Alix Olson: Combining All the isms BY CATHY RESMER n a recent afiemoon in 0 her Brooklyn apartment Alix Olson was stug- gling with directions for con- structing a new piece of fumi- ture. Her roommates were at work, but she didn’t mind tack- ling the project on her own. Thanks to a recent grant from the New York State Council for the Arts, she says, “I’m the stay- at-home artist. This is what I get to do.” Olson is a performance poet. She moved to New York afier graduating from Wesleyan College in 1997 with a BA in English. One night in 1998, she signed up to perform at a poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. She was later selected for the Nuyorican’s poetry slam- team, which that year won the National Poetry Slam Championship. She also won the 1999 Outwrite National Queer Poetry Slam last February. Olson’s slam set list is taken mostly from her chapbook, Only The Starving Favor Peace-—a rallying cry for those belea- guered by the rainbow flag cor- porate assimilationist brouhaha. Ironically, Girlfriends Maga- zine, which recently endorsed bio-engineering multinational Monsanto and Chevron Oil as two of the top ten places for les- bians to work, named Olson “girlfriend of the mont ” earlier this year. Olson defily tackles such taboo subjects as the American corporate monocul- ture, female masturbation, and the sexualization and demoniza- tion of post-menopausal lesbians. She doesn’t beat around the bush, so to speak —— she dives right in. In “Witches,” a poem that 66' pays homage to lesbians in their crone prime,” she writes, “I’ll give myself a lube job, shake my broomstick until my clit throbs...sweep that granny off her feet.” A lot of older les- bians have reacted positively to Olson’s work, but sometimes people tell her to “tone it down.” “A lot of women still have a very timid way of talking about their bodies,” she says. This is one of the reasons her work is so sex-positive. “You have to go over the top with language,” she says. “If it were ok to say those things, people wouldn’t react so strongly to it.” Olson’s experi- ence teaching in ‘New York City’s public schools has shown her the need for this kind of openness. She works with the Night Star pro- gram, teaching sex ed and sexual to high school stu- dents. She describes a game called Cross the Line where stu- dents indicate agreement with a statement by step- ' ping over an imaginary line. “We would say, ‘it’s ok for boys to masturbate,’ and they’d all cross the line. We’d say, ‘it’s ok to be gay,’ and they’d all cross the line. Then we’d say, ‘it’s ok for girls to masturbate,’ and out of a class of 30, two of them would cross the line. These girls were outgoing and raucous about everything else, and none of them knew the correct terms for the parts of their vaginas! They’re thought of as this new generation of women who are sexually aware, but for them, saying ‘clit’ was not very easy.” Poetry slamming was a natur- al outlet for Olson’s synthesis of poetry and activism. “I’d say at least half of the performance poets I know are activists,” she says. “In the slam scene, there’s a lot of emphasis on activism, on changing stuff.” Olson teaches poetry slam workshops though the Gowanus Arts Exchange. Recently she, and other Nuyorican poets, have been teaching performance poetry to members of a nurses and custodial union, helping to lead them in after work poetry slams. This kind of grassroots outreach is what differentiates slam from traditional poetry readings—the kind held in , awareness classes - bookstores or coffeeshops, or galleries. Slam is an urban phe- nomenon that rewards a poet’s engaging and energetic delivery, and demands audience partici- pation. “There’s such a cacopho- ny of voices,” says Olson. “Even though there’s a kind of formula [for slamming at the national level], there’s definitely still this idea of ‘anyone can do it.’ It’s very democratic.” Olson is involved in a variety of other projects, including Rainbow Flags For Mumia. Olson’s work, along with that of other Nuyorican poets, is fea- tured on a compilation cd recently released to benefit Mumia Jamal’s defense. The African-American journalist was convicted (under dubious circumstances) of killing a Philadelphia police officer. Olson says her LGBT and anti-racist work intersected dur- ing a recent visit by Fred Phelps. Mumia supporters and the anti- Phelps crowd joined forces unable to get separate demon- stration permits. This, she says, confused Phelps and his small band of miscreants, who began screaming “cop killers! cop killers!” Olson continues, “Basically, they just knew that the people on the other stood for something they didn’t like, but they weren’t really sure what. It was really great, combining all these isms, having all these peo- ple standing up for each other.” Unfortunately, she says, “a few of the rich white Christopher Street people starting yelling, ‘white trash go home,’ and I thought ‘whoops, there’s the Bu Maxwell Stroud by love. My best friend is in the process of moving into my apartment, and as I look up from my chair, the sight of her things mingling with mine comforts me. I’ve been curled up in the newest addition to our home, my sweetheart’s overstuffed green chair that just recently relocated from his former partner’s house. Looking up, I see a photograph my father gave me for my birthday, and I remember I need to call home — a Sunday ritual. They say that a culture cre- ates many words for things important in the daily life of its members; that’s why Eskimos have so many words for snow. It’s always bothered me that English is lacking in words to describe the many different facets and faces of love. The title of the book I’ve spent the day reading, The Lesbian Polyamory Reader: The Lesbian Polyamory Reader: A Review n a quiet Sunday aflemoon, I am sitting alone and surrounded Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy and Casual Sex, is an example of how cumbersome the English language can be when trying to capture something as poetic as multiple ways of loving. This collection of essays, articles, plays, poems, and songs follows a progression in thought and experiences that charts a course from dichoto- mous debate to the real variety of human experi- ence. Reading the foreword, I was greeted by the familiar and uninspiring argument that monoga- mous relationships are an instrument of patriarchal oppression and the only real route to radical liber- ation is through polyamory. I almost put down the book when I found myself being lumped into the category of “assimilationist.” Almost. I am intrigued by the idea of polyamory, and I’m interested in how people manage relation- ships with more than one partner, from the logis- tical aspects of coordinating day planners to deal- other ism, and this time we’re on the wrong side.”’ Alix Olson is proving that success and popularity doesn’t have to mean giving up good old fashioned radical lesbian feminist politics. She continues to talk the talk, walk the walk, and assemble her own furni- ture. V See Alix Olson in Vermont this month—at Middlebury on Monday, October 11, at 8pm in the Gamut room, and with Alix Dobkin on Thursday, 0ctober14 at 7pm at U VM ing with issues of honesty, jealousy, and limits or rules. The editors of this collection, Marcia Munson and Judith Stelboum, selected an array The Lesbian Polyamory Reader: Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy and Casual Sex; Marcia Munson & Judith Stelbaum, editors Haworth Press of works that provide the reader with narratives exploring a diversity of polyamoric experiences. Although the title is terse, the stories within are filled with poetry. Mamy Hall writes, “No matter how cou- pled we are, we rarely remain in actual twosomes for very long. Typically, pets or par- ents, children or friends, are constantly joining our magic circle.” Lisa Lusero writes, “It is about building powerful relationships based on unremitting honesty and ago- nizing trust. Mutual trust. Mutual freedom. Mutual love — not every heart loves in a line.” The women included in this collection write unabashedly about every aspect of their lives in relation to polyamory, from their diffi- culty in finding a therapist understanding of their situa- tion to the intimacy experi- enced with a primary partner that understands one’s desire for outside exploits. ing hell.” V In addition to the truly intimate portraits painted by each author, this anthology is also unique in that the editors also provide information about how to contact the contributors and how to obtain copies of the articles. After finishing the last page, I smile. I’m reminded of the many ways in which I experi- ence love in my life. I’m still interested in the ideas of polyamory, but I have to agree with Ellen Orleans: “Frankly, polyamory looks like process- Borders Books and Music of Burlington is hosting a reading by several of the authors from this collection on October 13 at 7:00 pm.