Flagstaff poet Lydia Gates loves all forms of poetry but specializes in slam poetry. One of the qualities that draws her to the medium is its ability to connect with people. Because slam poetry is often less reverent than that found in literary journals, Gates says it’s an excellent vehicle to speak to political and social issues. Today she reads her poem “Email at the Edge of the Visible Spectrum.”
Lydia Gates: My personal feeling about the powers of poetry from the perspective of a performance or slam poet is the ability to connect with people—not just academics, not just students, not just people in school or reading at a library, but the power of poetry to really reach anyone. If you’re performing in a bar or a coffee shop, somebody steps in off the street and they don’t know what’s going on until they hear the words that people are saying and they immediately stop, and they’re not able to understand that this is poetry as well as other things they’ve seen as boring or dry or Shakespeare or confusing. And those things have their place, obviously. But for me, personally, the power of my poetry is just connection to people who may not know they like poetry yet. Slam poetry is often an artform that is more political, more personal, more storytelling. And the beauty of slam poetry is you’ll get your literary devices, you’ll get your cadence, your rhyme, your rhythm, your alliteration. But you will also get a statement of the message because we understand that when you are performing and people only get to hear it once, you have to make sure you drive your point home.
Email at the Edge of the Visible Spectrum
Fragments of Sappho are letters to future girls
with hearts furled into petals like violets.
She left us seeds of quiet confidence,
metered measures of missteps we'd take
when we didn't know the shape of heartaches.
I wanted to be a poet before I dreamt of Lesbos or
uncovered my chest's standing stone and etched it
that to be queer was to be a poet,
words made secret song in souls when blossomed.
I know in the 1800s I would have been one of those
fainting corsets with ink stained fingers,
writing letters to women I could never admit
out loud were lovers; modern scholars would never
avow they were more than friendships.
The thing about these men is that they do not
understand the heartache of a friendship,
how it is love but more difficult, because
you cannot make the same promises of forever-
You just have to feel it and trust
in playground pinkies across immeasurable distance,
the way queer women have done for centuries.
And because I am modern, the letters I send are
momentary missives scattered satellite to a heaven
its bodies distant and unknowable as the way
my best friend's face curls up into a smile.
I have never seen it, but she replies in seconds,
a ping in the present like her presence
is as strong a signal as the internet.
The way we name things has power:
Like sapphic.
Like lesbian.
Like the interconnection of us a butterfly net,
a spider's web, the catch of a locket clasp
which holds perfume scented parchment,
whispers we know to mine the ore of friendship
more precious than man has named things:
Like gold.
Like diamond.
Our love is violets, a whole field of them.
About the author:
Lydia Gates is a queer, autistic performance poet, writer and crocheter who lives Flagstaff with her wife Lucy and their three cats. She is the managing organizer of FlagSlam and competes in poetry slams locally and nationally level including appearances at National Poetry Slams. Her most recent poetry collection, Algorithmancer, is available on Amazon.
About the host:
Steven Law is the co-producer of KNAU’s series PoetrySnaps! He is a poet, essayist, storyteller, and the author of Polished, a collection of poems about exploring the Colorado Plateau by foot and by raft.
About the music:
Original music by the Flagstaff-based band Pilcrowe.
Poetry Snaps is produced by KNAU Arizona Public Radio and airs the third Friday of each month.
