April 07, 2004,
Lansing City Pulse

by Whitney Spotts

Alix Olson: Spoken-word poet and then some

Alix Olson With opening act, local songstress Kate Peterson. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 8 at the Creole Gallery, 1218 Turner St., Lansing. Tickets are $13 and are available at the gallery box office, Elderly Instruments, Archives Book Shop or at the door.

For Alix Olson, poetry is anything but the tepid, mind-numbing verses students are forced to memorize the world over. Poetry is alive and passionate in a way that only fully comes across in its performance. It also can be quite controversial, as the spoken-word artist and political activist has discovered. “But,” in her own words, “sometimes it’s just / Fuck you, Fuck you / You see, and to me / That’s poetry too.”

Thursday evening, April 8, Olson returns to Lansing (she has previously performed at Lansing Ladyfest and at the Common Grounds Coffeehouse on the MSU Campus) with her vitriolic blend of words and theatricality, in a performance at the Creole Gallery.

Olson’s exposure has been widespread, particularly considering that spoken-word artists are rarely given the same kind of attention as standard, more accessible musicians or artists. She is a national poetry slam champion and has appeared on Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam on HBO; she has been featured on the cover of Ms. Magazine and on the Utne Reader’s InRadio compilation; she has been awarded the Visionary Award by the D.C. Rape Crisis Center for the promotion of social justice, previously awarded to esteemed women such as Gloria Steinem and Tori Amos. She has also been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

You may ask, “All this attention for a spoken-word poet?”

Add to this that Olson has earned the respect of many of the nation’s top historical and political commentators — Howard Zinn, author of “The People’s History of the United States,” has said “Alix brought me to my feet. She is an ingenious poet, a brilliant performer, a funny person and a serious thinker. She is, quite simply, extraordinary” — and the question simply becomes “Why haven’t we heard more of her?”

Olson was at the forefront of spoken-word poetry’s current rise in popularity as one of the first full-time touring performers. It was a natural progression for her: “I would say I was a performer even more than I was a word person. I’ve always been doing them simultaneously, but never cohesively.”

A stage actor and poet since youth, she discovered a way to synthesize the two during her years studying at Wesleyan University as a political science major with a minor in women’s studies. When given the opportunity to perform a something she’d written in a playwright class, she realized that she could combine her passions to create something new and powerful.

Once you mix in Olson’s fiery politics, the end product is the energetic and inspiring live performance that has kept her on the road ever since.

Dubbed as supremely controversial, Olson’s political stance can clearly be described as leftist, and is informed by her status as a staunch feminist and lesbian activist. “I feel most vulnerable, “ Olson said in a recent interview from her hotel room in Madison, Wis., “when I’m being honest about my political perspective because I think it’s pretty odd and pretty fringy and pretty idealist, and that can be a pretty scary place to be in a world that condemns having hope and being idealistic.”

At a time when many people embrace the sentiment expressed in Richard Linklater’s seminal film “Slacker,” that “turning away in disgust is not the same thing as apathy,” Olson seems to have an irrepressible energy for her art and politics, which, in her mind, are inseparable.

Touring, she insists, despite its hectic schedule and nearly masochistic physical demands, is what keeps her going. “I feel very lucky because I get to meet people every night who are doing something. I get to hear stories about people coming together to fight some local battle that they know contributes to the national struggle. So if anything, I’m the one who feels like she’s not doing enough because I’m just passing through and leaving and they’re here doing all the work.”

Olson’s work is crucial to many, however, as a source of strength and infectious inspiration. Despite the sometimes rabid criticism she has received, she shows no signs of slowing, determined to bring her message to those who want to hear it. “There’s always the criticism that you’re preaching to the converted,” she said, “which is just so antithetical to what I’m trying to do. I think if you’re preaching to the converted it’s one thing, but if you’re trying to uplift and inspire like-minded activists, that to me is a positive twist on it.”