Citizen of the Week: Vision DiVirgilio
Denizen of the Calendar week: Vision DiVirgilio
His Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement helps city kids find their voice—and wins international spoken word slams
October. xix, 2015
Otter Jung-Allen and Veronica Nocella stand adjacent on a stage, illuminated and facing the audition. They hold hands for a moment, wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts, and take a deep breath. Then they raise their arms and recite together , "Ten lessons for the white sons we might have."
Equally they proceed, Otter and Veronica interweave their voices, emotional and clear, to snaps of encouragement from the audition. "Because if we don't, every inch y'all grow could exist another nightmare you'll requite somebody!" they yell. It's this by July, and the teens are in Atlanta for the Grand Slams Final of the Brave New Voices International Youth Poesy Slam Festival. Their team, the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Motility , chose Black Lives Matter as their theme, which they wove through every poem, from " Emmett ," exploring the murder of Emmett Till, to " Gorgon ," about the poplar in the infamous photograph of a white celebration under the lynched body of a black human being. At present, Otter and Veronica build to a crescendo, before stomping off.
"To the white sons we might have, you volition not be silent in the face of destruction," they exclaim. "Not under my roof!"
The crowd goes wild—and PYPM goes on to defeat more than 50 teams representing cities effectually the United States (and several from effectually the world) to accept home the title of 2022 International Youth Poetry Slam Champion, the third time Philadelphia has held the honor since the competition was established in 2006.
"I've never seen a team work this hard," says PYPM coach Perry "Vision" DiVirgilio . "Nosotros practise six days a week, viii hours a day. They never complain."
Vision, born and raised in North Philadelphia, is the artistic managing director of PYPM and a renowned international poet who heralds Philly wherever he goes.
"There's naught incorrect with pride," Vision tells me over coffee in Due west Philadelphia where he lives. "I take big pride in existence a Philadelphian. In every city where I perform, people say, 'Alright, Vision. Enough. Nosotros know you lot're from Philly.'"
"I'd be on the corner with my friends," Vision laughs, "and I'd say, hold on I take to run downward the cake to see a girl real quick." The girl was verse. When he finally came clean, his friends laughed. "We know," they said. "Information technology'south who you are."
Vision attended Simon Gratz Loftier, in the 90s, when "the drug scene in Philly was really crazy." His begetter was a talented basketball player and "playground legend" around his neighborhood. "I could never get away with annihilation," he says. "Someone e'er chosen my dad."
But it was his mother who got Vision writing at a very young age and encouraged his talent, which emerged for existent when he was a student studying Sociology and History at Dickinson College, a pocket-sized predominantly white liberal arts college outside Harrisburg. "It was a full culture shock," Vision recalls. "I was so focused on the corner. I idea, this isn't for me." But soon the classroom gave Vision an environment in which he could explore deep questions most the earth he had been experiencing. He stopped simply regurgitating data he learned in books and started questioning it. He started pushing back against other students in his courses who expressed views rooted in their wealthy white backgrounds. And so he took a Medieval history class required for his minor. It was deadening, and Vision quickly realized that if he appeared to exist taking notes, the professor wouldn't call on him. He began writing poems during form. He wrote and wrote.
Later graduation, Vision returned to the urban center, where he started attention October Gallery poetry events, at the time the place to be for an aspiring young poet. "If you lot want to get into the arts, Philadelphia is the metropolis to be in," he says. "It'south everywhere. Everywhere you go there'due south a jam session, an open up mic." The series' organizer took one look at Vision and said, "You're a poet. Yous're gonna read adjacent time."
"I'd exist on the corner with my friends," Vision laughs, "and I'd say, hold on I have to run down the block to see a girl real quick." The girl was verse. When he finally came make clean, his friends laughed. "Nosotros know," they said. "It'southward who you are."
Vision worked a stint teaching social studies at a Community Educational activity Partners school, but rapidly realized a traditional classroom setting wasn't for him. Then he met Greg Corbin , a fellow local poet with a deep interest in youth mentoring who is now PYPM's Executive Director and serves on the Mayor's Commission for African American Males. "He said, 'at that place'south nothing in the city for kids,'" and asked Vision to help him kickoff an organisation that would encourage Philly kids to write and tell their stories. Vision jumped on board.
PYPM holds workshops for high schoolhouse students every Saturday morn at Painted Helpmate Arts Center, monthly slams at the Rotunda, an annual urban center-wide loftier school slam that attracts teams from 22 schools and has built a vibrant customs of young people. "Name a neighborhood and I tin can tell you lot a kid we have that comes from there," Vision says. The workshops are free. "All they have to exercise is testify upwards. They miss a few. They can always come back."
The sessions combine free-writing and structured prompts and assignments with deadlines, revisions, and workshops on topics as various as mic skills to safe sex. Every calendar month, the workshops accept a new guest facilitator, and Vision brings in local poets and artists as well as representatives from health organizations like the Mazzoni Center to speak to his mentees.
Several years agone, Vision and his students were featured in Soledad O'Brien'southward 2022 CNN documentary, "Who is Blackness in America?" Vision'south students spoke eloquently on what it meant to be black, who "counts" as black, and their conflicting and circuitous feelings about their status every bit mixed race.
Vision also teaches poetry workshops at the Juvenile Justice Center and for the Department of Human Services, and coaches Swarthmore College'due south poetry squad. He says he wouldn't want to be anywhere else. "Wait at all the artists nosotros're coming upwards backside who are from Philly—fine art is a bang-up tradition hither," he notes. "We only don't take the access like New York and Los Angeles do."
Just even this has an upside: Philadelphia is less expensive, which means artists tin create whatever they want here.
Vision has big plans for this year: a new crop of mentees, another national tour for him, and along with the rest of his group, Spoken Soul 215, hosting The Harvest—"the largest spoken word upshot in the tri-country area"—in the downstairs of Globe Café Alive. (Their next event will take identify on November 2 ).
"We are the most talented city," Vision says, leaning forwards in his chair. "We've got to piece of work harder."
Header photo: Vision (center back) and his PYPM team, courtesy of PYPM.
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/citizen-of-the-week-vision-divirgilio/
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