ORLANDO- To celebrate National Poetry Month, local radio station 90.7 WMFE will be hosting the “Zip-Ode Throwdown” on Thursday, April 26 to encourage young, local poets to write odes to their zip code. To boost that event, they have been posting “Zip-Odes” beginning April 1, including an article published containing thirty pieces by local poet Curtis X. Meyer.
The article received backlash immediately after it was posted on Friday, April 20. Local poets wrote to the station both by email and through Facebook comments to voice concerns with Meyer’s featured work.
Meyer is a well-known name in the local literature and poetry scene, having founded Orlando Poetry Slam – formerly SAFE Words Slam – which he ran up until this past summer. He has competed on numerous national stages and represented Orlando on many slam teams for poetry, and he was a runner-up to be Orlando’s poet laureate.
He is well known and a powerful name in his craft, yet one issue clouds his name – alleged sexual harassment and assault.
Kira Calvaresi is a local poet and the host of Wednesday Open Words at Austin’s Coffee. Calvaresi recalled multiple accounts of inappropriate behavior by Meyer as early as 2015, when they were 20 years old and Meyer was 30.
One reported incident was when Meyer installed a showerhead in their bathroom and made inappropriate comments about it in the month that followed, Calvaresi said.
“He kept making jokes about me using it to masturbate,” Calvaresi said. “And he continued to do so, even after I said, ‘No, that makes me uncomfortable. Please stop.’”
They added that Meyer would then stop the comments briefly before starting again.
“He seemed to think that it was fun," Calvaresi said. "And that me being uncomfortable was the point."
E, another alleged victim, had a similar experience with Meyer. E is not local to Orlando, and first met Meyer at a national poetry event.
“We were at a nerd slam, and I read a piece, and I saw him take interest in me,” E said.
According to E, after the slam ended, Meyer allegedly cornered her, asked about her pieces, and invaded her personal space.
“It was very off-putting,” E said.
At the time, E was 16 years old and Meyer was around 30 years old. E said that she saw Meyer at another national event two years later, where he acted similarly, and Meyer invaded her personal space and spoke to E in a way that made her very uncomfortable. E said she was also made to feel uncomfortable on social media by Meyer.
“So much goes through a young person’s head in that situation,” E said. “He was an important name, and I was new. I was ridiculously afraid of jeopardizing my chance [at the poetry slam].”
Another alleged victim, called R, was a close friend of Meyer and had done poetry in the same venues for years. Then in the summer of last year, Meyer began to make sexual advances on her - both in person and by text message.
“I repeatedly asked Curtis to stop and stated that I wasn’t interested,” R said. “He was my friend, and he was in a position of power in the poetry community. I didn’t want to lose access to my friends and to performance opportunities.”
According to R, she would request for Meyer to stop - and he would for a while - but then he would come on even stronger afterward. It eventually evolved into stalking behavior and to the point where R did not feel comfortable alone with Meyer. This eventually came to a head last fall, when Meyer physically assaulted R.
“He forcibly grabbed me from behind and groped me,” R said.
Several victims reportedly came forward to the administrations of local poetry slams this past fall, resulting in Meyer being banned from many major poetry slam venues in Orlando, including, but not limited to, UCF’s Project SPIT, Wednesday Open Words, and what was formerly his pet project, the Orlando Poetry Slam. These bans were set in place during the fall of 2017.
Xiania Campbell, president of Project SPIT, made the decision to ban him from her organization.
“My teammates came to me saying that Curtis was harassing them and that they would stop coming to events if he would be there,” Campbell said. “Project SPIT is a collegiate club, meaning that we have younger girls here that he could prey on, and I couldn’t in good conscience allow that type of person in my venue knowing what he could do.”
This concern is mirrored in the testimony of the aforementioned victims who stated they were targeted as young artists.
“That is exactly where he’ll find other people to harass," E said. "Young people, like I was."
R said she was horrified of the situation.
“He is banned from almost all poetry and open mic spaces in central Florida, to limit his access to future victims,” she said.
Local poets Troy Cunio and Eddie Figures stated that there is also a history of Meyer appropriating African American experiences.
“[Meyer] is always misrepresenting himself," Figures said. "He’s performative. He is a white presenting person.”
Figures said that Meyer had posted horrendously inappropriate entries on Urban Dictionary, referring to the entries as “racist made-up slang.” The posts have since been taken down by Meyer, but screenshots have been saved by several local poets.
The disturbing entries include very derogatory language regarding women, as well as the use of the n-word.
Both Cunio and Figures reference Meyer being a bully and an appropriator.
"He should not have a public voice," Cunio said.
Reportedly, Meyer is also notorious for making women and femme-presenting people uncomfortable at events. Where the same crowd of men would stay consistently attending local poetry events for years, it was a revolving door for women.
“[Meyer] would pick a girl as a favorite for a couple of months, and then you would never see them again,” Cunio said.
Calvarsi said that they would hate to think of all of the women and femme people and queer people that stopped attending events due to Curtis making them feel uncomfortable.
No victims have opted to take legal action against Meyer at this time.
Some are disappointed that their wish for anonymity is preventing them from being taken seriously.
“[Meyer] is reciting odes to zip codes that he abused women in…Over and over, victims have been dismissed because police reports were never filed. That is the most frustrating part…we are all terrified that speaking on the record could give him ammunition for legal retaliation. I want justice, but I don’t want my life further disrupted by someone who still finds ways to harass me,” R said.
There are other rumored allegations that cannot be attested firsthand by these interviewees, but that they all knew of, including several counts of plagiarism in Meyer’s popular poems and an incident where Meyer allegedly groped and sexually assaulted a young woman behind a venue.
Some were shocked that Meyer tried to make his way back into the Orlando poetry scene so publicly, following the bans. Others, not so much.
"He wasn't going to be gone for good," Figures said. "He's just biding his time. He's going to try to come out swinging. This isn't over yet."
R had similar thoughts and said that Meyer had promised to avoid poetry spaces in an attempt to secure the safety of attendees, but he broke that promise.
The six poets interviewed were all disappointed that Meyer was being given a public voice, despite all of the bans and safety precautions set in place by the local venues.
“[Seeing Meyer being spotlighted by WMFE] made me feel really unsafe," Calvaresi said. "I think that every person that has ever been assaulted or harassed has been made to feel unsafe when they see that someone who is an alleged predator has been given platform, regardless of the allegations against them."
WMFE stated that Meyer wrote ZipOdes for the radio segment but was never a part of the event program.
WMFE released this statement:
"90.7 WMFE became aware of the sexual harassment allegations made against Curtis X. Meyer after our Spotlight segment aired/was published on wmfe.org. We take these allegations seriously and are investigating them. We are asking folks with information to please email News Director Catherine Welch at cwelch@wmfe.org."
Although the program is a public event, individuals at WFME asked Meyer to not attend until the investigation is complete, according to a revised WFME Facebook post.
Meyer denied opportunity to comment.
You can view the WMFE article and Facebook post mentioned here.
