What are you working on?
Getting words into people’s lives in lots of ways. Familial Animals is out in the world and I’m finding more and more homes for it. I’m writing loads of articles these days on the politics of food, culture, commodities and business. Wrapping up graduate school at the University of San Francisco in May, as well!
Why is poetry important?
This question got some Twitter attention the other day, and I think in itself it’s an important question: why does any art form matter? For those who engage with a medium, the medium’s output needs to be ethical, restorative, and critical – determinants of quality. While semi-relative, and the worth of the poem can be relative, the quality is there or it isn’t. To showcase to audiences why poetry is important, a writer just has to write something that can spark interest, the quality of the poem resonating or not. Westside Gunn’s Buffalo, New York stories resonate broadly. Joy Harjo’s vignettes of Native American worlds also connect with millions of people. No need to split hairs: poetry has been around, will stay around, and will continue to be important when it is done well and brings enlightenment to folks.
How important is music to your poetry?
Super important. I’m guilty of hearing a word or line sung in a certain way and jotting it down for further study down the road, the intonation or the sonics serving as inspiration. Hip hop, of course, is a big part of what I listen to: BROCKHAMPTON, Lauryn Hill, Noname, Tierra Whack, Baby Keem are a few on rotation. I put on lo fi or jazz to write to music, though, to get more flow-y with the whole thing. It’s heavenly to be in that space.
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
Man, so many great poets putting out work right now. As Antony Fangary told me while pouring me a cup of coffee the other day: poetry is in a renaissance. His book, Haram, is dope, as is Roberto Santiago’s Like Sugar, Kevin Madrigal’s Hell/A Mexican, Ben Gucciardi’s West Portal, Dena Rod’s Scattered Arliss, and Cal Calamia’s San FranShitshow all are in and around my life right now. A few I go to on the regular are Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic and Ada Limon’s The Carrying.
What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
I think writing holds a unique place in folks’ minds that writing and being a writer is cool and somehow worth more than other crafts or hobbies. Since that feels true to me, I’ve felt that the most difficult thing about writing poetry is finding out why one is writing it and for whom? The focus is so often on the product but not the process. As a white person I have asked myself a lot why I write poetry, for what audience, and what space that takes up or creates. Loads of people putting out poems aren’t curious about what stereotypes they might perpetuate, what topics they are ignoring, and what poetry community we do and don’t create by remaining ignorant to our intentions.
Photo credit: Lucie Pereira
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
Oh yeah, a ton. I wrote rhyming poems for middle school crushes when I was 12-years-old. Anyone writing with the same intentions or understanding of what poetry can be or the role it can hold in society might not be approaching their work with much intention. It is, after all, work – that’s how I see it now. Work to excavate yourself and your beliefs, work to liberate yourself and others, and work to connect politics to people. Shout out to my partner for showing me Safia Elhillo, Danez Smith, and Chinaka Hodge, all of whom do this in clever, beautiful ways.
