Kinetic Affect

By Cait O'Leary

The Kinetic Affect, a performance poetry duo from Kalamazoo, has been spreading energy through words that challenge, shock, inspire and entrance their audiences. Gabriel Giron and Kirk Latimer, of Kinetic Affect (K. Affect), have stimulated minds and conversations with a vividly woven compilation of spoken word poetry that, at one moment comforts listeners, and at the next, unnerves them.

K. Affect’s slam poetry is as profoundly universal as it is deeply personal—moving from topics like education, violence, religion and government, to subjects like Giron’s battle with cancer and Latimer’s struggle to cope with losing five friends to suicide. As a result of these experiences, the duo displays angst, passion, sorrow, and humor with their poetic energy that, as their performance name would suggest, causes a ripple effect.

The partnership of Giron, a 26 year-old, full-time Western Michigan University student, and Latimer, 28, a former high school teacher, could not have been more unlikely. Their personal tastes in poetry, upon meeting, differed greatly from each other: Latimer preferring “the greats” as taught in traditional academe and Giron
favoring modern hip-hop.

“Slam poetry was baloney to me. It was like hip-hop and I had my hip-hop era. Then I went to college and was an academic. I liked William Butler Yeats, John Keats and Robert Frost and not among them was Taylor Mali or Saul Williams,” says Latimer, naming two spoken word poets.
Giron, on the other hand, related to the lyric-ism of hip-hop artists like Mos Deaf and Common. He had studied and parti-cipated in performance poetry, making it onto Kalamazoo’s National Poetry Slam Team in 2005.

“It’s the oratory tradition. Growing up I hated poetry. I would read the same people he (Latimer) loves. I would read them and think, ‘They know something that I don’t know, and they don’t want to tell me, so I hate them for that.’ I was heavily influenced by hip-hop, not rap, but hip-hop. I liked connecting with the artist and knowing what they were talking about right away.”

Latimer involved himself in slam poetry after one of his high school students challenged him to give it a try. He showed up at The Barn Theater in Richland and performed in a “wild-card round” where anyone could try out for the team, but would have to make it into the top five in order to compete. With his students there to support him, Latimer says, “I realized I had to walk the talk.”
Giron and Latimer ended up competing against each other. Giron, the seasoned professional, placed first and Latimer, the wild-card newcomer, placed second. The two decided to perform together.

“Slam is usually a solo/ego type of performance. We did the exact opposite and took our best pieces, shared them and started performing them together. It’s the idea of combining our two voices to bring up some type of positive or real view of life. A lot of what we talk about is what people have problems talking about with others,” says Giron.

K. Affect challenges the widely accepted individualism of the slam poetry genre by performing as a pair. Latimer says, “We essentially bring an individual sport, as seen through slam poetry, into a more collaborative effort by bringing together our two voices.”

The two men also differ from each other in performance style. Latimer feeds off of audience energy, where as Giron draws energy from the performance itself.

“Gabe (Giron) and I perform in different spaces. As a teacher, I draw on the energy of my students. I need that energy and I need you to be passionate and involved. When I perform, I like the energy from the audience. Gabriel seems to sort of draw a Zen circle around him on the ground so he can do his thing. The audience can be participatory, but he doesn’t have to rely on that energy,” explains Latimer.

Among other differences the two sport clothing on stage that highlights them, to their audiences, as unique individuals performing together, as opposed to wearing similar clothing that shows them as a like unit. Giron often wears hooded sweatshirts and Latimer is in a dress-shirt and tie. This wardrobe choice also represents the way that people might interpret them upon first glance.
“It’s interesting because I look white. I’ve been put in this mold, which is a traditional mold. I look like the privileged so I am treated in such a way,” says Latimer who comes from a diverse cultural background including Native American and Turkish heritage.

Giron, born in India and has Latino heritage, has encounter racism and recalls racial slurs in the bathroom of his high school as well as confederate flags at high school football games.

Giron explains, “Growing up in a school like Gull Lake, I was one of nine minorities and my best friend was black. We were secluded to our own group and portrayed in the light that the media portrays us all the time. That said, not to just put it off on other people, we adapted to those stereotypes and played into that. It made me look for racism in places where it wasn’t happening.”

In hindsight, Giron laughs about his fellow students having voted him class bully and class poet: “That’s the kind of person I was. I pretended to be tough so people wouldn’t get close to me and people wouldn’t hurt me. I also took creative writing classes, so some classmates knew that side of me and so did my close friends.”

Giron joined the military after high school and was stationed in Germany. It was there that his life took a drastic turn after being diagnosed with testicular cancer at the military clinic. He underwent three major surgeries and intense chemotherapy.

“I remember there was a point in it that I was so mentally and physically exhausted that I was talking to my dad and said, ‘I feel like I want to die, but I don’t want to kill myself because it would take too much energy. I just want to lay down and be done with it.’ That was the absolute bottom for me.”

Facing his mortality, Giron stopped putting up barriers, “All of that stuff that I protected or was closed off to – it (battling cancer) was the catalyst to allow me to be myself again. I was an angry guy and really I’m not,” says Giron.

Latimer, like Giron grew up relying on a tough façade. As a result of internalizing his emotion and channeling it into acts of rage, he was arrested at the age of 16 because of a violent public dispute.

Latimer explains, “I grew up being told, ‘No one messes with you... You don’t bother me.’ That’s the way I was raised. My family was beautiful, but that’s the way I was raised. I was a boxer and a fighter. I knew how to fight.”

Latimer’s arrest occurred after watching a man publicly chastise his son in a store. The man hit his child and Latimer snapped.

Latimer describes the event: “The guy hit his kid and I just went crazy. I pummeled the guy right in front of his child. I cracked almost all of his ribs, and grabbed his ear and just held him by his ear and started smacking his face. I destroyed his ear and cracked his cheekbone.”

Latimer’s inner turmoil continued through a series of tragedies: “My senior year of high school, five of my friends killed themselves in a matter of only three months. When that happened I had trouble seeing myself in any reasonable fashion. I hadn’t cried. My parents never recognized it or acknowledged the fact that I lost my friends,” says Latimer.

It was a turning point in Latimer’s life. To this day he finds it hard to talk about. Having coped without a support network, he knew that he did not want to be the sort of person to exacerbate problems, but to help people through them – and idea that carried on through his teaching career.

Both Giron and Latimer faced challenges that awakened them and returned them to a self they had stowed. With the wisdom of these experiences, they compel each other to be honest and vulnerable in their poetry in hopes that the audience will in turn take that with them.

Latimer recently left his teaching position at Portage Northern upon the birth of his son. The duo has worked with children in poetry workshops and wants to integrate more into the school system. They recently spent 15 days at Maple Street Magnet School for the Arts, inspiring students to display their own profound wisdoms.

Having been able to arouse quiet venues and silence noisy establishments with their spoken word performances, Kinetic Affect proves that people are listening and willing to connect-- even if it is challenging, and maybe even more so when it seems hopelessly impossible.


Don't forget a video interview of Kinetic Affect can be view on our video page!