Poetry Slam
Champions. Social Activists. Women. What do you get when you mix these
ingredients? A delicious evening of prose, commentary, comedy and confessional pieces like
none other.
Sonya Renee Taylor is well known for her
piece. “The body is not an apology!” she
speaks passionately, “ Discrimination, social inequality and injustice are
manifestations of our inability to make peace with the body... When women
speak, we erase the political narrative and remind people that we are mothers,
students, lawyers and teens.”
I am empowered and invigorated as her poetry
pours out. Deep rooted feelings of my
own as a woman are made evisceratingly evident.
And this is only a YouTube video.
I can’t wait for the in person version.
Artist Denise Jolly
has championed the “Be Beautiful” project celebrating the journey to live unapologetically in her own skin.
“Denise does not try to preach to us, impress us or command us. Her work is
infinitely more valuable because it offers us that rarest of sustaining forces:
honesty. Unlike so many poets, she does not imply that she is fearless – only
that she is moving, courageously, against those fears. That is how she inspires
us to do the same in our own lives” (Ryler Dustin, Write Bloody Author). Honesty mixed with humility and hubris help me
identify with Denise as I study her “Be Beautiful” project. She has courageously stripped away pride both
literally and figuratively to produce a body of work that takes me on a mental
journey of introspection. Do I have
courage like that? If I could learn just
a small piece of what these women have learned about self-respecting
confidence, I would not only be a better woman but a better human.
Friday April 3rd
at Mesa Arts Center. Get your tickets here!
By LaDawn Lingard
