Clarence Barbee, a native of Omaha Nebraska began writing poetry in the eighth grade at age 13. At the request of his Language Arts teacher he composed the NAACP Martin Luther King celebration prize-winning poem entitled Survive on Hate. In 2000, after graduating from Clark Atlanta University, he began getting involved in spoken word. He started out performing at local venues such as Club Kaya, calling himself Nabraska, in homage to his birthplace. Late in that same year he networked with four other poets and completed a compilation cd. They called themselves A Group Called Karma. He produced two of the albums, Shakespears in the Alley and Verb. A Group Called Karma performed at the Marietta Black Arts Festival in 2001, doing an original piece composed by Clarence entitled Rights. In 2003 Nabraska went back to the studio with a friend who played upright bass, and they combined to create Open Field. After a successful audition, he performed a piece entitled Open Letter to Sammi at Atlanta's Sweet Auburn Festival. Clarence's main influence came from writers such as:
Nabraska describes his writings as philosophical and societal, using social issues as a basis and platform to engage the thought process for his audience. He is still very active in the Atlanta spoken word scene performing at several local venues. He is also very active online, some of his performances and websites are as follows:
*Live Poets Society
*Black Lion Café
*Micks (Omaha)
*Apache
*One Mic Entertainment
*Burning Mic Slam (Alabama)
*www.rhymeorreasononline.org
*www.timbooktu.com
*www.theblackpoetrycafe.com
*www.houseofra.org
Clarence Barbee has completed three recordings, and due to overwhelming response he launched Alien-Head productions and his new website. After his 1st year of production he was voted the number 1 poetry website in the Southeast. Nabraska is a traveling poet, riding the road to wherever his words will take him. He is currently solo and working on an anthology of his poems. He also just completed his fourth cd entitled Poetry, Prose & Politics Personal Quote: In order to teach, one must learn; in order to learn, one must reach.
