This Wednesday Anthony MacPherson will be hosting a workshop – then later that night a competition for students will be held with cash prizes.
The night will start off with MacPherson’s workshop at 6pm in the lower level of the Wyoming Union. Wednesday’s nights tenor ought to be quite fluid as MacPherson’s workshops vary in style and substance. His featured program is referred to on his website as “Lyrical Exercise” wherein he hopes participants will be able to “treat inspiration as a muscle”.
Harnessing the seemingly mundane moments of life to power his young acolytes to new creative heights, MacPherson promises to “stretch our boundaries and strengthen our creative minds.” Beyond the initial act of writing MacPherson also emphasizes the performance of a piece. In “Impulse and Organic Performance” he hopes for participants to act impulse and “express themselves in space” as means of induction into the present moment.
MacPherson is no stranger to writing or performance. Competing in New York at the World Poetry Slam in 2015 against a global lineup, he placed 13th which garnered recognition from outlets such as Button Poetry, Huffington Post and Upworth. It wasn’t wholly his accomplishment in itself that captured national attention, but the piece with which he competed entitled “All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition.” A riposte to the common oppositional retorte of “All Lives Matter,” MacPherson takes on the visage of a slave owner and mocks what he perceives as the obscurantism implicit in the phrase.
The focus on race and discrimination is of no surprise when one considers MacPherson’s past. A biracial Oklahoman who now resides in New York City, he has been steeped in the complex interracial mingling that is seemingly unique to the United States. In his poem “Mom, Stop Calling Me N****” he details a complicated relationship with his mother.
Self evident in the title, a large part of the tension in the poem comes from a conflict regarding his identity. His mother, a white women, referred to him by the slur and when he finally confronts her in their home about it she flies off into a manic rage, taunting him through tears, “hit me so I can say you are no different than any other n**** i’ve ever met.” As Anthony begins to leave his mom interjects, “no other black man has ever had a problem with me saying that word.”
“Well mom,” McPherson says, “ that’s because i’m the only real n**** you’ve ever met.”
After the workshop, the contest will begin around 8:00 p.m. The first-prize winner will receive $200; second place $100; and third place $50. Students can register in the Campus Activities Center (CAC), located in Room 012 in the Wyoming Union. Registration is on a first-come, first-serve basis.
For more information about future 7220 Entertainment events, visit www.uwyo.edu/connect; download the complimentary mobile app Corq; like the Wyoming Union on Facebook; or follow the CAC on Twitter and Instagram @UWYOCAC or Snapchat: WyoUnion.
