Mwende Katwiwa
Kenyan-American slam poet and activist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mwende Katwiwa, who performs under the name FreeQuency, is a Kenyan-American slam poet, community organizer, and activist.[1][2] Their poems address issues of identity, emotion, racism, colonialism, and police brutality in the United States. They live in New Orleans.[3]
Katwiwa graduated from Tulane University in 2014.[4][5] They self-published a book of poetry, Becoming//Black, in 2015. They have also been touring the U.S. to perform spoken word poems since 2011.[3] They gave a TED Talk in 2017 called "Black life at the intersection of birth and death."[1] They work for Women with a Vision, a nonprofit based in New Orleans.[5] They also work with slam poetry and open mic organizations in New Orleans.[3]
They won the 2018 Women of the World Poetry Slam.[6] At the poetry slam, Katwiwa performed "Dear White People" and "The Gospel of Colonization."[7] Katwiwa also placed at both the 2015 and 2016 Individual World Poetry Slam.[3]
Mwende Katwiwa is active in the Black Lives Matter movement, reproductive rights and abortion rights activism, and LGBTQ+ advocacy.[8] Katwiwa is part of the New Orleans chapter of BYP100 and is involved with youth organizing.[9][10] For example, they helped organize a protest march in 2014 regarding the killing of Michael Brown by police.[11] Although they were primarily involved with in-person organizing, they also used the social media site Tumblr to promote the protest.[12]
Katwiwa is genderqueer and uses they/them pronouns.[5]
Bibliography
- Alonso Castro, Laura María (2019). Slam Poetry vs. Racism: Awakening Awareness and Social Change in FreeQuency's "Dear White People" and "The Gospel of Colonization" (BA thesis). University of Zaragoza.