2008 Woodie Awards
Former skinhead educates students
By Caleb Pardick
Rocket Editor-in-Chief
Issue date: 11/18/05 Section: Entertainment
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See, Carney didn't bother with breaking the windows of some store or slashing tires or spray-painting obscenities on the back wall of the school. No, being raised in a racist home in Mesquite, Texas, Carney didn't mess with the small stuff. He became a skinhead.
And after years of mistakes, hatred and rebellion, and with a void in his life, Carney did something a little different.
He became a poet.
Carney told his story to more than 100 SRU students Monday night at Rocky's Grille inside the University Union.
But Carney didn't simply take the microphone and melodiously recite a feel-good poem about how he's a better man or has gained some life-changing insight from his experiences.
No, he told his stories in another, more in-your-face way: through slam poetry.
Slam poetry, an on-the-rise performance art, combines freestyle rap and poetry recitation in an exhibition that is as much about the delivery of the message as it is the message itself.
Carney, 35, opened the evening by explaining what his performances include, urging the crowd to cheer him on if something about one of his poems was particularly moving. Carney also offered a disclaimer to the audience before his first poem.
"I'm a redneck poet, I'm from Texas, I cuss and I don't talk right," Carney said.
Carney then began the evening with his first of eight poems, a somber ode to his hard-working and oft-neglected mother, the only parent who raised Carney.
"My dad beat my mom and me when I was really little," Carney said. "He sexually assaulted me, and I'm sure he did that to my mom, too."
Carney also paused between each poem to talk to the audience on a more friendly level, cracking jokes and talking about God, the U.S. government and his experiences from working at the world's largest adult video store while in Texas.
