Jeremy Logan
The Communicator
Ebony Stewart says childhood trauma from her fathers abuse of her mother, and the messy divorce of her parents, silenced the now outspoken poet.
For one full year she didn’t speak a word to anyone. At eight years old her therapist handed her a composition notebook and told her to write down everything she wanted to say; Ebony Stewart has spoke her mind ever since.
Her poems seem to range from topics of childhood curiosity, to anger towards injustices against women, all the way to how it must feel to be a cupcake and how she relates to it.
She is a spoken word artist, slam poet, and author of the two poetry books, “The Many Faces of She,” and “Love Letters to Balled Fists.”
She has competed as a member of Austin’s Neo Soul Poetry Slam team. With that, she became the only adult female three time slam champ in Austin, Texas.
In addition to her performances, spoken word cd’s and books of poetry she also teaches sexual education to 6th and 7th graders.
Stewart opens her performance with, “My name is Ebony Stewart, A.K.A. The Gully Princess, AKA I’ll Eat Yo Cupcake.” During the show, she tells her audience things like, “I slam because I am good at it, I write because I have to,” and “Writing is therapy, and I think everyone should do it.”
The crowd at Spokane Falls watches as she goes into her first poem directly in the middle of conversation with the audience. Its a poem in which she describes the two sides of the “Gully Princess,” (a name she was given by her fellow slam poets.)
Her cadence shifts from calm to boisterous, as she speaks of her feelings of inadequacy as a young woman, “And my breasts reminded me that I am a part of a second class citizenship in a world full of dicks.” Moments later she shrinks her voice to speak softly at a high pitch, as she tells the audience, “I have a hard time accepting compliments. I get all embarrassed and uh uh uh…” The poem is titled, “Transparent.”
Between poems Ebony asks the audience questions about living in this cold climate and what one might do for recreation during such cold winters. One student responds, “I hide from the cold,” and ebony laughs, and responds, “that would be me.”
Her poems tell her story. They are a peek through the looking glass of a woman with two names, and at times two personalities. She does not appear to shy away from any topic that is personal and meaningful to her. Her topics range from her deepest thoughts to encouraging a young gay boy to be ok with being who he is. She encourages her audience to learn to love themselves as she is learning to love herself. At one point she even addresses the audience and suggests to them to write down a list of things they love about themselves for Valentines Day.