Reduce, Reuse, and Rewrite?
Reduce, Reuse, and Rewrite?
Recycled Raps: Bin #1, recycled by Anthony David Vernon
The following poems were made by re-using lyrics discarded by rappers. They were conceived by Anthony David Vernon.
*All words belonging to the featured rappers are boldened & italicized*
The Speech of Elysium ft. Swizzy
Stumbling over the right words
A thought wisps into my mind
“Stop tripping, there’s no surprise
When it’s your time
Speak the truth & say the errors
Cause the feeling off your chest
Is more important anyways.”
Glass Rumblin ft. Joseph Alim
Dreaming through Vegas’ skies
Staring at faux planets and constellations
While lighting cigars in an already smoky reservation
Recalling hesitations with each draw
Saw your world but couldn’t live in it
Could’ve been in skies over Angels
Or the drifting through hues of Albuquerque
But maybe I’ll see you around again
Orbiting one of Vegas’ constellations
Swift Alacrity ft. Empty Raft
I’m like a hand reaching for a hand that was never there
Amongst translucent pines or some divine sunder
Tele blocked by Colorado black canyons
I will never be able to close our divides
Featured Rappers:
Swizzy
Joseph Alim
https://www.youtube.com/@josephalim/videos
Empty Raft
https://soundcloud.com/emptyraft-503866686
Author’s Commentary:
Rap is a form of poetry. Due to contrived cultural distances between the two, poets do not interact with the rappers and vice versa. Since late elementary school, I have had a sincere appreciation for rap, but do not possess the immense vocal talents, timing, and performativity needed to be a skilled rapper. So I confine myself to an enjoyer of rap whose writings are often rap-influenced. Yet, I do not want to confine myself to being just a casual enjoyer of rap but also wish to be someone who can help show the artistic diversity and merits of rap. In thinking of how I could go about this I realized I could make use of two common but overlooked elements of writing shared by rappers and poets alike, throwaway lines plus repurposed lines. All writers have lines which they shelf, my thinking was that I could “recycle” lines not being used by rappers and repurpose them into poems or parts of poems.
All the poems written for this bin, Bin 1, were created after receiving “throwaway” lines from Swizzy, Joseph Alim, and Empty Raft. These artists who are so drastic in style represent the regularly overlooked sonic variety of rap. Swizzy is an artist I know personally and encouraged me to go about this project, I am truly thankful for his support. I hope that this will be an ongoing project where I collect more bins!
In terms of layout for the bins, the bins will be comprised of three poems each representing the three arrows in the Mobius Loop of reduce, reuse, recycle. I also will have all the titles for the poems come from the rappers themselves. In this case, all the titles are phrases written by Empty Raft. Lastly, all the bins will end in an author’s commentary briefer than this introductory clearing up anything that may need to be made clear in the poems themselves such as crediting who came up with the poem’s titles.
All boldened words belong to the featured rappers. Thank you for taking the time to read our work, it is deeply and truly appreciated.
If you enjoyed Anthony’s work, feel free to leave a comment to encourage him!
Of course, stay tuned for upcoming newsletters from BYE that put creatives in the spotlight! You can also expect a new Almanac on Monday with all new resources & opportunities for the month of June and onward.