Celebrating the powerful words of women
Jorah LaFleur delves into the rich history of poetry
with the Celebration of Women Poets at Luna
BY KRISTEN GERHARD
PULSE REPORTER
Jorah LaFieur was a senior at Shel
don High School when she first rec
ognized the power of the spoken
word. At a graduation event, she read
a poem titled "I am an American,"
which dealt with her personal strug
gles to reconcile her white, middle
class background with lessons she
had learned throughout high school
about power dynamics and the na
tion's history.
"It was a really powerful experi
ence," she said. "There were hun
dreds of teachers and students as
sembled from all different grades and
they just explosively loved it I think
that was the first time I really har
nessed the feeling of the energy that
takes over when you're on stage."
Since thattime, LaFieur has slowly
made performance poetry an integral
part of her life. However, she readily
admits that when it comes to the work
of the female poets before her, her
knowledge is limited. The desire to
learn more about this rich history of
women writers was a major factor
behind La Fleur's decision to host a
Celebration of Woman Poets at Luna
next Wednesday.
Overthe past three months, La Fleur
has organized and hosted a number
of similar poetry readings that have
attempted, through a split open mic
and presentation format, to both dis
play the talents of local writers and
honor more famous poets of the past
or present. Thus far, the works of
Pablo Neruda, Jalal al-Din Muham
mad Rumi and the beat poets of the
'40s and '50s have been venerated at
this event.
"It's exciting to give flesh or give
voice to words that, in many cases,
have been written by someone that
has passed on," LaFleursaid.
"They're not existent in their physical
form anymore and yet their words are
still so compelling and so powerful."
Claudia Lapp, a local poet who has
attended all of the Luna readings and
performed at a few, said she enjoys
the idea of an educated poetry public.
It is a fantasy she believes these Luna
events could help make into a reality.
"I always remember that Neruda
was just so popular in his country,"
she said of the 20th century Chilean
poet renowned for his strong political
beliefs. "He was a people's poet; a
real working class guy. He would go
into bars and do poetry readings and
people would stand up and start recit
ing parts of his poems. I suppose it's
kind of idealistic to think we could
have that in the U.S. today, but we can
have pockets of it, can't we?"
To fuel this show, LaFleur hopes to
draw partly on the educated poetry
public already existent in Eugene. For
the event, she will strike the pure
open mic format where people can
read their own work, instead encour
aging anyone with a favorite female
poet to come read a bit of her work
and honor that woman's voice in do
ing so. Through this experience,
LaFleur also hopes participants will
come to recognize the basic human
connection that often forms between
a spoken word poet and their audi
ence. It is one of LaFleur's favorite
parts of reading poetry.
"You may have nevertalked to any
of your listeners before," she said.
"You're complete strangers and yet
you share something very heartfelt,
passionate and raw. So, when some
one comes up to you at the end of the
reading, the doors are already open.
It's like you don't have to go through
all this small talk; you just jump right
into that sharing of a vision or a value
ora sense of humor."
Several reasons fueled LaFleur's de
cision to shift the focus forthis particu
lar reading to women exclusively. One
explanation she gave was her belief
that females are too often excluded or
marginalized in society. It's importantto
La Fleur to bring women to the forefront
in orderto highlight and ensure their
position of equality with men.
"I mean, it's been less than a hun
dred years since we've been able to
vote," she said. "And in our generation,
I think it's really easy to be disconnect
ed with how recent it is that women
and men have been recognized as
equals. Even rf that's notthe reality—
and, of course, it isn't in many cases—
justfor there to be that social acknowl
edgment is still really novel."
Lapp, who will be presenting atthe
event hopes to display a range of fe
male poets from a variety of age
groups, time periods and cultures.
Adrienne Rich, Shihab Nye, Lucille
Clifton and Gertrude Stein are just a
few of the women whose work she in
tends to read.
"It'll be a little sampler," she said.
"And since I've only got 20 minutes, I
want to include some of the ones
who've really knocked my socks off."
To better describe the event, LaFleur
compares this poetry reading to Spike
Lee's films, which often highlight some
of the uglier aspects of racism in our
history in order to show how it still af
fects us today. LaFleur explains it is im
portant to do the same with sexism.
"Of course, change is being made
and it's important to honor and ac
knowledge and continue that," she
said. "But at the same time, to be
like, 'Well, that's in the past. We're
not sexist anymore. We're not racist
anymore,' is bullshit. In order for us
to continue to create greater equali
ty, we have to be cognizant of our
history so we can see its subtle
manifestations in the present."
Sign-ups for The Celebration of
Woman Poets reading will begin
Wednesday at 7 p.m. The public
open mic will begin at8 p.m., andthe
formal reading will begin at9 p.m.
Cover charge will fall on a sliding
scale of $5 to $3. Luna is located at
30 E. Broadway. For more informa
tion, check out the club's Web site at
www.lunajazz.com.
kgerhard@ daily emerald, com
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3 In large public
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