Written by Nathan Makela
SpeakEasy, the first official spoken word group at Colorado College, was recently awarded “Excellence in Poetry Programming” by the Pikes Peak Art Council. With this award, SpeakEasy was granted an honorary membership within the Pikes Peak Art Council and official recognition within the Colorado Springs art community.
Founded by senior Eliza Mott and junior Hollis Schmidt, SpeakEasy has attracted widespread attention across Colorado College and the Colorado Springs community. Mott holds the position of SpeakEasy President, with Schmidt maintaining the position of Vice President. Seniors Greg Smith and Nia Abram are the spoken word performance and writing coaches within SpeakEasy.
SpeakEasy consists of two parts: a troupe and a co-op. The troupe, which students had to audition for, is made up of 18 students, including Mott, Schmidt, Abram, and Smith. The troupe meets two to three times a week to work on writing poetry and performing poetry aloud. The other members of the troupe, consisting of all students, are Joel Fisher-Katz, John Henry Williams, Sethwilson Gray, Kendal McGinnis, Miles Lowe, Perry Fitz, John Borah, Dereka Thomas, Jabu Lindumuzi, Jacqueline Nkhonjera, Elsa Godtfredsen, Elianna Clayton, Eliza Granger, and Jordan Phinney.
“We have a lot of people who are very experienced, and people who have no experience at all,” said Mott. “One person is in the New Mexico poetry slam state champion. Greg, our coach, started another poetry group, and we have people who have just started writing poetry. What we were looking for in auditions was people who were emotional, and really bare and raw.”
The co-op will be meeting two times a block and will be a workshop open to anybody.
“[At performances] we’d really like to have an open mic portion, but also like to have people who have come to the two workshops, worked on something, and perform it,” Mott said of the co-op.
Mott was inspired to start SpeakEasy over a year ago, when she was a leader during New Student Orientation (NSO) in the summer of 2015. Before the NSO groups broke out, the new students and leaders performed intimate “I am” poems about themselves.
“Topics included intimate partner violence, being queer, being a person of color, mental health, suicide,” said Mott. “Some of the things I said in that poem I had never admitted to myself or never verbalized to anybody else, and I was able to in that setting.”
Mott led Winter Start Orientation last January, once again incorporating “I am” poems. Around Block 7 of last school year, she started developing the idea that would eventually become SpeakEasy.
“It was something that stuck with me, seeing how expansively it affected other people,” she said. “Essentially, all that inspiration came from recognizing the power in writing and performing. We had interest groups and it was like, all these people want to do it.”
After working through logistics last spring and this summer, SpeakEasy held its first event, iSpeak, on Sept. 2. The performance was held in the Cornerstone screening room, and drew enough guests to fill the theater.
“The people who performed at iSpeak, they just were themselves. You just sit there and you’re like ‘I felt you in that moment,’” Mott explained.
Following the performance, Mott and Schmidt held auditions for the troupe, decided upon its members, and have already held the troupe’s first meeting and workshop.
In the workshops, Mott is particularly interested in discussing the distinction between written and spoken poetry, and how to accurately portray emotion.
“How do you write funny? How do you perform funny? And how do you make something sad? How do you convey your story so you can get as close to what you’re trying to say? Because in the end words kind of get in the way of what you’re really trying to say,” Mott continued. “So it’s really helping people in our troupe have a great handle on the English language, or whatever language they’re using, as well as tone, meter, voice, projection, the way in which you move your body so that they can convey their story the best that they can. And that’s what draws me into poetry or any type of art, because it conveys the feeling of an issue, which I think is a lot easier to hold on to and be motivated by.”
Schmidt offered her thoughts on spoken word as well. “Poetry in my life functions as the space to clear my head and translate everything my eyes see and take in to a blank page,” she said. “It creates a space I feel free and uncensored. Spoken word functions as a healing space for me, a place where performance and connecting with an audience intermingles with what I write. It’s a beautiful culmination of connection with others and my personal thoughts.”
SpeakEasy’s first performance with its official troupe will be third Friday of this block, Oct. 14, in the Cornerstone screening room.