Essays

Discussing Literature Using Mind of My Mind and World War Z (2024)

I.      Storytelling Element One: Narrative Structure

a.  Definition

         As Kendall Dunkelberg writes, “A story…is a selection of events related to the narrative that reaches some kind of conclusion” (Dunkelberg 93). A pattern within the narrative structure is required to ensure the stability of the story itself. If plotlines are going all over the place, a reader is likely to become confused and put down the story. Following a traditional narrative structure with an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution helps to establish a familiar pattern for readers and allows the writer to share what it is they’ve set out to describe in their work. Each event chosen for a novel should matter to at least one aspect of the story, such as developing characters or furthering the plot. An experienced writer knows how to lace those two purposes together to create effective, memorable scenes.

b.  Example and Author’s Choices

         Octavia E. Butler’s novel Mind of My Mind follows the story of how a group of telepaths became the rulers of the world, all starting with a young woman with a rough past by the name of Mary. Just like her namesake from the Christian Bible, she (metaphorically) gives birth to the Pattern and creates the only way for telepaths in Butler’s world to live together without accidently killing each other (Butler 102). The initial conflict of the novel begins with the creation of this Pattern, where Mary accidentally attaches herself to several powerful telepaths and subconsciously sends them a summons they can’t ignore (Butler 74). An interesting aspect of this initial conflict is that the reader experiences what it’s like for each character during the Pattern’s creation as that character, almost like Mary’s tapping into their minds during the process, which is proven later to be possible for her to do. Rather than meeting each of the other telepaths after the creation of the Pattern, the reader gets the chance to experience a day in the life of each right before the Pattern’s creation, along with their reactions to the Pattern. In true Butler fashion, the reader is forced to see each character as an individual, not just a plot point for the protagonist to bounce off of to the next plot point. The reader sympathizes with these telepaths who were just living their lives before being pulled into something much larger than themselves. This sympathy makes it that much more emotional later when the group formally meets at Mary’s home and begins bickering and fighting amongst themselves and Mary (Butler 138). This is effective as it sets up characters in opposition to each other as well as the worldbuilding of those with extra abilities like Doro, the antagonist, and his telepaths.

         The crisis comes when Doro, Mary’s father and master, tells her to stop doing what’s come naturally to her since creating the Pattern. For context, she’s been intentionally pulling telepaths who otherwise couldn’t effectively access their abilities to her. The two argue over this, with Mary stating that these people deserve a chance to live happily, while Doro accuses her of using these people to “feed” herself (Butler 213). This accusation sets Mary down the path toward an internal conflict that’s later resolved alongside the resolution of the main plot. True to Mary’s opposing natures, she stops bringing more people into the Pattern with Doro strong-arming her, but almost as soon as he’s gone and she’s spoken with her original group of telepaths (who have all become leaders in their growing community), she begins sending out summons again because she’s getting sick from going against her nature (Butler 223). Butler uses her physical sickness to emphasize the dangers of going against one’s own nature. This is effective, as most readers are going to be able to lace together the mental with the physical, especially within a story that laces together the mind and body so often.

This all comes to a head when Doro learns that Mary’s disobeyed him and the two battle it out for the final time in the place the story began: inside their minds. Mary ultimately wins and consumes Doro’s mind after pulling him into the Pattern and trapping him (Butler 234). This is an interesting scene for characterization as well as crisis. Mary savors the feeling of being more powerful than Doro, and she slowly consumes him once she has him trapped, finding euphoria in winning. Doro experiences fear of death for the first time in his long, immortal life, something Butler writes with horrific beauty:

“He panicked. He was a member of the Pattern. A Patternist. Property. Mary’s property. He strained against the seemingly fragile thread. It stretched easily. Then he realized that he was straining against himself. The thread was part of him. A mental limb. A limb that he could find no way to sever…[Mary] consumed him slowly, drinking in his terror and his life, drawing out her own pleasure, and laughing through his soundless screams” (Butler 234-235).

Butler keeps Doro’s character fresh, a struggle when the previous novel in the series had him in it and he’s immortal. He develops just like everyone else in the novel, showing readers that Doro’s still learning and experiencing life even as he carries the hard exoskeleton of all-knowing godhood. His fear just seconds from dying is proof that even he can experience new emotions and events even if he doesn’t believe it himself. Creating a sympathetic antagonist is an effective way to hook readers and keep them interested in the outcomes of crises and conflicts even if they don’t go exactly as a protagonist had planned.

         While the true resolution and epilogue is less than a page long, Butler does a great job at not making the resolution feel abrupt. If anything, it feels like a resolution has been coming since before the crisis occurred. Mary has been building her community for the last third of the novel, and while Doro has been letting her, it feels like this community building is the resolution to the crisis that was Mary asserting herself as leader of the original group of telepaths she brought into the Pattern. Each character from the original Pattern has grown and developed, using their personal strengths for the betterment of the community, while Mary works to bring others in (Butler 197). The final fight between Mary and Doro is just the last step in the resolution, circling the novel back into a crisis before offering a brief resolution to lead into the last two books of the series. The complexity of the narrative is more reminiscent of real life with its smaller crises and resolutions sprinkled throughout. This is what makes Butler’s work so memorable and distinctive even as its focus is on telepaths and immortals fighting each other for control over others’ minds.

II.      Storytelling Element Two: Point of View

a.  Definition

         A first-person perspective is used to connect a reader more completely with the story in the voice of one of the characters. The type of first-person perspective that Max Brooks uses in World War Z is called a reflective first-person narrator, where “[t]he narrator tells the story after the events of the story have taken place” (Dunkelberg 82). In Brooks’s novel, the “Zombie War” has been complete for twelve years, placing all the perspectives as talking about their past during this war (Brooks 2). The reflective perspective allows the writer to show characters’ histories as well as futures and how their past has affected them when that past is more important than their futures to the story the author is trying to tell.

b.  Example and Author’s Choices

         The contemporary novel, World War Z by Max Brooks, employs a first-person point of view with a journalist’s style. The journalist, a persona of Max Brooks, opens the novel with his reasons for making this collection of interviews from those that lived during the “Zombie War.” He tells the reader the following: “This is their book, not mine, and I have tried to maintain as invisible a presence as possible…I have attempted to reserve judgement, or commentary of any kind, and if there is a human factor that should be removed, let it be my own” (Brooks 3). While the narrator does end up asking questions in a couple of later interviews, their only real appearance is in the history of everyone he’s speaking with and the place he’s meeting them at. For example, at one point the narrator visits someone in the Amazon and introduces him this way:

“I arrived blindfolded, so as not to reveal my ‘hosts’ location. Outsiders call them the Yanomami, ‘The Fierce People,’ and it is unknown whether this supposedly warlike nature or the fact that their new village hangs suspended from the tallest trees was what allowed them to weather the crisis as well, if not better, than even the most industrialized nation. It is not clear whether Fernando Oliveira, the emaciated, drug-addicted white man ‘from the edge of the world,’ is their guest, mascot, or prisoner” (Brooks 21).

It’s oftentimes in these blurbs introducing places and interviewees that the reader sees hints of the narrator’s personality, such as questioning other characters’ morals or how they present themselves. After these blurbs, the perspective shifts to first person with the speaker being whoever it is the journalist is interviewing. In the case of Oliveira, he opens with “I was still a doctor, that’s what I told myself. Yes, I was rich, and getting richer all the time, but at least my success came from performing necessary medical procedures (Brooks 21-22). This is really where Brooks shines as an author and where his writing style is most effective. He’s able to portray so many characters’ voices over the course of the novel, with no characters repeating (except for the journalist, of course) until the end where some of the characters come back to close out the narrative. Readers can find themselves engrossed in the narrative to the point that it becomes real, with questions of ethics, morality, and survival popping up in readers’ minds as they explore the lives of these rounded characters throughout the “Zombie War.”

III.      Literary Convention One: Grand Narratives in Postmodernist Writing

a.  Definition

         Postmodernism is the literary movement usually dubbed as occurring from the later half of the 20th century until now (though there are scholars arguing there’s a new movement forming in the 2000s). In describing the movement, it can be “characterized by a principled skepticism about language, truth, causality, history, and subjectivity” (“Postmodernism”). This skepticism takes many form, such as either subtly or overtly, but one of the major ways one can tell if a work is part of the postmodernist movement is through the “questioning of grand narratives” (Felluga). This means when an author chooses to critique the stories a culture subscribes to that members have begun to doubt.

b.  Example and Author’s Choice

         As stated before, Brooks’s novel is told from multiple viewpoints. Rather than using those multiple points of view to disorientate the reader, he chooses to use them to break down the “grand narratives” that tend to pop up when talking about worldwide events like the one that occurs within Brooks’s novel. As Dino Felluga writes, postmodernism leans toward “a questioning of grand narratives” and “traditional concepts [such] as law, religion, subjectivity, and nationhood” (Felluga). The novel is told through interviews with several characters from diverse backgrounds and nationalities throughout the worldwide zombie war. Some characters are the traditional characters you might find in such a work, such as a mercenary and a doctor, but others aren’t quite so traditional, such as a stay-at-home Japanese otaku who becomes a monk and a retiree who runs a retirement home for dogs used in the war (Brooks 204 & 282-283). These are the stories, as Brooks tells us in his introduction, that are often left unsaid at the end of traumatic disasters. This is effective, as many readers lean more toward memoirs than textbooks. Brooks is correct in writing in this fictional introduction just how important the “human factor” is to the overall story.

IV.      Literary Convention Two: Afrofuturism

a.  Definition

         Butler’s work isn’t necessarily what would be considered part of the traditional Western canon. Instead, she finds herself one of the founders and writers of the Afrofuturism movement. While Afrofuturism wasn’t coined until the 1990s by Mark Dery, Black authors and artists “were already exploring the idea of escaping the oppressive state of Blackness by looking toward science fiction” beginning in the 1920s through the time Octavia Butler was writing (Robinson). Afrofuturism made important leaps in how science-fiction is viewed by the larger public, such as through efforts at inclusion in series like Star Trek.

b.  Example and Author’s Choices

         Octavia Butler’s published works include stories of the past, present, and future, and at the center of every single one is a Black individual, most of the time female. The first novel in The Patternist series even takes place in Africa during the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade. The second novel, Mind of My Mind, takes place in the 1970s, present-day for Butler, while the third and fourth novels take place in a far-flung future where nature is scarce, and humans of the United States have reverted to serfdom. Within Mind of My Mind, race plays a big part in just how Doro can get away with the genetic experiments of those of his lineage. Most of those in the novel need resources and stability, and Doro can give them that at the price of being at his every whim, such as Mary’s mother (Butler 1). Other times Butler directly brings up race in character interactions, such as when Mary asks her white husband how he feels about Black people, and he practically dismisses her feelings on this topic (Butler 40). The challenging of what it means to be a “legitimate leader” combined with the reality of living as a Black individual throughout most of Western human history create an eye-opening, interconnected experience for all readers of Butler’s works. The way she laces together aspects of life as an African American in the United States during the 1970s and the speculative fiction elements of hidden societies, science experiments, and people with powers is effective in pulling in readers and both entertaining and teaching them.

V.      Theme One: Overthrowing Authority

a.  Definition

         A theme that appears in both chosen novels but more so in Octavia Butler’s novel is that of overthrowing authority, especially authority that’s become corrupt or never had the best intentions toward those under them. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an authority is one who has the “power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior” (“Authority”). While many today can connect with this theme, it can be challenged by readers, as typically the protagonist is someone who’s not in an authoritative position before the novel’s beginning and typically doesn’t understand early on what it means to be an authority. Some of the conflict that can take part in a novel with this theme is that of the original authority, and typically antagonist, making a point to the protagonist that having authority means making decisions others refuse to make. Other times it’s crystal clear to the reader that the protagonist is in the right for overthrowing the authority, but the extent of the aftermath may not be clear quite to anyone yet. This latter version of the theme is where Mind of My Mind sits.

b.  Example and Author’s Choices

         Part of how this theme shows up in the novel is by using the terms owner and owned.  Mary, the protagonist, is oftentimes in the role of both. She ends up being the “owner” of the telepaths stuck in her Pattern with her “owner” being Doro. She and Doro have a conversation about this, where Doro accuses her of no longer wanting to be the owner after a previous conversation they had where she accepts that she is now an owner as the master of her Pattern (Butler 104). Of course, in true overcoming authority fashion, his role as owner and her role as owner are very different from each other. He sees being an owner as being able to have power over others and use them however he likes, including consuming them and literally stealing their bodies. Her view of being an owner is being responsible for those under her and understanding she is stronger than they are and it’s her job to protect them. She does this by bringing in those who couldn’t complete the transition to established telepath and creating a safe place for them all to live (Butler 164). This comes to a head when at the end of the novel she and Doro fight and she returns to him what he had been doing for thousands of years to them by consuming him in the same fashion that he’d been consuming others. She even takes pride and joy in doing this (Butler 235). This is a common element of the overcoming authority theme where the protagonist will return to the antagonist what they’ve done to those before. This is also effective because many who read Octavia Butler’s works have at some point felt like the owned and can sympathize with Mary in her attempts to take control of her own life. Her anger and rebellion are like the anger and rebellions ordinary humans enact every day.

         Another way this theme appears throughout the novel is when Doro demands that Mary stop bringing in new people into her Pattern (Butler 206). He fears that he has started something that he cannot control, and he’s not wrong. Authorities in stories with this theme will typically react with fear or anger when they realize that the protagonist is starting to gain more power than they have. He also doesn’t seem to understand how little control he now has over Mary at this point in the novel now that she’s experienced being a leader, especially one that doesn’t act in the same way that Doro does. In the end, very similarly to other novels using the overcoming authority theme, Mary wins out and recreates the society of telepaths with her as the new creator and leader. This is effective because readers are going to connect with Mary’s need to have others like herself surrounding her. The push and pull of listening to authority that one once respected against the need for companionship resonates well with a modern audience of young adults who are constantly bombarded by this in daily life.

VI.  Theme Two: Perseverance

a.  Definition

         According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, perseverance is the “continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition” (“Perseverance”). This theme can appear in works of fiction covering hero stories, students struggling with assignments, or even a pet trying to find its way home. It’s also a theme that has led to changes in the real world based on the books, fiction and nonfiction, written, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and I Am Malala. For war stories like World War Z, this theme can show itself in fights between allies and enemies. Either way, this is a theme that has withstood the test of time and continues to find its way into many popular novels and nonfiction year after year.

b.  Example and Author’s Choices

         Perseverance carries humanity through World War Z. Without it there wouldn’t have been any survivors, and no one to reflect on the choices made. While perseverance takes a back seat during some of the novel, as giving up or the beginnings of giving up are a key piece to the perseverance theme, in the end it’s perseverance that inevitably allows humans to survive. For example, there is a mother who loses her children and husband during the “Zombie War” and ends up becoming a leader within her community and a creator of homes in the United States designed to keep zombies away. This is done through raising homes onto stilts, attaching walkways between them, and having raising staircases that allow homeowners to keep zombies from getting to their door (Brooks 63-64). This mother and creator builds these homes through her perseverance and through her loss. Part of the perseverance theme is to keep going even when one feels like lying down and dying. Of course, this is made even more difficult for those left behind during what would become a worldwide plan to hide a small portion of the population in each country away and use the broader population as bait to keep the zombies away from those in the safe zones. This is effective, as this is a common tactic, although not taken quite so far, during real-world wars. Lacing together real-world strategies with the fictional “Zombie War” is an easy way for Brooks to ensure his story is taken seriously and leaves readers imagining what they would do in the same situations his characters are placed in.

         Throughout the latter parts of the novel, most tales of perseverance come from those left behind trying to survive outside of the military and safe zones that were established. That doesn’t mean that the general military wasn’t also dealing with threats to perseverance. The Russian military, in hopes of creating an obedient army, enact what they call the “Decimations.” This inevitably leads to losing one in every ten members of the military, but it forces the rest of the army to give up control and let their leaders make the decisions (Brooks 82-83). While this may sound like giving up and not perseverance, what’s happening here is the perseverance of individual survival. In World War Z, this individualized perseverance takes mainstage over the perseverance of governments to keep their countries running. In the end, it’s individualized perseverance that leads to the perseverance of humanity, not the other way around. This is effective because many modern readers are going through their own struggles, whether they be mental, physical, or emotional. Brooks teaches readers that if his realistic characters can fight and persevere through a war against zombies, they can win the fight against a mental illness or a challenging project at work.

Works Cited

1. “Authority.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authority. Accessed 28 Sep. 2024.

2. Brooks, Max. World War Z. Broadway Books, 2006.

3. Butler, Octavia E. Mind of My Mind. Grand Central Publishing, 1977.

4. Dunkelberg, Kendall. A Writer’s Craft. Palgrave MacMillan, 2017.

5. Felluga, Dino. “General Introduction to Postmodernism.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory, Purdue U, 31 Jan. 2011, cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/postmodernism/modules /introduction.html.

6. “Perseverance.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perseverance. Accessed 28 Sep. 2024.

7. “Postmodernism.” Blackwell Guides to Literature: The Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory, by Gregory Castle, 1st ed., Wiley, 2007. Credo Reference, https://search.credoreference.com /articles/Qm9va0FydGljbGU6MTI2MTY3NA==?aid=105049.

8. Robinson, Shantay. “What Is Afrofuturism?” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, 11 May 2023, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/what-is-afrofuturism-180982154/.

Spoken Word Poetry and Reproductive Justice: Using Creativity and Advocacy to Bring Voice to the Voiceless (2022)

Introduction

“But if you want to talk about fair housing, equal pay for women, educational benefits that ensures each and every one of my babies goes to college, if you want to talk about healthcare or basic human rights, I am down for that. But if all you want to discuss is how you think I should honor my body, you are wasting your breath. You cannot dick-take who lives in my womb or who is evicted and how dare you suggest I get overridden” (Davis 1:40-2:05).

         Theresa Davis, a poet and woman of color, presents the argument above in her poem “What to Do When a Politician Tries to Fall into Your Vagina Feet First” at the 2015 Women of the World Poetry Slam. Her poem, and its provocative title, spoken word for word in front of a live audience, stirs emotions such as grief, anger, and pride in what it means to be capable of reproducing in modern-day United States. Her poem also draws on the need for advocacy relating to the rights of those who can reproduce both in the United States and globally. She pulls from statistics and places them in a creative style that encourages her audience to feel the raw anger she feels toward those attempting to pass laws or are campaigning in the name of laws that place blockades in the way of women and womb-owning individuals from getting the chance to raise their children in a safe environment with adequate education and deciding if they want to give birth or not in the first place.

Theresa Davis’s arguments fit directly into the framework of reproductive justice and precisely describes the struggles of those who can reproduce, especially for people of color. The reproductive justice framework is made up of three core principles: the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to parent in a safe and healthy environment (Ross & Solinger 9). Each principle is complex while standing alone, yet each is also interwoven into one another through a history of violence and attempts to control both “wanted” and “unwanted” populations around the world, especially in the United States where the framework originated. As Loretta Ross stated in an article from 2006, “Reproductive Justice says that the ability of any woman to determine her own reproductive destiny is linked directly to the conditions in her community—and these conditions are not just a matter of individual choice and access” (Ross 14). Each complex principle creates a vision for women and others who can reproduce of bodily autonomy in deciding what to do and when with their own reproductive system and the right to have a safe environment for which they can raise their children should they decide to have them.

         Michel Foucault’s original theory of biopolitics, along with other theorists’ and philosophers’ additional work around the definition and reworking of biopolitics, give scholars and activists working toward a more equitable world concerning reproductive justice and the human rights granted to those who are capable of giving birth a framework to start from. Of course, due to the aging of Foucault’s theory, much of his work isn’t equitable on its own. In his History of Sexuality: Vol. 1, women’s sexuality is othered more often than not, and the hysterical mother trope is used to describe women’s, especially mothers’, sexuality when children are in danger (Foucault 153). This view of women’s sexuality disregards both the opportunity for women to choose to have children or not due to women being viewed as only mothers or future mothers and the opportunity for mothers to parent their children in safe and healthy environments because they’re viewed as hysterical when they’re trying to protect their children. While I will be using Foucault’s theory of biopolitics as a base for discussing spoken word poetry, I will also be supplementing his arguments with more equitable and timely sources dealing with reproductive justice.

Poetry, just as in the case of Theresa Davis’s spoken word poem about advocacy and the law, does not fit neatly into each category of reproductive justice. Many times, poets reference and make nods to more than one piece of the puzzle of reproductive justice, and I don’t wish to take away from their form in investigated the nuances and style in which these poets have created these beautiful, breathtaking pieces of literature full of calls for action and emotional motifs. For this reason, I will be analyzing several poems multiple times throughout my exploration and discussion of how oral storytelling, spoken word poetry, and the reproductive justice framework are tightly knit together in the twenty-first century.

Spoken Word Poetry, Reproductive Justice Activism, and Biopolitics

         The reproductive justice framework will serve as the overall outline of this essay. Reproductive justice (or RJ for short), as stated before, is based on upholding the rights to have, not have, and parent children safely (Ross & Solinger 9). To do this, reproductive justice focuses on “the intersection of race, gender, class, nation, and sexuality, understanding each as co-constructed and dependent on power relations” (Jesudason & Kimport 214). As Jesudason and Kimport note, when power is held by one group, the “minorities,” which may actually make up the majority, are treated differently and as lesser with varying degrees. For women of color, this can come in the form of prosecution against one’s skin color and gender. For queer migrant women, this can come in the form of sexual, cultural, and gender-based prosecution. “Intersectionality is a critical tool that we use to make sure that we are achieving justice, a permanent or substantial change to empower those being oppressed to become liberated. It challenges us to realize that we might have privilege in some spaces and not have privilege in other parts of our identities” (McNicholas & Merritt 15). Spoken word poetry has created such a space for underrepresented people, and reproductive justice has grown within this circle in much the same way other movements have, such as the Black Lives Matter or mental health awareness movements. Of course, both movements are also intersectional with much of the poetry centered around reproductive justice, as nothing is only about one issue. Rather, all these issues connect to one another in one or more ways.

         To build upon reproductive justice’s history and activism, I will be calling upon several scholars and theorists of biopolitics. Biopolitics is expressed when the sovereign ruling body of government in the United States and many other countries rule on the basis of “making live and letting die” (Lemke 34). Or, in Foucault’s own words, the government has the “power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (original emphasis, Foucault 138). This theory of State control helps to explain why the US government has enacted many of the conservative laws concerning reproductive restrictions that they have in the twenty-first century, including laws dealing with abortion, who is allowed the opportunity to take advantage of fertility treatments, and the right of the State to consider a mother unfit and place her child(ern) into the foster care system. To connect Foucault’s theory of State control and citizenry to reproductive justice, the framework states that it “extends far beyond personal choice around abortion and contraception to fights for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice; comprehensive immigration and prison reform; and universal access to affordable, high-quality health care throughout the life course” (Gomez et al. 359). Reproductive justice is more than just reproductive rights. It was created with social justice in mind but with a focus on improving the reproductive lives of womb-owning individuals. For society to be equitable and equal, reproductive means must be equitable and equal and vice versa. Monique Allewaert’s scholarly work has also produced some interesting additions to biopolitical thought, especially in conjunction with creative expression. She states that “the separation of human beings from the natural world … [is] not possible” (Allewaert 9). Humankind’s connection with nature is the backbone of human reproduction, as the process of pregnancy, birth, and raising children is a natural phenomenon that the State has attempted to, and in many cases succeeding at, controlling on a societal level. Just as Allewaert speaks on colonized and enslaved peoples taking back their own bodies and personhood through conceived agency within our connection to the natural world and what makes humans living beings and not just legal beings, poets have been using spoken word poetry as an outlet to do much the same thing: “Poetry experiments with life; it reconfigures forms of living by renaming experience, that is, by intervening into the linguistic fabric through which we represent our bodies to ourselves and, in doing so, constitute ourselves as particular kinds of subjects” (Allewaert 9; Haines 179). By combining the body’s lived experience with the legal actions being taken against it in hopes of controlling it, spoken word poets force their listeners to understand their perspectives and the oppressions they have faced as both a living body and a legal body.

Spoken word poetry goes by many names: slam poetry, performance poetry, and song-spinning from the oral tradition. My choice to use the term spoken word poetry to describe the poems analyzed in this essay is not a choice I have taken lightly. By using the term spoken word poetry, I am pulling away from the connotations that the above three terms hold for the public. Slam poetry has been associated as rough and amateur, though even the term amateur holds a special place when it comes to writing and activism. Performance poetry has been associated with being theatrical and uppity. Song-spinning is associated with the bards of the Old World and rural communities as something long left behind and studied today only by historians and anthropologists. Spoken word poetry is just vague enough to hold little to no connotation, which allows us to shape a new term for a phenomenon that has been a part of humanity since the beginning days of humankind.

         All the poems chosen for discussion are spoken word poems collected by the YouTube channel Button Poetry from various poetry slams and other events across the United States. The channel is “dedicated to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for performance poetry” (“About”). Button Poetry works to ensure that every voice gets a chance to be heard. This is evident in the diversity of poets featured on their channel, which includes poets of color, poets from a wide array of national backgrounds, and poets of every sexuality and gender imaginable. Poetry holds a special place in the hearts of many poets of color, and as poet Ada Limón says in an interview, “[poetry’s] inherent rejection of any notion of a straight answer creates room for the messiness of the human experience … There’s a certain recognition that poetry is in conversation with real, living humans on the other side of it, not just with the academic side of it … That’s been a huge thing” (Asmelash). As Limón says, poetry has been a place of refuge for many people of color, and the fact that poems oftentimes delve into the deep richness of human emotion allows for a freedom often lost through many other forms of writing and speech. Use of metaphors and symbolism throughout poetry allows academics to study it, but for the common people, the “recognition” of poetry’s raw connection with “the human experience” allows for them to connect with poetry at a much more intimate, personal level.

         For those facing societal and systemic oppression, poetry becomes an outlet to speak one’s truth and share it with others also feeling and struggling with the same issues. For protest poetry, which is the style in which the poetry discussed in this essay is written, this truth-speaking of poetry takes on a much more important role. “Like the protestor seeking to alert the larger public that a policy or line of thought is problematic, the poet—whether intentionally or not—forces a reappraisal of long-held assumptions that may otherwise not get questioned” (St. Onge & Moore 336). The association between protestor and poet is an important distinction, and one that will be explored more fully in the sections to come. For humankind to understand what it means to live life from another’s viewpoint, we must tell stories and listen to each other. As William Schneider states in the introduction to Living with Stories, “a story could be told differently by people whose experiences differed or who perceived the events differently, and that by working with these different perspectives we could produce a more inclusive understanding” (4). Shifting the perspective from the dominant white, cis-het male voice to one of more inclusion through a multitude of other voices, I aim to bring more awareness to the reproductive justice struggles of marginalized peoples through spoken word poetry.

The Right to Not Have Children

         While likely the most discussed of the three pieces of the reproductive justice framework, the right to not have children has long been the only piece discussed in advocacy groups. It’s important to note that not everyone’s experiences with reproduction have been the same throughout the centuries, and this piece of the framework is no different. Spoken word poetry’s numerous poems about the right to not have children, especially related tod abortion rights, reflects the public’s infatuation with this major topic of discussion over the other pieces of the reproductive justice framework. This being said, the right to not have children is still opposed through US lawmakers’ proposals and passed legislation, especially in conservative states such as Texas. To combat these lawmakers’ views, it is important to continue to listen to what those who are being personally and secondarily affected have to say on the topic. “Feminists of color have long asserted that creative writing is a site for theorizing and disrupting power relations, particularly for communities that have been historically marginalized” (Esparza 12). For this reason, all the spoken word poetry discussed in this section are by people of color and/or womb-owning individuals.

“To the Oklahoma Lawmakers”

         Spoken word poet and speaker Lauren Zuniga has made a name for herself combatting abortion ban and restriction legislation for over a decade. Her poetry speaks to listeners about what it means to be a fertile body in the United States at the mercy of state legislation. In her poem “To the Oklahoma Lawmakers,” she speaks on the constant legislation coming out of the state of Oklahoma restricting abortion for women through multiple methods, such as pushing the incorrect number of weeks it takes until fetuses begin to feel pain and requiring a detailed informed consent form before an abortion can take place. In her poem, Zuniga is focused on the rights of fetuses being placed at the forefront at the expense of pregant women’s rights to personhood. She brings the listener along for the ride back through her own life struggles as a teenager and young woman growing up with the Oklahoma abortion legislation through what the State could have done to help prevent and stand with her through her struggles. She says, “if you really want to show me that you believe in / faith, family, and freedom / why don’t you come along for the ride? I could have used you that night … tell me I’m special / so when he hands me the next drink / I don’t look at the bottom of it for approval. / Tell me to scream louder / so someone might find us. / Wrap me in a blanket when he’s done / take me home” (Zuniga 1:25-1:48). In these lines, she’s bringing to light just how important it is that the State stand with the women affected by everything that leads to the choice to get an abortion. The entire poem holds this same emotional effect, pulling the listener in and giving voice to the intimate and personal details that may lead women, especially young women, to abortion.

         She also alludes to the twisted morality of Christian lawmakers who push for many of the abortion regulations within Oklahoma and other conservative states: “If you want to play God, / Mr. and Mrs. Lawmakers, / if you want to write your Bible / on my organs / then you better be there / when I am down on my knees / pleading for relief / from your morality” (Zuniga 2:39-2:52). The right to not have a child extends to all, no matter their religion, and in the United States, people may identify with any number of religions or none at all. To have only one major religion governing lawmaking is in direct opposition to the separation of church and state that the United States was founded on. For laws to be based on the morals and false sciences of one religion is a direct violation of the first amendment. In order to support and fight for the right to not have children, we must first look to government’s makeup and what we can do to diversify it on more than one front.

         Along with her use of word choice and allusion, Lauren Zuniga uses the mode of spoken word poetry to her advantage when using body language and vocal inflection as an interpretive tool. When speaking of certain actions during important events, she uses her body to act out those actions, such as acting out drinking from a glass and looking at its bottom to find approval from a boy and State that don’t care about her (Zuniga 1:40-1:43). She uses this action to bring her listener closer to the event itself and create a sense of empathy for what happened to her and what continues to happen to young women today. When she’s speaking about asking the State to be there with her and give her the words to tell her parents she’s pregnant and the boy who put the child inside of her won’t talk to her at all, her tone is broken and small, nothing like the strong, stead-fast and angry tone she carries near the beginning of the poem (1:52-2:07). In this section she is reverting to the teenage girl she was that day, and she is calling on her listeners to come with her and experience life from her point of view. By doing this, she is advocating for more empathy for survivors of sexual assault and coercion by partners. She’s calling for a breaking of the stigma surrounding how to talk to parents and loved ones about unplanned pregnancy and the decision to not keep the child.

“An Open Letter to the Protesters Outside the Planned Parenthood”

         Elizabeth Acevedo, poet of color and author of a number of young adult books centered around poetry and diversity, has made a name for herself as a National Poetry Slam Champion and active participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops (Acevedo “About”). She’s won many different awards for her work in poetry and novel writing, which has only garnered more opportunities for her to speak up against systemic racism and violence against women along with bringing more awareness to the need for diversity in writing for young people.

         Her poem “An Open Letter to the Protesters Outside the Planned Parenthood” explores many of the themes present throughout much of her previous and present writing with a direct focus on the connection between religious violence and Black women’s reproductive rights. She introduces these themes immediately upon opening her poem: “An open letter to the protesters outside the Planned Parenthood near my job / who stuck a cross in my face and told me / abortions are the largest genocide of Black people / God won’t forgive you for having one” (Acevedo 0:04-0:23). These opening lines are strong, set the tone for the entire poem, and place the listener with her at the event, just as Zuniga did in her poem previously discussed. Acevedo ties together both the act of religious coercion and the history of blaming Black women for the killing of Black children. Religious coercion has been used by specifically the pro-life stance since the beginning of its emergence, and the violence enacted toward women attempting to get an abortion during a pro-life protest can cause both mental and physical harm to the women involved. It doesn’t help that many states in which pro-life protests take place outside Planned Parenthoods are also conservative in their abortion lawmaking and restrict much of the access women have to get abortions in a healthy, safe, and comfortable fashion. Acevedo alludes to this later in her poem when she talks about being “afraid of both hangings and hangers,” as dangerous hanger abortions have been one of the only ways women have been able to self-abort in the face of restrictive abortion lawmaking (1:43-1:51). Ross and Solinger speak specifically on the “largest genocide of Black people” in their book Reproductive Justice: An Introduction. As Ross and Solinger write, governmental interference in specifically the area of contraception as a form of population control over people of color inevitably resulted in this mentality of genocide at the hands of those attempting to take back control of their own fertility even at the cost of their privacy (118-120).

         Acevedo also says, “my God does not condemn us women / who have faced having to take claim of our bodies / do so with our chins unchained to the ground” (1:28-1:38). Women of color, especially Black women, have had to fight for the reproductive rights they have today, and yet many still struggle to have those rights fulfilled, as the right to choose becomes muddied by what a woman can afford. As Saphronia Carson notes in her article “An Examination of Oppression Via Anti-Abortion Legislation,” “qualitative studies find that many women frequently cite paying for their abortions as a major challenge because insurance did not cover any of the procedures” (5). Along with the main struggle of women getting an abortion being financial struggles, Carson also states that “women were 38% more likely than men to live in poverty in 2016 (7). The higher rates of poverty among women, combined with the Hyde Amendment’s banning of Medicaid usage for abortions, creates the perfect, inequitable storm for low-income women, many being women of color, that leads to dangerous self-abortions using pills and hangers. This becomes even more drastic when access to abortion clinics is made difficult with six states in the United States (as of 2018) having only one operating abortion clinic open in the entire state (Vilda et al. 1696). Reproductive justice calls for equitable access to clinics for all women, no matter their socio-economic level or racial background, to take advantage of their human right not to have children. It is a violation of this right when the women are given the false “choice” to abortion through the option of one clinic when low-income women may not have the ability to pay to get to the clinic or pay for the abortion itself due to restrictive legislation.

“Pro-Life”

         Kyle Tran Myhre, otherwise known as Guante, uses his poetry as a platform to discuss activism and challenge the dominant narratives constantly surrounding us (Tran Myhre “About”). While he’s the only cisgender man within this essay, his arguments through his poetry performances speak volumes about what he has done as part of the male gender. His writing explores what it means to be a man fighting alongside women for their rights, engages deeply with questions of race and racism, and works to build empathy in audiences that might be understand what life has been like for different groups of people (Tran Myhre “About”). It’s important to note that he’s directly related the poem “Pro-Life,” which will be the one I will be discussing in detail, to the reproductive justice movement. On his personal website, he devotes a page to this poem and provides resources to learn about and engage with reproductive justice more fully. This makes Guante, Kyle Tran Myrhre’s stage name, a strong poet for this essay and further discussion about reproductive justice and how it connects with biopolitics, as Guante discusses in-depth on his website about how politics, especially politics dealing with life, make their way into his poetry and his work as an activist (Tran Myhre “New Poem: ‘Pro-Life’ + Other Poems on Reproductive Justice”).

         While the title of Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre’s poem is “Pro-Life,” he’s using the term to flip the script and talk about what it means to truly be pro-life rather than just pro-life on the stance of abortion and fighting against the right to not have children. “Pro-Life” is told in a narrative-style format about himself being approached by someone wearing a pro-life t-shirt and being asked “what if your mother had decided to abort you” (Tran Myhre 0:05-0:08). He then goes on to discuss how rates of abortion have been steadily decreasing since the establishment of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States, for reasons that I will be discussing later in the right to parent in a safe and healthy environment section of this essay (0:40-0:48). This is supported by Colleen McNicholas and Pamela Merritt in an article about the intersections of reproductive justice, where they also state that statistics are showing an overall decrease in the number of abortions across the country (17). Guante uses this discussion to connect with reproductive justice, as many of his arguments throughout the poem center around taking the common thread of pro-life versus pro-choice and twisting it into a broader argument toward social justice about extending programs and services for those struggling to make ends meet. He connects the lower abortion rates to better birth control, and he says that increasing social programs could help to lower that rate even more as opposed to placing stricter regulations on abortion rights (Tran Myhre 0:48-1:08). Stricter regulations have been exactly what’s happened, though, as over 480 restrictions have been enacted across the country in just the last decade alone (Carson 6). This means that at least 58% of fertile women living in the United States face strict restrictions on whether they can get an abortion or not (2). Regarding reproductive justice, this means that women don’t have complete and full control over their reproductive right to not have children. A sad truth is that these strict restrictions end up affecting primarily lower-income women and women of color. As Guante goes on to say in his poem, many of the arguments for making the reproductive right to not have children more accessible comes in the form of better access to contraception, healthcare, and financial safety nets (Tran Myhre 0:26-0:40). This connects with Foucault’s theory of biopolitics, as he says that discipline and control over the body is the crux of modern society (Lemke 38). As Foucault’s theory suggests, controlling women’s reproductive abilities also works to control who reproduces and when. If women typically considered “burdens to society” aren’t given access to control their own reproduction, the government and society can take advantage of these women’s reproductive abilities. As will be discussed in the right to parent in a safe and healthy environment section, children are often taken from these mothers by child welfare services already knowing at the time of birth that the mothers did not have access to the right to not have a child when they weren’t prepared to have a child. Of course, this falls back to access and what will further be discussed in the right to have children section. These women often feel pushed to abort because they don’t have the resources to raise a child even if they wanted to give birth. Because coercion is often used in these cases, the right to not have a child is no longer a right but the only option that some women see. This is control, not a choice or opportunity.

The Right to Have Children

         The second piece of the reproductive justice framework, the right to have children, is the least explored of the three pieces. With only one poem discussed in this section, I will be supplementing the lack of resources with research showing how the right to have children has not always, and continues to not be, accepted as important. I argue that the right to have children should be, as the reproductive justice framework points out, advocated for explicitly in the names of marginalized peoples who have struggled to be allowed their right to have children in the past and present. As Jeffrey St. Onge and Jennifer Moore state, “[i]t is precisely the speech that is most difficult to hear that must be protected at all costs, because it is that which has the potential to steer political culture toward more humanizing ends” (346). That is why it’s important that we discuss, observe, and mitigate situations in which women of diverse, marginalized backgrounds aren’t allowed to exercise their right to have children. As something not regularly discussed in both the legal and academic spheres, it’s more important than ever to break down the barriers that lead to people believing that only the choice to not have children is disputed when many women are pushed to not have children rather than have children.

“Evolve”

         Sonya Renee Taylor, the poet of the only poem in this section and a social justice activist, wrote “Evolve” for the centennial celebration of Planned Parenthood (Taylor “About”; “Planned Parenthood”). As most should know, Planned Parenthood does more than just provide abortion services. They also provide other means of protecting against pregnancy along with providing services for helping women to become pregnant using fertility treatments and many clinics provide genecology appointments for pregnant women along with STD and pregnancy testing. Not only does Taylor specifically speak on social justice, but she also has been awarded for her work with reproductive justice through the Quixote Foundation (Taylor “About”). Through her and Planned Parenthood’s efforts to bring the reproductive justice framework into the forefront of how we think about social justice and reproductive rights’ connections with each other, we are able to see further connections with who is allowed to express their right to have children.

         Sonya Renee Taylor’s poem holds pieces of each part of the framework, but I will be focusing on the poem’s connection with the right to have children, as much of the poem tells the story of a multitude of possible family lines and generally marginalized women taking control of their own lives through their reproductive freedom to have children when and how they want. Taylor opens with the line “your great-grandmother sips gin slowly / in a speakeasy in Chicago or Detroit,” showing off how the women who became mothers are more than just birthing bodies but had and still have lives we can’t comprehend from a single perspective (0:06-0:13). For most of history and the present day, women, especially marginalized women, have been objectified down to being a walking womb, wife, or daughter who answers to their husband or father. Taylor’s poem and open personality while speaking urge the listener to understand that this is not and should never be the case. Women have always attempted to take their lives into their own hands one way or another. One of those ways is through having children and carrying on a female-created lineage of great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers, and daughters, as is apparent in Taylor’s repetition of the line “which is why you are here today” throughout the poem, which later becomes “which is why we are here today” by the end of the poem as a way of creating singular people into a movement as reproductive justice has done since the 1990s (0:55-0:57; 1:49-1:52; 2:23-2:27; 3:09-3:11). Finally, the line becomes “they are why I am here today,” which pulls back to the “I” that stands for herself and her direct female lineage that gave birth to those women before her that in turn are a part of her today (4:17-4:22).

         Sonya Renee Taylor also has an important line that resonates intimately with reproductive justice’s advocacy’s role in allowing for women to change their minds with each pregnancy and to decide whether to keep a child or not. As Taylor says, “[your mother] knew she was done birthing after birthing the child that birthed you / or knew others would follow” (1:27-1:32). In these lines, she’s alluding to the 1.3 million women in the US alone that have abortions each year for various reasons. Of these 1.3 million women, many already have children, with a study by the Guttmacher Institute finding that 59% of their respondents receiving abortions stating that they had had at least one child already (Finer et al. 112). This doesn’t mean that abortion rates aren’t being replaced by something else, though, as an examination of anti-abortion legislation by Saphronia Carson discusses. She states that “historically high rates of sterilization for Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous women continues today, and that many women eventually regret their procedure” (Carson 6). “Subtle coercion,” as is discussed in-depth by Adele Clarke in the context of sterilization, takes place when “a woman or man legally consents to sterilization, but the social conditions in which they do so are abusive – the conditions of their lives constrain their capacity to exercise genuine reproductive choice and autonomy” (341). While the abortion rate has been decreasing, sterilization regret as rose astronomically “from 18% to 25%” between 1995-2010 (Eeckhaut et al. 139). As Carson goes on to discuss in relation to these other scholars and researchers, “[these rates suggest] that had these women had better access to impermanent birth control options, such as abortion, prior to sterilization they might have been able to delay or avoid the procedure which they now regret” (7). Connecting these real-world struggles with biopolotics, Foucault states that “[s]exuality is not the most intractable element in power relations, but rather one of those endowed with the greatest instrumentality: useful for the greatest number of maneuvers and capable of serving as a point of support, as a linchpin, for the most varied strategies” (103). By taking away the right to have children by urging women of color into irreversible contraception, the government is using women’s reproductive abilities to push a eugenic and genocidal viewpoint that they otherwise couldn’t get away with. Foucault’s theory of government and those in power “disallow[ing life] to the point of death” makes even more sense in the scheme of hiding eugenic beliefs in a proposal of “helping” those who are financially burdened (134).

         These choices are made both personal and a community’s struggles within “Evolve,” as Taylor says, “[your grandmother] was choice made flesh / long before we flung a pro around its neck and called those words movement / movement is what she has always known / prone to survival” (Taylor 1:37-1:48). In these short lines, she is bringing awareness to the fact that communities of marginalized women have been fighting for their place in the world long before movements were created or issues of prejudice were brought to the limelight and given a name. Much of Sonya Renee Taylor’s spoken word poem follows this same pattern, bringing back life to women who have birthed and been considered one-dimensional because of their status as mothers. Because women with biological children have long been associated with only being mothers, many have lost their own individuality and what makes them a part of a growing, thriving community. As for specifically young mothers of color, they “have been unfairly blamed and stigmatized for problems that should be attributed to social and economic inequality, racism, and poverty” (Cox et al. 120). This awareness for how an individual gets blamed for systemic issues plays out time and time again within discourse surrounding both biopolitics and reproductive justice. As Ross and Solinger note in Reproductive Justice, there continues to be debate on whether women of color can be discriminated against and turned away for abortions because they’re “destroying their own communities by killing off the next generation” (134). While this is an uncomfortable topic to broach, it’s necessary to understand that women of color, especially Black women, have had to deal with verbal assaults coming in the form of being “racial traitors” since Roe v. Wade in order to move forward and fix these systemic issues at both a societal and governmental level.

The Right to Parent Children in a Safe and Healthy Environment

         The right to parent children in safe and healthy environments, while the third part of the reproductive justice framework, is arguably the most important. Much of the spoken word poetry dealing with themes of the reproductive justice framework tend to include at least hints of parenting in safe and healthy environments and how children and parents are treated in marginalized communities by outsiders in the form of systemic racism and sexism. As Hugh Ellis states in an article discussing how women’s spoken word poetry oftentimes challenges patriarchal views, he writes that “discrimination and violence against women is seen in a broader context of societal problems and personal inconveniences, often against a background of hopelessness, which contrasts with governmental discourses of national progress” (450). The fine arts in all their forms have been used by women globally, as the article is focused specifically on women from Namibia in Africa, to advocate for changes within society and governmental power. Ross and Solinger further note that “[s]tories help us understand how others think and make decisions” (59). Foucault states that sexuality is a normalization of expectations (Lemke 38). By telling stories and relating personal life events to reproduction and what free sexuality means for individuals, what is considered “normal” for reproduction and sexuality can be broken into pieces and reassessed to become more equitable and accepting of everyone’s reproductive choices while also giving womb-owning individuals the right to have, not have, and parent children in safe environments. As many women’s right to choose to have or not have children generally depends on the environment the mother will be raising them in, considering the right to a safe and healthy environment is one of the most important aspects of reproductive justice.

“Gun Control & Vaginas”

         Ayanna Albertson, poet of color and number one female slam poet in the world according to “the Women of the World Poetry Slam competition in April 2021,” has made a name for herself as an activist using her slam poetry and acting attitude to bring awareness to reproductive rights and systemic racism (Albertson “Bio”). According to her biography on her website, “[she] has enjoyed the art of storytelling through poetry, singing, writing, and performance theatre” (Albertson “Bio”).

         Albertson’s poem “Gun Control & Vaginas” centers the fight for stricter gun control alongside the fight for female reproductive autonomy and the right to raise children in a safer environment. Her tone is angry, and her body language situates herself in the place of authority on women’s reproductive autonomy, especially for women of color as a woman of color herself. Her poem, though, decenters the individual and recenters the community, namely the women of color’s community. This is an important note to make about her poem, as Jesudason and Kimport write that “[a] reproductive justice framework and methodology decenters the individual user of reproductive genetics and centers the community” (224). Rather than telling the story of one person, she centers an entire community who has lost their reproductive autonomy and died from both gun violence and the attempt to take back their own bodies through back-alley abortions and unsafe contraceptive options. In the very beginning of the spoken word poem, Albertson, in response to a “white man on Twitter” talking about those who don’t own guns shouldn’t talk about gun control, says, “I can’t help but wonder when the men in Congress grew vaginas / how they got so much to say about mine / my rights” (0:02-0:19). It is clear that she’s being sarcastic here, and her anger toward men making rules about her and her community’s bodies is sadly not uncommon. “[W]e see that many [hurdles to reproductive justice are] based on the fact that those with political power have no idea what it’s like to live as a woman of color, as a native woman, or as a trans Black person” (McNicholas & Merritt 16). It’s clear there is a disconnect between those making the laws and those being forced to live out those laws on a personal level, and reproductive justice makes it clear that this phenomenon has been going on for centuries in what we now call the United States and globally.

“Pro-Life”

         Kyle “Guante” Tran Myre’s poem “Pro-Life,” as discussed early in the section discussing the right to not have children, also holds keynotes of the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments. He asks the listener and the metaphorical pro-life protestor, “why is it that the loudest ‘pro-life’ voices / are always, always also the loudest anti-social safety net / anti-access to childcare, anti-access to contraception / anti-living wage, anti-environment / anti-peace, anti-democracy, anti-gun control / anti sex ed, anti-education in general / anti-healthcare voices” (Tran Myhre 0:21-0:40). Tran Myhre’s observation of the hypocrisy behind many people’s choice to be pro-life is clear in these lines, and it becomes even more clear when we begin looking at the statistics showing that being anti all these programs and ideas plays into the oppressive lawmaking that affects most, if not all, women and trans men, especially those of color. Raising children in a safe and healthy environment isn’t an option for many women of color and other women from marginalized communities.

         Near the end of his poem, Tran Myhre goes on to say that “[s]ome day, we are going to live in a world that truly values life / where people have not just the choice to have or not have children / but the right to raise them in a community with all the resources / and opportunities and freedom and justice and joy they could ever need” (2:21-2:40). Of course, as Tran Myhre has already noted earlier in his poem, this freedom of choice on both a societal and a legal front aren’t quite being met yet. Not just are women not allowed to decide for themselves if they were ready to be mothers yet or not, but even after a woman gives birth, she may face that child being taken away from her because of a multitude of factors that most often come down to the mother not being given enough resources or being discriminated against by social workers. There is a “legacy of [the] disproportionate involvement of children of color, particularly Black and Indigenous children, in the child welfare system, [and that legacy is] exacerbated when social workers unjustly report clients’ male partners to the police or unnecessarily remove children from parents,” and the right to parent children in safe environments should never come down to a mother being deemed unfit just because of her socioeconomic status (Gomez et al. 362).

“An Open Letter to the Protesters Outside the Planned Parenthood”

         Elizabeth Acevedo speaks on more than just the fight for the societal choice of abortion for all women no matter their background as it’s been actively fought against by those against Roe v. Wade and other state laws allowing for women’s access to abortion. Her arguments all come back full circle to the fact that many women of color in the past and present don’t want to bring children into a world that will disrespect them as they grow older. She relates the present to the past through reverse, beginning with the present at the beginning of the poem and relating it all back to the past through people’s different views of their personal gods. As Acevedo says to the protestor using scare tactics through their god to scare people into not getting abortions, she says in reply that “you [the protestor] don’t know my god / you and mine ain’t on speaking terms / my god understands the choices Black women have needed to make in the face of genocide / my god understands how slave women plucked pearls / from between their legs rather than see them strung up by the neck” (Acevedo 1:10-1:28). Through her metaphor of comparing people with pearls, she expresses the beauty of being Black while also being constantly in danger of being discriminated against and killed for the smallest grievances. This easily plays into the role of biopolitics in the United States, as Foucault says that “there is no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives” (95). For the law to allow the lynching and legal discrimination against people of color, they must have a reason. That reason dates to eugenics and genocide, both playing into the belief that people of color, especially Black women, were seen as being “genetically inferior” to the white, at least middle-class, population (Ross & Solinger 118).

         Moving back to the beginning of the poem where Acevedo brings up the present-day situation facing Black people, she says, “[t]ell me more, how you care about / this largest genocide of Black people / when I’ve never seen you at a Black Lives Matter protest / tell me, that you mourned Ayanna and Tamir and Jordan / just as hard as you celebrated the shooting of a clinic in Colorado” (0:38-0:56). These lines create an even bigger punch with Acevedo’s barely contained fury while she speaks of those who have passed and looks upon her listeners, who cheer in response to her naming and addressing the current issues affecting people of color and the role that those who truly believe in pro-life could have if they focused on more than just the pregnant body and looked instead to the larger society in which people of color are forced to live. As McNicholas and Merritt say in connecting the violence people of color face to the larger reproductive justice movement, they make a clear point: “There is also violence against Black and Brown women who are experiencing the toxic stress of raising children or facing the decision to have children at all in a society that is often indifferent toward Black children being brutalized, terrorized, harassed, and killed” (17). Knowing this, it’s not farfetched to conclude the reasoning of why women of color may turn to abortion, though this is yet another reproductive justice issue. Focusing solely on the right to abortion places the larger social and governmental issues facing people of color to the backburner. Reproductive justice focuses on more than just one aspect of women’s bodily autonomy regarding reproductive rights. Instead, reproductive justice recenters social justice issues into a framework of reproductive rights, creating a view of women’s reproductive choices that places the women most discriminated against at the forefront of the fight. As Acevedo says, “we’re still here every day carrying ourselves,” signifying the importance of placing these strong women at the front and letting their voices ring loud and clear (Acevedo 1:52-1:57). It is the role of allies in this fight to take a step back and take care not to speak for these women but instead to let them tell their own stories.

“Evolve”

         Because Sonya Renee Taylor’s spoken word poem speaks of having children and continuing a female-led lineage, themes of having healthy places for children to reside and grow in show up often throughout her lines. She says, “we call this / evolution / the way one person becomes seven billion / by splitting an idea like an atom” (Taylor 2:28-2:35). As she states, people are not solitary, and we do not spawn from the ground without a past lineage of strong women who went through childbirth to have us. We are born from women who were in turn born from other women, and the human race grows and changes and shifts as more and more people are born and raised. She equates atoms to ideas, showing her listeners that the science of our bodies and the mental processes we go through to choose potential partners and where we want to settle to raise children are all tied together. By listening to a woman of color speak on how these differing disciplines relate, listeners are taking part in what Susan Gal has seen in much of her research listening and viewing how women speak of their lived experiences with one another. As she writes, “women’s ‘voice’ refers not just to the spoken word but also to perspectives on social relations that often diverge from representations stemming from dominant (male) groups” (Gal 176). This is important in connecting Taylor’s poem back to reproductive justice, as RJ stems from the need to hear the voices of marginalized women in order to make changes on a societal and governmental level. This also relates to biopolitics, as Foucault says, “[t]he living conditions that were dealt to the [lower socioeconomic classes] … show there was anything but concern for its body and sex: it was of little importance whether those people lived or died, since their reproduction was something that took care of itself in any case” (126). The voices of people of color and those unable to afford reproductive health care are still not being listened to at a governmental level. For their voices to be heard, as Foucault makes it clear that their voices are anything but heard, they must be given a platform to do so. That platform, while still small, has been spoken word poetry and advocacy groups that have been gaining momentum since the beginning of the twenty-first century and the late twentieth century.

         As Taylor explains early in the poem, our female ancestors and current older female relatives have always known movement, which leads to the inevitable landing zone of immigration and the shift from one country to another for the sake of a mother’s children (1:44-1:48). She yells these words, speaking with a flare and authority that stress to her listener just how important female-led lineage is for children born to marginalized women. Of course, because women of color are often blamed for systemic issues, children become commodities that are taken away and given back as trophies for “doing well” or being a “good mother.” For especially mothers from Latin America, Indigenous mothers, and mothers of color, “[f]amily separation, coupled with the historical forced sterilization … under the guise of population control, illustrates how this is a new iteration of the United States’ fear of women of color’s reproductive capabilities and the birth of children of color because of their perceived threat to the ‘traditional’ white order” (Hinojosa Hernández 132). This is alluded to in Taylor’s poem with the line talking about how our female ancestors, especially the female ancestors of women of color are “a thing this world has endlessly tried to expire” (0:50-0:53). The United States was founded on oppressing women of color’s reproductive abilities for profit and viewed these women as a threat to, as Hinojosa Hernández writes, “the ‘traditional’ white order” (132).

Conclusion

         While the spoken word poems discussed throughout this essay are by far not the extent to which spoken word poetry has been used as a creative outlet for discussing reproductive rights, social justice, and reproductive justice, it’s still important to note the interconnection between each of them as products of social activists speaking out against human-rights disparities between today’s global and national population. Each poet has a background in social justice to some degree, and all the poets discussed are either women and/or people of color who have personally experienced the injustices that reproductive lawmakers have had on themselves and the people in their communities. “If we aren’t open to receive a completely different narrative, then we will continue to do the exact same things and not make needed changes” (McNicholas & Merritt 15). We must listen to the voices of those who have been kept silent for too long. Without their voices, systemic oppression will not change, and we will not move forward as a society or as the human race.

         Bringing voice to the voiceless can come in many different forms, such as directly through legislature or the medical field as well as through education at all levels. As Charmaine Lang, a writer and researcher in the field of reproductive justice writes, “I use reproductive justice in order to talk about the history of women of color in the United States, to make sense of current events such as family separations at the border under the direction of the current administration, and to envision a future where the human rights of every individual are recognized and upheld” (30). While this essay was an act of academic teaching, it’s also important to note that I am not an authority on speaking of the oppressions of people of color. My role is to help facilitate a place where the voiceless can begin to be heard by broader audiences and provide a space for the reproductive justice movement to gain more momentum within a wider societal framework. Above all, “[a]dvancing reproductive justice requires privileging those voices and perspectives most affected by reproductive oppression and countering approaches that perpetuate epistemic injustice” (Gomez et al. 363). Spoken word poetry is not a gatekept area of learning, and the acceptance within the spoken word poetry community allows for new individuals to join in on the practice of sharing their lives using poetry and their voice with the world, as spoken word poetry can, should, and has been already used to advocate for a closer look into the biopolitics surrounding the rights women have under the law and as accepted by society in deciding what to do with their own bodies.

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