BIOGRAPHY:

Lawrence "Basik Knowledge" Green Jr. is a writer, competitive performance poet, and spoken word artist whose work is capturing audiences from New Mexico to North Carolina. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, he is a graduate of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, where he gallivanted about with the G.S.U rugby hooligans. He is a member of the Spitfire Poetry Group of Savannah, a featured performer at venues throughout the Southeast, and was named Savannahs Best New Poet of 2005. His energy is contagious, as is his dedication to his art, and it is his ability to balance sheer exuberance with downhome imagery that makes him one of today's rising stars of spoken word!

ANALYSIS:

WRITING PROMPTS :

Pre-Writing:
Describe a family member that you have both positive and negative feelings about. What causes you to have these feelings and what memories do you associate with these feelings?

Literary Analysis:
Discuss the internal conflict that the speaker in the poem is dealing with. Be sure to include specific details from the text.

Write your own slam poem:
Look back at your pre-writing, now pick the two most vivid memories you associate with the family member you wrote about. Use a web to brainstorm all the details you can remember about those two memories. Be sure to include colors, smells, objects, weather/time of year, and other specific details. Using Basik Knowledge's poem as a model, write a narrative poem about a family member that you have both positive and negative feelings about.

CONNECTIONS:

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John Lane Poems about his dead father.

LITERARY TERMS:

Narrative Poem. A poem that tells a story.

Narrative Hook. Any literary device at the start of a text, which gets the interest of the readers causing them continue listening or reading. The narrative hook is usually an unusual statement in slam poetry.