It may be true that music can save your mortal soul, but it’s Spoken Word that has my heart.

During the hungriest periods of my life, it has been poetry that fed me.   First as a reader, consuming poem after poem like a starving woman. Rumi, Hafiz, Erica Jong, Adrienne Rich, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde.  They were friends and teachers and guides.  I learned about love and sex and feminism and mysticism and how the language of poetry transcends language and centuries and gender.

Then I got over that small voice inside that kept saying “you can’t write poetry” and I started writing poetry.  The words that flowed healed parts of my heart, allowed me to claim my truth, and answered questions I didn’t know I was asking.

It  wasn’t until I discovered Slam Poetry/Spoken Word that I found my home.  I thought I knew all there was to know of poetry until the night my dear one played me Daughter by Alix Olson.  The hairs on my arms stood up and I felt my throat get tight and my eyes were wide and I thought, “What the HELL is this?”  and then, “I must have more”.

Performance poetry is like sex and hot showers and spooning in the dark. It’s the fierce love of a mother and the broken heart that refuses to heal.  It’s the kindest thing I’ve ever done and the meanest thought that’s ever crossed my mind.  It’s my darkness and my light and my very humanity expanding before my eyes and ears.    It’s Andrea Gibson and Buddy Wakefield and Sarah Kay and Rudy Francisco and Big Poppa E.   It’s feminism and the queer community and social commentary and politics and a spotlight on racism.   It’s hard core fucking and the most innocent love and it’s the agony of being left behind.  And it all plays out in the voices and faces of real people – not just names on a page but real, breathing people who give themselves so fully that you can’t help but be moved.

I’m going to start sharing some of my favorites with you on Sunday each week, because this is far too good to keep to myself.

{Phoenix Peeps: We have our own amazing spoken word night  Homebase Poetry Open Mic – 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month at the Wyndham downtown.   I’ll see you there.}

“This is for the hard men, the hard men who want to love but know that it won’t come.
For the ones who are forgotten, the ones the amendments do not stand up for.
For the ones who are told to speak only when you are spoken to and then are never spoken to. 
Speak every time you stand so you do not forget yourself.
Do not let a moment go by that doesn’t remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day and that there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean.
Do not settle for letting these waves settle and the dust to collect in your veins”