Saul Williams

Saul Williams Poems

Saul Williams Biography

Saul Stacey Williams (born February 29, 1972) is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, musician, poet, writer, and actor. He is known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop, and for his lead roles in the 1998 film Slam and Holler If Ya Hear Me, a Broadway musical featuring music by Tupac Shakur. The youngest of three children, Williams was born in Newburgh, New York. He attended Newburgh Free Academy, where he wrote his song "Black Stacey". After graduating from Morehouse College with a BA in acting and philosophy, he moved to New York City to earn an MFA in acting from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. While there, he found himself at the center of the New York café poetry scene. He also lived in Brazil as an exchange student from 1988 to 1989. By 1995, Williams had become an open mic poet; in 1996, he won the title of Nuyorican Poets Cafe's Grand Slam Champion. The documentary film SlamNation follows Williams and the other members of the 1996 Nuyorican Poets Slam team (Beau Sia, muMs da Schemer, and Jessica Care Moore) as they compete in the 1996 National Poetry Slam held in Portland, Oregon. The following year, Williams landed the lead role in the 1998 feature film Slam. Williams featured as both a writer and actor on the film, which would win both the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Camera D'Or (Golden Camera).)

The Best Poem Of Saul Williams

Language in Zoos

I could recite the grass on a hill
And memorize the moon
I know the cloud forms of love by heart
And have brought tears to the eye of a storm
My memory banks
Vaults of autumn forests and amazon river banks
And I have screamed them into sunsets
That echo in earthquakes
Shadows have been my spotlight
As I monologue with night
And dialogue the days
Seliliquies of wind and breeze
Applauded by sun rays

We put language in zoos
To observe caged thought
And tossed peanuts and p-funk at intellect
Motherfuckers think these are metahors, I speak what I see
All words and worlds are metaphors of me
My life is authored by the moon, footprints written in soil
The fountain pen of martian men noveling human toil
And yes, the soil speaks highly of me
When earth seeds root me
Poet tree

Now, maybe I'm too serious
Too good to hear
Too matter
Though I'm riddled with the reason of the sun
A stand-up comet with the audience of lungs
This body of laughter, is it with me or at me
Hue more (humor) or less though genders mute
And the punchline has this lifeline at it's root

I'm a star, this life's the suburbs, I commute
Make daily runs between the sun and earthly loot
And raise my children to the height of light and truth

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