This following essay is my personal Senior Capstone project in which I approach the poetic genre of Spoke Word through an intersectional lens that as not yet been explored. The genre is of great importance to me and, as a poet and fiction writer, I hold identity in literature very highly in the writing process. I explore the webbing of identity and poetic influences in this area carefully, taking previously established academic concepts of intersectionality and applying them to the Spoken Word genre as a whole. Subsequently, I analyze the work of three Spoken Word poets to explain how they employ their intersectionality within their poetry to their own benefit.
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Approaching Spoken Word through an Intersectional Lens
Sarah Lemon
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X_Sarah E. Lemon
“Because you cannot reduce a poem to its numerological equivalent.”
-Bob Holman, “Praise Poem for Slam: Why Slam Causes Pain and Is a Good Thing”
Spoken Word poetry, closely related to Slam Poetry, is a tangible medium used on varying levels by varying artists across the board. Slam poetry, and spoken word as a resulting genre, was created by Marc Smith in the Summer of 1986 in Chicago, Illinois, and has grown exponentially since its accidental birth as a time-filler at an ensemble show at a bar. Since then, its successful practitioners have accessed a connection to language that affords them the opportunity to both write and perform their writing, adding a newly tangible aspect of the poetry itself that departs from the accessibility of written poetry on paper. According to Ramon Narayan in his guidebook, Spoken Word Guidelines, “Spoken Word is poetry that has been written to be performed and is based on the interaction between the performer and the audience.” (2). Spoken Word in particular provides a type of connection to the content itself as well as the writer that is specific to the genre, and does not lend for an atmosphere of apathy.
In his article titled, “Poetry Slams: The Ultimate Democracy of Art,” Scott Woods clarifies this distinction between Spoken Word and other genres by labeling poetry slams not as an art form, but as a useful and literarily significant device, “a trick to convince people that poetry is cooler than they’ve been led to believe by wearisome English classes and dusty anthologies” (18). While Woods misses the sociopolitical objective, and undermines the prevalent artistic expression, he points out the key aspect of Spoken Word and Slam Poetry that distinguish the genre, mirroring Narayan’s sentiment: engagement. Because of this distinction, Spoken Word artists use their chosen medium as a means of opening a conversation regarding social and political issues that they deem worthy of their art and, moreover, their voice. Unsurprisingly, the genre has been reduced by its participants as well as audience to a subsect of identity politics, limiting all those involved in Spoken Word and Slam to a reductive art form. Consequently, Spoken Word artists become trapped by a sense of identity essentialism, shifting their art in the eye of the audience. This often leads to an obscured sense of purpose in the work as well as a skewed perception of the author’s identity.
Spoken Word as a Genre: Performativity, Audience, and Identity
Because of the nature of spoken word as an art form, it becomes a useful and powerful tool of rhetoric that often appeals to a very particular audience, frequently connecting to the listener through pathos. The audience member connects not only with the work itself, as would naturally happen with written poetry on paper, but now with the author by default due to his or her presence in conjunction with the work. This allows for quick judgement calls, conscious or subconscious, on the audience’s part, automatically assigning identity to the author. The unfortunate risk at this point becomes the pitfall of identity essentialism, or limiting oneself to a reductive identifier. A Spoken Word artist then becomes singularly labeled without much room to break out of the genre’s subject matter sub-genres to which they’ve inadvertently limited themselves. An intersectional approach is a beneficial antidote that is necessary to avoid playing too much into identity politics, and subsequently being trapped by identity essentialism, both as the artist and the audience. Intersectionality, the myriad of identifiers that compose an artist’s aesthetic and perspective, is largely a matter of biographical identification. Ultimately, applying the theory of intersectionality to the genre of Spoken Word provides an approach from both the writer and the audience that allows for a deeper acceptance of credibility or authenticity; a wider foundation for a perception of oppression and discrimination when it comes to social justice poetry; and a deeper understanding of the poet’s background regarding their ability and place to be a voice for the subjects on which they choose to perform.
The artists being evaluated in this essay regarding their cognizance of their intersectionality are Suheir Hammad in her poem “First Writing Since,” Sarah Jones in her poems “Your Revolution” and “Wax Poetic,” and Andrea Gibson in her poem “Andrew.” Susan Somers-Willet describes the genre’s unique connection to identity in her book The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry.
The context of live performance shines a particularly bright light into its inner workings, especially as those workings involved performances of identity. In this context, all slam poems become about the author’s performance of identity on some level because of the author’s mandated presence onstage. His or her speech, dress, gestures, voice, body, and so on all reflect in some way on the poem at hand, and these various aspects of embodiment convey nuances of cultural difference that the page cannot. (18)
As Somers-Willet explains, an artist’s identity is conveyed through his or her performance. Therefore, the better the performer is on stage, the more likely the audience is to trust that the identity being conveyed by the artist is an accurate one. Because spoken word artists use their voices so particularly, they are often faced with this issue of identity essentialism, consequently being assigned an identity through the subjects on which they are focusing. The concept of identity essentialism lies in identity politics, in that members of a group speaking out on an issue must have experienced first-hand the issue on which they are speaking (2, Mohanty, Identity Politics Reconsidered). Ultimately, an audience needs both credibility and authenticity when listening to a Spoken Word artist to not only trust the performance but to see the poem as authentic. Identity essentialism limits an individual to a particular group, often involving social justice, creating an identity that is solely based on a singular aspect of their aesthetic. In some cases, this is nearly unavoidable, as spoken word poets attach themselves to their subject matter with fervor and emotion, creating and developing their pathos through performance, which is evident in their art itself. This is an incredibly effective tool used to signify the authenticity of their voice; however, a negative result of this that often contributes to diminishing the artist’s credibility and legitimacy of voice is a disregard for this theory of intersectionality.
Towards an Intersectional Spoken Word
Taking an intersectional approach to Spoken Word both as the artist and the audience allows for a more open discourse between the two, as well as higher level of legitimacy of the art, dismantling the constraints set by identity politics. Kimberlé Crenshaw (civil rights advocate and leading scholar of the Critical Race Theory), Sumi Cho, and Leslie McCall write in their study on intersectionality, “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis:” “Intersectionality was introduced in the late 1980s as a heuristic term to focus attention on the vexed dynamics of difference and the solidarities of sameness in the context of antidiscrimination and social movement politics” (787). Originally, intersectionality was used to approach sociopolitical movements and cultural activism in a way that evaluated what made people different and similar. The scholars note how intersectionality is a useful tool in identification but also has its limits:
As intersectionality has traveled, questions have been raised regarding a number of issues: the utility and limitations of its various metaphors, including the road intersection, the matrix, and the interlocked vision of oppression; the additive and autonomous versus interactive and mutually constituting nature of the race/gender/class/sexuality/nation necus; the eponymous “et cetera” problem—that is, the number of categories and kinds of subjects (e.g., privileged or subordinate?) stipulated or implied by an intersectional approach; and the static and fixed versus the dynamic and contextual orientation of intersection research. (787)
Crenshaw, Cho, and McCall are essentially making the claim that intersectionality is incredibly complex when using it as a lens through which one analyzes a piece of work or even a genre as a whole. The study itself creates a complex atmosphere of in-depth analysis. The factors that play into intersectionality develop and shift according to the subject matter in question, but many key aspects to consider would fall into those categories of race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, and so on. So while intersectionality is incredibly useful, the degree to which it requires in-depth analysis proves to complicate the approach. Ultimately, however, the idea is to avoid reductive tendencies in focusing in on one particular category.
In Bob Holman’s “Praise Poem for Slam: Why Slam Causes Pain and Is a Good Thing,” he gives clear concise reason to embrace slam poetry as a genre: “Because you cannot reduce a poem to its numerological equivalent.” Because poetry defies quantifiable analysis, it cannot be measured by singular aspects of the work. In the same way one cannot reduce a poem, one cannot reduce the poet. A poet is comprised of all major and minor identifying factors, and cannot be boiled down to what an audience or a society determines to be his or her primary demographical identifier.
To understand why intersectionality is so imperative as the next step to approaching Spoken Word, it is essential to understand the cultural and political significance of the genre, and in turn, why intersectionality plays such a big role already in amplifying these voices in a larger sociopolitical conversation. Susan Somers-Willett remarks on the history of spoken poetry and oration, and how previous studies on the subject to this point have missed the mark a bit, in that poets and audiences are so attracted to slam poetry because of the “political dynamics” it exhibits through the medium of performance (17). She argues that the genre is independent of other genres because it is heavily reliant on so many varying factors outside of the words in the poem, factors that play a role in the reception of the meaning by the audience before the artist even presents it (18). The medium of the genre requires immediate, intellectual and emotional participation from the audience.
The genres of Spoken Word and Slam Poetry are extremely political, though maybe not inherently. Somers-Willet explains that slam poetry is often defined by its limited content, or what seems to be its limited content, to include confessional narratives, rantings about pop culture, and sociopolitical reflections (19). Because Slam and Spoken Word poets feel that their poetry is so relevant it needs to be performed, there is an additional layer of sociopolitical and cultural relevance that needs to be present in order for the poem to gain any traction. The aspect of performance immediately satisfies the desire in many poets to be heard, a desire that is so impassioned because the subject matter is so personally regarded as imperative. Somers-Willet continues in the first chapter to say that slam poets feel they have more accurately achieved their artistic goals when writing and performing on issues of identity, in which they participate in a larger sociopolitical discussion that transcends any one expressive genre (37). The genre is clearly not for those individuals who wish to remain disengaged with the sociopolitical world around them. In fact, its entire history is littered with confirmation of sociopolitical relevance. Somers-Willet writes, “The tensions waged between American popular poetry and both academic and dominant culture have quite a history, particularly as they happen to surface in performance. Such is the case with the Beat Movement, the Black Arts movement, and event the antebellum tradition of blackface minstrelsy” (39). Although the Beat Movement and Black Art movements were historical precedents for slam and shared very similar aspects of performativity as Slam, they each had, in large part, to do with identity.
One of the primary differences between most artistic genres and Spoken Word is the live-action response. Because Spoken Word is performative in nature, it demands a reaction from the audience. Measuring and gauging that reaction is an internal process that the writer will go through upon performing in terms of internal response to applause, cheers, or booing; therefore, if the work is irrelevant, ineffective, or simply not accessible to its recipient counterparts, it will lose performative steam and the writer, if he or she wants to keep their work in a circle of influence, will try different approaches and, ultimately, different subject matter. Somers-Willet goes on to remark on the aspects of the genre that make it unique and, in turn, effective: “It is the range of performative aspects of a poem—vocal dynamics, physical dynamics, appearance, setting, hoots and hollers from the audience itself—that influences one’s experience of a slam poem.” Essentially, the way a poet performs and the noticeable responses given by the audience are what comprise the overall sensation of how the piece went. In their study on “Black Performance Poetry,” Asher and Martin Hoyles affirm this sentiment:
Performance poetry not only needs to be heard, it usually also has to be seen to be properly understood. It relies on rhythm, intonation, gesture, and sometimes music and song, to gain its effect. Mervyn Morris, the Jamaican poet and critic who is often credited with coining the phrase ‘performance poetry’, writes that the performance poem is ‘dependent for its meanings on the variable interaction between text, performer, audience, and occasion. (31)
Asher and Martin Hoyles here take that extra necessary step after agreeing with Morris that relationship with the audience is a big factor in the success or failure of a Spoken Word poem. Clearly, the performative nature elicits the audience’s response and reflects on the visual aesthetics of the poet. The visual aesthetics, moreover, are what often present the demographical identifiers that reinforce a sense of identity politics and, ultimately, identity essentialism within the genre.
The role of the author within the genre is so imperative to the way an audience received the content that the intersectionality of the author cannot afford to be overlooked. The aspects of Slam and Spoken Word that make it unique are what allow the audience to make a judgment call on who the practitioner of the art form is, and without an intersectional approach to that judgement call, the audience and the author are robbed of the opportunity to gauge the full weight of the poem being performed. That is to say, judging a poet and, moreover their poetry, by one’s first impression of the poet, whether that is visually or based on initial subject matter, is committing the ultimate literary sin, and ‘judging a book by its cover.’ In turn, it is also to the author’s benefit to approach his or her work through an intersectional lens in order not to become trapped in one primary identifying factor, and thus lose credibility, whether the audience makes decision consciously or not, by mere exclusion of varying factors that contribute to his or her ethos.
Spoken Word has a significant presence within cultural politics, and participates in conversations outside of a strictly literary discourse. It is almost inherently political and does not cooperate in an atmosphere of apathy. Because identity politics is so prevalent in the genre, it can either be a detriment or a driving force. Asher and Martin Hoyles regard cultural background as a source of pride in performance poetry, if used correctly, and make the claim that “none should ever be made to bear false burdens of linguistic shame through historical circumstances that have always been beyond their capacity to control” (28). Cultural background, or “historical circumstances,” is also only one facet of an ideal intersectional approach, meaning that there are varying pieces and aspects of cultural background that may either subscribe to or defy more common presumptions upon noting it. Kimberlé Crenshaw writes in her report on “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” that in some discourse communities, “identity-based politics has been a source of strength, community, and intellectual development” (1241, Stanford Law Review). Here Crenshaw emphasizes that identity is so significant because it can be a source of connection and insight. However, a negative or stereotypical assumption by an audience—in this case, on skin tone—can be detrimentally cultivated by the manner in which the artist chooses to perform. Demographical identifiers such as race, gender, age, and so on will automatically be noted by the audience, whether subconsciously or with a discriminatory attitude.
Without an intersectional approach to the art, neither the audience nor the performer will receive or encompass the contextual material that provides the depth and significance of where the poetry comes from, why it matters, and the volume of the voice that is expressing it. For example, a female poet who performs a poem about rape culture will automatically be identified by the audience strictly as a female poet. However without an intersectional approach to the composition of the poem by the poet, she does not allow the audience a chance to value her work in a more complex light because she fails to incorporate how her biographical background affects her perspective, in terms of ethnicity, sexuality, age, and so on. This can hurt the artist’s success within the genre in a world where each of these facets of human character apply new meaning to personal perception.
Intersectional Analysis of Poetry
The best way to analyze the use of intersectionality and its benefit is to analyze particular poets whose poems display intersectionality to the benefit of the poem. In the compilation of poetry and personal statements of female, contemporary Spoken Word artists, Word Warriors, edited by Alix Olson, thirty-five poets share a bit of their biographical background as well as their work to emphasize who they are and why they practice Spoken Word so passionately. Identity plays a large role in practice for many if not all of these writers.
Poet #1: Suheir Hammad
Suheir Hammad is an American, female poet, author, and activist whose parents immigrated as Palestinian refugees to Brooklyn when she was five years old. Her primary influences were her exposure to hip-hop and the cultural background of her family. In terms of topics often touched by her writing and her poetry, she identifies as a woman and Muslim, two very large pieces of her motivation to write and speak out.
While many of the women whose work is compiled in this collection do not set out to write and perform with a political voice, they fall into that category with their work without trying to. When asked if she identifies as a political poet, Suheir Hammad, a Palestian American, female poet responded:
I actually don’t identify as a ‘political poet,’ per se, but I understand that when people label me as such, it’s because we live in a sanitized and domesticated culture, one that is force-fed for-profit media/entertainment which insists on polarizing our lives into what is and is not appropriately named art. So I don’t mind it, not at all. To be “nonpolitical” is as much a conscious choice (unless you really do live in a cave) as deciding to use creativity in ways I deem progressive and compassionate. (178)
While practicing the art for Hammad is not an outwardly political endeavor, it becomes one due to the nature of the genre, and she fully accepts that. Hammad recognizes the significance of identity and embraces its utility in the effectiveness of her poetry. One of the first poems she includes in the compilation is called “First Writing Since,” a post-tragedy poem about writing for the first time after the events of September 11th, 2001. The primary performance can be found on YouTube under the account Poetical TV. Within the fifth stanza, she exhibits her intersectionality and how it applies to this particular subject matter:
i have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen.
not really.
even as a woman, as a palestinian, as a broken human being.
never this broken.
In this stanza, Hammad approaches the events of September 11th, 2001 intersectionally, as a woman and a Palestinian, and perhaps even a Muslim, though she does not explicitly say that. Her chosen form of activism has most clearly been writing, as she demonstrates in this first line. The degree of anger, however, that she feels in response to this tragedy has rendered her words unsatisfactory. She feels it is more necessary to take more concrete action, and at this point, that means wielding a weapon. Her assertion after this first claim, “not really” is telling, because it conveys a certain degree of uncertainty. Perhaps she has felt this before, or something close, and nearly been as impassioned as she is now. Even so, her resulting response was a poem, not a gun fight. Nonetheless, her anger at this point seems almost unparalleled. Moreover, this anger comes from a very specific part of her heart and her mind, the pieces that identify as a woman and a Palestinian. Her anger over the tragedy is not a simplified, generic one; moreover, it is not a reductive anger. Her brokenness has led to her anger. It is specific, “broken” anger from a female Palestinian, and this approach is vital to the meaning of the poem. In her performance of the piece, she slows down in this line to make “never this broken” very staccato and calculated; conveying more anger than brokenness.
Bringing in two primary demographical identifying characteristics of herself into the poem within the first five stanzas provides a depth to her acceptance of the subject matter that would not exist were she to only focus on one. Approaching the terror of the event as a woman provides a feminine perspective, applying a nurturing and compassionate perception of 9/11, utilizing what may already be a stereotype to her advantage. Her relationship to her brothers as a sister is brought back in at the mention of her gender, considering the role she may fill to them. So the desire to wield a weapon in this instance provides a sense of urgency to her hurt and anger, in terms of protecting the ones she loves. By bringing up her gender, she embodies a familial approach to the tragedy. Bringing her background as a Palestinian implies a new connection to the event, a foreign perspective as well as a religious perspective that many Americans don’t have. Due to the nature of the attacks, with Islamic extremism seeming to heavily charge the motives behind the event and causing a lot of internal anger among Americans against the religion, her cultural background and her faith is a particularly potent identifier in the wake of this situation. This aspect of her character is necessary for the audience to grasp the weight of this facet’s significance. That identification is also significant because she goes on to make that claim that:
the most privileged nation, most americans do not know
the difference between Indians, afghanis, syrians, muslims,
sikhs, hindus.
Hammad makes a direct connection between American privilege and ignorance. She makes a very bold claim here by separating herself a bit from a majority, a majority that she clearly does not identify with as “most Americans.” She displays the ignorance by listing out demographical identifiers that do not fall into the same category, including religions, nationalities, and continental origins. Her claim here is that to the majority of Americans, all these identifiers are one and the same, which suggests a serious degree of ignorance potentially among some of her audience base. It’s easy for an audience separated from a Middle Eastern reality to perceive Hammad’s visual appearance as a holistic representative of an ideology. In this way, the demographic that Hammad speaks to is eager to find someone to blame, as either a twisted means to cope with the events or justify an internal hatred. She separates herself in this way at the same time as asserting her cultural background. Because she asserts her cultural background, she employs and solidifies her ethos by showing that she has a little more insight to this particular kind of discrimination than the average American. At the same time, she goes on to say, “there is no difference,” strongly implying a need for unity, and acceptance.
In the filmed performance, she begins by dedicating the piece to her brothers, who are also Palestinian and are most likely Muslim. The dedication is unique to the performance and does not appear in the written text of the poem, which distinguishes the significance of the piece as a Spoken Word Poem. Moreover, it adds weight to her background, her role as sister in loving and caring for these men who are currently suffering more discrimination, judgement, and scrutiny as a result of the events of 9/11, and a member of a Palestinian community. She goes on to write and perform, “please god, after the second plane, please, don’t let it be anyone who looks like my brothers,” conveying a desperation to detach herself and her family from any undeserved and unearned sense of guilt that may be assigned by angry, ignorant individuals looking for someone to blame.
Both of these identifying factors, being female and Palestinian, are enough in and of themselves; an audience can easily identify her upon seeing her on a stage as a “female poet” or a “Middle-Eastern poet.” However, conjoining the two identifiers in one stanza of the poem implies that they work hand in hand to create the poet’s voice. Furthermore, pulling all aspects of her character together and claiming the label of “broken human being,” implies that in the wake of such a disaster, one should both embrace the things that construct us as people, and remember that those defining factors do not change the horror of the events transpiring. The approach she takes is an effort both to view herself in a light that does not burden her with a sense of guilt she does not deserve, as much as it is a sociopolitical commentary on a larger problem. She attempts to force her audience to consider her full, complex identity as a poet and as a person, particularly at this sensitive time. Her gender does not prevent her from grasping the severity of the situation, nor does it prevent her from desiring safety and justice. This intersectional approach both allows Hammad to speak on a subject in which her perspective as both a female and a Palestinian is relevant, and dismantle the preconceived notions of what those identifiers mean at such a charged, and fragile time. When a poet intersects gender and nationality, we see a gendered, ethnic perspective, which adds multiple specific layers of psychology in how one deals with the issues at hand, such as discrimination, tragedy, and a search for identity.
Regarding audience response, a very distinct aspect of the genre, Hammad receives affirmation during her poem from her listeners, providing the auditory support that suggests active support of a stance and subject. At her line, “we did not vilify white men when mcveigh bombed Oklahoma. american did not give out his family’s addresses or where he went to church. or blame the bible or pat robertson,” the audience responds with applause and audible cheering, forcing Hammad to pause her reading before continuing. Timothy McVeigh was a domestic terrorist responsible for the Oklahoma City Bombing. The audience’s response to the reference displays the back-and-forth participation that forces a poet to consider their audience when constructing their work, similar to the way the audience is forced to consider the performer’s identity upon witnessing the performance.
Furthermore, in the performance, Hammad adds the expletive “fucking” in between “pat” and “robertson,” providing a charged anger that is not present in the printed version of the poem. Robertson is a Southern Baptist who is known for advocating conservative Christian ideals playing multiple roles including the chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network and CEO of Regent University. The inclusion of an expletive between his first and last name in this way, displaying her response, presents a juxtaposition between a popular perception of a specific type of individual and the reality of a poet’s world who refuses to tiptoe around one demographic when the same behavior is not extended to her. The piece is powerful and well-written, but the performance aspect is necessary to fulfill purpose that the poem serves rhetorically, politically, and personally for Hammad.
Hammad rejects generalized ideas of her identity, further confirming an author’s intersectional approach, as a reflection on ignorance. Because a portion of her poem reflects on the tragedy, as well as the anger of many Americans against foreign enemies (or seeming enemies) she has gained a bit more ground on which to justify her stance and solidify her perspective in logic. She continues to emphasize her intersectionality, though probably unintentionally, when she writes, “i have never felt less american and more new yorker—.” Her disconnect from a country but connection to a particular city allows the audience to know that she is not disengaged from the tragedy but is taking a firm stance on the issue at hand. Perhaps because she feels a generalized, discriminating anger from a majority of Americans, she strays from that identity. She does, however, feel the effects of this tragedy and deeply connects to her community, the ones who were directly experiencing the pain and loss that the events caused. In this way her poem, as a sociopolitical protest, incorporates her intersectionality to the geographic politics of the situation. The subject matter of this poem is far from light, and Hammad does not tiptoe around the issue. But because she approaches the work while considering the full narrative of who she is, and how it is relevant to the issue at hand, she not only gives herself an angle, but she gives herself credibility. The entire poem displays examples of Hammad’s intersectionality in that she is not just a woman poet, she is not just a Muslim poet, she is not just a Palestinian poet. All of these aspects of her identity weave together to create her voice, and it’s vital to notice the ways in which these identifiers enter into conversation with one another and interact to create her perspective in order to grasp the weight of the authenticity in her voice.
Poet #2: Sarah Jones
Spoken Word poet, playwright, and actor Sarah Jones is another poet who embraces her cultural identity in conjunction with her gender identity, as well as the sociopolitically charged development from childhood to adulthood. Growing up in a household of young intellectual activists, Jones experienced a lot of social justice activism before it was so coined. Jones’ father was African American, and her mother was of mixed Euro-American and Carribean descent, so her audience may assume that her multicultural background has and does influence her writing consistently. Jones responds to one of her interview questions that she believed her first words were “Power to the people!” so it is evident why the genre of Spoken Word appealed to this particular artist (1). She has performed for political audiences such as the United Nations, the United States Congress, and the Supreme Court of Nepal throughout her career, demonstrating her heart and passion for political activism. Jones also sued the Federal Communications Commission for censorship in a case which resulted in a reversal of a censorship ruling that targeted her hip-hop poem “Your Revolution.” The poem has explicit images although it accompanies a righteously indignant voice that demands to be heard.
Sarah Jones as an artist is very interested in the concept of identity, with a strong focus on multiculturalism, as one can see from visiting her website. In the one-woman show that she is best known for, “Brudge and Tunnel,” she portrays seven different identities, with varying backgrounds and gender. Each individual she acts as has different identifiers that clearly assert themselves through the virtual monologue with stereotypical visual appearances and accents available, such as an American northern police officer named Joey, an Indian human rights activist named Praveen, an urban young hip-hop artist named Rashid, a stereotypical female feminist named Bella, and so on. By accessing each of these different stereotypical characters in her show, she demonstrates a genuine ability to connect with a wider audience base as well as a sense of empathy and desire for unity that is unique to performativity on this level.
In her poetry, Jones accesses her personal identity and background. She approaches the subject matter of her poem “Your Revolution” as a woman, making the poetic claim that “your revolution will not happen between these thighs.” The performance version of the piece can be found on the Poetical TV YouTube channel as well. Her references to aspects of the body over which she has ownership include things like “booty size” and “my bush,” as well as bold lines such as “your revolution won’t knock me up and produce//li’l future MCs” (8). In her performance, she displays a strong degree of attitude; a certainty of an understanding that transcends the “you” to whom she speaks. While the subject matter very clearly indicates that the speaker is a woman, as the audience can most likely tell upon her performance, her writing style contributes the facet of her cultural background, which seems to be of African American and urban origins, based on the hip-hop style of the poem. The meter and beat with which she performs the piece subscribes to an Urban, hip-hop genre, dragging out certain words and hitting others on a precise beat, while still focusing on a highly feministic issue. Jones’ piece is filled with performative intonation, purposeful rhythm, and emotionally charged gestures. In this way, the cultural influence on her poetry gives her subject matter a unique angle with which to approach her strength and independence as a woman. She brings other hip-hop artists in the conversation, referencing the very sexual LL Cool J song, “Doin’ it:”
your revolution
will not find me in the
backseat of a Jeep with LL
hard as hell
doin’ it & doin’ it & doin’ it well
When reading the last line of this stanza, her voices shifts upward in tone as she performs the line humorously mimicking the female voice in the LL Cool J track, “Doin’ it”, demonstrating that she refuses to accept the notion that she should be overwhelmed and satisfied with a culture that promotes the sexualizing of her gender as a whole. This confident performative approach works well with the present audience as they cheer, applaud, and laugh at the line. Jone’s speaks with so much authoritative confidence in this poem that the audience has almost no choice but to get on board with the valid points she clearly makes, though they are comedic and entertaining.
As she moves through the piece, her recitation speed increases along with her volume. Her indignance over the ignorance with which she is dealing becomes increasingly more clear, further contributing to the confidence with which she approaches her subject matter. One performative aspect of the poem that is not present in the printed versions is an audible yawn in after “and me,” in the line: “will not happen between these things//will not be you shaking and me [yawn] faking between these thighs” (10). The atmosphere that Jones creates for this piece cannot be replicated on paper, and her identity is key to that atmosphere. For example, the yawn, which is only conveyed during the performance, is an indication of her boredom of the sexual performance of those to whom she addresses the poem. By yawning, she emasculates the recipient of her message, further putting down those efforts to find “revolution.” Her confidence, indignance, and pride is displayed through both her identity as a woman, certain she does not serve the purpose of pleasing men, and as an individual with an urban, multicultural background which she demonstrates through her approach to hip-hop both in style and poem content. The combination of female identity and urban, multicultural identity provides a platform to feminism that lends for an atmosphere of increased validity in a sense of oppression and, moreover, authenticity.
She repeats her intersectional approach combining her femininity and her culture in her poem “Wax Poetic,” by describing herself, saying, “from waist down I am a brown//brooklyn bagel with a schmear.” With a message of unity, Jones writes about the experience of being waxed by about the experience of receiving a Brazilian wax from a woman whose only connection to her is a similarity in gender.
in hong kong she was educated to be a teacher
she speaks of the rising cost of a climbing class
how america grinds bones to make its bread
at bryn mawr I was educated to be a feminist
to be a torch and find my sexiness where it was buried, hidden
in plain insight (11)
She is far removed from the experiences of the woman she is interacting with, but in this stanza she demonstrates the fact that she cannot understand such a different perspective, but wants to, and makes the effort to do so. This effort to understand perspectives outside her own, this openness to multiple perceptions, contributes to her ethos in that she is clearly not limited by her own “insight.”
Jones received her education at the United Nations International School and Bryn Mawr College, and the line, “I was educated to be a feminist” now contributes an educative aspect of her character that continues to add to her intersectionality as a poet, providing stronger ethos and more perspective validity. By including three of these identifying characteristics in a short length of twelve lines, Jones continues to approach her work with intersectionality and further reject the idea that she must subscribe to one type of identification.
Similarly to Hammad, Jones could easily be identified—upon exposure to her audience—as a “female poet” or a “black poet.” Upon performing her work, just keeping the subject matter in mind, her audience could even narrow her identity down to “feminist poet.” However because she explores her intersectionality through writing a poem about one aspect of her character, in a style that conveys another independently of the first, Hammad gives herself the upper hand with her audience, almost by saying, I’m not just a girl, or, I’m not just black. By embracing her intersectionality in her critique of pop music’s representation of women, she increases her credibility and the extensiveness of the platform from which she speaks. She fully embraces two very distinct aspects of her voice and uses them both to amplify what she believes is worth being heard, using her intersectionality to amplify her message.
Poet #3: Andrea Gibson
Intersectionality is a step away from singular identifiers in the Spoken Word Genre, facilitating an even further progression toward an approach that disregards labels completely. Poet Andrea Gibson is a gender-queer, assigned-female poet who has embraced both of these aspects of their poetic voice. However, in their poetry they also often rejects the notion of subscribing to labels, or moreover, identifiers at all. In their short autobiography, they record how important to them that their identity as a woman was in regards to feminism, both personally and socially, as a poet. Being seen as a female poet was uncomfortable in many ways for them, but also afforded them a platform to both take advantage of their audience’s perception as well as dismantle it. They described their experience performing in a male-dominated setting.
So, in that sea of Y chromosomes, I felt spotlighted, like a woman with a capital W. Every time I got onstage I wasn’t just myself or a spoken word artist, but also a woman getting onstage. And certainly that was important. It was important to the scene, it was important to our culture in general, and it was especially important to the women in the audience. (216)
Gibson even recalled being asked by their male-counterparts, in those particular settings, questions like, “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you ever write about anything other than the struggles of women?” (216) As is evident in their poems, such as “Blue Blanket,” feminist issues and values are very important to Gibson, so much so that they believe they are worth their artistic energy and her voice. In this case, they do not shy away from a singular identifier. Their unification with women rests in their singular subscription to the identity of “woman.” While this tactic proved to be somewhat to their detriment, in that it did not resonate with their whole audience, no approach to spoken word will ever be 100% effective to all members of the audience. Gibson did, however, begin to move away from a reliance on gender identity as their poetic voice developed.
Over the years, however, I began to question that term: “woman.” Something inside of me was shifting. The poems I wrote began to feel increasingly genderless. And that realization led to some critical evaluation of my own gender identity. This year I wrote a poem called “Andrew,” the first poem in which I out myself as gender-queer, as not fitting into the formal boxes of he/she, male/female, one-or-the-other options. (217)
In the poem as they describe, “Andrew,” they write:
It’s not that I thought I’d grow up to be a man
I just never thought I’d grow up to be a woman either
From what I could tell neither of those categories
Seemed to fit me
In this piece, Gibson accepts and explains their own gender identity, which is more so a lack thereof. In this way, they illustrate their refusal to subscribe to a label or a demographical identifier because a culture or society deems it appropriate. This approach moves past intersectionality to a rejection of identification altogether, simply because embracing identifiers does not allow non-gender conforming individuals advantageous the most advantageous approach to the genre. Consequently, intersectionality may unintentionally enforce a subscription to labels that certain artists become limited by, as does Gibson. She steps onto the spectrum of identification as a poet at singular identifiers, then slides past intersectionality to the far, opposite end of a complete lack of identification. For the purposes of their poetry in particular, this approach may be completely appropriate. However when considering Spoken Word as a whole, throwing out intersectionality disregards the personal, societal, and perceptional significance of which each of the factors in questions consist.
Going Forward
To move forward with the theory of intersectionality as a Spoken Word artist means to be cognizant of who you are and how your audience sees you. When, as artists, we are passionate about a subject, it is easy to remain focused on what draws our attention and emotional investments. However, we run the risk of limiting ourselves when we fail to validate our own perspective to our audience. Thus, it is an artist’s responsibility to convey his or her intersectionality through the poetry itself. The creator and founder of the International Poetry Slam Movement Marc Kelly Smith writes in his book on how to be an effective slam poet “Take the Mic,” that “It’s naïve to assume everyone will always get along with everyone else, especially among people who like to climb onstage and pour their hearts out to total strangers—emotionality is the name of the game” (260). In terms of making oneself accessible to an audience and, moreover, making one’s art accessible, it is vital for the writer to be aware of their limitations as a performer. This means recognizing the way we come across in our performativity. By approaching intersectionality as a Spoken Word artist, the audience is automatically more open to the performed piece because they have more to grasp onto. And in turn, it is beneficial for an audience to view the artist at hand as an intersectional conglomeration of characteristics in order to take the artists’ perspective for all its worth. Avoiding identity essentialism allows Spoken Word a new multidimensional depth that cannot exist when limiting the artist to a singular, reductive identifier. Ultimately, intersectionality avoids the literary sin of reducing the poet.
Works Cited
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Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43.6 (1991): 1241-299. Web.
Def Poetry: Sarah Jones- ‘Your Revolution’ (Official Video). Perf. Sarah Jones. YouTube. N.p., 2 Apr. 2010. Web.
Hoyles, Asher, and Martin Hoyles. “Black Performance Poetry.” English in Education 37.1 (2003): 27-37. Web.
Mohanty, Satya P. Identity Politics Reconsidered. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print.
Narayan, Ramon. “Spoken Word Poetry.” English in Aotearoa. (2015): 42-47. Print.
Olson, Alix, ed. Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution. Emeryville, CA: Seal, 2007. Print.
Praise Poem For Slam: Why Slam Causes Pain and Is a Good Thing. By Bob Holman. Performance.
Smith, Marc Kelly., and Joe Kraynak. Take the Mic: The Art of Performance Poetry, Slam, and the Spoken Word. Naperville, IL: Source MediaFusion, 2009. Print.
Somers-Willett, Susan B. A. The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry: Race, Identity, and the Performance of Popular Verse in America. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 2009. Print.
Suheir Hammad – First Writing Since on Def Poetry Jam. Perf. Suheir Hammad. YouTube. N.p., 22 Oct. 2010. Web.
Woods, Scott. “Poetry Slams: The Ultimate Democracy of Art.” World Literature Today 82.1 (2008): 16-19. Abstract. (n.d.): n. pag. Print.
