Watching a good poet is like watching E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial. You can see through the chest to the rosy glow of the heart thumping. A good poet’s heart will beat against the odds. Poet trapped on the wrong planet.

“In the United States, there’s been a lot of progression, but we focus so much on what’s manifested physically. We have electricity, we have these awesome buildings and we have technology. But we don’t focus on manifesting the intuitive and the spiritual. That’s disappointing to me. Sometimes society is too much for me. I can’t relate. I feel like art helps me manifest the intuitive. That’s why I love poetry, that’s why I love any artist trying to express themselves, because you’re really trying to manifest what’s inside.”

These are the words of Milani Pelley - a queer, multiracial, 22-year-old member of Oakland Slam Team 2010. Pelley the spoken word artist was formed from Youth Speaks writing workshops and June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. She now mentors and teaches for these entities.

The first time I saw Pelley spit poetry, I saw the glow. I heard the mighty pulse. Here’s why I care about her, and why you should care too: she gives a damn about the rest of humanity.

She hugs trees and feels them hug back. She wants Obama to give her an island, one where people live off the land and work out a trade/barter system. “OMG I sound like a hippie.”  She has a diverse range of friends: teachers, priests, pastors, prostitutes and gang bangers. She believes all of them should enjoy the same rights. She stands for love. Her queerness is expressed in interesting ways. “So I went up to him and said, ‘You’re hella fine. You got a sister? Because I know she would be fine.’”

After the Mehserle protest, she saw packs of 20 cops marching the streets, from 12^th and Broadway to 25^th and San Pablo. It made her cry.

“How can these police march down these streets, but we can’t even march?” she said.

If appropriate tears don’t impress you, consider the fact that at an earlier police brutality protest, she and five friends faced cops head on, ripped their poetry and read their rights from Copwatch flyers until the officers moved on.

“We [the slam team] are working on an Oscar Grant poem right now," Pelley said. "The issue directly affected me. I’ve had friends that were murdered by the police, police that are still on the force. Sgt. Gonzales gets paid 200,000 dollars a year. He murdered Gary King, who was my friend. Gary was shot in the back while running away. I couldn’t go to the funeral; I couldn’t do anything because I was in shock, and I was devastated. When Oscar Grant happened, it was two years after my friend got shot. I did a lot of organizing around that time. It was a huge collaborative effort. I did that because I knew there would be a lot of people that were devastated by what happened, and they probably wouldn’t have the strength. I felt like that was the only way I could give back to my friend. I met Oscar Grant’s aunties, his mother, his cousins, and sometimes you would have to run and get a tissue for them. They were all so sad.”

In a highly competitive slam environment, Pelley is focused on the poem-as-liberation.

“I always feel like I’m going to scare or traumatize people with my writing. With a lot of my work, I write things that I can’t speak. Sometimes I am afraid," she said. "When I first perform a poem, I’m probably not as confident. But when I see the reaction, if somebody comes up to me and tells me that they’ve been trying to say what my poem said, then I’m like ---damn. I have to perform it. I have to be courageous; I have to take this risk. I take risks hoping that other people will be able to express themselves, and talk about what’s true to them, and what hurts them, and what they’re scared to write about. A lot of people are trying to make change, but art is the rawest mechanism.”

Watching a good poet makes me feel like Elliot, sobbing over the casket of alien dreams and wishes.

Ouch.

The Oakland Slam Team needs your help traveling to nationals this year. Attend its show on Friday July 30 at Studio One Art Center, 365 45th St. in Oakland. If you can't make the show, donate at donationstracker.com/oaklandslam/.

(Queer Oakland is a weekly column by OL staffer Tehea Robie that highlights lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and intersex issues and people in and around Oakland.)