Ms. Kay and I, 2015
When I was in the seventh grade, I met someone who showed me what it meant to love what you do. She was tall and beautiful and poised and funny and basically everything I wanted to be when I grew up. My high school has an annual program in which they bring in a creative, prominent figure in the humanities or modern sciences to visit the school and hold lectures — although I use such a boring word very loosely — for two weeks. When I was in the seventh grade, our guest was Sarah Kay, a spoken word poet.
There’s a common misconception about spoken word poetry; people often mistake it for slam poetry. They are two distinct, but very similar, domains, if you will. Slam is characterized by competition, which means it often contains angrier, more in-your-face pieces, to seize and keep the attention of the judges. Spoken word, on the other hand, is performance for the sake of sharing one’s work. To me, Sarah Kay champions this category of performance poetry.
Born in New York City in 1988, Kay is daughter to a Japanese-American mother and Jewish American father. She began performing poetry at 14 and hasn’t stopped since, sharing her talents across various stages, including Lincoln Center, in TEDTalks, and even at the United Nations! She is also founder and co-director of Project VOICE, a spoken word organization dedicated to sharing the art of and with young voices. Although most well known for her spoken word, Kay is also a written poet, playwright, teacher, singer/songwriter, and editor — and these identities only scratch the surface of her capabilities.
Kay’s poetry spans a variety of subject matters, all seemingly very personal to her. She writes fondly of places and people, using her own life experiences to try to make sense of the world around her. What makes her stand out, however, is the way she conducts herself while performing. She is animated and engaging but not overly passionate or directive, as slam poetry often is. Instead, she lets her subtlety and words speak for themselves, invoking and evoking emotion through her balance of nonverbal cues.
One of Kay’s most famous poems is titled “B,” commonly known as “If I should have a daughter...” It was the central poem of her first TEDTalk in 2011, touching on what it means to be a girl growing up in the world. The talk received two standing ovations and also included the poem “Hiroshima,” which deals with a similar subject matter, drawing on imagery from the atom bomb dropping on Hiroshima to discuss the beautiful impossibility of our existence.
In an interview with The Writer magazine, when asked about the difference in the creative process between writing spoken and written poetry, Kay explains, “It’s certainly not a science. There are definitely times when I think I know what I’m doing, and I prove myself wrong.” In this, Kay demonstrates the skill of problem finding in the creative process. She first begins to answer one question in one medium, and in the later realization that a different form would work better at conveying her meaning, she has the flexibility and adaptability to make changes accordingly. She does not let her expertise in one domain interfere with her ability to slip into a different, more fitting one. Moreover, Kay has the ability to interweave her different media into one beautiful spoken word poem. It is demonstrated briefly in “B,” when she sings the line, “there’ll be days like this, my mama said.” Kay’s background as a self-proclaimed theater kid and strong music influence from her parents encouraged and inevitably drove her to include music in her poetry.
In the seventh grade, I was fortunate enough to be able to learn one of the many ways Sarah Kay begins her poetry. “You can all be poets,” she told us, and I believed her. We began with a list — ten things we know to be true. Anything. I am a girl, I like poetry, I had a bagel for breakfast this morning, etc. This is the perfect example of divergent thinking: generating as many creative ideas as possible all at once. Then, Ms. Kay told us to pick our favorite, and try to write about that — the flip to convergent thinking. Be as honest as possible. Do not try to be deep or insightful; readers and listeners will see right through it. She taught us that writing poetry was not nearly as daunting as it sounds, that poetry can be anything we want it to be. This is the breadth of Kay’s impact; I am now an English major. I think this exercise perfectly encapsulates what makes her stand out as a creative — rather than trying to constantly perform, she is honest, sometimes painfully so, and unafraid to ask and attempt to answer the difficult questions. In this way, she moves people — and that is all we can ask of ourselves.
If you’re interested in more of her poetry, here are links to just a few of my favorites!
RESOURCES:
https://kaysarahsera.com/site-map/
https://journalwomenwriters.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/interview-sarah-kay/
