I never grasped how to write poetry well. Everything I wrote sounded like it came from someone else, and my poetry never reached the emotional level that I could in other writing forms. I decided that I would keep doing my own thing and let others use poetry to express their feelings.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t like to hear poetry from others who have mastered the form. Last Friday night, the Wichita State Student Activities Council hosted the one-woman poetry and music show titled “The Words and Rhythm of Shanelle Gabriel.”

Gabriel is a 25-year-old woman described as a “virtuosa,” possessing great poetic skills, which she can seamlessly translate into music. She has a tremendous singing voice and chooses to express it all in an unaccompanied hip-hop format. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, has appeared on the HBO program “Def Poetry” and has participated in many ad campaigns. 

The show’s format consisted of Gabriel performing a selection of her works and providing some details about what inspired her to write her songs. Her work described the standards we have for our emotional crushes and how they change from when we first get them as children.

Another work based on crushes expressed the dangers of carelessness in controlling lust. As Gabriel said, there are worse things than pregnancies, such as sexually transmitted diseases. 

One of the more unsettling works was a conversation between a rape victim and a police officer. The police officer wanted to blame the victim rather than the man who committed the crime.  Gabriel said she was inspired to write it after seeing a news report about such an incident. Finding inspiration in current events is a noble quality for an artist to have, and Gabriel excels at it.

Gabriel’s works were not all depressing. She described a very close relationship with her father, best summed up by her saying that while she may find a Prince Charming at some point in her life, her father will always be her King. She said she might be the only poet who actually writes good things about her father.  

The perspective of an artist’s work is always welcome in what I consider to be entertainment, and “The Worlds and Rhythm of Shanelle Gabriel” shone with the thoughts and emotions this virtuosa shared.