September/October 2001

Poetic Justice
by Pollyanne Birge

Recently, members of an informal audience at In Other Words bookstore were bursting at the seams with anticipation for slam poet Alix Olson to grace the stage. Part activist, part poet, part comedian, Alix Olson uses satire and wit to charge the audience and invite them to, above all, laugh. In contrast to one of the worst (and most untrue) stereotypes about feminists, Alix uses humor to educate and motivate.

Olson has been on the slam poetry circuit for several years. She was a member of the 1998 Nuyorican National Championship Poetry Slam Team, the 1999 OutWrite National Poetry Slam Champion, and has been featured in many national publications including The Advocate, Ms. Magazine, The Village Voice, and Girlfriends. She lives in New York and is an instructor at a high school for lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgendered (LBGT) students. When she is not teaching, she is touring the world with her poetry and developing her production company, Feed the Fire Productions. She is currently touring the country with musician Chris Pureka, promoting her newly released CD Built Like That.

Not your run of the mill spoken work performer, Alix bobs and weaves on stage, pointing to people in the audience and giving the occasional wink. You can't help but love her – you feel like you've known her forever. Her casual style, yet graceful movements lend validity to what she is saying, making her words more like an excited conversation rather than a dry feminist lecture.

Olson's ardent brand of poetry leaves the audience with a smirk on their faces and plenty to think about. She addresses the struggles of poverty, consumerism, classism, racism, homophobia, and sexism, all of which she juxtaposes with positive messages, encouraging the listeners to be critical but not pessimistic. I recently caught up with her to chat about her funny bone, among other things.

This issue's theme is satire, and you immediately popped into my head. Your poem "America's on Sale" captures that quality at its best. Can you comment on your use of satire?

I think that sometimes all artists really need to do is reproduce the inner workings of our world. Unfortunately or fortunately, the humor simply comes. Our culture, especially, is so confused, so conflicted within itself, that the satire and ridiculosity is really often already there. With "America's on Sale," for example, I really copied a lot of the sentiment from actual commercials and just stepped it up a notch. It helped ME, and hopefully others as well, pay more attention to how our country is crumbling under the weight of corporate wealth and power. It helped me not let advertisements on the subway, in magazines, in my hotel room, just wash over me. The more we see of it, the more it seems natural, the more we let it slide. That's the capitalist way. It really makes me very angry, and the only way I know how to retaliate effectively, sometimes is to mock it.

I don't think, however, that satire should be the end of anything. It's easy for me to sit in a pool of cynicism, treading water and attempting to be clever. But the other half of exposing problems is changing them. That's the really tough part! That's when I remember how wonderful Urvashi Vaid and NGLTF and people working to change laws and do grassroots battles uphill are.

You address the enormous privilege in heterosexuality and wealth with humor and wit, inviting your audience to laugh at the hilarity and greed of modern society. Who/what are some major influences on your work?

I'm very much intrigued by how power, privilege and entitlement function in our country -- where and when it starts, how it mutates and looms over our heads. It's amazing how much capitalism pits people against each other in the drive for wealth, for beauty, for things to prove that we are important. The lack and loss of connection in our culture I find to be intimately linked to how encouraged we are to strive for everything but that. Really, though, what else matters?

I had the fortune of seeing your perform twice in Portland last spring; something you said between your pieces resonates with me today. You spoke of not letting conservative make you feel stupid for Using P.C. language, or for being an activist. Can you elaborate on that?

The whole concept of laughing at P.C. really irks me. It's just another way to stump us, restrict us. To make us feel stupid and nerdy and question ourselves when we already do that so much already.

Starting off dialogue with respectful language is not the same thing as being a pain in the ass archetype of a stiff-necked humor-free activist, which, by the way, I rarely meet -- I think activists are generally incredibly funny.

I really just don't find jokes about 'P.C.' language new or engaging. If I want to laugh at somebody, I prefer to target the language of the selfish. Of right-wing hypocrites spewing the bizarre things they dredge up from somewhere. Of our Coup-Dictator little Shrub-boy.

Unfortunately, the right wing is very well funded and organized. What are some ways you see feminist, queer, human rights, and/or liberal groups be better organized working together? Do you see any value in separatism?

I suppose separatists are often an internally-defined group of people who need some time together to relax their minds, to feel free in the bodies, and perhaps to explain less than they are normally forced to do in the larger, more variant world. Of course, separatists are always somewhat of an arbitrary group, right? Because no two individual identities within a group are the same, of course. So it's a touch-and-go concept created by an imperfect species called humans craving safety, and safety often means from other humans. I think the most effective strategizing, however, comes from a linking of forces. And not just separate groups reaching out to each other, but rather a criss-crossing of lines inside and outside of individuals. This is why I love spoken word. It feels like it can reach.

The right wing is super organized, primarily because they trample over differences and don't pay attention to anyone who is not on the top of the power triangle. That's easy. What we're trying to do is difficult and painful and involves raw human emotion and an attempt to reclaim life from this cold monolith that has claimed us.

I think we need a third party that struggles the same way all of us struggle. But that is organic and malleable and functional and legitimate.

Pollyanne Birge is a Sociology/Women's Studies Major at PSU. When she is not out being a radical political activist, she rides her bike around town delivering homemade cookies.

reprinted with permission