By Gwen Frost
On November 2, Western housed poetry goddess Denice Frohman, the incredible 2013 Woman of the World poetry champion. Frohman now has 7.5 millions views of her poems online, but when Denice Frohman was young, she felt like she was “not the right kind of girl.”
Frohman began poetry and performing her freshman year of college, and believes she wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t been for that year.
After a student asked “Why did you start writing?”
Frohman responded “I didn’t think poets looked like me or sounded like me…I wrote myself into a place that I felt I belonged.”
She advised to take advantage of open-mics on campus, because “who knows, you could be doing it for a living 15 years later.”
Sponsored by the AS Womxn’s Identity Resource Center and the Women, Gender and Sexuality studies program, Frohman began her performance with an emphasis on collective liberation, saying “I’m tryna get free.” The dialogue between performer and audience helped Frohman do what she does best, where every viewer gets to “interact with the work in real-time.”
She performed her first poem, a anthem-esque calling named “A Woman’s Place,” because “in this world, we’re convinced to be smaller versions of ourselves.”
“I write poetry first as a gift to myself, to heal, to take back power,” Frohman explained, and dedicated the night’s performance to Puerto Rico.
She discussed the male gaze, and how she used to judge her own worth by the attention men gave her. She remembered a man that she visited summer after summer, for piragua (grated ice and syrup) and the only man she ever wanted anything from; so, “sexually, he’s my boo.”
She touched on gentrification, and said “praise everything we build under the table,” because we are “America’s thumping baseline.”
Frohman discussed the criminalization of homelessness and undocumented people, and how it is hypocritical due to America’s dependence on undocumented labor and participation. The definition of citizenship “is flimsier than we believe it to be,” she said.
She spoke of the manifestations of what a border can be, beyond a physical border. Her third poem illuminated the blood and sweat pressed into the development of the U.S. She gave a shout out to the Blue Group again, and advised to “write toward a hopeful place,” even when it’s rough in this country.
She made jokes about first kisses, followed by critical analysis’ of the domination of the English language in the U.S.
One poem was a celebration of her mother, in a country where white supremacy now has a microphone. A country that tells one history of itself, where it is really only safe for white people. She discussed how having an accent is somehow viewed as “un-American.” However, there are some people, who “don’t fear whatever we’re not.” She said that “movements are always led by young people,” and “this is your moment.”
In 2016, Frohman performed at the White House, and met a woman who worked with NASA, where Frohman asked about the possibility of other life forms. The woman explained that there were over 10,000 galaxies, and humans haven’t even explored all of the first one yet. Frohman felt a fear, one she realized that emanated from a lack of knowledge. She realized that “we are socialized to be afraid of anything that ain’t us.” Of anything we can’t control.
She asked the woman,”‘What would you say to a life form if you were sitting next to it?”
The woman responded, “I wanna know how they coexist, because we don’t know how to.”
[Photo by Hailey Hoffman // AS Review]