Jamaica Osorio
Youth Speaks Hawai'i slam poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio performed a poem she wrote entitled "Kumulipo" for President Obama yesterday at the White House as part of a special night of jazz and poetry.
The Palolo Valley, Oahu resident is a recent graduate of Kamehameha Schools and now freshman at Stanford University. Her father, Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio is a Professor at Kamakaküokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.
Professor of Hawaiian Studies
at Kamakaküokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies,
The performer’s list for the hip event includes James Earl Jones, poet Mayda Del Valle, novelist Michael Chabon, jazz musicians Esperanza Spalding and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The poetry slam is actually an Obama campaign promise coming to fruition. Last year, Obama announced that he and First Lady Michelle Obama intended to bring poets and musicians into the White House to “open up the White House and remind people this is the people’s house.”
"Our goal really is to bring the house alive," explained Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary. "We're all American, but all of us come from different backgrounds. We want to expose Americans to other Americans that are doing brilliant work."
Mr Obama is himself a published author of two bestselling memoirs. He can also relate to being a student poet, In 1970's his poems were published in a campus magazine while he was a student at Occidental College in California. "It's kind of cool that the President is a writer," Del Valle said. "We share a common goal for storytelling."
"We have to remember that democracy is really, really big," Mrs Obama told the guests, who included the director Spike Lee and the political commentator George Stephanopoulos. "It has room for lots of voices, which sometimes take us out of our comfort zones, but that's what makes it so meaningful."
Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio was among five teens in Youth Speaks Hawai'i who won first place at the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival last year in Washington, D.C.and has appeared on the HBO series "Brave New Voices.
Founded in 2005, Youth Speaks Hawaii is the local chapter of the nation's leading nonprofit presenter of spoken word performance poetry, education, and youth development programs. At Youth Speaks Hawaii young writers 13 to 19 years old are speaking their own messages through the powerful medium of spoken word slam* poetry to many of their urban and suburban peers. -YSH has been running free weekly poetry workshops for youth, every Wednesday of the school year from 4-5:30pm at The ARTS at Marks Garage, in the gallery district of Honolulu's historical Chinatown. The Wednesday workshops continue through the summer months of June, July & August
The white house evening program was taped for later telecast over HBO.
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