Students and community members will participate in slam poetry for social justice during F-Word Live at 7 p.m on Nov. 12 at Borah Theater in the Student Union Building.
The poetry performance about equality and human experience is free for students and $5 for community members, faculty
and staff.
“It’s a poetry slam … it’s spoken word slam poetry which is very different from just reading a poem. It’s very emotive, a lot of activisty-type topics in poetry slam,” said Colleen Kulesza, interim program coordinator for the Women’s Center. “So, the suggested topic is feminism which is where the name F-Word comes from, the other f-word
meaning feminism.”
Poets will perform their interpretation of the word feminism, however they envision it, Kulesza said. She said some of the poems will be directly related to feminism and some will be
more tangential.
“So we had people submit work to be accepted as performers. We’ve got about a dozen performers and they get about five minutes on stage to do their poem and we’re not going to do any judging — its just kind of an opportunity,” Kulesza said.
“It was a way to directly engage our students in a medium that is currently very popular and very appealing, I think, to a large majority of college students,” said Lysa Salsbury, director of the
Women’s Center.
Some of the performers have done slam poetry before, however for many of them, F-Word Live will be their first spoken word performance,
Kulesza said.
“I’m hoping that a lot of people who are unfamiliar with slam poetry go because once you see it, it’s addicting. I’ve been watching it and now that I’ve been getting involved in it, I want to try it. But not this year,”
Kulesza said.
Slam poetry can be about anything, but Kulesza said many slam poets focus on feminism. She said it is about violence, body image, childhood, sexuality
and love.
Salsbury said she thinks there is a good mix of students and community members participating in the event.
“It’s just to give a voice to folks,” Salsbury said. “So often feminists are miss characterized or they’re silenced, women are silenced. And we have a lot of men performing, as well, but they identify as feminist. It’s just a way to get the voice out, and another creative outlet that we want to provide people. Some people aren’t familiar with the art form, and it’s a really empowering art form. So it’s a good way for women to get involved and feminists to get involved in speaking up in a creative way. Rather than protesting or writing in a blog, they get to perform on stage and
be vocal.”
F-Word Live was originally produced by a student feminist group called FLAME in 2006. The event was called Take Back the Mic and it raised awareness of the patriarchal culture in music, Salsbury said.
Several years later, the Feminist Alliance took over the event and called it The Slam for Social Justice. Last year, the Women’s Center held the event and renamed it F-Word Live for their 40th anniversary event and it was very successful,
Salsbury said.
“So we decided to make it a permanent annual event,” Salsbury said. “So that’s why we’re holding it again this year. I’m hoping it will become one of our signature events, you know, like ‘Take Back the Night’ or ‘The Vagina Monologues,'”
Salsbury said.