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Kalamazoo Gazette (MI)
July 14, 2007

Kinetic Affect unafraid to take on tough personal topics

Author: Elizabeth Clark; Special to the Gazette
Section: A&E

Article Text:
Poets Gabriel Giron and Kirk Latimer of Kinetic Affect finish each other's sentences fluidly and speak together with great synchronicity.

More, even, than the identical twins who lived next door to me my whole childhood, whom my mother could never tell apart despite seeing them every day for more than a dozen years.

Latimer insists his Kinetic Affect partner sees him more than his wife does and urges the crowd not to read anything into that. Their rapport would seem merely a party trick if the performance-poet duo didn't have such substantial things to say.

The pair debuted their nearly two-hour show, "Word Weavers," on Thursday and have their finale at 8 tonight at the Wellspring Theater in the Epic Center, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall.

The poets' collaborations with guitarist Levi Strickland of Blue Dahlia fame, singer Jamal Larkins and modern dancer Michael Miller of Wellspring, added tremendous texture to the group's debut as well.

While the show tackles many tough topics, including Portage Northern High School English teacher Latimer's gut-wrenching homage to two students who suffered through war in Rwanda, its bookends impart hope and urge attendees to appreciate the "Little Things," the title of the show's first piece and one of several co-written by both poets. (The "Rwandan Shell" piece refers to a shell literally lodged in one student's knee, and not, as Latimer had first assumed, the sort from the sea shore.)

The style of speech -- typical of performance poets and akin to a fervent preacher who believes in his bones that his words can save souls -- isn't overdone and its passion instead drives home that the little things on which we should focus aren't when our roommate leaves us only enough milk for "a shot glass of cereal," but the way thousands of grains of sand combine to create a beautiful beach.

For Giron, his appreciation of the small things arose from surviving one of the biggest blights on mankind: cancer. One of the show's most moving moments was his "Survivor," detailing his battle with a softball-sized tumor as a young m! an overseas in the armed forces.

Latimer, too, offered one solo work, "Letters to a Fighter," which documents his journey from a boxer as a youth to a one-man army fighting for his students for whom every bell that rings through the school halls reminds him how crucial the cause is for which he fights today. Among the duo's co-written pieces, "What Began as a Poem About God" and "What if It's Not Worth It" amounted to two of the show's most touching works.

"We're creating something more powerful than either of us, than I, ever expected," Latimer said at the show's onset.

"We used to compete against one another," Giron said. "When you compete, you're not listening to someone else's voice, you're thinking of how you can make yours better."

Better indeed, to discover the Kinetic Affect that these two powerful voices form together.

Kalamazoo Gazette (MI)
January 26, 2008

Kinetic Affect poets are preaching to the choir

Author: Mark Wedel; Special to the Gazette
Section: Local News

Article Text:

One part poetry, one part motivational speech, one part performance with dance and music, Kinetic Affect's "Word Weaver: Encore" preached up a storm at the Wellspring Theater Friday night in the Epic Center.

It is an encore, with a few new pieces, of their July show.

Preached -- as in preachy? The word might have negative connotations for some, but it is the dominant flavor of Gabriel Giron's and Kirk Latimer's work. Their words are delivered poetry-slam style, which means a recitation is a performance.

With political-social-philosophical viewpoints very strongly expressed in a hellfire-brimstone manner, it is sure to be preachy -- though the delivery was more like tag-team street rap than pulpit.

Dancing by Wellspring's Michael Miller, smooth vocalizations by singer Jamal Larkins, equally smooth guitar by Levi Strickland (Blue Dahlia, Yoroka), and a bit of drumming by Joe Kreider complemented the words.

The music and dance were as subtle as the poetry was heavy. Deeply held personal beliefs, especially when based on their own experiences, resulted in strong pieces from the duo.

Giron, a Western Michigan University student and three-time member of the Kalamazoo Poetry Slam team, thought he had a life in the Army ahead for him, but that ended when he was diagnosed with cancer. His "Survivor" made it clear that every day as a cancer survivor is a special miracle.

Latimer is an English teacher at Portage Northern High School, but in the past he was a brawler and a boxer. In his "Letters to a Fighter," Latimer told of going from boxing to entering "the most dangerous ring, the classroom." The ex-boxer had to fight for his students, his "anger replaced by enthusiasm."

Personal lessons of tough guys who turned aggression into positivity, who struggle against the cultural message that men who show emotions other than anger are weak, led to poems of gender. They expressed love of women in "Wonders of the World," and got nakedly personal about sex in "Lying in the Garden" ("I didn't invite my parents," Latimer said afterward).

Between poems the two spoke to the audience, again about personal transformation, which at times gave the show the vibe of a motivational speech.

They also gave their views on political and world situations. "Without Forgiveness," a new piece inspired by Desmond Tutu's speech in Kalamazoo last year, was the strongest in this area, with the duo struggling with the desire for retribution and the need for forgiveness.

In "Gang Mentality," they decried the damage caused by "the army of one dumb president," and included audio of Bush's famous mangling of "fool me once, shame on, shame on you. Y' fool me can't get fooled again."

Pieces like that depend on a belief in the audience that Bush has been an incompetent and destructive force. But by hitting hard on the obvious -- or in the case of "Theme Parking, " which ties Disneyland to the self-immolation of Buddhist monks -- the not so obvious, Kinetic Affect's efforts felt heavy-handed at times.

But subtlety obviously isn't the point of "Word Weavers: Encore." Giron and Latimer are out to punch some buttons and provoke thought. After the standing ovation, the large audience spilled out of the theater, buzzing with discussion.

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