Finding Solace in Spoken Words

Sometime last year a friend of mine told me about an EP called Soul y Luna,but this EP is not what most people would expect; It isn’t music, it’s poetry. This is when I discovered that many music streaming platforms actually have a genre for poetry, or more specifically, spoken word. Finding this out was like discovering a whole new world, but it started small, with Soul y Luna, with Reyna Biddy.

Listening to Reyna Biddy, in a sense, was like listening to myself. The way she reads her poetry is similar to the way I have always wanted to read mine: with purpose, with clear intention, loud and proud, yet quiet and soft when necessary. I think that many young poets who peruse the spoken word labyrinths of streaming platforms would agree that at some point they found a poet that reminded them of themselves, whether is was their present, past, or future self. I think all poets can find one, if not many poets who stand out to them because of some sort of similarity. 

I happened to be lucky enough to see on Reyna Biddy’s instagram account that she had a book reading scheduled for May 2, 2019 at The Last BookStore in Los Angeles. A dear friend and role model of mine, Paola, accompanied me to this reading, and somehow it seemed to open up yet another new world for me. We arrived just on time. When we walked in the door Reyna had just begun reading. Experiencing her in person was almost how you might imagine it was, like a movie, you know, the ones where some kid idalizes some celbrity and ends up meeting them or passing by them as they rush down the street, except I didn’t have that sense of wonder, not until after the reading when she signed my book anyway. But while she read, I just thought about how she sounded exactly like she did on Apple Music. It was hyperrealistic in a sense. The experience was exactly as I had imagined it and not at all how I imagined at the same time.

One thing that struck me in particular was the audience. Most of us women, and most of us women of color. It reminded me again of why I was drawn to her. Her poetry told her own story, but at the same time, it told so clearly the story of so many women, of all women. I even noted that many of these women were accompanied by friends, or family, or men, who I assumed to be their significant others. It was interesting to see that most of the lone men were merely browsing through the shelves of books, paying little attention to the event taking place. The only men who seemed to listen to her spoken word were those who accompanied women. 

Why I noted this, I’m not quite sure. Maybe because it reminded of how people tend to say “imagine if it happened to your mother, or sister, or wife, or daughter,” and I thought about how society perceives men as though they are only inclined to listen to women, only when those women are directly linked to them. And I had hoped to see at least one lone man listening intently to the story of such a strong and vulnerable woman, I wanted to see one man proving the stereotype wrong, but I didn’t. All the men who were practicing active listening were accompanied by women that they seemed to have some type of close connection with, and not even all of the men accompanying these women practiced active listening.

As we waited in line to have our books signed we talked little, and we mostly talked about how I wanted to interview Biddy and write about her. I thought I might mention that to her, and Pao even helped me think of what I should say. But as we stood there, next in line, I decided not to bring that up because I saw a woman who was not afraid to be vulnerable. A woman who didn’t act as if she had done anything inspiring or special. She was a normal woman, who only told her truth and knew the power in that act. She was grateful for everyone who came to listen to her. She was as sweet and welcoming as you might expect an older sister to be. She was one of many women who carried their power as naturally as they breathed. 

I wonder, how many young women find these poets on Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, or SoundCloud? The poets who help them grow. How many young men find the poets who help them learn the kind of man they want to be? How many of the LGBTQ+ community sees themselves in the poets strong enough to tell their truth to the world and embrace all that may come with it? How many colored people find the poets who tell the stories of their ancestors, the stories that motivate them to continue going when they feel like things are hopeless? How many of us could find solace in the poems we have yet to learn exist?