E'mon Lauren
“Wonder why I won’t let you in.
Wonder why my door stays bolted.
Tired of hearing my ex’s story ass n****s.
Promise he’ll protect me ass n****s.
Told him my ex said the same thing
Came through my window and beat my ass n****.
I guess I was too transparent.
Call it commitment.”
'A Window-Shopping-Ass-N****'
“I feel like my writing has encouraged the way that I was viewed, or the way that people try to view me before I even open my mouth.”
-E'mon Lauren
The window is open in the small apartment and through the pane, Lake Michigan glistens as the sunlight dances on the water's surface. E’mon Lauren turns down the volume on her television and reaches behind herself to turn off the stove where oil is bubbling and chicken is frying.
“I got started writing poetry in about third grade,” Lauren remembers. The 20-year-old poet born on the west side and raised on the South Side of Chicago, didn’t dream about becoming a princess or fawn over fairytale romances like other girls. Rather, she was drawn to the motivational words from powerful writers.
As an author who cares less about incorporating “pretty words” into her poetic stories, and more about “telling it how it is,” she developed a unique and unmistakable voice within the artistic community around Chicago. Lauren breaks barriers that artists sometimes confine themselves within and reaches an audience that relates to her narrative.
Drawing inspiration from her Chicagoan interactions and interpersonal relationships, Lauren’s made her experiences come to life for audiences around the world. Growing up on poems such as “Phenomenal Woman” and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou, Lauren followed suit and wrote about her hardships.
“Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
they think I’m telling lies.”
'Phenomenal Woman' by Maya Angelou
“My inspiration comes from the block – from the hood,” Lauren says, gazing at the city and pulling her knees to her chest. Her experience in an environment dominated by males enables Lauren to write through a feminist lens describing her personal connection with over-masculinization and her life in the inner city.
Growing up in a Hispanic-American area, Lauren wasn’t considered “South Side black” when her family moved to the South Side mid-childhood. “I wasn’t ‘Pelle-Pelle’ gang,” says Lauren, recalling what the boys donning the overtly urban brand of hoodies and baggy pants in her South Side neighborhood thought of her. “I was books. I was 90s-show sitcoms, Nikki Giovanni, Leapfrog, and VTech,” she says shrugging and laughing, reminiscing on her outlandish childhood interests that differentiated her from the kids in her new neighborhood. Lauren was seen as the “too proper "too pretty” girl in her block. However, these differences led Lauren to develop her unique and cultured voice found in her poetry.
“I feel like my writing has encouraged the way that I was viewed, or the way that people try to view me before I even open my mouth,” Lauren says firmly.
“Poems ‘aint shit without the hood rat,
Studded belt and basement,
I’m going down. After eleven years.
Wrote/choked/chalked all the outline of myself.
No more games.
Can’t hop skip away.
Can’t stop.
Won’t Stop.”
'Blk Ars Poetica' by E’mon Lauren
Lauren’s domestic relationships are a central influence for many of her poems. She focuses on her relationship with her mother, her “daddy issues,” and her abusive relationships from the past, not only to heal her own pain but also to connect with others who are experiencing similar hardships.
“Gwendolyn Brooks taught us to never sugarcoat our stories,” she declares, “never sugarcoat anything, just tell how we feel and what we see.”
The original venue where Lauren shared what she felt was at Louder Than a Bomb, the world’s largest youth poetry festival, highlighting over 1,000 performing artists during a five-week event. This festival is where Lauren got her start and won with the group Kuumba Lynx in 2016.
One of the poems Lauren performed at the Louder Than a Bomb Sweet 16 Anniversary in 2016, titled “A Window-Shopping-Ass-N****,” was inspired by a past relationship monopolized by abuse and reflects on men and gender segregation in the city. “Chicago is hella diverse but hella segregated on its own,” Lauren sighs as she moves the fried chicken from the stove to the ceramic countertop in her small apartment’s kitchen.
This poem describes the area around a popular Chicago landmark – the Water Tower – at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and Michigan Avenue. “People window shop at McDonald’s for their nuggets, window shop at Chick-fil-A for Wi-Fi and window shop the whole area period,” Lauren laughs, shaking her head and resting her cheek in the palm of her hand.
Her smile fades when she talks about the Water Tower serving as a hunting ground for men to find women, rooted in an ideology of having them exclusively for arm candy.
“(Women) are never really taken seriously to be part of a commitment – something worthy,” she says. “It’s usually just ‘Lemme just window shop on this woman instead of actually taking (her) for myself.' It was a grand metaphor.”
“Singing about some Gucci flip-flops
Knowing damn well
You window-shop at Gucci Water Tower ass n****s.
Window seat at McDonald’s
‘Cuz they got outlets ass n****s.
Hit the Chick-fil-A ten-minutes-later
For they Wi-Fi ass n****s.”
'A Window-Shopping-Ass-N****'
by E’mon Lauren
Lauren’s performance style and writing about the “hard stuff” has helped her achieve the 2016 title of the first Youth Poet Laureate of Chicago, a yearly award given by the National Youth Poet Laureate program to youth poets nationwide. Her dedication has also led her to the position as a teaching
artist at Young Chicago Authors, a Chicago-based youth organization that teaches students to tell their personal stories through poetry, lyrics and writing.
As a teaching artist, Lauren travels around the city, helping students prep for Louder Than a Bomb and teaching them that they have a voice that deserves to be heard. Fellow poet and YCA intern Sammy Ortega gushes about Lauren’s teaching style and its relation to her poetry thesis: writing about personal struggles.
“(E’mon) has challenged me to take risks,” Ortega says passionately. “You can’t always expect a positive outcome, but at the end of the day if you don’t take risks, there’s no point in living.”
“Know my rights and speak them.
Loud.
Like my music.
Like my body.
I speak my body. I speak my bossy....
I speak Chicago. Chicagu. Chic A Go.
Redline lingering lick.
I speak shaa(rp).
Sharp sword.”
'Speak' by E’mon Lauren
Practicing what she preaches, Lauren raises the stakes in her writing. From a young age, she dreamed of being a ballerina and drew inspiration from dance. “I wanted to be a ballerina, but I ain’t see no ballerinas that looked like me, and I was like fuck it. I finna do footwork like a ballerina.”
While reflecting on her childhood roots and elements that helped her grow into the artist she is now, Lauren elaborates on hip-hop poetry and the pedagogy – comprised of MC’ing, DJ’ing, graffiti, breakdancing and knowledge – that it refers to. “The five branches of hip-hop make poetry to me,” Lauren says, holding up her hand. “It’s more than words, and spoken words are more than poetry. There’s a performance that comes with it.”
Pushing artistic norms helped Lauren get noticed by a mentor, friend and Louder Than a Bomb founder, Kevin Coval. Lauren’s individuality is a large part of her inclusion in the poetry anthology “The BreakBeat Poets,” a collection of hip-hop style poetry by innovative writers that Coval co-edited. “For a long time, I had been thinking of who of my peers and who of my students would be appropriate for the book,” Coval recalls. Then he remembered Lauren’s Indie Finals Louder Than a Bomb performance and how he needed to include her in the book.
“Her performance was one of the first moments I think I really saw how she’s grown over the course of a year,” Coval says. “I was just so impressed with her, you know, her actual craftsmanship and just how it really began to evolve.”
Though “The BreakBeat Poet’s” anthology is a little over two years old, Lauren continues to prove herself and dedication to her craft. She has begun working on her first audio book in collaboration with her sister titled “BGB” – “Bitches Got Bread.”
“The book is (going to be) an audio chapter book of poems,” Lauren raves, excited to be working on this compilation with her sister. “The whole book is on a track – on different house music (from around) Chicago.”
"The hard part about being an artist, you have to tap back into that trauma, to that worrisome, to that hurt. Tap back into that emotion to get it back out, and to understand where it’s coming from."
-E'mon Lauren
Ever since Lauren tuned into the 2017 Grammy awards, her new goal has been to win an award for spoken word and follow the footsteps of fellow Chicago native Chance the Rapper, who won three Grammys, including Best New Artist.
Her upcoming work doesn’t stop there. In addition to “BGB,” Lauren is working on a solo compilation to be released in May, consisting of a chapter book titled “COMMANDO” that features the one-woman show she performed at the Chicago Theatre Fest. “I’m so excited,” Lauren says, smiling from ear to ear. “It’s going to be great.”
With two upcoming compositions, Lauren remains in the artistic scene on a local and national level. She performed in international poetry competitions, such as Brave New Voices, and nationwide ones, including the Gwendolyn Brooks Complex and Black Sex Matters. She strives to make a difference in the audience she reaches.
“Until you see the dudes on yo’ block walk up in your shows and until you see yo’ homie standing there, you haven’t made nothing yet,” says Lauren as she turns around and puts a lid on the chicken she cooked.
Lunch may be finished, but E’mon Lauren is just getting started.
Photography by Mikhaela Padia
No Rhymes, A Million Reasons: South Side Poet Rewrites the Rules
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By Amanda Kaplan
Edited by Madeline McQuillan
