Take a look at this powerful performance by Imani Cezanne from the preliminaries of the 2014 World Poetry Slam. She tackles issues of sexual violence and consent, and the importance of the language we use to describe them. She boldly confronts the issue of silence when it comes to consent, impressing upon the audience that the way we talk about consent – as well as our willingness to talk about it at all – is crucially important.
What I find most intriguing about her performance is that she is using spoken word to explore the meaning of silence. Too often, women experience sexual violence and do not speak out about it because they’re afraid others will say they’re “exaggerating” or that they were “asking for it.” Cezanne beautifully uses her voice to serve as a counterpoint to the silence of those who were made to feel like they couldn’t tell their stories.