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Charles Williams brings poetry so fire the boys debate existence as we know it during ‘Threads and Lines’! The Clique judge the 1st Slam poet ever with modern minds during the ‘2 piece combo’ and Charles gets personal and powerful with the ‘5 For Ya Eye’ prompted poem.

[Episode Index]

• 0:32 – “Going in By Charles Williams”
• 4:33 – “Threads and Lines”
• 15:48 – 2 Piece Combo | Marc Kelly Smith
• 26:43 – 2 Piece Combo | @Cleomenesheraldo
• 34:00 – 5 For Your Eye

Sweaty bodies, poetry, and capoeira surround Charles Williams on the regular. A man whose physique is only paralleled by his spiritual build and whose heart has helped this whole project along way back when a poetry podcast was just a small talk “what-if” topic.  But before Kuya David or I had ever met, we had both known Charles ‘C Wils’ Williams, who operates what I consider to be my LA open-mic home, “Freedom of speech Thursdays.” If it wasn’t for this shared space, the Pen Clique would never have had a launch pad to blast off from.

What had happened was…

Years ago, Kuya had an idea of this battle-rap styled 1-on-1 poetry “clash” in the vein of URL/KOTD super LIT rap battle leagues currently popping, but needed poets to test the idea. Kuya hit up a couple folks, one being Alex Alpharaoh who would later compete in the clash, the other being Charles Williams. The stars aligned for that conversation, and my name came up as a possible contender. After some prompt exchanges and logistics discussions via DMs, I finally met Kuya David in person the day of the clash. I was new to the scene and had been frequenting open mics, rarely missing a Thursday in Hollywood with Charles at Freedom of Speech, but I was apprehensive; I had never slammed and I had only been taking this pen game seriously for less than a year, but I was constantly looking for collaborators in the community like Charles to help strengthen my craft. So if he thought it would be good for me to do it, I knew I could only benefit from this experience.

I lost the clash to Alex Alpharaoh. But in that moment, I never would have guessed what Charles had unknowingly done for this little poetry podcast idea I had been kicking around. After the clash, Kuya and I had a brief conversation about the potential of doing a show together and we kind of left it there for some time. Kind of your typical LA-artist conversation; you kick ideas to the replies of “oh, that’d be nice”, and end it with a “yeah let’s hangout sometime.” Whether that actually happens though is up to the stars. But with whatever planet in retrograde and whichever zodiac wildin out, this conversation evolved into an actual google doc. It was written. Development between the two of us later moved into throwing everything against the poetry podcast wall and keeping the ideas that were sticky enough to build on. We knew Charles, the godfather of this damn thing, had to be an early guest and he quickly scheduled a date to come through and clique up.

When Charles arrived my mind was occupied with production worries; we had still been trying to lock down the video aspect of the show, and it was Charles that made a lot of this possible. We wanted to do right by him, and produce a great show. But in the midst of all of this I was planning a wedding, I had just cut 12 years of dreads locks off, and I was trying to find my place in the world with this new identity of “poet” and “husband.” Charles started the show with “Going In,” a piece I had heard and appreciated time and time again, but it was therapeutic in that moment more so than ever. That day, it was more like a message and mantra than just a piece for the show. To me, his poem reminded that we can go into ourselves to pull out some piece of God, or potential locked away by the hardships of life. Wanting and working to create an access point to these empowering poets for the world has been our goal, and getting hit with all the power and inspiration that is Charles Williams during the shoot gave me a huge boost of not only confidence, but focus as well.

As we kicked into the Threads and Lines segment, we started having the conversations I always loved to have with Charles; what are these ideas of God and self, and how does it apply to this thing called poetry we attempt at making our own? We never got an answer, had some disagreements, followed by a short debate about ego. But then we found a bit of the capital-T Truth in a conversation about poems and self, and what the two can do for (and with) each other.

Charles remains a valued part of not only the LA Poetry Community and the Pen Clique, but he is a fixture in my heart and mind. A source of inspiration when I need to find the courage to go deeper into my potential and the potential of poetry. Pen Clique would never have happened without Charles Williams, and without his influence on me personally, it wouldn’t be what it is today. There’s undoubtedly a lot of unaddressed potential in the world, waiting to be tapped into in people like Kuya and me. It’s individuals like Charles that help unleash our inner gifts, this podcast being one of them.

Write up by Daniel Hees

[Footnotes]

• Charles Williams: Instagram | Website
• 2 Piece Combo: Marc Kelly Smith @ the Green Mill
• 2 Piece Combo: @Cleomenesheraldo
• Music by The Dope Spot Studios Produced by Dom V