Imagine waking up and finding yourself completely surrounded by rising water.
Then imagine yourself living on your own roof for five days, without clean water, food or a trace of your heritage. Kalamu ya Salaam, founder of Runagate Multimedia, doesn’t think you could survive.
Runagate is an organization dedicated to promulgating New Orleans culture and African heritage cultures worldwide.
“If you can’t imagine living in five days of filth, you’ll have a hard time picturing the people who were stuck in New Orleans not for five days, but for five months,” he said.
Salaam, who is the leader of WordBand, a poetry performance ensemble, lectured about his account of Hurricane Katrina in Libby Gardner Hall on Feb. 15. His speech combined poetry and a spoken form of blues, in which he recites his poem as he imitates trumpet and bass sounds.
Salaam’s poems focused on the real life accounts of the people who survived Hurricane Katrina and were relocated to surrounding states.
“It is not about whether people can come back,” Salaam said. “It’s the fact that they can’t.”
People didn’t have money to leave New Orleans in the first place, so they are not going to have enough money to come back, he said.
Salaam is a major literary voice whose accounts give a chilling historical account, said Wilfred Samuels, an associate professor of English.
“I feel that there are no more discussions in this institution about (Hurricane) Katrina, even though it still stands as a major American catastrophe,” Samuels said.
Salaam’s lecture gave a better visual account of the challenge in New Orleans than any photograph published, said Michael Colson, a junior in English who attended the event.
“I loved the musical nature of Salaam’s poetry and the messages behind it,” Colson said. “His poetic account opened my eyes up quite a bit.”
Salaam can be heard again Feb. 18 during a literary and musical performance titled “Rossonian Days” taking place in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. The performance will feature William “Hank” Lewis and Fareed Mahlui, who are also literary activists. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.