My 5, 2002
PEOPLE
............... ▼...............
lam poet Alix Olson
announced during a
Portland appearance
last year that she was
bom in Bethlehem, and I
Lesbian feminism ushers in a poet
thought, "Just like the other
for the new millennium. Beware,
savior.”
this isn’t y o u r m oth er’s poetry.
It’s not as much of a
stretch as it sounds. Olson,
by L isa B radshaw
.
CS*-
who makes three stops in Ore
gon this month, takes the stig
ma out of modem feminism;
as she belts out her anger at
patriarchy, corporations and
oppression in its zillion-and-
one-fonns, you can literally
see the strength of conviction
welling up in the audience.
Her work has been credit
ed for linking generations of
feminists. After a perfor
mance a few years back for a
National Organization for
Women chapter, its founder
approached her and said, “1
feel like I can die now.” That,
Olson tells me, beaming,
“was the best compliment I
ever got.”
T he 26-year-old New
Yorker (who hails from
•
•
• ’ ,
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania )
•m
/
started slamming just a few
/ .<
years ago at the city’s Nuyor-
ican Poets Café, the
renowned venue where the
art form was bom. She was §
soon on its slam poetry team, § i»
ì* «
helping win the national
A l ix O ls o n
championship in 1998.
s la m * in P o r tla n d
3
Olson followed that up
and Eugene
œ
with her own personal win:
th is m o n th
OutWrite’s 1999 National
Poetry Slam Champion. She
now hits the road regularly to entertain audiences
wood). In the spring of 2001 she released her
in colleges, clubs and festivals the world over.
first CD, Built Like That, which was soon fol
For slam virgins: Begun by Puerto Rican
lowed by the cover of Ms. magazine.
writers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, it’s a
mixture of theater and rhythmic speech with
H i think I really communicate best through
traditional poetic forms; particularly good stam
1 rhythm,” asserts Olson, who’s had a love
mers can captivate a crowd in a way difficult
I affair with theater her entire life. “I started
for conventional poetry readings. Pieces are
acting when I was, like, 7. The poetry was
often focused on social issues such as racism
something 1 did on the side, and 1 always...felt
and the vast American economic divide.
connected to it, but 1 never really understood
that you could perform it.”
Judges of all competitions— big and small— are
randomly chosen from the audience.
So she stuck to theater but had, shall we
say, a few theoretical issues. “I was performing
Olson, the daughter of two political scien
in so many male playwrights’ plays, and I was
tists, is slamming her way to grassroots art leg
just so sick of them,” she exclaims, noting most
end. She’s shared the stage with Alix Dobkin,
of the roles were as the girlfriend/wife. “Oh my
Pete Seeger, Michael Moore and Meryl Streep
God, the girlfriends are always bad!” W hen a
(a commemoration of the death of Karen Silk-
S
The feminist savior
R p
%
W e can meet all of your
mortgage lending needs.
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writer wants a play to “make it and
really be circulated,” she explains,
“then they’re guaranteed to have pretty
bad female parts.”
T hen during her senior year at
Wesleyan University in C onnecticut, she
met poet Donna Kate Rushin (“T h e Bridge
Poem”), who described performance poetry.
Soon Olson had a women’s spoken word
troupe put together “so that I could read my
stuff and test it out and hear what other
women were doing in college.” After gradua
tion, she hit the Nuyorican, and the rest is
riot poet-gnrl feminist history.
ast summer, Olson spent a few days in the
Rose City, along with then-partner Neeve,
who co-wrote and co-performs a few
pieces, and guitarist Chris Pur£ka (“our
unpaid intern”). T he three filled up In Other
Words— women were standing in the back,
spilling out onto Hawthorne Boulevard. It
was practically the lesbian social event of the
season. She received an introduction and
came forward in shiny red pants, studded belt,
hair sticking up all over— then got right to
work: showtime.
“W e’re from New York,” she
begins, relating the story of heading
to perform at the Oregon Country
Fair, “and we thought it would be pigs
and cows.” The audience chuckles,
fully aware of Eugene’s annual hippy-inspired
arts and performance festival. “So we’re like
driving there with the biggest trepidation...I
don’t know where we’re going; it’s a bunch of
farmers sitting around. We were totally ner
vous...we were, like, we should just put on our
dungarees, you know, and like call them that.
Like totally nervous. And we show up and
there’s all these dykes and kids with fairy out
fits on. And we’re like OK, we’re home.”
The audience roars while she jumps into
that trademark slam with the confidence of a
heavyweight fighter in a lightweight ring.
I believe misogyny and patriarchy are clos
et homo lovers
and they screw over their sisters 'cause
they're scared to screw each other
I believe H arriet Tubm an should be on the
dollar bill
We've had our fill o f w hite boy fa ces, tim e
to change places
I believe Hillary, not B ill, should have
worn the crow n
T hey could have learned from Ja c k and
Jill w hich one w ould break it
and fall down
Although familiar with the
material, Portland audiences co n
tinue coming back. Sometimes
L
Mortgage Specialists
(503) 635-0joi www.RoseCItyMtg .COITI
chrismee@rosecitynitg.coni
...I'd d eclare the independence o f
clitoris to shining clitoris
proclaim the em ancipation o f all cunts
and tell dicks this:
You’re being drafted for the big solution
stand erect, be proud
you're part o f the cunt revolution
111 have a specific identity as a feminist les-
I bian,” Olson says. “Therefore, I have a
I very strong audience to tap into.” She’s
probably the only full-time traveling slam poet,
which she ascribes partially to this niche—
there’s always somewhere to stay and always a
supportive audience.
Sh e’s also fully aware of her own
status and abilities. “I have access to
media probably because I’m white
and because I learned how to work
m edia.... I came out of an established class. I
went to college and learned how to work the
system. Most [poets] have full-time jobs that
hinder them. I have a lot of support from my
fam ily...I’ve gotten grants; 1 know how to
write grants because I’ve been privileged.”
Regardless o f class, a lot o f traditional
poets out there refuse to acknowledge slam
ming as poetry. “I love what I do, and I love
the art that it is, and I don’t care what it’s
called because I love it so much that I
would defend it no matter what,” Olson
contends. “S o many art forms are dominat
ed ...b y this understanding o f what art is by
the upper class...ju st because it’s not highfa
lutin to o tin ’ and because people can under
stand it doesn’t mean it’s not good a rt...th e
definition o f art needs to be extended in our
culture. ” j n
A lix O lson appears with Doria Roberts and
Turiya Autry 9 :3 0 p.m . July 10 at Berbati’s Pan,
231 S.W. Ankeny St. Olson and Roberts present
Queer Stock, Queer Soup, a benefit concert for
the Sexual Minority Youth Recreation
Center, 7 p.m . July 16 at 2100 S.E.
Belmont St. The pair can be found
9 p.m . July 12 at Eugene’s C afé Par -
adiso, 115 W. Broadway.
ve have really
really big
gunners
rive the neighbor*
something
Christopher Mee
Rose
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nil
you’ll get a poem you’ve never
heard before, but mostly they want
to hear the same ones— over and
over. Being democratic by nature,
the artist asks for requests. Invari
ably, there are cries for the Olson anthem
“C unt Cuntry.”
I've decided to start Cunt Cuntry
w ith our own Cuntstitution
let our liberated clit bells ring out
the cunts are coming
it's the cunt revolution!
to
really t a i v about.
1 KH. AX X SANI 71 RSO\
CISTUS
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