2008 Woodie Awards
Poetry In Motion
Slam poet shares wisdom with SRU students
By Kelly Horvath
Issue date: 2/4/05 Section: Entertainment
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With tendrils of hair escaping from her cap, a tiny frame with a protruding belly (she is eight months pregnant), and a glowing cherubic face, Monyee looks very modest and sweet tempered - and surely she is. But when she is on stage performing, she turns into a firecracker; mesmerizing the crowd with her powerful voice. Monyee was not always a performing spoken word poet, though.
"When I was younger I wanted to be either the president or a pediatrician," Monyee said.
Back in 2001, she started writing poetry and doing poetry shows after she got out of a bad relationship. Most poets, artists and songwriters will tell you that breakups are fuel for a fire. This is how it was for Monyee.
"I just started doing shows, and [my career] took off on its own after that," she said.
Like most poets, Monyee writes about the good and bad aspects of love, but she also writes about other subjects such as life, spirituality and survival. She even performed a poem about writer's block. Each piece is smart, introspective and philosophical, and many of them hinted references to the Bible. You can imagine a lot of time was spent on each one, because Monyee performs them from memory. A staggering task considering a few of them were between 2-5 minutes long.
The most touching part of the performance though was the piece she did with her husband, Gaknew, about the birth of their children. Monyee said that her daughter (and also the second one on the way) is where she draws most of her inspiration.
"My inspiration also comes from social and political issues, current events, as well as things that I see in passing," Monyee said. "Like homeless people for example."
After her start in 2001, Monyee got into slam poetry. Slam poetry is a type of competitive poetry.
"You need to set up teams, and you need a venue in your city, a slam master and some judges before you can get a competition going," Monyee said.
