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Christian “Soul Stuf” Perfas unveils deep love lessons learned through poetry during ‘Threads and Lines’ and leaves the whole clique ready to continue the adoration by giving Mic Ting 3 perfect scores during the ‘2 Piece combo’. They all reluctantly reach into their cringey poetry past for the #poetry review before Soul Stuf hits the Clique with a perfectly formatted Contrapuntal for the ‘Five for Ya Eye’ Prompted poem.
[EPISODE INDEX (VIDEO)]
- 00:39 – “I Know It Will Be You” – Christian “Soul Stuf” Perfas
- 4:32 – “Threads and Lines”
- 12:56 – 2 Piece Combo | “Coded Language” -Mic Ting
- 27:25 – 2 Piece Combo | @archwealth_gates
- 33:31 – 5 For Your Eye
Passion for the arts is something I respect over most things. I am reminded of my own survival when I see others actively engaged in their love and respect for their craft and when it comes to poets, I have only a handful who have as much passion as Christian Perfas. He came to Pen Clique eager not only to dive into his work, but to chop it up about other poets and poetry in general, and most importantly about why he loves it all so much. Kuya and I can go on for hours about poetry and the arts, and Christian fit right in with us. Anytime we can showcase passionate and bright new talents like Christian it serves as a reminder of WHY we are doing all this — that we can show others surviving through art that they are in good company.
Appreciation for what we are trying to do with Pen Clique has often been expressed, but Christian has been a huge supporter of the vision we have for poetry from the jump. Christian is trying to create access points for people to experience poetry possibly for their first time, and he, like us, is trying to showcase poetry in a way that makes people want to come back. Not only because they feel inspired by the amazing parts of the poetry community but also because they are excited to see where poetry is going next. That is a question we know Christian is asking of his work as a poet; what’s next? How do we make it happen? These are the type of questions we are excited to discuss with guests when they arrive to Pen Clique. That spirit was ever present in Christian the day of his shoot brought excitement to the set that reaffirmed the whole Clique and its purpose.
He killed it in his episode. Christian brought in a love poem, which was less of a poem about the person he was in love with and more of a poem about getting over the hard-to-look-at parts of love. Poetry as a therapy tool is something we’ve talked about a lot on Pen Clique, but Christian reminded us that these poems can also help us stay diligent. His piece described how he would hope to improve on how he loved others. In fact, as he’s performed it countless times in front of countless audiences it has changed from expression of pain to prayer of hope, which has shown us our work sometimes matures as we do. The most impressive part of his episode was his ‘Five for your eye’ prompted poem where he brought in a very well-written “contrapuntal” (google it) poem that showed us that not only is he passionate about the future of poetry but its history as well. Writing in loose formats is a dying skill among young people and to have Christian spit a fire formatted poem on our show felt like a win for poetry.
We all vibed out heavy to Mic Tings’ powerful poem “Coded Language,” and scored it the hard-earned perfect 30 because we were amazed at Tings’ technique and delivery while all three of us excitedly tried to keep up with his words. For a second, this stopped being a podcast episode and really felt like three homies getting gassed up about some new shit they were trying to put each other on to. That feeling was partly the inspiration for this entire episode. Realizing that Christian could also talk forever about the same things was icing on an already sweet cake. We all reluctantly gave into the #poetry part of the “2 Piece Combo” only to surprisingly give high scores to a poem, less so for its merit and more so because it reminded us all about our own art journeys. The three of us lost ourselves while bonding over a handful full of dope lines, and being able to show people this on Pen Clique is a pretty dope thing.
I was left with excitement after linking up with Christian for this episode. Christian is a poet who works outside the world of poetry as well as in its traditional settings. He does all he does in the hopes of inspiring people to engage in the arts and realize how moving the medium can be. We are excited to call him a part of the Clique not only because of the dope episode y’all can see now, but also because of the dope things we know are to come for Christian, Pen Clique, and us all working together.
Write-up & Audio Podcast by Daniel Hees
Video Podcast & Social by Kuya David
Photos by Aubrey Rowe
Write-up Edited by Seraphina Lotkhamnga
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Episode 14 Ft. David A. Romero
Will history white wash Hip Hop? David A. Romero hits the clique again and they get into a deeply heated Hip Hop debate during “Threads and Lines”. Def Poetry get’s a eulogy and a lot of love during the “2 Piece Combo” and Dan gets hot during the #poetry review. Romero smashes a very special prompted poem during the “Five for your Eye” and hits poetry curve balls out of the park.
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Episode 16 ft. Olivia Ku
How does poetry evolve with social media? Guest poet Olivia Ku brings her special blend of micro-poetry and big feels to ‘Threads and Lines’ as they break down Instagram poetry and it’s potential. The Clique reviews a Lucille Clifton classic short poem, and have a constructive roasting session on IG micro poetry during the ‘2 Piece Combo’ poetry review. Lastly, Olivia goes deep into short poetry flex during the “Five For Your Eye” prompted poem.
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Episode 23 ft. Shalane Goss
How do we grow through heartbreak? On the final episode of season 2, Shalane Goss joins the clique as they dive into their feels and wade through the murky waters of accountability in relationships during ‘Threads and Lines.’ An 18 year old Sarah Kay performing on Def Poetry gets the ‘2 Piece combo’ poetry review treatment, and the clique pull unexpected gold during the #poetry Instagram poetry review. Shalane ends the show with love abounding with her ‘Five for Ya Eye’ prompted poem.
