The Mayhem Poets are three men on a mission to change everyone’s mind about what coming to a poetry event means. This event didn’t involve anyone trying too hard to keep people awake or saying a word no one understood.
The night of March 19, the University of Montevallo got slammed with a love of words, rhythm and utter fun.
The three unforgettable poets on stage at Palmer Hall had just flown into Birmingham that morning. They tour like musicians, and they’re used to walking out on stage to a house that’s packed full or close to it. They walked out onto Palmer’s stage enthused as ever but with a crowd of maybe 20 students.
For those who weren’t there, it may be assumed that this meant the show was poor, but instead it was personal, real, intimate and involved like possibly no other show has been for them or their audience.
The Mayhem Poets consists of Mason, Scottt with 3 t’s (Scott with two t’s when he’s offstage) and MC or Mikumari Caiyhe. All three used hip-hop and rhythm to inspire their audience with powerful ideas.
The theme of most of Mason’s poems would have made UM’s Environmental Club proud. He talked about what society is doing to harm the environment without pointing fingers or making audience members uncomfortable. Instead, he used verse and rhyme to express how he hoped the Earth would still be a place where his little girl and her children years from now could live.
Scottt’s poetry was blunt and allowed him to reveal every physical and emotional flaw about himself without feeling embarrassed. The final line of one of his poems was “Now you know me,” and the audience really felt like they did. After the show, he mentioned that his stage persona gave him the strength to tell all — even his feelings about his bipolar disorder.
MC was the entertainer of the night, however. The audience laughed until they couldn’t breathe when he came on stage. His poems were creative, dynamic and he involved audience members in his work. For one poem he asked for two volunteers and had them each say only one syllable when he pointed at them — having them become like cogs in his machine as he rapped out the verses with their help.
Even though MC was the funniest of the group, he also had the power to touch people’s souls as with his poem “Sunshine,” which was written because he wanted people to see past his mother’s addiction and present her as beautiful.
The final act was done by all three poets in which Mason stood on stage and preached about the wonderful teachings of Dr. Seuss while Thing One and Thing Two (Scottt and MC) shouted back at him from the audience like they were part of a real congregation. The laughter didn’t stop until all three were back on stage again saying thank you and goodnight.
