On Friday, Free 2 Spit celebrated the completion of its 20th year holding down an open mic for New Haven’s spoken-word scene at the New Haven Peoples Center on Howe Street, with a night that drew newcomers, seasoned New Haven-based poets, and voices from one state over alike to share the mic and their words, heating up a wintery night.As readers and audience entered the room at the Peoples Center, DJ Mr 8 Double‑0 was in the front, spinning songs to keep the room lively. Baub Bidon — poet, actor, writer, and playwright, who founded Free 2 Spit and has hosted it for the past two decades — greeted everyone with a grin, shaking hands with strangers and giving out embraces to old friends and family.
“This is the last Free 2 Spit of the year,” Bidon announced from the microphone. “I really appreciate everyone who’s here right now.”
A thoroughly experienced open mic host, Bidon took the opportunity to wax loquacious. “Can you believe we’re 20 years old?” he said, referring to the fact that Free 2 Spit began in 2004. “We’re getting old! Someone who was born when Free 2 Spit started is now 20 years old.” That gave him a chance to talk a bit about the passage of time, and the importance of handing down lessons from the past. Identifying himself as among “Gen X — we’re the generation that listens,” Bidon talked about some of the things his age group did well and not as well. On one hand, he disparaged Drake as “the first rapper to sue another rapper,” referring to Drake’s recent defamation suit filed against Kendrick Lamar for “Not Like Us,” which Lamar recorded as part of his beef with Drake. “We didn’t sue another rapper, we just battled,” Bidon said.
On the other hand, he faulted himself and his generation for not always carrying the knowledge of the past forward as well as they could have. “We didn’t hand down the lessons we should have,” Bidon said. Free 2 Spit has been Bidon’s way of trying to correct that, by creating a community space where people can speak their minds, share their work and their knowledge, and listen to others speak their own truths.
“We’re attempting to do something here at Free 2 Spit, and if you’re down, you’re down,” Bidon said.
Bidon also explained some house guidelines. Every poet’s time would be limited to five minutes or two pieces, whichever came first, so that everyone who came would have a chance to read. “We give everybody love in here,” he said. He also offered a piece of advice for new and experienced poets alike. “Whatever energy you put out, that’s the energy you get back,” he said. The microphone was a chance for people to express themselves in strength and safety.
One speaker took her time at the mic to talk about the history of the Peoples Center, which, as it describes itself, is a “meeting place of labor, community, immigrant, youth, peace, climate change and social justice groups dedicated to cultural, social and educational activities that promote unity and equality in a sustainable future.”
It has been this way since 1937, when mainly Jewish immigrant workers bought the building at 37 Howe St. and ran it as a welcoming community center. In its first decade, it housed the Unity Players and the New Haven Redwings, the first Black-White integrated theater group and basketball team, respectively, in New Haven. It was the site for labor union meetings, and people who organized for anti-lynching and anti-segregation rallies. Evening classes started there developed over time into the New Haven State Teachers College, now Southern Connecticut State University.
The speaker also told the audience how the Peoples Center was involved in the civil rights and peace movements and continued to be a place for organized labor, of teachers, healthcare workers, and factory workers at Winchester. It was the birthplace of Unidad Latina en Acción, which still has its office there, and today houses labor and youth groups.
“There’s so much history in this room you’re sitting in,” she said. It was a place “not to be suppressed, but free to grow.”
One reader got up and rapped to beats that he provided to Mr 8 Double‑0. Another man described himself as having lived in New Haven all his life, but attended peace marches in Washington. He had had “only two verses” to read, which he did in an honest voice, using the horrors of war in both the literal and metaphorical senses. “Child of war,” he said, “when will this bloody war ever end?” He was rewarded with hearty applause.
His pieces inspired the woman who had given the history of the Peoples Center to return to the mic to talk about the plight of youth being shot in New Haven. “It’s still going on that our children are being slaughtered. It’s like a pandemic,” she said. Speaking more generally about violence, she said, “we don’t teach our children that there’s something to do other than pick up a gun. We don’t teach our kids that their lives matter,” and it’s why “we keep seeing our people killing each other.”
She recalled far too many friends, family, and acquaintances lost to violence, amid low expectations for education and employment, while all around the city “they make high-rise housing that we can’t live in.… It’s genocide, homicide, right in our face, and nobody will talk about it.” Where was the outrage? “There should be a march in every city every time we lose one more.”
The audience listened intently and gave her applause. “This is Free 2 Spit,” Bidon said when he returned to the mic. “When you speak from the heart, you’re speaking to that beat.”Bidon performed a piece of his own, “Soul,” that he said was new and still in draft form. It didn’t sound it; it spoke about Bidon’s journey in committing to community and to himself, to make sure he always lived by his own values and those that his artistic forbears had passed down to him.
Laurie, from Hamden, offered two pieces: one about discovering oneself through poetry, and another about losing oneself within it. Another poet recited a piece praising God, an idea Bidon riffed on when she was done. He quickly painted an image of a higher power as there for the ones who need it the most. “God is everywhere,” he said. “God is in a crack house. God is in a prison. God is everywhere where nobody cares.”
As the poets progressed, more and more people arrived — including a contingent from Providence. The poets had told Bidon they were coming, and he greeted them with a huge smile when they walked in (“Providence in the house!”). The energy in the room, already warm and congenial, reached another level.Among the Providence poets was Alisha Pina, who was as strong a singer as she was a poet. She bookended her poems with classic songs, sung a cappella — “My Funny Valentine,” “A Change Is Gonna Come,” “Ain’t No Sunshine” — that gave her own words thematic and historical context. She filled the room with her voice and drew spontaneous applause. She encapsulated much of what made Free 2 Spit the anchor of the New Haven spoken-word scene that it is: alive in the moment, and in every second, alert to the weight of the past and the promise of the future.
As Mr. Orange, another Providence poet, got up to the mic, Laurie was on her way out.
“Are you leaving?” Bidon said, gracefully. “Is it too cold in here?”
Laurie smiled back. “It got warmer,” she said.
Free 2 Spit happens every first Friday of the month (except January) at the New Haven Peoples Center, 37 Howe St. The next Free 2 Spit happens Feb. 7. Visit Free 2 Spit’s social media pages for more information.
