A highly motivated and inspired artist who has had to overcome personal hardship and adversity, Dez Statum has been writing and recording her hopes and dreams in her poetry since the age of twelve. Her earliest public performances of her work were as a member of Alabama's Shelby County Poetry Players from 1995 to 1996. She continued to hone her craft in Alabama until 1999, when she left her native state and relocated to the Dallas area. In 2001, having left her corporate job, she found a local reading at the former Insomnia coffee house off Elm Street in Dallas's historic Deep Ellum district.
Her association with Insomnia was the beginning of a passion for performing her work which has since broadened to include performances across the Dallas metroplex, including readings at Barnes & Noble, Blind Lemon, Black Dog Tavern, The Velvet Hookah, The Balcony Club, The Brava Latin Café, Paperbacks Plus, Sueños Sabrosos, the Deep Ellum Arts Fest, and the former Club Clearview. She co-hosted the readings at Bill's Records & Tapes from 2004 to 2005, and was the host of the Wednesday night readings at Deep Ellum's Velvet Hookah from 2005 to 2006. More recently, she has been a regular habitué of the Mad Swirl readings held the first Wednesday of each month at the Absinthe Bar.
Dez's work has been featured in various anthologies over the years by Barnes & Noble ("A Monkey and a Horse"), Death List Five ("Honesty"), and Mad Swirl ("Cowboy Skeleton"). Coagulation, self-published in 2003, was the first dedicated collection of her work. She has recently completed a follow up, titled Two Fisted Whiskey Love Songs.
Although primarily a poet, Dez has attended school at the Art Institute of Dallas and at El Centro Community College, where she is currently working on a degree in multi-media design. She has put her skills to use in occasional freelance work, designing wedding invitations and engagement announcements. Dez sees herself as an activist for peace, animals, children, and underappreciated art forms. She has lived in the country and trained horses, and has a brother, sister, and one daughter.
"There are so many types of writers. . .sometimes they put their brain before the heart and that is not what poetry is about to me."
Conflict (Listen) | Cowboy Skeleton (Listen) | Forgiveness (Listen) | Friday (Listen) | Good Latimer Bridge (Listen) | Kinetic (Listen) | Little Letters (Listen) | Lorraine's Diary (Listen) | Mexican Redhair (Listen) | Sweeter Than Sweet (Listen) | Blistered Guitar Fingers and Broken Note Blues [live] (Listen) | What I Gave Away [live] (Listen)
See also What I Gave Away (video clip)