Erica Reed is a Southern Louisiana spoken word poetry artist, that is in her senior year of college majoring in Mass Communications and minoring in Speech. Heavily influenced by Alicia Keys’ and Maya Angelou’s poetic styles and humanitarian ways, this spoken word powerhouse became interested in the art form when she was just in middle school.
Her mother, who also enjoys poetry and spoken word, was Erica’s 6th grade English teacher and one assignment that she gave the class was to create and share a poem using certain vocabulary words. Erica’s poem was titled, “My Life” and after that assignment she knew that she enjoyed poetry. Her poetry became so popular while in school, that it was even published in some school-related books.
Described by her friends as, “One of the humblest and most interesting people they’ve ever met,” and “A natural inspiration they can always go to in a time of need,” Erica believes that the art of spoken word poetry has impacted her life for the better. Inspired by topics like relationships, police brutality and war, Erica’s creative process consists of sitting in her room while listening to gospel music and letting the words flow. After writing her thoughts down, she practices her poems over and over in order to remember them for performances. While she has only done local open-mic nights, Erica looks forward to being in spoken word poetry competitions.
Reflecting on how nervous she was before reciting her first poem at an open-mic night to where she almost backed out, Erica feels that spoken word definitely gives her the courage to give oral presentations and that her doing spoken word will help her in her future career field. While spoken word is a current interest and hobby for Erica now, she would really love for the art to become a career for her. She’d like to become a public or motivational speaker because she feels that she has been through a lot in her short 22 years and if she could make a living talking to people, encouraging them and letting them know that they aren’t alone, it’d be a dream come true for her.
The advice that Erica would give to anyone just starting out in or interesting in doing spoken word poetry would be to never give up, always carry something around to write down thoughts and don’t be afraid to push the limits and tell people the truth.
Spoken Art 