Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

Some people are born great, carrying themselves with a natural ease and confidence that comes from ability to perform in the right place at the right time. Ileia Thomas walked into Listen & Be Heard Poetry Café for the first time with that kind of confidence. She signed the list and made herself comfortable. Some of her friends came out to hear what she had to say, signaling to me that this was not something that she took lightly. Sure enough when her turn came around the mic was short of crackling. Here is a young lady with a few poetry slams under her belt. But if you ask me, she deserves more than three minutes to express herself, or even the five that a poet gets at our open mics. That’s why she’ll be the featured poet during the open mic on Friday March 2, 2007 at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Café at 818 Marin Street in Downtown Vallejo, California. Following is Ileia’s version of Ileia Thomas.

Ileia Thomas began her creative journey at a young age writing short stories for her family and teachers. She had been raised in a religious family with three other siblings by both her father and mother. Her mother had been diagnosed with both lupus and scleroderma, and used poetry as a way to cope with her illness. Sad to say at age nine Ileia lost her mother to those diseases and it was as if her mother wrapped this talent of poetry and handed it on to her. By age eleven Ileia used the same technique as her mother and used poetry as a way to cope with the loss of her mother and brother (who died a year before her mother). But it wasn’t until high school when Ileia realized the true talent she possessed. At age fourteen she performed for the first time at a small cafe in Berkeley, California and read one of her first poems called “What is it?” a poem about the rising epidemic of AIDS. Then at age seventeen Ileia heard about a program called Youth Speaks, which holds a poetry slam competition every year. The poetry slam consisted of three rounds of the preliminaries, the semi-finals, and the grand finale. She performed at the preliminaries which took place at Berkeley High School with 30 other talented teens who were also in the competition. She read one of her poems about Race Relations. By the end of preliminaries, only 15 could make it to the semi finals. As the judges announced who were advancing to the semi finals, she was thrilled that her name was announced as one of the top five. The semi finals took place at a cafe in Berkeley where she read with 20 other competitors. Of the 20, only 10 would make it to the grand finale. Hoping to make it to the grand finale, Ileia decided to write a poem in dedication to her mother. Although Ileia did not make it to the grand finale, she felt good to have advanced as far as she did with all of the other talented readers. Ileia continues to write poetry and preform at open mics and poetry slams across the bay area.