First Videos!

These are the first videos released by the Boxcar Voices group! I'm extremely proud of these for several reasons. For one, this group has been around over a year, and these were taken at our anniversary. Two, the people in the videos are my friends who I cherish and support in any and every way I can -- in any creative or personal endeavors. Three, now you can know what we do at our events!

Notice the lack of bongos, cigarette smoke, turtle necks, and berets. I'll be damned if you find any of those things. It's honestly just a group of normal people who get up and present their work in an open forum. It's meant to be accommodating. There's no competition and no expectation of anyone to present "great" poetry. Who wants that anyway? Give me the raw and unformed, the young and the brazen. I want creative truth at its purest with no filter or censor put there by any conception of what is told to be right. That, to me, is "great" poetry. 

Without further ado, Cara Depew.

I really like this poem by Cara because it's short, sweet, and says exactly what it needs to say to convey a sense of longing and memory. It's also open-ended. Everyone has lost a loved one at some point, so there's a tie between her and her audience, but she makes it specific to her own fond memories.

I'll take this time to say that Boxcar Voices owns no rights to these poems. The pieces are solely the author's. We only own the rights to the videos, which were all taken and edited by myself. Concerning this blog, they are merely topics for conversation (and for school work). They will be published on our website in the near future. If you take or repost this video, I doubt any legal action can be taken... just don't do it, man. It's not cool. 

So, disclaimers aside, here's James Thigpen reading one. One of James' pieces was selected for first place in poetry by Lights & Shadows art and literary magazine in 2011. This isn't that piece, but it's damn good anyway.

James once told me that he wants to write like Robert Frost. I feel like his poem is dripping with something Frost would like. This was actually James' first time reading at Boxcar Voices. Could you tell? I couldn't.

So there's a little glimpse into what Boxcar Voices is. As I said, these and more will be posted on our website. We're starting to take off, and the coming months will be an attempt to brand ourselves and get our name out there further. Let me know what you like, what you don't like, what ideas for improvement you might have, or anything else that's on your mind.