“People don’t like talking about things that either make them think too much or make them feel too much,” asserts Neisha Himes. “They’d rather talk about the safe things and the surface things and not go too deep.”

That’s why she favors spoken word poetry—a word-based performance art—for bringing awareness to issues that are important to her. “With spoken word, you’re allowed to go as deep as you want,” she says. “Generally spoken word is very raw and transparent. I have yet to meet a spoken word artist who writes with limitations. It allows the rawness, and it allows the brutal honesty.”