#WHATCHUGOT? An Interview With Spoken Word Performer Davon Clark

 
 21-year-old English major Davon Clark started performing his poetry at eighteen after a long love affair with writing. “I started writing science fiction stories in third grade, but when I started writing poetry was at thirteen.” And what better motivation than childhood romance? “I started [writing poetry] for Serena Sweeten. She was a different sort of gorgeous”.
 
     While his humble beginnings come from love poems in middle school, Davon’s writing has evolved into something far bigger. At any time, he could recite his current works “Stellar”, “The Gardener”, “Sit Tight”, “Sunset”, “Roses”, and “Dear Matt” citing that his inspiration is found “any time I realize that I’m breathing”. Clark took a moment to reflect on being the 2015/16 President of W.O.R.D.S “Writers Organize to Represent Diverse Stories” and prominent member of the Penn State org. “W.O.R.D.S for me is the reason to not drop out, the reason to go to the gym, the reason to convince people to come to Penn State, it means doing paperwork, and the reason I have somewhere to sleep right now.” So what is the experience of a W.O.R.D.S body meeting? “stressful, heavy, tiring, exhausting, but comprehensive, and unique” states Clark.
 
    Slam poetry -and poetry in general- is a genre that runs in with “taboo” topics often. A poetry slam can span topics including sex, gender, race, and much more. So is anything off limits to Davon? “Nah” he originally states, and amends with “I lied. Once you infringe upon someone else’s truth, then there’s an issue.” That being said, he is not immune to falling into this infringement. On poems he’s had to scrap he reflects on a few: “Once I did a persona poem on a teenage girl where I try to read from her perspective. It ended up being sexist so my team convinced me to scrap it. There have also been a lot of cheesy poems about being saved by God.” While the topic of religion is important to Clark, he states the inauthentic nature of the poem meant it had to be scrapped as well.
 
Of the six poems he currently has in his back pocket, some of his favorite lines to read are:

“I can tell that you’re a good guy” -Dear Matt

And

“Lately I’ve been daydreaming about swimming through space” -Stellar
 
     As far as well-known poets go, Davon cites his inspirations as being Miles Hodges, Joshua Bennet, Jamar Hall, Sabrina Slipchenko, and Rudy Francisco. However, his mentors and partners motivate him regularly. Clark’s first slam poetry mentor is Alex Santiago, from whom he takes with him the morals “always tell the truth and keep it real”. Here in Penn State, Clark cites a close friend and the ‘16/17 President of W.O.R.D.S. “David Alden Lawrence Gaines. ‘Good shit’ has to be the best thing he’s said to me”.
 
     Clark sees slamming as an addiction, one built off of satisfaction from “snaps, recognition, and [sometimes] money”. When asked if he ever considered quitting he said “all the time. I don’t want to quit performing, though. Just slamming, but I’m addicted. That being said If I could be successful tomorrow without slamming I would.” So given that he won’t be quitting, what can we expect from Davon? He will be performing in the Southern Fried Poetry Slam in June in Greensboro NC, NTS in Georgia in August, and may be working with Steel City Slam in Pittsburgh in order to have a chance to take part in the National Poetry Slam. Clark says you can see his work “on Instagram,Youtube, and probably your girls DMs”