Celebrated Spoken Word Poet Porsha O to Perform at Middlebury

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – An award-winning poem by Porsha Olayiwola’s poem opens with the chilling line, “Last night, no one showed up to march for Rekia Boyd.” The poem details the injustice of violence against black girls and women through the lens of a 2012 incident in which the unarmed, 22-year-old Boyd was killed by an off-duty Chicago police officer, who was later cleared of all charges.

Olayiwola, an educator and activist who performs as “Porsha O,” is the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam champion and the 2015 National Poetry Slam champion. Originally from Chicago, Olayiwola now lives in Boston where she works as the lead-teaching artist & program manager at MassLEAP, a youth literary organization. She brings her spoken word to Middlebury on Tuesday, February 27, at 7 p.m. in Wilson Hall as part of Black History Month, sponsored by Middlebury Women of Color and Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB).

Jade Moses ’20, who helped organize the event, says she first got excited about Olayiwola from seeing her videos on YouTube. “I knew she’d be great to have at Midd because her work is a conglomeration of powerful critiques on race, class, gender, and sexual identity as well as a healing, love, and becoming,” said Moses. “What college doesn’t need some of that?”

Olayiwola describes herself as “black, poet, dyke-god, hip-hop feminist, womanist.” She separates herself from the field of issue-based performance poets by “applying advanced political analysis to examine injustice while providing perspective on concrete solutions.”

Prior to her evening performance, Olayiwola will give an afternoon workshop for students titled, “Gate Keepers: On Examining Privilege and Diversity.”

“When do we get to hear those voices?” says Moses. “She’s got a wealth of knowledge and experiences that she shares with her audience through her work. And she does it in a way that challenges us to examine our own identities in the structures we build, reinforce, and push against daily. You don’t need to come having read a book, or articles, or anything. Just come as you are. It’s what Porsha’s doing.”

Porsha Olayiwola will perform at Wilson Hall in McCullough Student Center on Tuesday, February 27, at 7 p.m. The performance is open to the public.