DesMoines Poetry Slam-Featuring REJJ

Two years ago...or maybe it was a million, feels like...I won the  poetry slam in Des Moines, Iowa. Jon, the local Slam-master told me that if I ever came back I could feature, so when I booked my ticket for Thanksgiving and my time in Iowa happened to coincide with their monthly slam I shot him an email and landed my first feature at a Slam.

What to read? Should I go off page? Did I need an intro? If you've ever written your own biography, you know it is really awkward. How do you brag without bragging? What is important for people to know about you? I still don't have any concrete answers, but it was fun to think about it all. To imagine what it would be like to be on stage again and to have more than 3 minutes to say what I wanted to say. And then the day came. I had hoped my grandmother would be up to coming out, but she didn't feel to good, so my mom and I headed to Java Joes.

I introduced myself to the crowd and performed as the sacrificial poet. Then there was a round of the slam and short break before I got to feature. I had been nervous all day, practicing and unpracticing, and even through my first poem I felt anxious, but when it was time for me to really do it, I felt good...more than that, I felt confident and comfortable. The audience was great. And several people bought my book afterwards. All in all, it was totally awesome...a repeatable occurance to be sure. Here is some video my mom shot. This is called No Love Poem for You:

Leaving

What happens when you get your dream job and suddenly it isn't a dream anymore? I often thought it was a cop out...the way fairy tales would conveniently end with "...and they lived happily ever after." So I went on my pilgrimage, discerned my purpose, then came back to Seattle to do the work I was meant to do, taking youth abroad and teaching them about social justice and how to be in community. And in some ways it was a happily ever after. I was good at my job...I mean really good. And it was amazing to have the opportunity to travel and to work with youth. I even got to do some poetry. But there were aspects of the job that weren't perfect like having to work 12-14 hour days sometimes, missing trips and time with friends because I had to work on the weekend or late at night. And then there is the thing that no one ever talks about...how despite being an organization committed to social justice, there were still injustices in how some of us were treated.

Still, it was my choice to stay. I chose to stay as long as I did because I could see that despite all of our issues, we, as a staff were still doing meaningful work. I stayed because we were making a difference. But then came a day when I could no longer stay, when I finally got that how we do what we do is just as important as what we do. I understood that I could no longer empower young people to do anything while allowing myself to be so dis-empowered and so I left.

I want to say it was triumphant. I want to say it was the right thing to do. But truthfully it was bittersweet. I miss my kids. I miss my coworkers. I miss being a part of this thing, this place, this community that in someways was my whole life for the past two years. But there are other things I don't miss and as each day passes I realize how insidious, how toxic some of those things were. Now the big question is what do I do with what I've learned?

The answer is a bit surprising to me. The answer is that I will work for the union in order to help disenfranchised workers speak up and organize. Most specifically I will be working on the Wallmart Campaign helping the people who are brave enough to join the union to fight against retaliation and to assert their rights to living wages and medical benefits.

Last week we had the first strike in the state of Washington. I went to the Wallmart in Federal Way and met workers from 3 different stores who had walked off the job in order to send a message to their employers that they are serious about their commitment to being treated well. The people had been working for Wallmart between 6-14 years and really love their jobs, but they want what everyone wants: to work for people who respect them, to be paid a living wage, and to be able to get the healthcare coverage they are entitled to.

Why Wallmart? Wallmart is one of (if not the) biggest corporations in the world and if we are able to use the public to shame them into having better corporate practices, then other companies will follow suit. Change Wallmart...change the world. So here I go again...on to my next adventure.

ps. Stay tuned for the first ever Black Friday Strike.