“Poroosi” is a one-man spoken word act—and one of my alter egos. The name is a poetic neologism referring to the absence or deficiency of something. The act started out only performing textual ready-mades—speeches written by others—but has since moved on to self-written texts as the basis of performance and video work.

“Lihajuuri” (“Meatroot”) is one of them. The self-titled poem focuses on issues of inadequacy, infertility, and inability—things that popular culture seems either to avoid or attempt to fix through various products. Consumption and consumerism in relation to images of the body is a recurring theme in both lyrical and visual elements of “Poroosi.”

In the performance I recited the poem with a smile while wearing a scarecrow-like self-fashioned ski mask. In the background played a mash-up of various sounds that formed a rhythm that set the tempo for the piece. I performed the text in a mixture of whispers and metal-style distorted vocals, occasionally stopping either to dance or to fiddle with plastic Pokémon-balls. The piece ended with me pouring an entire bag of these balls onto my head. The length of the performance is roughly three minutes and thirty seconds—the average duration of most pop and rock songs.

The performance was also recorded and made into a video work based on the same poem.