The University of Idaho Women’s Center has decided to change the date of the “F-word Live” poetry slam. The event will take place Nov. 12 instead of Oct. 2.
“We decided to reschedule it because we had only had about six responses to call for artists,” said Lysa Salsbury, Director of the Women’s Center.
Salsbury said the Women’s Center thought there were a lot of things going on in October so they moved it into November when they don’t have such a heavy programming month.
Another change in the poetry slam is the venue. Instead of being held at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, it will be held at the Borah Theatre in the Student Union Building.
“That’ll make it easier for campus participants to get there,” Salsbury said.
This event will be open to anyone in the community and will be after hours in order to make parking more accessible.
Salsbury said the first time “F-Word Live” was organized on campus was in 2006 by a group named Feminist Led Activist Movement to Empower (FLAME).
“It was a student group that did a lot of activism and advocacy around feminist issues relating to equality for all women and individuals of all genders,” Salsbury said.
The original name of “F-Word Live” was Take Back The Mike.
“We didn’t do the event again until 2010 and FLAME had a new incarnation called the Feminist Alliance,” Salsbury said.
Last year during the Women’s Center 40th Anniversary, the Women’s Center hosted an “F-Word Live” Poetry Slam.
Slasbury said they had such a good turn out that they decided to make it an annual event.
“We want to give students who are perhaps new to writing poetry or new to performance poetry an opportunity to get up on stage in front of a warm and accepting audience,” Salsbury said.
The Women’s Center is currently working on recruiting more spoken word artists to perform at “F-Word Live”.
Salsbury said if they are able to recruit more artists, the Women’s Center will be willing to host a one time class to beginning spoken word artists who plan to perform.
Iris Alatorre can be reached at [email protected]