Eastview Campus gets poetic

Poet, playwright and performance artist Keith Antar Mason gave a poetry reading, March 23, at the Austin Community College Eastview Campus, in which he read works from his books along with poems from his personal journals never before published.

First published at the age of nine, Mason won the Harvard Book Award in 1974 at the age of 17. In addition to his poetry, Mason co-founded the Hittite Empire, an African- American men's performance group in Los Angeles. He has performed in Mexico, London and throughout the United States.

In addition to the poetry reading, Mason worked with ACC creative writing, acting and dance students.

"This has never happened before at ACC," said Dean of Arts and Humanities Lyman Grant. "We're fortunate to have such a multi-talented person work with our students."

Mason incorporated acting while reading his poetry. At first, easy going and pleasant, his persona changed and he became intense as he performed from his first book "From Hip-Hop to Hittite and Other Poetic Healing Rituals for Young Black Men: Retrospective." Mason's selections told of the hardships and pains of young black men growing up with racism.

"Ptah Vision" proved to be one of Mason's most emotional poems, as it infused anger, sadness and helplessness as he spoke of racism and sexual abuse.

"This poem was inspired by a young man whom I met in Alaska," said Mason. "He had been sexually abused… No one believed him, but I did."

One moment morose, Mason would switch gears in the next instant and have the audience breaking into laughter. He managed to mix humor with the more serious messages of love, sex, race and the Iraq war.

Mason's poem "Confession" invoked a sensual mood and tone. Once he had the audience hooked, he would break the mood by saying things such as "[Let's] get our nipples pierced on our wedding day."

Mason rarely stayed behind the podium. Instead he moved around, communicating his feelings through his recited work. With a resonant voice, Mason included everyone in the performance by fixing an intense gaze on individual audience members.

At one point Mason interrupted a reading of his poem to perform random horoscopes.Lengthy and full of emotion, Mason's poems read like stories.

"I have a theory about long verse," said Mason. "I believe you should write it over long periods of time."

True to his theory, Mason had a story for every poem and said he was still working on several about his travels in the United States to Mexico.

Entertaining and able to invoke strong images, Mason's poetry is strong and thought provoking.