope, to process, to keep from killing. (To see her perform her work is another experience altogether—her powerful, sometimes rapid delivery can feel like a shower of bombs). She writes about the poet’s diary as a time capsule for others to find and rewind, imagining that she may one day be torn from her page but with jessica there is no distance between who she is and her page, her work. Any future excavation of her work would likely summon her fire-throwing ghost itself. She breathes and bleeds for her poems, and we are all made anew by her sacrifice.” We can expect no less from her live performances.
Von King Park, Brooklyn — Tues, July 21 & Wed, July 22 — 8PM
Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan — Tues, July 28 – 8PM
– Text by Jessica Glazer.
