Arts & Entertainment

Slam Poet Talks Feminism, Empowerment

By Lindsey Smith–It was a pretty silent room Thursday night as slam poet Gabriela Garcia Medina took the stage to talk about her activism as a feminist and her empowerment as a woman.

This event was her first since Medina gave birth a month ago, yet her performance was smooth. She went from talking about growing up as a poor Cuban immigrant to being a magician fixing the world’s problems to self-empowered love songs to a poem about women suffering at the hands of abusive men.

Her delivery was fast paced and the poems were longer than a typical slam poet, but she still engaged the audience, asking them after each poem what they thought or if they wanted to ask her something.

Freshman Summer Kramer thought the event was great, her favorite poem being one where Medina talked about how lingerie doesn’t make a woman any less of a feminist. She said, “I think it was excellent. She tackled hard hitting issues.”

MAC president, junior Sydney Palmer, also thought the show went well. She said, “It was a really good closer. I’m happy with how many people came out. It was a great end to this series.”

About halfway through the set, Medina took some time to draw attention to her other talents, like writing commercial bits for brands. She would read her pieces to the audience and have them guess which brand she wrote it for.

Another thing that made Medina different is her asking for consent from the audience when she had swear words in her poems. She has only performed in front of smaller audiences, around thirty people, so Thursday night was a new experience for her. She told everyone that she felt safe in this space and she wanted everyone else to as well.

Medina ended the night with a poem inspired by some of her stalkers. In it, she shares things that she used to be embarrassed by, things people wouldn’t know about her from her stage performance. She said, “I’m not an extension of my poetry, my poetry is an extension of me.”

If you would like to know more about Medina or her poetry, you can visit her website here.

April 12, 2019

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