By Sean Tubo
As I settled in my seat for the “Celebrating Women Through Poetry” event on March 14, I started scanning the room, looking for people I recognized in this room full of likely artists and activists. The four guests on stage are presented by Writers From the Edge, the second annual series of discussion and readings by local poets and authors.
In company like this, it’s easy to convince yourself that the issues which inform a women’s poetry reading aren’t so real. In the raw creative space of California State University, Monterey Bay’s (CSUMB) World Theater, racism, sexism and systemic inequality are all merely interesting hypotheticals – thorny ideas to be analyzed and solved by clever academics.
The event is hosted by alumni and poet Alie Jones, with three fellow poets invited on stage to share their work. All women of color, all poets laureate, all brilliant artists in different stages of their evolutions.
Mahi Shah, inaugural youth poet laureate of Monterey, whose body of work at such a young age can’t help but spark a tinge of jealousy. Rachelle Escamilla, newly appointed poet laureate of Monterey, whose fire and brilliance makes every word a call to arms. The next speaker is inaugural Poet Laureate of Oakland, Ayodele Nzinga, a multi-hyphenated artist and creator. Sitting in the dark, I allow myself to believe that this is the norm. The World Theater at CSUMB becomes a spaceship, a submarine. A vacuum chamber where injustice has been pushed out to make a bubble of purely poetic reality.
The sheer force of their words quickly shatters this illusion and fills that vacuum with an even deeper understanding of the kind of forces which makes their presence so important. A senior at Notre Dame High School, Shah is still so young she can easily chart the course of her poetic journey. We were treated to some of her earliest work, vibrant poetry still marked and elevated by the experience of youth.
Next is Professor Escamilla. She reads three excerpts from her most recent book “Space Junk From the Heavenly Palace,” inspired by a real satellite which she saw fall just off the coast of Monterey, woven together with her experience as a woman of color in America. Afterwards she has to remind the audience to applaud. It’s not that we didn’t like it, we just need to be reminded that we were still here on Earth.
After Nzinga’s reading, we don’t need to be reminded. We’re treated to an unpublished work of hers, simply titled “Cotton.” Nothing about the poem is simple. The experience of hearing her poetry is less transportation and more like being shoved back into an astronaut training seat going half the speed of sound.
The panel conversation is equally interesting, each guest sharing valuable perspectives on the process and purpose of writing poetry. As poets laureate, they all have a unique perspective rarely granted to artists. One of the duties and joys of being a poet laureate, they say, is having the opportunity to bring poetry to communities which “don’t realize they love poetry yet.”
Nzinga points out the unique experience of “reading poetry to people you wouldn’t have coffee with.” I found myself particularly inspired by their thoughts on the “why” of poetry. Escamilla’s thoughts, which are suspiciously similar to a lecture she gave in class the night before, are that poets and artists represent a necessary part of any revolutionary movement. Just as cooks and soldiers have their role, so do artists.
It’s a view of art entirely at odds with the capitalist view of art either as a commodity or useless hobby. It’s particularly inspiring to the rising young generation of writers in the crowd who may have trouble placing themselves in a world which values career above everything.
As the lights came back on, I left the event with a little more fire than I had before, a little more belief in the inherent power of writing and social justice. I left with some interesting quotes as well – ideas which I could easily see myself bringing up in conversation later. But most importantly I left needing to write. There is something bubbling in my chest now, brought to a simmer by the power of what I just saw. I can sense it in the people around me too, all of us are subtly humming with creative energy. They have struck a tuning fork and now we’re all resonating at the same frequency. If you can go to an event like that and not be inspired, there aren’t enough muses in the world to help you.