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Brian Dekker has been president of OSU's Black Poets Society for three years. At the end of this year, he will move on to graduate school at Portland State University.

Imprints: Finding His Voice

Student uses poetry to speak his mind

By: Chelsea Anderson

Posted: 3/1/07

Above the clamor of grinding coffee and the aroma of steaming milk, Brian Dekker reveals his love for poetry and the freedom of expression that comes with being a member of The Black Poets Society on campus.

With a button up shirt, sideways hat and a pin-striped blazer, Dekker's style fits his personality. Exuding confidence, originality and creativity, he comfortably speaks above the ambiance of the coffee shop on Monroe.

Dekker, 22, spent a large portion of his life in Denver, Colo. During middle school, he moved to Cloverdale, Ore. He is an only child and was raised by a single mother.

"She did so much for me and is the reason I am where I am today," Dekker said. "She ... worked so hard. She is the reason I want to do well, to make her proud."

Dekker's mother, Cynthia Vargo, resides in Salem.

"I've always known he has a gift for writing," Vargo said. "Teachers would make reference to his abilities back when he was in grade school. He's the kind of kid that always had a journal. I thought it was great when he joined [the Black Poets]. He's always been very open and giving. He was a natural leader."

Vargo has been to many of her son's shows in Corvallis.

"The first one I went to, he read a poem he'd written about me that referenced Mother Nature, and the beauty of nature," Vargo said.

Dekker, who was president of the OSU Black Poets Society for the past three years, said he went from being a terrified public speaker to someone who readily shares his words with the world.

The organization, whose members use their words as a catalyst for emotion and expression, is comprised of about 10 students who organize one poetry event each term and perform at local cafes, open mic nights and campus events.

The nine-year-old program has a reputation for focusing around slam poetry that is based on taboo issues.

"People write just as many love poems," Dekker said. "The readings containing taboo issues just seem to be the ones people remember the most."

One of the many facets of the group that make it so unique is the closeness of its members.

"Every member of Black Poets gets together outside of the group," Dekker said.

Dekker said he first decided to become involved in the group as a result of questioning his own comfort zone.

"You spend your whole life building this identity," Dekker said, "Especially through high school and middle school. Everyone else is building it too. When I got into college, I realized that I had so many more opportunities. I realized that I was just being comfortable with the identity that was branded for me and I wasn't doing everything I could. I felt stagnant."

This epiphany prompted Dekker to join his roommate in an invite to a Black Poets Society meeting during his sophomore year.

Upon his arrival at OSU, Dekker was a business major. But while filling his baccalaureate courses, he found himself intrigued by issues in sociology courses.

"I was just really upset about some of these issues, like violence against women, race issues and even sexual assault. When I first started to read [at Black Poets Society meetings], I addressed some of these issues and I was loud. I was viewed as the angry poet. Since then I've begun to write more love poems, and comedic pieces."

Upon graduating in the spring, Dekker plans to go to graduate school at Portland State University and eventually pursue a career in social work.

The Black Poets Society will be lead by several co-presidents, Sara Call, Michael Pohl and Randa Smith - who is Dekker's long-time girlfriend.

Contrary to Dekker's transition from social and political issues to more personal matters, Smith started out writing about personal material, and has moved into global subject matter.

As a self proclaimed "love poet," Smith said the transition to women's issues is recent.

"At first, I wrote mostly love poems, which was hard. To really bare your soul [was a challenge] at first."

"I have started to focus my writing around feminist issues. As a young black woman, I emphasize issues that affect young women today, along with other political and social issues."

Smith said reading poems has also made her a better public speaker and helped her connect with people on a more personal level.

"She has had an impact on my writing," said Dekker, who wrote a poem called "Falling in Love" for Smith. "You could just see what I was going through in my life through my poems."

As the group moves into the next year, Smith hopes to move back into writing more poetry individually, as opposed to perfecting a small quantity of poems for performance. She plans to organize writing workshops during meetings to allow writers to compose in the presence of other creative minds.

Dekker said he thinks the Black Poets Society is very important to OSU because of its emphasis on diversity.

"It's a cultural force," he said. "I think it provides a direct example of a lot of different cultures, because there are so many different kinds of people involved. It's also an artistic force in a campus that is based on math and science."

Dekker touches many with his words. In one of his poems he uses chess as a metaphor to vent about his frustrations with racial tension.

"I hate chess because it reminds me that I'm nothing but a pawn to a king … chess is the great divide, the white evil and power that resonates with the drum patterns of African slaves as their English masters sipped tea, and played a silly game with pawns, bishops, rooks and kings … no matter which side wins, the fact is that kids still only see the game through a two-shade lens," Dekker writes in his poem "Chess."

Many Black Poets Society members make appearances at places like Iovino's every first Wednesday of the month for open mic night, and every third Wednesday of the month for the lounge's monthly slam poetry show.

The organization was founded in 1998 by black students exclusively for black students to voice their concerns and come together in solidarity. Since then, it has grown to be a multicultural guild.

The group's Myspace page says that Black is symbolic of the unity of all colors. They believe poetry is the binding expression of the heart and the conscious mind.

"We still keep the original name because of its history," Dekker said. "We like to honor that."