There's something of a revolution going on in our increasingly divided society as interest in the art of performance poetry continues to rise at an exponential rate. More than anything else, it has become a hugely influential platform for women with so many female artists speaking out about their struggles in a male-dominated, prejudiced and victimising world.
Fleassy Malay performing live
One of those incredible women is Fleassy Malay. The Melbourne spoken word poet went viral seven months ago when she released a video in collaboration with Uplift Connect for an evocative piece on female empowerment. Entitled Witches, it received half a million clicks in just two days and, as of today, has seen an incredible 2.5 million views.
"It's almost not my poem anymore, it has been gifted and taken and belongs to the hearts of two and a half million people", she told us. "It's been used on placards at political marches, it's been used as a backing to many dance and cabaret performances, it's had other women read it out at events. It has become like a prayer for women to use for their own sense of strength."
Fleassy's a single mother who's had her fair share of heartbreak and abuse, and the poem resulted in a deluge of personal messages from women, opening up about their own traumatic experiences and feelings of vulnerability. Lines like "In the past they burned us, because they thought we were witches" resonated with so many disillusioned women.
"The sad fact in the poem going viral, I guess, is that it is a reminder of how many women know this story to be their own", she said.
"We cannot keep going forward the way we have been, treating people... women... the way we have been", she continued. "Women are ready to claim back their strength. This for me is exciting. I feel a rising. I think we were all feeling it around that time, the poem was just a representation of that feeling."
In the last few years, there's been a steady incline in the amount of people reading poetry, going from 6.7% in 2012 to 11.7% in 2017 according to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Spoken word poetry has become even more popular with artists like Rupi Kaur, Hollie McNish, Kate Tempest, Rachel Wiley and Kai Davis becoming viral sensations and making a real difference in the lives of young women.
Unfortunately, the poetry world is still littered with the kind of elitists who show disdain over the increasing interest simply because of modern creators having found fame through YouTube and Instagram rather than at underground poetry slams or in actual books. But the truth is, it shouldn't matter where people are hearing or reading poetry, as long as they're giving it a chance.
Performance poetry as an artform allows people to express their voices with the kind of liberation that's not afforded to them in any other format. It knows no bounds, there is no fixed formula. Poems can be as long as they need to be or a simple one-word lament. Most importantly, it's a way to challenge the conventions of society and offer up a new perspective to those who are willing to listen.
"My life for the past six years has been dedicated to supporting the rise of women's voices in this world so when I see women sharing their truths it enlivens me", she revealed. "It also challenges me. I've been brought up to compete and compare and rip down other women. This is what our society teaches us. I unpack that everyday. Every time I see a woman shining, I have to face those things and unpack them and remember MY truth."
Fleassy is set to launch her debut album next month; a release that has been a long time in the making. Two years ago, before Witches went viral, she launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to make the album alongside producers Joe Oppenheimer and Fahad Abdulaal. Unhear This is the result of those months of hard work, and a perfect follow-up to her first poetry book, Sex and God, which dealt with themes of sexual liberation and queer identity.
Inspired by the likes of Banks, Ani Difranco, Dizraeli and the Small Gods, and Kate Tempest, Fleassy has been writing poetry since she was old enough to write, burying her teen years in "angsty" verses about death and angels and demons in true goth style. Then when she was 19, she discovered spoken word poetry at an open mic evening in a Canadian hostel.
"Some local artists got on stage and did something incredible", she recalled. "Beatboxing with poems and spoken word. I came away different. More alive. I think spoken word does that to people. I went back to the UK and, not long after, I wrote my first piece."
"My first spoken word poem was called re:Creation Generation", she added. "and it was inspired by a rise in young and vibrant voices fighting a broken system that I was seeing. In fact, it was an evening around a fireside at a festival with Kate Tempest and a few other epic underground UK artists which initially sparked that poem 13 years ago."
Being the double-Gemini that she is, her visions don't stop at the end of her verses. She's expanding her voice into a platform where more people can learn to speak out and make their presence known. She's currently curating a 6-week online program called RISE Speaker Training, where she teaches classes on public speaking and communicating. This, along with Mother Tongue - her women's spoken word event in Melbourne which she has been running for 6 years - is a display of her dedication to give people the confidence to have bigger voices and a bigger presence in the world.
"Don't be ashamed to take up space", she explains. "I see so many powerful writers fall on the performance because they apologise for taking up space."
Fleassy Malay's Unhear This is available to pre-order on Bandcamp and will be released on November 23, 2018.
Tagged in Poetry