Olivia Gatwood

Olivia Gatwood
Born	(1992-02-23) February 23, 1992 Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	American
Website
www.oliviagatwood.com

Olivia Gatwood (born February 23, 1992) is a poet, writer, activist, and an educator on topics that include sexual assault prevention and recovery. She is known for her poems such as "Manic Pixie Dream Girl", "Alternate Universe in Which I am Unfazed by the Men Who do Not Love Me", and "Backpedal". Gatwood has toured internationally and has spoken at more than two hundred universities across the United States.

Early life and education

Olivia Gatwood was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico on February 3, 1992, the daughter of Jill and Byron Gatwood. She has stated in interview that she began writing poetry "at about 11 or 12".

Career

Gatwood is a poet, writer, activist, speaker, and educator on topics that include sexual assault prevention and recovery.

As Gatwood states about herself on her personal website:

As a finalist at Brave New Voices, Women of the World and the National Poetry Slam, Olivia's performances have been featured on HBO, Huffington Post, MTV, VH1, and BBC among others. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, The Winter Tangerine Review, Poetry City U.S.A., Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and The Missouri Review. Her Amazon Best Selling collection, New American Best Friend, reflects her experiences growing up in both New Mexico and Trinidad, navigating girlhood, puberty, relationships, and period underwear. / Olivia is a full-time touring artist, and has performed internationally at over two-hundred schools and universities.

Gatwood and fellow poet Megan Falley created an interactive show called Speak Like a Girl, a traveling poetry show that focuses on gender issues, body image, growing up and other topics.

Gatwood's March 2017 book-length debut work, New American Best Friend, received positive reviews.

Social activism

Gatwood has been an advocate for sexual education, human rights, and gender equality through various platforms. She has created numerous workshops accessible to anyone. Her writing workshop focuses on students of all ages and levels of experience, and gives students the chance to read works of poets around the world. Her performance workshops are geared towards students interested in slam poetry, with an emphasis on incorporating the use of body, vocal range, and enunciation and projection techniques. Her community-building workshops cover topics from consent, being an active bystander, gender equality, relationships, and sexual health.

Spoken word poetry

Gatwood frequently uses the activism platform of spoken word poetry, "poetic expression as a word-based performance, often (though not exclusively) in free verse and at times confrontational and personal in nature". Slam poetry is expanding across many cities in America because of its experiential and transformative nature. Gatwood often uses spoken word poetry as a platform for her activism and has participated in shows and festivals like Brave New Voices, Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWps), and the National Poetry Slam. Gatwood has competed in the WOWps for two years, and earned sixth place in 2012 out of 72 contestants. She has also competed in the National Poetry Slam two years in a row, with her team coming in second place in 2014.

Works

New American Best Friend

After numerous published poems, Gatwood began a novel, New American Best Friend, which would become her debut in that genre. In it, Gatwood wrote about her childhood, the transition from teenage years to young adulthood, her views on gender and sexuality, and the violence and joys in her life. She has said that she wrote the book as "an effort to celebrate ones body", and included the short poems "Ode to my Bitch Face", "Like Us, and "The First Shave".

In 2017, New American Best Friend was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Poetry. Otherwise, New American Best Friend met with mixed reviews. It has been praised for being a raw and unedited view into a teenage girl's life, and criticized for being too critical, too biased about common occurrences in society, and too based in feminism.

Life of the Party

Life of the Party is a poetry collection by Olivia Gatwood that is "deeply inspired by true crime and murdered women." It was published in August 2019 by Penguin Random House.

Podcast

In December 2018, Gatwood started the podcast, Say More, with "her best friend and fellow poet", Melissa Lozada-Oliva, in which they interview each other on topics and answer emailed questions from listeners. It had presented its fortieth episode by the end of 2019.

Select poems

• "Jordan Convinced Me That Pads Were Disgusting" (2016)
• "Back-pedal" (2016)
• "The Autocross" (2016)
• "When The Prettiest Girl in School Asks to Play Cricket at Recess" (2016)
• "Bubblegum or Bruise" (2016)
• "Hey Science" (2016)
• "Ode to my Bitch Face"
• "Liberty" (2016)
• "Two Poems" (2017)
• "Poetry Suite" (2017)
• "Ode to the Women on Long Island" (2017)

Personal life

As of December 2018, Gatwood resided in Santa Cruz, California, in the Unites States.

Further reading

• Albert, Victoria & Gatwood, Olivia (February 17, 2018). "Poet Olivia Gatwood Writes Like Teen Spirit: BUST Interview". BUST.com. Retrieved January 8, 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

• Official website