Tag Archives: Poetry

17 Queer Spoken Word Artists That Will Leave You Speechless

Slam poetry is a form of spoken word poetry that includes the reciting or reading of an original poem that can be also combined with acting, choreography, and other forms of performance.

The main characteristic of slam poems is to perform them, to focus on certain points with a specific choice of tone or volume in the voice, actions of the body, or facial expressions. The purpose of slam poems is usually to evoke intense feelings, to raise awareness about an issue, provoke, and deeply move people to think, feel, and react. Usually, slam poetry is political, used as a tool of expression against some form of sociopolitical oppression or injustice.

There is no set form, rules, or structure in slam poetry. One of its point is to challenge authority of any kind, and thus literary and academic authority as well. The true judge in slam contests is the audience. According to Bob Holman, a poetry activist and slam poet of the Nuyorican Poets Café, called the movement “the democratization of verse”. In 2005, he said:

The spoken word revolution is led a lot by women and by poets of color. It gives a depth to the nation’s dialogue that you don’t hear on the floor of Congress. I want a floor of Congress to look more like a National Poetry Slam. That would make me happy.”

Slam poetry is often associated with hip-hop and dub poetry and usually takes place in the form of a competition where performers are judged by a panel or by audience response. It was influenced by the free verse style of Beat poets, like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The first poetry slam is thought to have started by American poet Marc Smith, at the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago, in November 1984.

It moved to the Green Mill Jazz Club in 1986 and in 1988 the first slam poetry took place in New York City’s Nuyorican Poet’s Café, hosted by Bob Holman. In 1990 the first National Poetry Slam in the US took place in San Francisco, making slam poetry gain ground really quickly, especially in America, where young poets wanted to democratize and diversify poetry, against the strict academic standards.

Slam poetry has often been used to express the feelings and experiences of LGBTQIA+ people, producing intense, moving samples of excellent work.

Here is a list of my favourite slam poems. Don’t limit yourself to reading the descriptions. If you haven’t seen them already, please do; they might change your life, and my words do them no justice.


Listen – Nathalie Tyler

About the gender- binary, stereotypes, and gender essentialism, expectations society has from you, whether you are deemed as deserving of love based on how you conform to them.


Xander Pander – 41 – spoken word

The way a trans person experiences things such as the threat of suicide, being refused proper medical care, homelessness, rejection, these numbers and statistics, while still being told they’re too dramatic.


Lee Mokobe: A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender

What it feels like to be transgender, to try to be understood and seen as a person instead of a threat or a bunch of fears, to see your body as your home that needs to be welcoming and comfortable instead of doomed by other people as a mausoleum.


Denice Frohman: Dear Straight People

A letter to straight people, straight allies, straight bullies, and queer girls, speaking about the discrimination a queer person faces, and about having to prove queer love and defending your identity.


Savannah Brown – Hi, I’m a Slut!

On the sexualization – but not acceptance of the sexuality of – women, their fetishization and objectification by society, the double standards imposed upon them, the reduction to their bodies which are policed, harassed and subjected to male pleasure. Intensely powerful words in favour of bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and against rape culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6CCePrJlaU&t=48s


Izzy Inkpen – Hi, I’m a virgin

Reply to the “Hi, I’m a Slut!” video, adding some important points. Focuses further on “woman equals sexualized but not sexuality” in society’s eyes, refers to misconceptions about virginity, and other oppressive expectations society sets on women.


Brenna Twohy – Fantastic Breasts and Where to Find Them

Talks about pornography, the dehumanizing, abusive ways in which women are often depicted in it, stripped of their autonomy, their right to pleasure and personhood. Uses fanfiction to show why women prefer stories and depictions that include them in non-fetishized representations, letting them be more than a man’s sex object, and part of a bigger story.


Joy Young – The Queer Hokey-Pokey

Talks about the queer haircut and the invisibility of femme people before getting it, the notion that they’re not “gay enough” to belong if they don’t look or act a certain way, the exclusion within the community.


Twoey Gray – A Series Of Queer Love Notes

Addresses problematic standards for gayness from within the community, how harmful and wrong it is to equate sexuality with body parts, gay guys and how they can hold misogynistic or racist views, allies that make it all about themselves, about media representation and the community that settles with bullshit, because we are desperate to be recognized, represented and accepted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOudHtyjAhg


Dia Davina – In Between

About being non-binary and the ways that you need to be loved while finding your place through experimentation, standards about gender, fighting for inclusion and acceptance of every piece of who you really are.


Abbie Wells – I’m a Myth|An Asexuality Poem

A poem exploring all the myths and misconceptions about being asexual, a story of discovering that you are asexual and realizing that you don’t have to meet with all the expectations set by society for sexual people.


Realisticallysaying – X Marks the Spot

A poem on realizing you might be neither a girl, nor a boy. About being non-binary, the social dysphoria of being misgendered, the different ways of experiencing gender dysphoria (or of not experiencing it at all), of realizing that maybe you’re not broken after all.


Darius Simpson & Scout Bostley – Lost Voices

A poem about mansplaining and whitesplaining, recited by a black man and a white woman both of whom speak over each other, for the other person’s problems. Addresses the issue of people speaking over others, of different intersections that are not parts of their identities and of things we haven’t all experienced, but also of realizing that we have all been through different things the need to speak up for others’ needs after realizing your privilege, so that no one is left without a voice .


Keith Jarrett – A Gay Poem

A poem about the discrimination, problematic reactions, and threats that gay people have to face, answering in a unique, sarcastic way, to the question “have you ever written a gay poem?”


Chrysanthemum Tran – Maybe All Transgender People are Really Vampires

A powerful poem about the uncertainty, stereotypes and fears that trans people have to face every day, against the hateful, dehumanizing rhetoric and behaviours directed to them, a cry of desperation that reminds us that trans people are people often stripped by their humanity, and they need to live with dignity and without fear.


Ash Hardel – We get it, you’re gay

A poem about how people might tell you that you’re too loud about being gay, that you make a big deal out of it, when in reality it’s society that forces you to face your identity all the time, to apologize about it, to protect it, to be harassed about it, invisible in a heteronormative context, faced with the privilege straight people don’t realize they have every day.


Melanie Murphy – FEMME|a spoken word film about my bisexuality

Speaks about femme bisexual women who are ostracized by both straight and gay communities, stripped either of their queer identities, or of the expression and appearance that makes them feel more like themselves. Femme bi women are read as queer by straight people only for the sake of fetishization, threatened to be force-turned to straight by men, invisible in the activist world, deemed as confused or going through a phase, alienated and at the same time told they’re privileged.

Sext-Worthy Ancient Greek Poetry

Once upon a time on a Greek island far, far away, a lesbian poet named Sapphos entertained beautiful women and wrote them love poetry.

That island, Lesbos, is where the word lesbian comes from. Yes, this poet was so amazing that she coined the term for women who love women.

Next time you’re in one of these situations, sext Sapphos’ poetry to your lover and watch them melt at your feet.


When you know that you and your girlfriend are #RelationshipGoals:

You may forget but
let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us


When you finally have a one-night stand with your crush:

All the while,
believe me,
I prayed our night would last twice as long


When a girl is hitting on you:

Mere air, these words, but delicious to hear.


When you see your crush for the first time:

And she outshines the Ladies of Lydia
as the rose-fingered moon at sunset
surpassing all the stars


When you want to call your ex but have nothing to say:

What cannot be said will be wept.


When sex with your crush isn’t as great as you imagined:

You came, I yearned for you,
and you cooled my senses that burned with desire


When your girlfriend says, “It’s over.”

I just really want to die
She, crying many tears, left me


When you’re tipsy but want to blame your tipsiness on love:

Once again Love, that loosener of limbs,
bittersweet and inescapable, crawling thing,
seizes me.


When you know she’s a player:

No honey for me
if it comes with a bee


When you thought your ex-girlfriend changed, but you were wrong:

Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.


When she gives you four orgasms in a row:

I will let my body flow like water over the gentle cushions.


When you don’t have money but you still have love:

From all the offspring of the earth and heaven
love
is the most precious.


When your mind’s telling you no, but your body is telling you yes:

I do not know what to do –
My mind’s in two.


When you need your love to stand and face you and scatter the grace in her eyes:

Stand and face me, my love, and scatter the grace in your eyes.

4 Young Powerful Queer Poets You Should Know

Spoken word is the magical love child of theater and poetry. For decades, queer people have used it as an outlet for expressing their identities. Here are the smoothest LGBT wordsmiths currently taking the stage.


Joy Young

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Joy Young is a radical, nonbinary, transgressive spoken word poet based in Phoenix, Arizona – probably the only one in that state. Joy believes that personal narratives are the driving force for social change. Outside of poetry, their interests include juggling fire, juggling things that aren’t on fire, postmodern theory and being a circus poet.

Poem to Check Out: “Unbuttoning My Boy Shirt”

(Joy Young – “Unbuttoning My Boy Shirt” (NPS 2014)

Best lines: “My life has felt like I’m doing the Hokey Pokey / while everyone else just dances to the tune / of what it means to be a man or a woman.”


Janani Balasubramanian

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Janani Balasubramanian is a South Asian spoken word poet, a performance artist and a destroyer of colonialism. When they’re not writing about empire and ancestry, they’re working on a science fiction novel called H. They perform solo and in the group Dark Matter.

Poem to Check Out: A Love Story Janani Balasubramanian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj9hlFiWhqE&feature=youtu.be

Best lines: “This is the way of things / Sometimes I panic when I look at sunsets / Like I loved the sky so much, I tore it open, and it bled / This is the way of things.”


Kai Davis

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Kai Davis is a queer woman of color and a spoken word powerhouse based in Philadelphia. She’s won multiple international grand slam poetry competitions, and currently tours the country performing. Her work focuses on race, gender, sexuality and how all three identities come together. She’s written on everything from the birth of racism to the death of Meek Mill.

Poem to Check Out: I Look Like || Spoken Word by Kai Davis

Best lines: “You look at me like I’m not supposed to be standing here next to you / Like we’re in the same class but your idea of advanced is too advanced and my mind can’t match you / I think it’s my vernacular / How I got half the consonants and twice the apostrophes so my philosophy can’t be valid.”


Anis Gisele

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Anis Gisele is always writing. She placed in the Women of the World Poetry Slam, National Poetry Slam, and Individual Poetry Slam, and won Capturing Fire, a global queer poetry competition. She published a full-length poetry book in 2013.

Poem to Check Out: Focus: Seattle Poets – Anis Gisele

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM3W27kHZlA

Best line: “I sit with my body sometimes / and say, ‘Help is coming. You’re doing great.'”

US Inaugural Poet, Richard Bianco, Writes Tribute to Same-Sex Marriage – #MarriageEquality

The US inaugural poet, Richard Bianco, has written a tribute to same-sex marriage.

Bianco became the first out inaugural poet when he read at Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2012.

His new poem ‘Until We Could’has been penned for Freedom To Marry, to celebrate a decade since Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Blanco said

“It seemed like the perfect fit immediately. It was a cause I believed in and wanted to be part of.

As the first openly gay inaugural poet, it felt very inspirational. Love is love, marriage is marriage. In both cases they come with the good and bad, the great and dysfunctional.

 I wanted the poem to convey that in a way that even straight couples could relate to. I took moments based on personal experience, so I’m retracing the love I have for my own partner, and my own sense of marriage.”

Richard Bianco

The poem, released today, was brought to life in a video by House of Cards star Robin Wright, and X-Men actor Ben Foster. Watch below…