Beats & Rhymes: Introducing Teen Poet Lo Anderson

A while back, over a year or so now, I went to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to see my new mentee perform. It was my first time there so I wasn’t sure what to expect. There were a few other young poets who took the stage that night and one of them, Lo Anderson, blew me away. Listening to her spit, all I could think was, sis is dope. As soon as she was finished, I knew I had to find her and try to get her to agree to a feature in my magazine. I did and she did.

Here is the poem she recited that night and the inspiration behind it.

So you like social consciousness eh?

There are women buying Che Guevara panties at Mandees

While virginity is stuck sticky black to the leather of a hot jeep

Stumblin dizzy through my country

They make fun of me,

cuz our women can Fuck a man straight off his bones

They say that I’ll learn one day

that my hips will bear the bitter bitch

cookin womanhood in your kitchen

We’re like ehh como se dice

ANIMAL PLANET

As if slut is a new name for mammal

Its like shhh as we learn the ways of the Dominican woman

Many of them, along with selling their bodies, act as thieves.

Upon meeting a new client, they will first ask him how long he is in town.

back in his hotel room,

seize any opportunity to steal from him.

her most natural habitat

your husbands mind & possibly his bedsheets

While approaching a man on the street,

she would get close to him and move her hands around to distract

At the same time, she will deftly pick his pocket

& it doesnt matter how young or pure she is

it doesnt matter how loose or whore she is

she is whore

she is

sprawled out across your hotel room floor

before u even push in the keys

so go ahead..

Ask me about my country

Why my spine smells like Las Terranas

And all the Rape rain

Will crush me

Trust me

Two possible jobs if you own a pussy in DR

You prostitute or work at the salon

Where the prostitutes do their hair

Normally I wouldn’t care

But when you catch a French man

Jugando buddy buddy

With a ten year old

It just bothers

And I was ten

And she was ten

And both of our ages combined were

Not old enough

2 have fingers

Laced with the lace of our panties

oh does the word panties make you uncomfortable?

or the swollen throats of children?

or the torso shifting and jaw clicking you hear when u sleep

they didnt give us these hips & this ass for nothing

this strut and this sass for nothing

so while your little girl is counting her sheep

tuck her tight in her skin

dont u dare tell her about the revolution

or Trujillo

or all the reasons we have to be who we be

just grow up

& be mariposa maravillosa

be whoever

she

maybe

(c) Lauren E. Anderson

I wrote this poem about prostitution in the Dominican Republic. I’m from Las Terrenas in Samana. It’s a really really small [place], really country—dirt roads, nobody wearing shoes, nobody wearing shirts because it’s too hot for that. A couple of years ago, I went back to my hometown and I was walking down my street and I saw a really really young Dominican girl walking around with a European tourist as his date and we were the same age. That’s disgusting and it’s something that resonated with me always, it just stuck with me, because it didn’t make sense. That’s why in the poem I mentioned there aren’t too many options for woman out there—there aren’t too many options out there for anybody, let alone a woman. Like in the poem, I mention this woman, or this ideological woman I’m talking about, she has a lot of kids to feed so like sacrificing her body and her time and self worth is not a question. It’s not something to be thought about, it’s something you do. That’s how you survive.

Prostitution is a semi general topic. But the good thing, in any good spoken word poem is it’s going to take something universal and make it really specific. This is something that I’m connected to.  I’m a big believer in backing up what you say. I saw that, I experienced that first hand. That’s what is real to me. It’s not because I went to Google and I researched.

“If I feel some kind of way about something, I’m going to write it down, because I want to make you feel some kind of way about something.” 

Read more about Lo, her life, her inspirations, her aspirations, and her poetry,  in the first issue of HomegirlNYC, on sale now. If you’re interested in writing poetry, check out Urban Word NYC, the organization that helped Lo grow as a writer.