Natalie Patterson

About Natalie Patterson

In 2002, while seated on a beanbag in a crowded poetry venue Natalie knew her life would be far different than she envisioned. She had never shared one of her poems and even writing outside of a journal was new. With a few poems, dedication and a bunch of passion Natalie went on to make the Los Angeles Slam team, get accepted to NACA and book a full college tour and run a monthly poetry venue, The Siren Collective. Natalie soon began developing her own curriculum and her love of teaching emerged stronger than ever. At the recommendation of a fellow poet, the legendary Stan Lathan asked her to facilitate a poetry based educational event, after a job well done he followed with an offer to join the cast of Debbie Allan's Def Poetry ALL star show. The spirit of contribution always extremely central to Natalie’s life work she continued to support Da’ Poetry Lounge nearly every week since 2003. As a result of that commitment and dedication in 2010, she become the first female producer and host in the 15-year history of Da Poetry Lounge (the nations largest weekly poetry venue). That same year, Natalie developed and facilitated innovative poetry programs for under-resourced youth as Director of Poetry for Collective Voices Foundation, teaching eight classes a week at five different schools. Natalie is currently teaching her private workshop, Reconnecting: Vulnerability and Integrity, as well as in high school classrooms throughout Los Angeles. From April-December 2013, Natalie has committed to releasing chapbooks to further push her creativity and release some of the poems that would otherwise stay on her external hard drive. Natalie seeks to spend more time creating, collaborating and teaching in the years to come. She currently lives in Los Angeles. She enjoys love notes, working in the middle of the night, black tea, and spending Sunday’s in love.

Posts by Natalie Patterson:

10 Things You Know After Having A Threesome

Natalie Patterson Conversation Pieces, Dating threesome 0

Your body is yours.
You can loan it out but it always leaves with you
Smelling like them
Their fingers imprinted on your soft skin
You will feel them hovering but they are no longer in touching distance

2.
The next day, you will smile wider than you ever have before
You will walk with new confidence knowing you are braver than most
Knowing you laugh in the face of a challenge and have found others that will too.

3.
Everything will remind you of a magic that exists now only in your memory
Attempting to recreate it, is an free fall with no safety net

4.
He is not to be trusted

5.
He is tantalized by the allure of what you created but will never fully credit you for the smile on his face
The smooth in his stride
He will call you a genius but never reconcile all the other names he calls you in secret
He will never understand how you spell cast or who you are writing to in the middle of every night
He will never care to know
You did all this
So he could smile after

6.
She will follow, wherever you lead
Women are loyal this way
Girls fuck him solo and lie to your face
Boys push hard enough to force the porcelain of your face to shatter and then remark on how patched together you now look
Boys are a cruel awaking you can never underestimate

7.
Threesomes are about the spirit more than parts pressed.
About connection and wanting to create a moment that outlasts you.

8.
The first time you are with her
Without him
You will fuck an apology into her
Will beg her orgasms to sing a song sweet enough to erase the compromise you made of her
You will hug and kiss her as long as she wants to
Because you owe her, at least that

9.
You will avoid the typical destruction most fall hopelessly into
Fantasizing about a moment they could never manage
The flesh is a fool and the heart, always wants what it wants.

10.
Your feelings will messy themselves all over the conversations to come.
You will be fine though.
You will come through this.
It just may not be, together.

(originally published Feb 15th, 2014)

Women Of The World Poetry Slam

Natalie Patterson Language Arts carrie rudzinski, Denice Frohman, Dominique Ashaheed, Imani Cezanne, Janae Johnson, slam poetry, spoken word, venessa marco, women of the world poetry slam, women's history month, WOWPS 0

The Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWPS) is a yearly Poetry Slam tournament put on by Poetry Slam, Inc. that pits individual slam poets from around the world that “live their lives as women”against one another. The great city of Austin, Texas, played host to the WOWPS from March 20-22. In celebration of March having been Women’s History month and this month, April, being National Poetry Writing month, we wanted to highlight some of the best and brightest. Click the links below and enjoy some great poetry. Join the party by writing a poem a day in April. For the full list of winners or more on WOWPS visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_of_the_World_Poetry_Slam.

1. Dominique Ashaheed (dominiquechristina.com)

2. Imani Cezanne (imanicezanne.tumblr.com)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsUfOfDKW04

3. Denice Frohman (denicefrohman.com)

4. Carrie Rudzinski (carrierudzinski.tumblr.com)

5. Janae Johnson (@ugottahavesou)

6. Venessa Marco (https://twitter.com/marco_venessa)

“We-defining Me” By Sekou Andrews

Natalie Patterson Language Arts choice, spending, we first, we-defining me 0

Sekou Andrews offers this poetic take on money and how it is effecting us individually and equally collectively. Do you think about every penny you spend? Think for a moment about how local or global your money travels and is what we buy actually worth it?

I picked this video to contribute to the money conversation because as we attempt to be “responsible” in our lives but, doesn’t that include our money? Not just that we save but that when we spend, it gets into the hands that need it.

Personally, I think starvation and poverty are unacceptable, but do I live and spend in a way that supports my belief, not as often as I could. This video is a great reminder of what is possible, should we make an effort to spend in accordance with our beliefs.

How Not To Make Love To A Fat Girl

Natalie Patterson Language Arts body image, intimacy, make love, yesika star 0

By Yesika Starr

when we are sitting on your bed
our bodies all hungry tongues
and heavy breathing

when I’ve given up my clothes
to your teeth, your hands and the floor

please
do not
rub my belly

it’s weird
and totally not sexy

immediately I’ll think of
Buddha or Winnie The Pooh
and no woman
wants to think of either one
right before having sex

I know I come with a lot of extra
around my abdomen
and you probably want to show me
how you accept the whole of me
but that can be done in another way

be creative
consider it a challenge
teach me something new

but whatever you do
don’t sit there and rub my gut
like a genie lamp for five minutes

sex with someone new
is awkward for everyone

sex with someone new
when things about your body
often frighten you
is nerve wrecking

turning your self over
to another person
is one of the bravest acts
of surrender
I’ve yet to know

but boys
make it difficult
to be a fat girl graceful
In her body

often taking
my size as an invitation
to be ridiculous

dismantling my large
into body parts
when questioned
what they like about me
as if it were too much to ask
to find the whole of me desirable
and if all else fails
they assume the answer
“big girls are my thing’”
is supposed to make me
want to jump out of my panties

Or sometimes
there are boys
who will expect
my extra large body
to function
like that of their thinner lovers
and assume I am being modest
when I say no
to absurd suggestions
like,
having sex in the drivers seat
of a two door sports car

It’s fucken physically impossible
and has nothing to do
with my self esteem

I’ve learned everyone
comes with their own hangups

balding men
might not like it
when their lovers
trace their thinning hair
with an index finger

maybe someone with an extra toe
avoids dating people with foot fetishes

I am larger than most women
and sometimes I care about it
more than who I am with sleeping does

I worry about being attractive enough
to last further than when my lover exits me

I’ve often apologized for my size with silence
but you, darling, have met me in a new age

the best sex I ever had was with a man
who kissed and touched all of me
as if we were both discovering my skin for the first time

this is my new standard
and I am asking you
to make it yours too
so that when you make love
to the whole of me
my belly will feel included
without you turning me
into a Buddha statue

trust me,
you’ll get luckier
this way

More of Yesika’s work can be found at yesikastarr.tumblr.com

Reach her via twitter @yesikastarr

Jeans by Jaha Zainabu

Natalie Patterson Language Arts jaha, jaha zainabu, jeans, poetry, spoken word, zainabu 0

There comes a point in a woman’s life
When we stop to ponder yesterday
The transformation from then to now
People we’ve met and been along the way
The prompt of the musing comes
In an array of fashion

An old photograph
A familiar scent
The recent exodus of a lover
Whose footprint led us to the father whose
Humanity broke our hearts first

Spring cleaning is when it happens to me
When finally I give those favorite pair of jeans
Fashionably faded perfectly at the knee
To the local Goodwill, Salvation Army or my favorite niece

This time I will not convince myself that
One day they will fit again
Or that I will suffer to commute myself into
The woman bygone again
These jeans will not ever kiss these lips
Or hug these cheeks again

The beauty finally
Is that I don’t want them anymore
They are not quite big enough
To hold the woman I am today
These jeans belonged to a girl
Whose favorite song had more to do with
How she could move to the bass

Than what she could learn from the lyrics
And she wore them well
Model thin with flawless skin
And the insecurity of a thousand impotent men
A good girl who compromised until sacrifice became her addiction

I am not so flexible
These are her jeans
They don’t fit me
Not anymore

Fear and Hope by Gage Kalanick

Natalie Patterson Language Arts fear and hope, gage kalanick, youth 0

Fear and Hope

It isn’t just a single event its been there forever… well there are many things that are there, family is there but not always. Nothing is always there, but somehow people always relate by having one thing… Fear. But it is so minute, fear is unreal a chance waiting to be challenged, people can achieve that goal if they overcome their fear whatever it may be. They are at least capable of trying, which is better than holding in this piece of possible joy unexperienced. Everyone has it but only some overcome this obstacle. The ones that do use hope, which not everyone has, but it is easily obtainable if you are willing to take it in. So take it in and give it a go, cause if you don’t try you’ll never know.

In America by Carrie Rudzinski

Natalie Patterson Language Arts, Women carrie rudzinski, hitchhike, In America, india, poetry, rape, spoken word 1

The first hitchhiker
I ever picked up
I dropped off in the wrong place.
We were both backpackers –
young, dirty, and foreign.
I was so excited to help,
I didn’t even realize my mistake
until I was too far
to turn around.
I’d left him on a busy overpass –
gray eyes and tired hands
to search for another way out.

The first time I hitchhiked
I kept my three inch knife
clutched in a fist
inside my bag the whole time.
They were the only ones who stopped:
thick set country boys,
dogs barking in the bed
of their black pick up truck.
I was suddenly so grateful
for my baggy clothes –
my unwashed hair –
their harmless questions –
but I never shook the doubt in my gut –
and I didn’t look back when I finally got out.

You could not pay me enough money
to hitchhike in America.

In America, no one looks at you
and everyone stares.
In America, fear is a gender
I am too familiar with.
In America, the street is a river
and all of the men are drowning.
All of the men need you to save them.
All of the men need you.
All of the men have been raised to believe
women are supposed to fuck them.
All of the men expect you to fuck them.
In America, she was asking for it.
In America, I walk with my keys shoved between my knuckles.
All of my retorts burn in the wildfire of my throat.
My eyes are sidewalks.
My body: a used noose.
Every voice is a corner –
a dog fight –
a humiliation.

America says, “That poor girl in India –
only in the Third World –
how could six men rape her
and no one do anything?”

In America, I walk down the street
and a boy leans out of his car
to scream “Yo Slut! Pull down your hood!”
In America, I am with my boyfriend
when a man hisses in my ear
“Hey sexy”
so that he and I have a secret.
So that he and I are he and I.
So that I will flinch when the next man
stares for too long.
In America, a man pretended to masturbate on me
during a poetry show
because I was too much talk
and not enough take.
Because my mouth was a siren –
A hive –
Because no one called him
a misogynist after the show but me.

In America, we are taught
to scream the word “FIRE”
if being assaulted because no one
will help us if we yell “RAPE.”

In America, six members
of the high school football team
can show photos of the girl
they pissed on
and raped
and no one will do anything.
Their male authority figures will condone it.
Rape is an American Past Time: A National Sport.
In America, she shouldn’t have gotten so sloppy.
In America, boys will be boys.
In America, twenty two elected Senators can oppose
The Violence Against Women Act.
In America, when you type the word “rape”
into Google the first option to pop up
is RAPE JOKES.

In America, my body belongs
to the first person who demeaned it:
the boy who broke up with me
because I wouldn’t have sex with him.
The one who taught me to find something
to burn. To mold. To shrink. To hate –
My worth stolen like a bicycle in the night –
a yellow blur in the dark.

In America, I am always searching
for another way out.
In America, I am always on fire.
I am always on fire.

Carrie is a full time travelling artist, and award winning poet.

More of her work can be seen at http://carrierudzinski.tumblr.com/

A Promise to the Little Ones We Lost by Nairy Kevork

Natalie Patterson Citizens, Language Arts language arts, nairy, nairy kevork, poetry, sandy hook, spoken word 1

A Promise to the Little Ones We Lost

I promise you,

This world had more kindness than it did filth.

I am so sorry that you will not get a chance to see.

He was lost.

No one found him.

So, he found you.

You would have felt what loving someone is in about ten years.

Mom and dad would have been concerned.

Some of you would have become teachers.

But, we say goodbye now.

He was once Adam, now Hate.

Only in adulthood we expect people to be animal.

You were just six.

Would have walked to him,

Hand to face,

asked,

“What’s wrong?”

The ones who could have reached out

Failed us all.

He was a young boy once without a friend

and could feel no pain.

No one saw him so

he came to see you.

I hope you looked at one another in your last moments,

and saw what love looks like.

We promise, we won’t just like a Facebook page.

We promise, we are going to go out there

and Love somebody.

We talk guns like Love is the taboo.

We promise we will give Love to someone who doesn’t have it so

they don’t come take it from other kids.

We will stop focusing on:

Does he fit the criteria?

What’s his IQ?

We know that the trigger is pulled when lack of empathy is coupled with self-hate

and the babies are gone.

We promise you Charlotte

Daniel

Oliva

Josephine

Ana

Dylan

Madeleine

Catherine

Chase

Jesse

James

Grace

Emilie

Jack

Noah

Caroline

Jessica

Avielle

Benjamin

and

Allison.

We will live harder, we will love more

Because we are missing you 20 that did that better

than any of us.

We will honor you now.

Your fall will not be for nothing.

Your moms and dads are staying strong.

They will miss you more as each day passes.

A request.

May you find peace.

And, send some to them.

They are brave

But you,

You are braver.

Nairy Kevork is a Los Angeles native poet and artist. She has been writing poetry for ten years and plans on writing her first novel in the coming year. She also focuses on surreal paintings and psychologically themed art. Nairy is studying to become a therapist and social worker and is working towards her dream of starting a nonprofit for at risk kids.

Dear Mr. Gaddafi by Danielle Bennet

Natalie Patterson Citizens, Language Arts danielle bennet, poetry, spoken word, teacher 0

Click To Listen, full text below.

Dear Mr. Gaddafi,

Congratulations.

You’ve managed to receive more attention from our government in six months than my students have in six years.

My 12^th graders hardly know the names and situation of our 50 states

Or where your country is on a map

but they know your name

know that they shouldn’t like it

but do not know why.

My students heard our government sent a task force after you

Hunted hard to protect people against you

Have you heard that there are people here

that do no feel protected?

Did your faux royalty afford you an education of our country, sir?

If so, could you define segregation?

If so, could you explain why a recent report from one of our most prominent universities

found Latino and black students attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights movement forty years ago?

In case you have not picked up on it, sir

The faces I spend the majority of my days with

Are all shades of coffee darker than mine

Like the ones in that report

Our country came after you so quick

But there is so little that is so immediate about the way education is handled in our country

Why is taking down dictators so easy to stand behind

While building up our own future leaders is not?

Tell me what the cry of the rebels sound like in Libya

I’ll tell you what ours sound like,

Like hope in disguise

Now the things that are killing the hope the once wore

Get stuck in stories at the fold

While your name won’t rub off A1

While they are young and under resourced,

they are not stupid.

They are cracking into the age of realization

Where they start to notice things their country is saying to them

Are hypothesizing why Kobe, their president, and you

Are rotating turns on the front page

The last time my kids got national attention is when

we treated their graduation rates

like a death toll

And you may know that better than I think

You may have already seen that the faces representing our best

Are often the best representation of our worst flaw:

Take King,

Take Clinton,

Take Woods,

Proof that we try to take on the world

without taking care of our own home

We are bleeding nurses,

Shackled freedom fighters,

Broke bankers,

Slave-owning, well-intentioned abolitionists

But I don’t want to give you the wrong impression

I love my country, sir

I politically socialize its youth every day because I believe what we’ve got

Might be the best that we get in a world as broken as ours

When I first started this job

I promised myself I would never use my students’ stories for poems and letters

Their stories are their poems

But this

Is about my story now

About how sick I am of hearing your name on the radio

On my way to work

A subliminal message that there are more important things than the graves we’re digging in our backyard

For the young men and women I give my everything for

Mr. Gaddafi,

Because I cannot shake your name from our news corps

I will not be able to avoid you in my classroom

So what am I to teach them about you?

They have already labeled you “bad,” sir,

Tossed you in a bin with Mussolini and Hussein,

But what else?

I am writing to solicit your help

Because I imagine neither of us care for your news coverage anymore

I just pray

That my students

Don’t have to adopt your tactics

To gain back their country’s

attention.

The Morning After by Venesa Marco

Natalie Patterson Citizens, Language Arts poetry, spoken word, the morning after, venessa marco 0

The morning after a one night stand

You will search for the God left in you

He will be standing still

Somewhere away from home

This will be the day Heaven will seem too far

You will not acknowledge him

Instead,

You will bathe in scalding water

Attempting to wash away your sins

You will make of your body a vessel for dying things

You will blame the alcohol

You will blame your mothers absence

You will blame it on an act of rebellion

You will blame

And blame

In the car ride home

There will be music

But you will not hear a sound

Last night you swallowed a man with no name

There will be no praises for this

You will tell yourself

“This is how you become a woman”

“This is how you make sense of senseless things”

You will tell yourself

“Sex is a senseless thing”

Reduce it to a dance of bodies

To the exhaustion of breath

Still, you gave your breath away to a man

That will not know the proper way to write your name

That will not know all the Jazz you listen to

All the canvases you paint

Still, you gave your breath away to a man

That will not know the wake of your body

Only the slumber of thighs

You will speak of sex

You will not know love

The morning after a one night stand

You will learn to love like an object

Like a thing that can be touched

But does not know how to feel