‘The Asia Project’ inspires tears through poetry performance
The Cultural Attractions Committee hosted “The Asia Project” on Tuesday April 15 as a part of Poetry Week.
Celine Ryan//TNJN
The Cultural Attractions Committee hosted “The Asia Project” on Tuesday April 15 as a part of Poetry Week.
Asia Samson, “an aspiring novelist/ astronaut/ oil painter/ brain surgeon/ ninja” has been featured on HBO Def Poetry and BET J Lyric Café. He also won the Association for the Performance of Campus Activities Performer of the Year award.
Samson spoke from the heart, accompanied by guitar music that was played by his brother-in-law Jollan. His poems covered topics such as death, love, social pressures and passion. Melanie Rapp, a junior at UT, got emotional during the performance.
“He made me laugh, he made me cry and I honestly never expected to enjoy spoken word poetry as much as I did,” Rapp said. “I could feel the emotion in his voice with every word he spoke, and I felt like he was speaking directly to me.”
Samson said that his purpose for the night was to, “Twist your brain to the poetry that we do.”
William Schaad, a junior at UT, doesn’t usually enjoy poetry, but he loved Samson’s performance.
“I hated poetry before this, and was only attending the event for the purpose of one of my classes, but I am so happy that I attended, and he actually changed my mind completely about poetry,” Schaad said.
One poem, Sunscreen caught the attention of all the female attendees. Samson stopped his performance, and informed the crowd that throughout this poem he would make sure to make eye contact with every female in the room, and threw in a joke to all the men asking them to look away as to not make it awkward.
“It made me cry,” Amanda Dean, a junior at UT, said. “I haven’t really ever had a man call me beautiful, or tell me that I was perfect the way I was, and Asia did that. I know it was the point of the poem, but it really affected me and brought tears to my eyes. He has a special way of connecting with the audience, and I really enjoyed that poem.”
You can check out more information on Asia Samson and “The Asia Project” on his website by clicking here.
Edited by Jessica Carr
