April 2004
Premiere Generation Ink

by Miriam Hall

alix olson: interview
Four questions for you

Alix olson is a hot, surefire performance poet for the new millennium. She is often compared to folk songster ani difranco, but the similarities end at the timbre of their vocal chords. Alix is her own beast, built like that and full of subtle sister energy. She maintains a careful balance of humor and outrage: "The idea of ëthe angry activistí has got to be a farce, intended to keep us from doing our work, because I donít know any of those."

She emerged from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe slam competitions not only producing and distributing poetry, but managing to make it political, clear, and digestible in a non-reduced way for the public and adoring queer followers alike. She is renowned for new classic feminist anthems, spanning from historical feminist figures (see "Dorothea Tanning" in this issue) to "armpit hair."

Make sure you also hear her live. (In the meantime, listen to some samples at our website: www.pgink.com, or at www.alixolson.com.) Alix performs over 220 shows a year, "at clubs, colleges, festivals, conferences, and-if dared-in grocery store aisles," where most of us have either heard her, or seen the fliers and wondered how poetry could ever go on tour most of the livelong year.

Alix states on her website that her mission is "to speak honestly against the forces that keep us from each other in this world." I would only add that she removes the forces that also keep us from ourselves.

You are printing your work in our journal in the written form, but you have (at least in the last five years) been primarily a spoken word artist. Do poems come to you in spoken form or in written form?

Poetry sidles up to me in spoken form and then I scoop it up and write it down.



"Dorothea Tanning" seems to take some of the focus off the overtly political and shift the focus back onto how the "personal is the political." How did this piece come together for you?

I was perched on the hood of my car at the Newark airport on September 11, 2001, moments after my 9 a.m. flight was cancelled. With no access to my closest friends, I watched New York City burn from across the river. In the days that followed, I burrowed my helplessness and fear in a political comprehension of the attacks. I watched as a media gag-fed patriotic jingoism worked to replace natural human altruism, and "Dorothea Tanning" is a result of this artistís observation.



How/why do you feel that poetry and spoken word are such good formats for expressing dissention from oppression and advocacy for personal and human rights?

The folk poetry genre is a grassroots medium, insofar as it depends upon the human-to-human community connection of poet and audience. In this way, spoken word artists are largely unencumbered by the conservative corporate media monolith, and are free to speak the truth of their experiences. Subtle Sisterís logo is "wielding words" and during these warnacular times, I think the voice is the best mass weapon of choice.



PGI is a grassroots group of writers and artists, much like Subtle Sister and Feed the Fire-groups of our generation who come together to make art and support each otherís work. How did you work to build up both groups, and what struggles have you encountered while doing so?

Both Feed the Fire (my former company) and Subtle Sister (my current company) stemmed from friendships within my personal community, and were consciously built to generate and sustain the grassroots feminist politics of that family. My personal is political, with dedicated, close friends as indie booking agent, publicist, tour manager, documentarian, producers, touring and recording musicians, and that fuels both great love and guaranteed conflict. On the whole, though, I sleep better knowing my artistic workweb is on my side.