My word wins

Although he did not place first, Kyle Hernandez counts placing second in the 2018 First Citizens National Poetry Grand Slam a win.

Hernandez , 23, said he always measured his growth as a poet with his track record at the Slam, which concluded the NGC Bocas Lit Fest. He recounted that in 2015 he did not make it to the finals, in 2016 he placed second but he was not happy with the poem he delivered so it was not satisfying, and in 2017 he made it to the finals but did not place in the top three.

This year however, he was passionate about his piece and topped the auditions and semifinals. He therefore felt confident when he stepped on stage for the finals at the National Academy for the Performing Arts, Port of Spain on April 29 to perform his poem, Jesus Talks.

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“I was really pushing for the win. I felt like now was the time as I had so much support and momentum. But when I placed second I wasn’t disappointed at all because the win in my book is growth and I feel like I grew.”

He said the poem was difficult for him to write because he was trying to convince two sides of the LGBT issue that they were wrong but he was happy he was able to deliver it.

“In Slam you can’t write something you are not passionate about because you will lose. People will know. When I asked myself what I was passionate about I only had two answers: I was really mad about people saying that Trinidad and Tobago is s--t, and that there was a division between the LGBT community and conservative Christians.” He said although he was not gay, for the past two years he had been doing a lot of advocacy work on gender issues and equal rights. He said it was important for the majority to be allies to those who do not share the same privileges. He wanted to be an ally and show that he cared even though it did not affect him directly.

His advocacy work, he said, made him realise the problem was “patriarchy and hyper-masculinity.”

However, as a heterosexual Christian, he said he believed the biggest problem was absolutism which he said would hurt one or all parties involved in the issue. “It perpetuates a culture of fear that manifests in sexual orientation conversations, particularly with people who are ‘staunch Christians’... Even me with my personal beliefs, I can not force them on someone else. It is absurd to do that. I don’t think that is the kind of life Christ wanted for his children.”

Teaching and art

Hernandez said he had always been around the arts – in church, drama festivals, and film festivals. However, in 2013, while he was in Form Six, The 2Cents Movement visited Cowen Hamilton Secondary in Moruga as part of their school tour. He said he was inspired by spoken word, especially singer and spoken word artist turned actor, Muhammad Muwakil.

“I saw him in secondary school and thought, ‘Someone could do that for a living? That’s cool. I’m going to do that.’ I’m extremely thankful for him and the work 2Cents have been doing to get spoken word to the calibre it is now.”

He began doing spoken word and went further to obtain a degree in theatre arts at the University of the West Indies. He said he started as a vocalist, but was now an actor, director, spoken word poet, and teaching artist.

He told Sunday Newsday when he was younger he wanted to be either a teacher or an artist. Eventually, he said he realised there was no difference between the two and now he was officially a teaching artist. “I am extremely blessed to be doing what I do right now, to use art to educate students of secondary schools in disenfranchised communities through theatre arts and spoken word to teach English, literacy, social responsibility, etc.”

He said over the past year he had been focussing on education through spoken word but he also toured with The 2Cent Movement. At the moment he said he was involved in several plays but his last big projects were in 2016 when he acted in the JCS Entertainment Ltd musical, Jesus Christ Super Star, and Back to Freeport, which showed at last year’s TT Film Festival.

Hernandez said he has been a professional artist for almost three years and thanked his family for their support through it all. “A lot of people think of artists as crazy drifters who are really good at creative things but who are not good at organising. But as an artist you have to be a researcher, a marketing professional, a networking genius, all these things to make sure and solidify yourself financially.”

He was also working on building his brand; creating and maintain a professional, standardised rate; and making his work sustainable for years to come.

Jesus Talks

Two thousand years now I on this cross

Oh what a site to see

Well ah must still be here if allyuh inciting violence

And then citing me.

God say put out yuh son out cuz he gay oh yes right indeed

No quote the excerpt nah expert you enlighten me

How much time for the month yuh google Leviticus?

Now name three old testament books from off the top

Hmm yeah thought so

yuh doing an awful lot

Yuh wanna run away from a condemned nation?

you’d make an awful lot.

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii say I hate gay people?

Wait people, leh we get one thing straight people.

Straight people are not the only type of people on the planet people.

So doh call up my name in yuh mouth if yuh planning evil.

I does spit Hebrew not hate.

Elohim ohevett kulam lo raq a tah.

GOD LOVES EVERYONE , NOT JUST YOU.

You could say faggot in a million languages

it still wouldn’t make it cool

You does kiss yuh pastors ass with that mouth?

Sip my blood from the communion glass with that mouth?

Break bread after breaking their will to live?

My body is already broken it is my will for them to live.

Unholy communion

Where two or three are gathered to hurt

Is not church its collusion

Equal rights for all is not just a human solution

I invented human rights.

Hell I invent humans, right?

So doh get meh cross tonight

Cuz ah swear to ME I’ll come off this cross tonight

Hold meh back inno Mary!

Allyuh like that line?

You should read the book.

Yuh know the one you took the pages out of to light yuh torch

See when yuh protest out of hate yuh placards look like pitchforks

I don’t care with cause yuh claim to support

Ah talking to all of you,

Cuz even if yuh on the other side

Disrespecting religion doesn’t make you progressive either

You call my people bigots cuz they affirming their views

Thought your community was big on standing firm in yuh truth

Y’all on the same side

I took the sword for both of you the wound still on the same side

But putting words in my mouth

Is like shoving blades in my back

So now is pain in meh back side cuz some back side back slide and pass it off as precept

Reminiscent of a Roman prefect who knew me as love yet kept it a secret

You wanna kill me again and wash yuh hands too?

You want me look at yuh lips but not what yuh hands do?

How can you do God’s work without him?

How can you sing song of sacrilege then spit out hymns

How can you claim the only right is to go way left

When yuh strip away their rights to preserve yours which rights we have left?

There was a silence like the first I was crucified

The sound of without filled the brim of the sky

A crowd just like you, were so sure they were right

I see nothing has changed since the last time I died

It is not finished.