With the onset of Ted talks and viral Upworthy videos, many people are finding their inspiration online. These kinds of videos are becoming increasingly popular and are flooding social media. But this raises the question: what is happening to the written word?
Is writing losing its effectiveness in provoking thought? Do people pay as much attention to stories, essays, and poems as they do to the heart-warming videos that pop up in their news feed?
And perhaps the most important question of all: Is writing a form of advocacy and self-expression that is here to stay?
The power of words
Camosun student Morgan Purvis has recently been named Victoria’s Youth Poet Laureate for 2014. Last year was the pilot for the program and the City of Victoria Youth Council, who organizes the program, is very excited to see what Purvis, an already well-established poet within the community, will bring to the position.
The goal of the program is to get young people that would otherwise not have access to that scene involved in poetry, as well as supporting youth arts in general, according to Kluane Buser-Rivet, youth council coordinator for the City of Victoria Youth Council.
“When we talk to youth we find that the challenges, in relation to the arts, are the lack of accessible spaces to showcase their art and a lack of financial support for their work.” says Buser-Rivet. “Through this project we are addressing both of these issues, by providing funding for the Youth Poet Laureate, but also providing established spaces to present poetry, and also have access to the resources that the Youth Council has, in terms of organizing events and projects.”
Purvis is thrilled with the prospects of her new position as Youth Poet Laureate and can’t wait to start organizing projects and events.
“This year it has private sponsorship,” says Purvis. “I get an honorarium and an operating budget, and I get to do projects that are meaningful to me.”
Purvis has big plans for her year as the Youth Poet Laureate. In October, Victoria will be the host city of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, a national event that will be bringing poets together from all across the country. Within the event, Purvis plans on making sure the youth voice is well represented.
“My idea is to have a day of youth programming; to have a showcase of national talent of youth in spoken word,” she explains. ”I’m also planning on going to the youth correctional facility, to some youth poetry slams there. I’ve done it before and really loved the experience.”
As the Youth Poet Laureate, Purvis will have a handful of responsibilities, including presenting at Victoria City Council and Youth Council meetings. Purvis has already begun to think about the issues she wants to address in front of these groups.
“Educational funding cuts and child poverty, in BC particularly, are really serious problems,” she says. “There’s a part of me that looks at being the Youth Poet Laureate and thinks that I have to work as an advocate, and I have a duty to write about these issues.”
On the other hand, Purvis says she doesn’t like the idea of tokenizing youth even further.
“I’m also just a poet, and I have things to talk about, like falling in love, and war, and other youth do, too. And so it’s hard for me to know whether the issue should be, ‘Youth are real artists, take us seriously!’ or, ‘Don’t you dare under-educate us.’”
Purvis believes that the written word has the power to bring about positive change on a community level and feels that spoken-word poetry is especially effective as a writing genre.
“I think of it as typical, awareness-raising activism,” she says,” because for a lot of poets it’s not that different from a poster campaign or a rally. It’s a media plug, it’s whatever you want it to be. What makes spoken word different is that it’s really hard to fake it. You’re interacting with an audience in a real moment.”
The written word as a tool
Besides the basic act of self-expression, through the ages the written word has been an important form of activism. And while video campaigns or online petitions may appear to have a more direct effect, it’s the written word that can resonate with people and affect true change.
Camosun College Student Society Women’s Director Daphne Shaed recently won a writing competition put on by the Association of Canadian College and University Ombudsperson (ACCUO) for students that have a focus in social justice work.
Shaed was recognized as a strong contender for the competition by Camosun’s ombudsperson, Carter McDonald, after she gave a memorable speech at the ACCUO’s conference last year.
“I sent in my essay on the final day, on the deadline. I actually wrote it the morning of, just right of the top of my head,” says Shaed. “I honestly didn’t think I had a chance. It was all the colleges and universities across the country, and I thought, ‘Well, there’s going to be hundreds of entries and I’m not likely to win this.”
Perhaps Shaed was able to craft a winning essay with such ease because she’s so passionate and committed to the activism work that she does.
“I do that dialogue so often that it wasn’t really much for me to write about it,” she says. ”If someone had given me new subject matter and told me to write about that, I’d really have to think about itÉ but because I know this subject so intimately and so well, I was just able to hit the keyboard in one run and say, ‘Here it is, here’s what I think.’
Shaed’s endeavors in social justice work are numerous. On top of being Camosun’s Women’s Director, she’s also the outreach coordinator for the Students of Colour Collective within the University of Victoria’s Student Society, as well as working as an advocate for transgender women worldwide.
With the type of advocacy work that Shaed does, being clear and concise is very important. She explains that the writing has taught her to use a different approach in educating.
“I want to tell people about my personal experience, and how I view the world, and how I think things are working, because it’s about idea sharing,” she says. “At the same time, I want there to be a very clear picture of what I’m sharing. It’s important that it’s done that way, because I don’t want my ideas to be taken or twisted and then used in the capacity to do harm. I’m very conscious when I’m writing; more so than when I’m talking.”
Shaed considers herself an orator and admits to feeling more comfortable going out, talking with people, and having a two-sided interaction, rather than relying on writing alone to get a point across.
“Writing is not reciprocal,” she says. “It’s very one-sided, you’re telling somebody something. You may be getting them to think about something, but everybody will practice the interpretation of what you write differently…”
Because of this, Shaed feels that writing doesn’t necessarily have the power to bring people together, and uses writing primarily to access an audience that doesn’t have the ability to make it to a speaking event.
“Having speaking engagements brings people together because it puts people in the same room. And they’re all listening, and you’re having that back and forth, reciprocal relationship,” she says. “Reading is an internal thing. We generally read by ourselves. We don’t collectively read, and there’s a different dynamic there.”
Putting pen to paper
Purvis and Shaed are full of advice for anyone who wants to start writing, or for those who are having a hard time getting their work heard.
For starters, Purvis is an active part of the spoken word scene and urges anyone who writes to go out and become a part of the community.
“I think a lot of the time young writers don’t get taken very seriously,” says Purvis. “Don’t let that stop you! You don’t have to be a spoken word artist, you could be anybody… if you are having a hard time getting support for your work, come to an open mic. You’ll get something.”
Purvis also offers advice and personal insight into struggling with creativity and subject matter.
“Don’t worry about writing the right thing. This happens to me a lot,” she says. “I worry, ‘Is my cause the right cause? Am I being justice-y enough? Or am I being beautiful enough? Am I being eloquent?’ But the best things I have written have always been without trying to answer of my own questions. Don’t force it.”
Meanwhile, Shaed stresses that if you are using your writing for advocacy or teaching, it’s very important to be familiar with your subject matter.
“Know what you’re talking about,” says Shaed. “And don’t be afraid to say that you don’t know what you’re talking about, either. There are a lot of times that I speculate on something and I don’t really know… but I will say that I’m speculating, which is okay to do. You don’t need to know everything. It’s okay to say, ‘I don’t know.’”
Shaed also says that it’s important to keep some of what you write for yourself and to use writing as a form of self-care.
“Don’t publish everything. Never,” she says. “I write a lot, but I probably publish 10 percent of what I write. All the rest I keep to myself.”
Social media and writing: not mutually exclusive
Camosun College writing professor Jodi Lundgren suggests that writing isn’t being overpowered by the visual nature of communication; in fact, writing is being proliferated by the rise of social media.
“I don’t think it’s one replacing the other,” says Lundgren. “We won’t get as deep an understanding from just watching a short video clip about something as we would from reading about it. But those videos can spark interest and those who want to will go and research more deeply.”
Lundgren also points out that our increased use of technology, and computers specifically, can be helpful in bringing people together and becoming more engaged with the written word.
“Goodreads is a good example,” she says. “You read a book and then you go onto Goodreads to see what everybody else thought. Then you chime in and give your own expression. So you’re joining in to an online community through the book that you’ve read.”
Lundgren also says the most effective form of advocacy and awareness-raising is via the written word because it’s the most effective way of connecting people on an emotional level.
“For example, a video doesn’t let you develop empathy the way you can with a person in writing,” she says. “You can’t get inside their head. It’s one thing to watch somebody in pain, but to hear what the interior soundtrack was when they were going through that experience is going to be more powerful.”
Daughter
A poem by Morgan Purvis
My hips know already how to rock her gentle
My fingers know how best to keep her clean
Being the oldest sister taught me the canonized bookwork of motherhood.
Mary was no sexless doll
No toy of jealous macho Gawd
She was made purer in every bloody, dripping, squelching moment
Picking up the lunch dishes in the sink, one by one
Cleaning them slowly, scrubbing every millimetre
The hum of the refrigerator
Breathing sweet lavender bubbles
Visceral gratitude for a moment of control
-likely the only one today
On the day my daughter is born
I think I’ll call her Eve
And I’ll breath her scent so hungrily
Ahh that lingering cling of paradise
Sweet, like apples
Special, like a secret seed kept under the tongue
Hidden bits of eden we take with us from birth to grave
Looking out the late afternoon window
Children squabbling in play
Laughing in discovery
Sobbing out whole seas in disappointments unbearable
I spend 3 falls, 1 fight, 2 new dimensions, and a faerie visit
Washing this little pile of dishes
In silence
In reverence
And I remember
The middle aged tequila soaked friends of my stepfather
Appraising my 15-year-old breasts and ignoring my mother
They were disguised as friendly family-men.
Costumes completed with real live wife-and-kids-accessories.
the next day I painted my first giant rainbow vagina and taped it to my ceiling
And now, good “Man’s men” never ask me what I think anymore
Except when I catch them by surprise
But don’t worry, Evey. They are easily surprised by the works of God,
and you carry paradise under your tongue.