I Want to Read About Women

For what it’s worth, the hardest part about filming this was deciding which of my many women themed sweatshirts to wear.

“I want to read about women that showed up, that took up space. Women that believed they were worth the space. I am worth the space.”

For what it’s worth, the hardest part about filming this was deciding which of my many women themed sweatshirts to wear. I like the choice I made.

Let it be known that I originally considered letting this post be nothing more than a landing pad for this video. I wrote maybe five sentences introducing you to it and proclaiming “this is what I wanted to do this week - so here you go.” But, as you might have guessed, and will surely come to know, brevity is not my strength. Less than three hours away from this video going live I decided to tell you more - because I had more to say.

So here is more. More to the story; more on the origin of why this video is important to me. However, this is not the origin of the content - no, my friends, that is for another day in itself. This is an origin story of the delivery method.

I can’t even begin to place a timestamp on when poetry imprinted on my soul. I was raised on the radio, Shel Silverstein, fairytales, bedtime stories, Bible verses, and Sesame Street sing-a-longs. The rhythm and rhyme of language is something I naturally think in. Words strung together so purposefully that you can’t help but to feel every single one - and if you’re lucky, you see them.

What I love the most about poetry is that it comes with specific rules and then shows you how to freely break them. Poetry can show up in a polished love story, a silly sonnet, in perfect iambic pentameter, syllable counts that make it questionable to whether or not they get to call themselves a haiku (all depending on the accent of the reader), or in prose. Prose - the very category of poetry that screams, “If you want to call it a poem - call it one! No rules here!” - I like prose for this declaration that it makes.

Poetry is what I turn to when my heart is bleeding out, when my brain is overwhelmed, and when my body feels out of place. I have a very distinct memory of going into what can only be described as intoxicated by sadness, where I purchased four poetry books within 5 minutes because they were the medicine I needed. But poetry is also where I go for a laugh, a smile, where I go to feel inspired, and to be seen. Poetry is a cornerstone on which I build my foundation of existence and I hope to forever be both lost and found within it.

Though I may not be able to trace back the day when poetry changed my life, I can tell you when Spoken Word boosted it’s power. It was February 2008, my English class was working its way through our poetry section when our teacher introduced us to Poetry Out Loud. For those of you that do not know, and to put it simply, the nature of Poetry Out Loud is to - and get this - read poetry, out loud. More than that, it is this organization that hosts spoken word poetry competitions for students to compete in by performing the works of other poets - and in some cases, original pieces. I was one of the only people in my grade asked to perform in our school’s competition - and I was the youngest to do so. My piece was titled, “Playing Dead” by Andrew Hudgins. To this day, I can recite nearly every word based on memory alone. I remember being so excited to recite the poem - excited enough to tell my mother she was not allowed to look at me when I did. Reciting was important for me, by the world changing part - was listening. Magic happened when I heard my competitors stand up and give monologues that I would have sworn were their own words. All grace, love, and adoration to Maya Angelou - but on that day you wouldn’t have been able to convince me that “Phenomenal Woman” wasn’t penned by a ninth grader named Arica. She lived and breathed those words. Every inflection was her own. Every pause made with intention. I heard her power. I felt her conviction. We all did.

It was there - there that spoken word poetry shifted so much of who I wanted to be. There is this indescribable beauty in hearing poetry by the people that composed it, by the people that feel it, and by the people that echo those words to be their own truths. The inflection of each word in one reading and how it changes to the next has the ability to shift the mood and the meaning to a magnitude in a way that is soul shaking.

I will forever be grateful for that opportunity to stand on that stage and spit out rhymes about stinky feet and peeling back eyelids. I believe it led to me finding a piece of my soul, it put me on a national stage (Shout Out Beta Club 2012), it helped me find kindred spirts, and it lined my closet with words I wear as mantras.

What you will find below is one of my own pieces of Spoken Word poetry. The original recording of this piece was created July 3, 2021 on a car ride home, in a voice memo. The very definition of me at my most honest. Some revisions were made after hearing it back, some planned, and others simply caught on film. Each time I say the words out loud and every time I listen to them play back to me I find new lines that hit my heart - that make me proud - that honestly, make me tear up a little bit. That’s what I want to write. I want to write words that make me cry. Why, because I believe that is powerful.

I hope you choose to take the time you will spend mindlessly scrolling through TikTok anyway to listen to this video. As you listen, I challenge you to find yourself, your friends, your family, your heroines somewhere within these words. I believe you’re (they’re) there. That was the very intention.

Challenge:
Dear Women and Girls:

I challenge you to find one sentence, at the least one word, that describes you within this piece. It was created for the very purpose that you could find yourself within it.

If those words are broken and bitchy, let them be.

If the sentence is, [a woman] who prayed relentlessly, let it be.

Whatever the description you find today, let it be. And if the words change for you tomorrow, let them.

Whatever day it is, know I believe you are in here and I want to read about you.

Let me read your stories by telling me where you find yourself today by declaring who you are in the comments below.