Voke Spoken Word Group

To the Voke community,

We, the 2019-2020 Voke board, wanted to communicate to you and to the larger Yale spoken-word community about the future of Voke, especially in light of the unique circumstances of this semester due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. After much discussion, we, the current board, have decided to disband Voke.

This may come as a surprise to some of our community members, but this decision follows years of discussions among past and current boards regarding the overwhelming whiteness and lack of BIPOC in Voke and in Voke’s leadership in particular - a problem that has existed since Voke’s founding in Fall 2016. Since 2018, the past and current board members of Voke have identified and thought about this issue, but as is very obvious, this is still a significant problem in the group two years later.

Last semester, a group including current and former board members met to discuss the future of Voke, and we unanimously agreed to disband the group. Overall, we agreed that Voke is not a space that is needed on campus, and its value does not justify the amount of labor required to keep it active nor the discomfort and harm it has created.

We would like to apologize for our past lack of transparency and for the ways Voke has failed our BIPOC members. Voke has been an unwelcoming space to BIPOC and fostered a culture of normative whiteness & uncomfortable silence around issues of race, and has not made BIPOC poets feel supported or centered. We feel that it is the right choice for us to wind down Voke, given that we as well as past leadership have caused harm by not successfully addressing this deep-rooted issue in the space, and that BIPOC poets & the spoken word scene at Yale as a whole will likely benefit from Voke disbanding.

We also want to acknowledge that this announcement comes in the wake of the untimely passing of Andrew Dowe, the Office’s Associate Director who was a mentor to many of us in the Yale q***r community. Our decision about Voke has been in the works for many months, and we regret that it is now being announced in such a time of profound grief, especially for the QTPOC community. While Voke’s time has come to an end, we hope that its disbanding will make space for future groups and endeavors that honor Andrew’s legacy.

We would like to encourage our community members to keep writing and to support the other spoken word groups at Yale - Word, Teeth, ¡Oye!, and Jook Songs - as well as all other forms of spoken word and performance art on campus and in New Haven that center BIPOC voices. The spoken word medium has and will continue to be close to our hearts, and we look forward to seeing the incredible work that comes from Yale’s spoken word community in the future.

Sincerely,
The 2019-2020 Voke board

Voke stands with ER&M and the students fighting to get ethnic studies recognized and supported by Yale. Below is Voke's statement of support, written by member Mitchell Lee '22:

"This university and structure of academia that we stand on is built on a system of white supremacy and colonialism. We acknowledge that we stand today on stolen Quinnipiac land, in an institution which has promoted and legitimised eugenics, global warfare, genocidal policies, and the hyper-privileging of white voices in academia, in an institution built by slave-owners which invests in the carceral state.

In the face of this, it is crucial that we invest time, energy, thought, resources, and love into ethnicity, race, and migration studies, which looks at the world, and Yale itself, through a critical anti-racist and decolonial lens. Voke Spoken Word stands in solidarity with the 13 ER&M faculty who resigned last Friday in protest of the continued financial and institutional neglect of their program - which still isn’t a department! - and of talented professors of colour.

With the rise of white nationalism, racist and dehumanizing immigration and detention policy, climate change migration, a worldwide refugee crisis, our country that lacks academic discourse to it’s most pressing topics, ER&M is relevant. Every Yalie, from those that enter for the promise of the major and for those who don’t want to touch issues of race with a ten-foot pole, ER&M is relevant.

Yale needs to make ER&M into the real fully funded department that it /needs/ in order preserve not only its leadership as a world-class institution but /its very right /to be such.

When it comes down to it, Yale /has/ the resources it needs to /elevate/ instead of /waste/ and /lose/ our talent, and to develop an ER&M program that is the foremost of its kind. Yale asks its students and faculty to /be/ something, to be leaders, to innovate, to contribute to what is relevant. It’s time we demand Yale to follow through with its end of the bargin.

There is currently an open letter going around expressing these wishes to the administration, which can be found at https://tinyurl.com/y4nrh6em. Please sign it and pass it on to all the networks, groupchats, and clubs that you’re in. We all have a responsibility to contribute."

Alumni, Students, and Community Supporters in Solidarity with Yale ER&M If you would like to sign this letter in support, please sign here.

Join Trans@Yale for Trans Day of Visibility events this Sunday, March 31!

This Sunday, March 31 is 2019 Trans Day of Visibility! Trans@Yale is hosting a variety of events in partnership with New Haven Pride Center and Party for Socialism and Liberation - CT. See the graphic for the list of events and details! Facebook events at:

New Haven Trans Day of Visibility speakout:
https://www.facebook.com/events/328284584370864/

Trunch (Trans Community Lunch):
https://www.facebook.com/events/256220588604597/?event_time_id=295687491324573

Major! Film Screening (NOTE time change, 9-11pm):
https://www.facebook.com/events/2092163734198966/

See u every Tuesday from 9-11pm at the Office
Bring ur writing utensil or tool maybe some paper
Or a laptop
But most importantly bring ur self and ur mood
Bcuz we gonna be writing so good

Voke Spoken Word Group is looking for models who would be willing to come on stage during the upcoming Voke Poetry show on Friday and Saturday April 6th/7th at 8:30pm in the Pierson/Davenport Crescent Theatre. You can participate either night, or on both.

We are asking that you be comfortable in your underwear on stage, to have your body painted with non-toxic glow-in-the-dark paint during our show. No requirements aside from being comfortable with that, and showing up to one dress rehearsal (Thursday April 5th at 8pm in the Theatre). If any of you are interested or know somebody who is, please email/message Brian at [email protected]. Thank you!

Compensation will be provided through the form of reserved front row seats ;)

Come watch our show tomorrow

Semester show!!!

Fresh poetry from Andrea Gibson.

I mean, who knows? Maybe they wrote it years ago but it's fresh to us.

Does poetry go stale?

Does poetry grow mould?

Does poetry get bitter?

I'm gonna stop now. Go enjoy some words.

Andrea Gibson - Your Life "Your Life" from Andrea's upcoming album HEY GALAXY (out January 12th 2018) Pre-Order the new record at www.andreagibson.com