{"id":759,"date":"2013-09-20T13:32:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T13:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wsantosblog.com\/?p=759"},"modified":"2026-06-19T03:16:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T03:16:59","slug":"my-verse-a-visual-spoken-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"My Verse – a visual spoken word"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jkrDE5oYjRs&noredirect=1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

today I write my verse\nnot because I want to\nbut because I have to\nI write my verse to\ngive voice to the voiceless\nto give sound to the silence around\nto make light out of dark\nto bring peace out of war\nand squeeze water from oil and blood\n\nand so,\n     I write my verse\ncompelled to write words\nthat might right all the wrong\nthat\u2019s been done all along\n\nthrough me\n         words\nmust be written\nmust speak for the children\nfor those who can\u2019t stand\n                        on their own\nlike twelve-year-old Eduardi\u00f1o and\nhis favela boys who sleep\nunder bridges and tunnels\nand call the streets their homes\nwho steal meat just to eat\nor sell drugs for the thugs with\nwith no mother\u2019s arms to hold\nEduardi\u00f1o, who\u2019s 9mil glock\nlocks and jams\n            as he pulls the trigger\nthe Swedish tourist shivers\n      but that\u2019s just life in Rio\nfor skinny Eduardi\u00f1o\n\nmy verse is for Malai in Bangkok\nso cute, so fresh\nso ruined\n      at only ten, she sells her assets\nfor a toothless street pimp\nwho promises pure puntang to\nfat-bellied, gray haired Americans\nbut her pickings ain\u2019t pure at all\n            this ain\u2019t Malai\u2019s first rodeo\nshe\u2019s been riding the bull since long ago\nher heart weighs more than rocks and blocks\ncause there\u2019s a reason they call it Bang-kok\n\nI write for nine-year-old Dharani\n      who, instead of learning to read and write\nwakes at 4am to struggle and fight\nto scavange the Dhapa dumping grounds\n            of Calcutta\nin discarded filth with her mother\ndigging for food, plastics, metals\nanything of value she can peddle\nknee deep in middle class trash\nwhat use in books and math?\nwhen the urgency of now is pressing\nto look upon her is depressing\nbut she smiles, she smiles,\n                       she smiles\ninspiring my words for miles\n\nthese lines are for Michel,\nwhose muddied seven-year-old hands\ntirelessly mix salt with oil and sand\ntwisting mud pies for his mother\nwith grandma, sister and brother\nto sell for five cents a piece\nin Cit\u00e9 Soleil market streets\nbut Michel\u2019s mud pies\nare not mud pies\n            like Carlo\u2019s in Hoboken\nhis soul is nearly broken\nhis food from Haitian soil\nI pay homage to his toil\n        cause eating earth is perverse\nbut still I write my verse\nto try and nourish his dirt\n\nOh, these odes I write for Ashanti\nno not the million-dollar pop star\nbut the nine-year-old malnutrition\nwho\u2019s bruised and scarred\nher fragile feet all charred\nshe\u2019s been walking thirty days\nacross famined deserts in a daze\nEthiopia has gone dry\nand no one really knows why\n                ten days ago\nher two year old\nbrother Alem\nwas left behind\n            to dry and crack\nlike desert sand, his broken back\nscorched by the sun and\ntreacherous heat\n                wasting away\njust like Ashanti\nand like 30,000 other children\nno one even tried to save them\nand so for them I write this poem\n\nI write for the American silent majority\nfor those that know but won\u2019t say anything\nfor those that say something but don\u2019t know\nthe complacent\n    the complicit\n        the conspirator\n\nmy verse is for those\nwho\u2019ve been silenced by default\nwho won\u2019t use their voices\nwho can\u2019t\n           who don\u2019t\nwho shouldn\u2019t\nwho should\nI write my verse for truth and justice\nit gives rise to those who once have spoken\nit resurrects those leaders long gone\nthis verse hails their dead voices\ninvokes echoes of ghosts like\n            King and Malcolm\nMandela seraphim, Mahatma Gandhi still starving,\nHarriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass\nRosa Parks jumping off the bus\ncause she just can\u2019t take the ride anymore\n\nI can\u2019t take it anymore\nso I write it down\n             right here\nnot for myself\n      but to myself\nbecause all I do is write\nand all you do is listen.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jkrDE5oYjRs&noredirect=1<\/a> today I write my verse not because I want to but because I have to I write my verse to give voice to the voiceless to give sound to the silence around to make light out of dark to bring peace out of war and squeeze water from oil and blood and so, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37404269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[422],"tags":[2214,177,12710,28175,320083,1343,110147,8105,285460,1412183,51094,2720,374,2606,124,1095,895490,7383,13705,1861871,398,13443,37357,620,15299,35404,82348,563,18726,106,2213393,1857],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-africa","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-awareness","tag-child-trafficking","tag-children","tag-critical-thinking","tag-documentary","tag-experimental-film","tag-film-2","tag-haiti","tag-human-rights","tag-ideas","tag-justice","tag-life","tag-mind","tag-original-ideas","tag-pain","tag-poet","tag-poetry-2","tag-politics","tag-racism","tag-short-film","tag-society","tag-soul","tag-spoken-word","tag-suffering","tag-thoughts","tag-tragedy","tag-truth","tag-wilson-santos","tag-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2z1Px-cf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":913,"url":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?p=913","url_meta":{"origin":759,"position":0},"title":"“My Verse” recognized by Full Sail University","author":"Wilson Santos","date":"April 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This article discusses \"My Verse,\" which is featured at the 2015 Florida Film Festival. Read article here: FullSailBlog","rel":"","context":"In "Press"","block_context":{"text":"Press","link":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?cat=2764"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":909,"url":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?p=909","url_meta":{"origin":759,"position":1},"title":"Orlando Weekly writes about “My Verse”","author":"Wilson Santos","date":"April 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"In this article, Vincent Crampton sits with Wilson Santos to discuss his film, My Verse as well as other interesting topics about his life and strugles. 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While working on his own projects to spread the word for a better world\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Press"","block_context":{"text":"Press","link":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?cat=2764"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":769,"url":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?p=769","url_meta":{"origin":759,"position":3},"title":"My Verse – a short experimental documentary","author":"Wilson Santos","date":"September 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/wsBmQIhHgfY?si=uHNAgGYZ4hViv8-N","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?cat=524"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/wsBmQIhHgfY\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":577,"url":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?p=577","url_meta":{"origin":759,"position":4},"title":"You Come Singing (2011)","author":"Wilson Santos","date":"February 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"As the tenderness of my once thriving heart drowns in an arid abyss of reason here you come singing \u2013 singing your songs of love songs of unbridled passion songs like the songs of my Muse songs soaring above sorrow stimulating surreal sensations swaying sweet serenades in my spirit awakening\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poetry"","block_context":{"text":"Poetry","link":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?cat=422"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":850,"url":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?p=850","url_meta":{"origin":759,"position":5},"title":"7 Magazine – DMC World Review – 2001","author":"Wilson Santos","date":"April 8, 2014","format":"image","excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Press"","block_context":{"text":"Press","link":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/?cat=2764"},"img":{"alt_text":"7even_press_04","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wilsonsantos.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/7even_press_04.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/37404269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3178,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/3178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonsantos.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}