Quick Q with a Creative: Erika Lobati
Erika Lobati is a junior from Springfield, Missouri studying film and psychology with a minor in Spanish at the University of Kansas. Lobati is a writer who, among other things, creates and performs spoken word poetry.
I WOULD SAY THAT I AM VERY MUCH A WRITER AT HEART. Poetry for me is something that, yes it's a hobby, it’s something that I do in my free time, but it's also, in my past, it's been a form of therapy and just processing through my emotions, processing through my life experiences.
AS MUCH AS IT HELPS ME, I THINK THAT THE POETRY THAT I WRITE CAPTURES A VERY SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE THAT OTHER PEOPLE RELATE TO IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, so by me performing it publicly, I’m able to inform people around me about my experience that don’t relate to it or kind of affirm the experiences of other people who do relate to it. Whether it's the experience of me being a woman or me being Black or just mental health issues, so I think that it's a way to communicate with other people, like yes I affirm myself, but it's also a way to encourage other people in knowing that they’re not alone in their experiences.