Virtual Gender Crash

June 2006

Over Memorial Day Weekend family, friends, poets, and rockers gathered at the Cantab to honor and remember slam poet Lisa King. Lisa King passed away in February 2006. Lisa had been winner of Amazon slam in the 90's and was on the Massachusetts team for the National Slam, she also started the Queer Slam at the Outwrite Conference.

This is the piece I read at her memorial.

Dear Lisa King
By Gunner Scott

In the mid 90's I would drive into Cambridge one Sunday night a month to hear poets. The Amazon Slam, where some of the poets here today spoke their words to a crowded room. The first Amazon slam I ever went to Lisa King performed. When Ren called her name to the stage the audience applause was thunderous. She strode, no swaggered to the mic, and took a deep breath and dove into pain, anger, beauty, sex, and the rawness that is humanity.  She gave dimension to what it meant to be a butch walking in this world. To remind us that being queer in this world is still a struggle and for many it is an everyday struggle.

The first time saw her on stage I was stuck, literally stuck in my chair from fear, from relief, and awe. I wanted to scream to her "How do you know about the pain I feel". Her words, the emotion behind it were so real for me. She was the first women I heard talk about pain, anger, and the body from a stage, where in the past it would have been told as a secret. Here she was standing in front of an audience of mostly queer women and speaking the truth of some of our own collective secrets.

At that time I was going through one of the worst times in my life - how could this poet who has never met me know speak to the pain I had balled up inside of me. Unfortunately some pain is universal and that was one of the many gifts Lisa had, she spoke the truth of that universal pain. Her poems helped me to understand my own deep sadness, feeling of isolation, and give words to the pain. Her poems where part of my acknowledgement of the disastrous and dangerous relationship I was in at that time.   I carried her words around in me for quite sometime, remembering if this poet can speak living through hurt so can I.

For me Lisa King was what it means to be a slam poet. She made you sit up, listen closely, feel the words vibrate off your ribs and sink into your soul. You may not remember every line after hearing a poem once, but if the poet stirred your emotions and you felt it days after then you had experienced a true slam poet, whether on stage or on paper that was the poetry of Lisa King.

I am so lucky to have gotten to tell her how much admired her work when she had moved back to Boston, but I never was able to tell her the impact she had on me. She had been part of my inspiration in creating a space for poets through Gender Crash. Her untimely death made many of us aware of how little of her slam poetry life had been captured. What would there be of Lisa poems to pass on to the next group of slam poets and queers struggling to be seen in this world? This memorial today is to remember her, but all of those who where inspired, in awe, amazed by her need to pass around the stories of her, the memories, and the few published pieces that one to the next group.

The hole that is left without her or her work makes it urgent for me to record the amazing poets and performers I am so lucky to have in my life today. It has pushed me to write down my own words, even as hard as it is for me to fight against my own little editor in my head saying no one cares what you have to say. Thank you Lisa, Thank you