Olson's poetry explodes issues of sexual identity

by David Keeling

To open the series of celebrations for this year's Coming-Out Week, moqa sponsored a poetry slam reading in the Gamut Room on Monday, October 11. Alice Olson, an accomplished slam poet hailing from New York City, performed several pieces before a small but enthusiastic crowd, touching on and exploding issues ranging from popular conceptions of beauty to sexual liberation to the capitalist economy.

Not surprisingly, all of Olson's slam work is suffused with highly political tones and an unabashed agenda. Generally speaking, attempts at mixing art and politics turn out badly; at their worst, they can become cliche-ridden pieces of not memorable and unsubtle propaganda.

Thankfully, however, Olson avoided such an outcome with genuinely unique language play and a forthright approach to her material.

Olson opened up the night in an appropriately straightforward manner. Through the repetition of the phrase "I believe in...," she established her views on sexuality, patriarchy and numerous other personal and political issues, noting, for example, "I believe Barbie should be used in Anatomy class as a perfect bag of bones. And then used in genetics, as an argument against clones." Olson's reading style was always upbeat and vigorous, her voice certain and strong.

The poetry moved into even more explicitly feminist realms with a piece about what, as Olson began, "I'll teach my daughter." Olson went on to list what she will encourage her daughter towards, including an honest and unfettered approach to sexuality; as she put it, "this vagina will be known." The poem drew laughs in several places, such as when Olson described a "Never-never land where Peter Pan's gay and Wendy's okay with it." She turned to more serious matters, however, with the ending of the poem, in which she noted, "It's funny how we hide behind these daughters," and, in the concluding lines of the poem, remarked, "I will mother myself into my own grown daughter, and I will call myself a home-grown woman."

Olson's use of slang and pop cultural references in her work became especially clear in a poem which she described as being inspired by "watching late-night cable." In the work, she utilized the phrase "attention shoppers" as an organizing principle, saying, for instance, "attention nation: America's on sale." Much of the poem, for that matter, dealt with capitalism and the influence of cash on American government and life, as Olson described "the full blue-light blow-out of the whole U.S.A.," and, in the fast voice of "small print," noted that "restrictions may apply if you are black, gay, or a woman."

The tone of the work swerved slightly with the more complex poem about "Daddy." In the piece, Olson mused on how all Americans "grow up with the same deadbeat daddy," and how, more personally, "my daddy sang me to sleep with the way things should be." The complicated impulses of the poem led it into regions of highly texturized emotional content as Olson juggled her varied reactions to, perspectives on, and feelings for her father.

Olson returned to more familiar themes, though, with a poem that she said was written out of frustration for the sexual education system, in which she teaches part-time.

The poem takes as its premise the establishment of "c*nt country," and in it Olson describes its theoretical founding principles. She declares at the end of the poem, "We are starting c*nt country for that which it'll stand: one nation, under survival," thus maintaining that an acceptance of the woman and her body (and, moreover, a woman's own pride in her body and self) is paramount to her ability to live in the world.

Other poems turned to similar themes, addressing the importance of the body ("skin is where this revolution will begin"), lesbian and feminist pride ("these thighs are soldiers"), and the issues surrounding "coming-out." Of these, Olson's self-described "coming-out" poem was especially strong.

In it, Olson confronted a parent's surprise at her daughter's coming-out; the parent reveals a prominent stereotype in saying, presumably about other lesbians, "they wear combat-boots and you were always a sneaker girl." Olson cleverly blasts this stereotype, however, with her declaration, "four years ago today, I still don't say, 'Mom, when we make love, we do it with our shoes off.'"

At the end of the evening, Olson performed a final poem that, given the preceding work, seemed necessary and responsible. Essentially a poem about preaching to the choir, it addressed the important point that "separate's not the cure" and encouraged the audience to "wake up, shake something up."

Near the end, Olson admitted, "even writing this stuff isn't enough." Whatever the case, Olson ended both the poem and the evening in a manner consistent with her beginning and, for that matter, her performance as a whole, declaring how she will "smile as we huff and we puff and we blow this sh*t down."