Exclusive Interview: Zoe Dorado

How did you first discover spoken word poetry, and what draws you to it more than other literary forms?

I got into spoken word in multiple stages. In eighth grade, my English teacher, Ms. Waters, had us do a spoken word unit. She cared about poetry that wasn’t just on the page, but performed — especially by young people. We watched clips from Louder Than a Bomb in Chicago, and I remember seeing “Look” by Nate Marshall. I was entranced — not just reading a poem, but re-watching one for the rhythm and performance. That was the first moment when I realized how powerful spoken word could be.

Later, during my freshman year — when the pandemic hit in March 2020 — I fell into a Button Poetry rabbit hole. Olivia Gatwood was my true gateway into spoken word. I was 14 or 15, a teen girl in lockdown, and finally felt represented. I wasn’t alone in what I was feeling. I re-watched her poems constantly, and I started attending Youth Speaks workshops and open mics. A lot of my early poems sounded like Olivia Gatwood because she was in my head so much.

When you prepare a poem for a live audience, do you anticipate specific reactions, or do you avoid thinking about the audience at all?

It depends on the room and who’s in it. Am I performing for poets I know? For first- or second-gen immigrants like my mom who might not be familiar with poetry? For wealthy white donors where my poem is supposed to be hopeful so they’ll support the organization? Is it a competition with a time limit? All of that affects how I perform and how nervous I feel.

There are definitely lines where I anticipate a reaction — almost like stand-up comedy: setup → punch line → pause for laughter. If you don’t leave space, people will get lost. At YoungArts, my mentor Noel Quiñones helped me build the arc of on and on gal meets corporate feminism: starting playful so the later, frantic parts land emotionally.

I’m now more interested in humor, uncertainty, and surprise. Spoken word often chases a “mic drop moment,” but what happens if you work against that expectation?

In your performance, you step away from the mic at the beginning. How do you think about using stage space — physically and vocally — to amplify a poem?

That staging choice separated the epigraph from the main persona of the poem — almost like “pre-poem vs. poem.” When do you put on the mask of the persona? When do you take it off?

More broadly, stage space inherently changes how the poem is received. I’m short — five feet — so in a room on the same level as the audience, I feel like I’m looking up, trying to be seen. On stage, you’re physically elevated; even lighting grants you authority. Page poetry removes the body entirely — but in performance, you can’t be illegible. You are seen.

Like comedians — Ali Wong for example — the body is part of the storytelling. Spoken word lets me use how I physically show up to add meaning the page can’t.

What personal experiences or social observations inspired your critique in “on and on gal meets corporate feminism”?

I’m from the Bay Area, surrounded by Asian Americans in tech and corporate spaces. I kept thinking about the “model minority” narrative and the pressure to climb toward prestige — who it benefits, what gets lost, who gets left behind.

There’s a line in the poem: “There’s no such thing as broken English.” English is treated as the prestige language, yet it often hides meaning, creates distance, or masks harm. Calling other languages “broken” implies powerlessness. I wanted to reject that.

I was also thinking about gendered language — how femininity gets tied to incompetence or unseriousness. The poem plays with that: “girlboss of the sky” said with vocal fry.

Corporate feminism — like “Girl, you too can be a capitalist!” — is funny and tragic. It empowers while reinforcing the systems it claims to resist.

I’m interested in implicating myself too. What if I am part of the problem? That kind of honesty invites connection: we’re not outside the issue — we’re inside it. Once you admit that, you can articulate the problem with more specificity.

Looking forward, what current or emerging social dynamics are you interested in exploring next through poetry?

I’m thinking a lot about masculinity. The political right has a very clear — though narrow — idea of what “good masculinity” looks like. The left… not so much. It’s either:
• good masculinity = simply “being a good person”
or
• masculinity turned into satire — the overly feminist boyfriend stereotype, for example

We’re constantly poking fun at these tropes, and feminism has also become satirical in many ways. So I’m interested in where earnestness went. Can we return to sincerity? Or do we keep leaning into satire as a survival strategy?

I’m curious how poetry can explore all that — especially where power, humor, and gender intersect in this post-#MeToo, post-Roe v. Wade era.