mo Santiago
hi! im mo (she/they) aka @motuesday and i am an intimate poet and photographer homegrown in the city of Chicago. my writing centers on the conversations around sexual assault, the body, sex, intimacy, sexuality and relationships. I believes it’s ok to be uncomfortable and hopes my work brings that out in people so we may further these conversations and normalize them! my photographic love is in creative portraiture and live events as well as studying the themes i write about and giving life visually to my experiences and feelings. i hope to see your work in Ghoul Gang an online gallery i started where artists can submit work about the harassment and oversexualization we experience in our lives. self-proclaimed midwest witch, heartbroke bitch with an affinity for caffeine and sweet breads.
The impact of poetry and the spoken word club
I didn’t think I would live this long, I spent everyday of my life in fear or in dread or wanting to waste away. Honestly, I used to stand at the edge of the crosswalk and dare myself to jump out. I didn’t feel like I had value. Spoken Word changed that. I met adults and young people who wanted to continue conversations, who wanted to ask me questions and who wanted to listen to me. I was shown how to write down everything I had been feeling and how to build myself up with words. How to hug myself in ten, fourteen or twenty lines. How to kiss all the sharp parts and how to give myself and open myself to other people without feeling like I was burdening them. I learn about chosen family and I learned about love, and for the first times in my life I felt safe.
Growing up I didn’t know what that really felt like or was supposed to feel like but I got to learn it. And I carried all of that after I left high school and kept writing. Writing got me through so many experiences like college, trauma, dating, healing, loss, and it is still here after deciding school isn’t for me. And I know it will continue to get me through my life. I know it’s never mad with me, it never judges, and it never says “I hate you” because it is a reflection of myself. Poetry even brought me back to the classroom. I am so lucky I can wake up and say “hi im mo and im a spoken word teaching artist and I work with the coolest middle schoolers ever.” Poetry brought me to my students and it was with them, writing with them, learning from them that I discovered that I had a dream, a real life, wake up and smell the roses, holy smokes, life changing dream. And with my passion, my purpose if you will, I get to give back to what gave to me; my life. Spoken Word saved my me, it set me on the path I am now, and it taught me all about who I am. Spoken Word is in more than the club or the writing itself, it’s everything I ever learned, all the people and poets I’ve ever met and will meet and it’s the love from this community and the love I have for myself. And to be clear, Spoken Word didn’t give me value, it showed me where to find it.
Top favorite poets or lyricists
1. olivia gatwood 2.sarah kay 3. sav robinson
Writing Prompts
Write about a family member who reflects yourself back on to you
Write about an argument that went too far
Write about a time you looked at someone and said, “not today”