Boxer John "Spidey" Williams is ranked 41 in his weight class in the country. He is also a poet. "I wanted people to understand and listen to my words rather than just think I'm a fighter," he says. "A lot of times they say boxers are not thinkers."
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Spidey was hesitant to name himself "The Boxing Poet". "A lot of times in a gym they don't want to associate poetry as masculine," Williams says.
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Spidey "The Boxing Poet" Williams wins his fight, bringing his record to 11, 2 and 1.
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Williams recites a poem at an open mic night at Poor Richards Bookshop. He has self-published 5 books of poetry and says he has written over 1,300 poems.
Boxing requires physical strength to be sure, but a boxer’s words can also pack a punch.Perhaps the best known wordsmith is Muhammad Ali, who is known for his clever rhymes, like in 1974 when he said “I have wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale, I done handcuffed lighting, thrown thunder in jail,". One local boxer also embraces poetry, Spidey “The Boxing Poet” Williams.
Johnson hopes that showing her collection at Passport for Fashion will connect her with professional designers. "I would love to find a mentor," she says, "someone that can teach me and help me further my craft."
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Sara Johnson has a design studio in her basement, but she moved her work upstairs to the kitchen table. "I found I was feeling bad because I wasn't seeing my family," Johnson says.
Passport for Fashion is Charlotte’s largest spring fashion show and is estimated to attract around 3,000 people to the NC Music Factory. Around 200 models will wear designs from fashion industry professionals, as well as work from local aspiring designers. WFAE's Briana Duggan spoke with one of them.
Leave it to the French to have a name for that specific moment in the atmosphere of Paris when night is nearly finished but day hasn’t quite arrived – not dawn or twilight (they have other words for those), but l’heure bleue, the blue hour.
Fiddler Glen Alexander, and bolero musicians, Jesus and Alberto Morales will perform at Bluegrass Meets Bolero, the latest monthly concert put on by the Charlotte Folk Society.
For over 30 years, the Charlotte Folk Society has given free monthly concerts to share the region’s traditional music. At this Friday's concert, North Carolina’s bluegrass meets a Latin import, bolero. And this music – was made for romance.
Senior Kourtney Conway was part of last year's award-winning cast. "It was a major thing that clicked with me at that point," she says. "I was like, 'hey, maybe I can do this', when we won."
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Junior Ryan Dever moved to South Point last semester for the theater program. He says he didn't move to South Point because they won Blumey's, "even so much that they participated. I wanted something that would give me that opportunity."
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South Point High School's sports trophy cases stand opposite the school's auditorium, the headquarters of the theater program.
Just about every high school has its cliques, groups like the jocks, and the theater crowd. South Point High School in Belmont is no different.
The school gets a lot of recognition for its football team, which has won a long list of conference and state titles over the last forty three years. But last year, the drama crowd gained some ground with its own title.