Spoken word poetry, or slam poetry, has been all the rage since it was created by Marc Kelly Smith in 1984. In his words, slam poetry is "the remarriage of the art of performing and the art of writing." It is an art form used by hundreds of young people to shed light on prevalent issues in our world today. I am personally a huge fan of slam poetry--I find it incredibly moving and inspiring to listen to. One of my favorite slam poets is Olivia Gatwood.
Olivia Gatwood
Olivia Gatwood is a 25-year-old slam poet originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a Title IX Compliant educator, she tours the nation teaching workshops on sexuality, social justice, sexual assault prevention and recovery, healthy relationships, and gender equality at high schools and colleges all over the country. She is an active slam poet, and her work has been featured on Button Poetry, Huffington Post, HBO, and other platforms. Olivia and another spoken word poet, Megan Falley, cofounded SPEAK LIKE A GIRL, a national feminist spoken word poetry tour. She has recently published a collection of poems, entitled New American Best Friend, that explores themes of girlhood, relationships, and growing up, among others.
"Ode to the Women on Long Island" by Olivia Gatwood
The Creative Process
When creating her poetry, Olivia starts with memories from her childhood that stand out to her. From there, she builds a narrative, weaving in her opinions on contemporary issues like feminism, rape culture, gender roles, classism, and misogyny.
Olivia's creations are unique to the world of slam poetry because she manages to combine her own personal experiences with real-life issues in such a way that they turn out to be "simultaneously universal and also deeply specific to [her] own life."
To put Olivia's creativity into the context of this week's reading, "Most creative persons are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well...Without the passion, we soon lose interest in a difficult task. Yet without being objective about it, our work is not very good and lacks credibility" (Csikszentmihalyi, 72). It is clear from watching any of Olivia Gatwood's performances that she is incredibly passionate about both poetry and the issues she writes about. However, I believe her ability to take her personal experiences and generalize them to more broader concepts is demonstrative of her ability to be objective in her writing, making her work both credible and immensely meaningful.
"Being a poet, I think, has something to do with illuminating both the beauty of the mundane and the enormously huge."
Sources:
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York: Harper/Collins, Chapter 3: The Creative Personality
I have never really listened to slam poetry before but this video was phenomenal! I am most struck by the flow of the entire piece; even though there are random details thrown in the story it still functions and has a greater purpose. The flawless combination is a testament to her talent and creativity. Gatwood’s drawing from childhood concepts and then discussing such fresh topics seems quite difficult, borderline paradoxical. This causes me to wonder whether she writes poetry to tell her story or to make these tough societal issues more accessible to her audience.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved the video. Slam poetry has always been so impactful, however, Gatwood does an amazing job escalating the poem into a better version of itself, verse by verse. Her eloquence, content and execution of the poetry is the perfect combination for a creative poem. I started off with a sense of ambiguity for the characters in the poem, however, as the poem went on it progressed to a sense of admiration and inspiration.
ReplyDeleteI love poetry as a whole and the way she weaved hers was brilliant. She starts off slow but the way she progressed was astonishing. If you like strong poems I would also recommend "A Letter from Cancer" by Kevin Kantor. I have some other ones to recommend but will do so at a later date.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right. Slam poetry for me is often too focused on emotional appeals and leaves me with no objective message but causes me deep emotions for the short while I am listening to it. She does an absolutely incredible jib almost sneaking in issues and shocking you with her words. She is absolutely emotionally charged but with an objective editor's eye.
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