Competitor Profile: Julian Copado
"The only thing that goes through my head before I hit the stage is that for those 3 minutes the world is mine, I don't worry about my competitors and their poems they perform, and I don't worry about their scores, all I focus on is me and that no one will take those three minutes away from me."
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Señor Paletero/Days Like These
The Brooklyn style courtyard housing
behind St. Elmo’s motel was my paradise.
Even though to my parents it was just another
unfinished government “project” with the usual
“mocosos” around the corner gambling away their
values with a pair of dice.
This is not another American ghetto story about
broken dreams or the harsh realities of the slum’s
self-destructive statistics on homicides, gang territory
or shot-up life sentences, but rather an innocent
There were two types of bells that surround my
childhood; those from the Catholic church every
Sunday morning, and that cold-rusted jingle rooting
from small bells that danced back and forth off of a
worn out stainless steel bar attached to the ice cream
Day by day, I would grab money from my teenage
mutant ninja turtles tin lunchbox because father was
too tired of cleaning up poorly broken piggy banks.
As I quickly crushed Washington’s face in a fistful
of joy, I made my next moves towards happiness.
Each step, each child, each tile, styled my feet’s
movements closer to popsicle paradise.
I sincerely thank you for slowing down your pace
as you saw this restless face race against the ticking
time-bomb of an asthma attack.
Let’s face it; the ice cream truck never had the patience
to slow down on my block.
Every once in a while, during the summer time the sun
would set gracing us with a shade of lavender up in the
The scenery, the atmosphere was beautiful, peaceful,
and silent, just like my community.
There were no sounds of gunshots piercing through
an innocent soul, no sounds of sirens, and no sight
Every once in a while, there was no slum, no project,
Instead, you could hear the heart-beat of my community
You could hear the tambourine men and women slamming
their apartment doors after a hard day of honest work.
You could hear the sizzling of tia Rosa’s home-cooking
singing, serenading our love for her food.
You could hear the clicks and clacks of cervezas clashing in
ballad-motion of agreement, cheering “salud!” in hopes to see
But if you were lucky enough, you got to see my parents fall
in love all over again as they twisted and turned in rhythmic
variation dancing to salsa poet kings: Tito Puente and Willie
Through the thick concrete mud there grew a garden of joy
in my community. You did not get to see it blossom everyday,
due to the reality of its conditions it grew in, but every once
in a while with a bit of love, water, and spice you got to observe
its tenacity to blossom into something beautiful.
And it was days like these that reminded me that it was not
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Years Active in Slam: 1 year
Teams You’ve Been a Member of: N/A
Place from which you are traveling to get to TGS: Austin, Texas
Top 5 influential poets: Lemon Andersen, Flaco Navaja, Miguel Piñero, Rosemary Catacalos, and Black Ice
Have you been to TGS before, & if so, what are you hoping is the same/different from your previous experience?
I have not, this will be my first time to compete at TGS.
If not, what are you most looking forward to at TGS this year?
To be able to compete with such great poets and learn from each and everyone one of them. I would also love to connect with poets from other parts of Texas and any poets from out of state.
How would you describe your writing style?
My writing style focuses more on detail and imagery when it comes to describing things in my poems so I can make it aesthetically pleasing to my audience as they listen to my poetry. I try to stick as close as I can to the actual environment that the poem originated from (whether good or bad) to help me have the same emotion I first had when I encountered that experience growing up.
Do you consider yourself more of a writer or a performer?
I don't have an English literature background, theatre background, or any national poetry slam team background, so I know that I always have to improve on every aspect I can, but if I had to choose I would consider myself more of a writer than a performer, but always improving my stage appearance in order to give my stories more impact.
Who are you looking forward to/nervous as hell to compete against?
I am honestly looking forward to competing against everyone. Nervous is a stage I cannot confine myself when it comes to a competition.
What is your goal for this competition?
To leave my footprint in the poetry community and sharing my experiences.
What is going through your head before you get on stage?
The only thing that goes through my head before I hit the stage is that for those 3 minutes the world is mine, I don't worry about my competitors and their poems they perform, and I don't worry about their scores, all I focus on is me and that no one will take those three minutes away from me. I also focus as much as I can, clear my head, clear the voices around me, and go back to that emotional place that my poem originated from.
What do you prioritize when you write poems for slam?
The most important thing I prioritize when it comes to writing my poems for slam is that every story I write about has to have an important message. Most of my poems revolve around stories from my experiences growing up. There is a lot of negative energy in some of my experiences of growing up in a rough neighborhood, that's why some of my poems have more of that raw feeling behind them. So it is my mission to not just only write about experiences, but to have a strong deliberate message as well. The message is the most important part of my writing because it gives the audience a sense of understanding, the mutual feeling of emotion, and a different way of looking at life no matter what circumstance you grow up in/live in.
Since you don't have a background in literature, or theater, how were you introduced to slam?
Hip Hop and Slam poetry go hand in hand. Before I got introduced to the stage, I freestyled a lot. Every Tuesday night there was a cipher outside of the capitol near the steps. Local MCs tightened in a circle of "floetry", our own spoken word accompanied by a beat from someone's boombox. A few years back, after the cipher died down, I got introduced to the Austin Mic Exchange which is the hip hop open mic that happens right after the Austin Poetry Slam on Tuesdays. One night that I decided to go early I stumbled upon the Austin Poetry Slam scene and fell in love with the atmosphere and how these poets looked so alive up on stage. I've written poetry since I have been in middle school, but had never been exposed to the slam poetry scene until about a year ago. That night was when I decided to try something new. There were many stories, experiences that I wanted to talk about, cry about, not necessarily try to rhyme "bar for bar", but share in a different way besides freestylin'. Most of the time when I freestyled at the cipher, the rhyming focused more on what the last person had said, jokes, battling each other to see who has sharper skills, etc. but it was rarely personal, deep, and emotional. It was the "laugh, rhyme, have a good time" type of therapy. When I decided to start slam poetry, I had been going through rough life events for the past 4 years. Coming from a working class family, we couldn't really afford going to a psychologist to help me cope with the stress of losing family, close friends, and being a first generation college student. All I could do was write, but had no one to talk to, it was just me and the four walls that were closing in on me pretty fast. Although freestylin was a sort of a fun type of therapy it wasn't engaging or focusing on the real issues I was facing with, but just ignoring them for the time being. When I first got up on stage for slam poetry I felt alive, like I could finally break free from the four walls I had been writing on all along because I felt like no one could hear me, unless that person was getting paid $150 per hour and had Dr. in front of their last name. Austin Poetry Slam became my $5 therapy session and even though I didn't know anyone from the audience I just felt a special connection enough for me to share some of my hardest times in life with strangers who were all ears, there to listen to the vulnerable soul tell his story.
You are one of the few people who I have interviewed whose influential writers are, in majority, people of color. How do you think your influential writers weave their culture into their poetry? How are you better able to connect to their words?
My top five influential writers/poets all have a common theme in their poetry: similar backgrounds to my own. Much like I have learned from them and their style of writing, their works consist of the places where they come from, the struggles, the beauty, the essence of their respective cultures into their poetry by controlling it creatively. A lot of their work is very emotional due to the struggles of trying to give life to their culture in a place where we are suppressed from it. I connect very well with these poets because of culture, racial backgrounds and the hardships of living it (to an extent). These poets are a generation older than me, some of them grew up around the same time as my parents and although they talk about hardships, racism, and discrimination as main problems back in their day, unfortunately I have lived that to a certain extent today. Whether it is immigration, growing up in the ghetto, working class backgrounds, the beautiful Mexican culture, the beauty in growing up with loving parents in a rough place, I can all relate to their themes and words.
How has your approach to poetry evolved since you started a year ago?
It has evolved a lot and really fast. Every time I go to the Austin Poetry Slam or the NeoSoul Slam I learn from all of the poets. Both my writing and performance aspects to slam poetry have improved very quickly and I am always grateful to the poetry slam scene for that. I tend to discover a bit more about myself through my writing styles and from there I know to shift my focus one way or the other. Through the guidance of some friends like Victoria Murray, Christopher Formey, Glori B., and Danny Strack, I have been able to progress my stage presence, writing skills, and emotions to a level of performance that impacts, leaves a footprint at the end of each story I tell. I have learned to never rush into a poem when I first start writing it. Sometimes it has taken me up to half a year to finish one solid poem. I have learned to find my voice not only through paper, but also through slam poetry. I have learned how to fluctuate my voice with tone and flow in my stories so that the powerful lines in them have the most emotional impact. The most important thing that has evolved my approach to poetry is how to creatively control certain stories, memories that are really hard to explain without wanting to cry or scream in anger. And I thank that to the slam poetry scene, because every poet that I hear up there, has their own story to tell, their own hardships, their own positives and negatives in life, and to be able to control that creatively really takes focus, right state of mind and courage.
What is your all-time favorite line of poetry?
This one is by my favorite slam poet, Lemon Andersen in his short poem titled 'Himalaya'
"It's like no one or nothing else exists, but their soul claps and the stain glass Nile river of tears, salty, stinging my mother's smile. I could hear her, pitch-perfect in the background yelling..."That's my boy"
