“Although I walk through the valleys of the frat house, I shall fear no Caucasian foolishness.”
For communication studies sophomore Calvin Marquis Morris, known by stage name Kalvin Marquiz, writing his truth in poetry is not enough. He seeks to bring life to his poetry through performance by engaging with his audience and transforming his written work into a spectacle.
Morris considers himself queer in all aspects of his identity, and uses magical realism in his poetry to explore topics like race, sexuality, gender identity, police brutality and other systems that harm marginalized people. He said it is his duty as a writer to make people in marginalized communities, especially black people in the South, feel they are seen and know life is worth living.
“I try to talk about all the grief and all the death and all the bullshit that we face in life, but also very much delve into what other possibilities that can be had despite this grief, or in spite of this grief, or because of this grief,” Morris said. “What world can we collectively imagine that is better than this one, or what moment can we live in to bring us joy when there’s so much sorrow around us?”
Morris is a performance artist. He writes poetry, performs spoken word poetry, acts, sings and writes songs. He aspired to be a singer-songwriter as a child, but when the dream didn’t seem achievable, his focus turned to poetry.
“If poetry is my wife who I’m in a relationship with contractually, who I married because her family had money and I was poor, then music is like the love of my life who I go see on the side and I write sonnets about,” Morris said.
Morris delved into poetry and writing professionally through WordCrew, a youth spoken word collective, in 2016. He performed with the group at the Delta Mouth Literary Festival last semester.
Morris said his favorite thing about poetry his that he doesn’t have to use complete sentences to convey abstract thoughts, images and emotions without it being false. Spoken word allows him to talk about life in a broader, metaphorical way that speaks to the audience on a more universal scale.
“I think poetry has this nice way of allowing me to be like, ‘I’ve transformed into a f**king Phoenix, and I slapped the white girl who touched my hair,’ which didn’t happen but it’s like it still has the same truth,” Morris said. “It still reveals this greater truth about what it means to be black and what the
experience had provoked in me.”
Morris draws inspiration for his work from all aspects of his life, ranging from going to Splash and boy problems to jokes he’s made that sounded like mantras his grandmother would whisper.
“I write poems about like, making awkward eye contact with people,” Morris said. “I’m working on a poem right there that explores what it means to be black and queer, and how all our words to describe what it means to be black or dark skin are related to food and how that deals with how we are seen as something to be consumed or something that is like appetizing for white audiences.”
Morris said he is closest to his friends who are supportive, give him confidence in his poetry when he wavers and push him to be better. He said his family only gets his “happy church negro” poetry, as they are openly homophobic and he believes allowing for a healthy space between them and some of his work allows them to still be his family until they’re ready to accept him.
Ultimately, Morris’ poetry is not only for others who may need it, but himself. This is evident with his poem “Dreams of Mississippi Burning” in the September edition of The Adroit Journal, which explores his complex relationship with his mother, the conflict between her expectations and sexuality, and survivor’s guilt from her miscarriages.
“I’ve always seen poetry as a way for me to fully — not even embrace, but for me to understand my own identities — understand my own personhood and that was something that they could not be a part of for me to be my fullest and my best self in the truest form of myself that I needed to be,” Morris said.
Signs directing guests hang on display at the Delta Mouth literary festival on Saturday, April 7, 2018 in the Women's Center on LSU's campus.
