“Poetry is like pooping. If it’s inside you, it has to come out.”
– Sarah Kay
How did you get interested in writing poems?
I was writing ever since I could hold a pencil. I was very little when I started writing. But most of them were journal poetry. The poems were very private and were not meant for anybody else to read. I also never felt like sharing it with anybody and I definitely didn’t want to perform. I wasn’t a performer when I was young. But I was always writing even if it was just for my own self.
What made you take up spoken word poetry?
When I was 14, I got signed up for a poetry slam workshop for teenagers. I hadn’t signed up. My parents hadn’t signed me up and nor had my friends or teachers. No one I knew had. To this day, I don’t know who registered my name for that event. So I call it divine intervention. I had always loved poetry, so I thought to myself that I could do this and wrote a poem specifically for the event. The event was crazy and exciting. There were 50 teenagers performing and the place was packed with people. The atmosphere was very positive and I had never seen people my age that keyed up about poetry before and that was incredible to me. After I was done with my performance, a girl in the audience told me that she had really felt it and at that time I had never experienced something like that before. I had never had the message that I could create something that could move other people and to be 14 and learn that my voice was relevant was really stirring. That’s when I fell in love with it.
It was the first performance that opened the flood gates then?
You could say that but the first performance itself was terrifying. It was when I came off stage and this girl told me that she had connected with it, and that was when I became excited about the whole idea of spoken word poetry. It was about the connection between people. I decided that this was something I wanted to at least investigate further. So I went back to the same club that this event had been hosted at but what I didn’t realize was that this one event was a special night for teenagers, and every other night of the year the place was a bar for adults and that’s how I ended up in the adult poetry slam community because I didn’t know any better. I was the only 14-year-old and everybody else was in their 20s. But I was very lucky because all of these adult poets were performing every week and I got to watch them and learn.
Do you sit and think through every word or just write freely allowing the words to flow?
A little bit of both, actually. I’ll hear a phrase that I really like and there will be little things I’ll want to keep, so I’ll jot them down so that I remember them. I’m constantly making notes to myself. So when the time comes to actually write, I have an archive of funny little notes that I’ve made and I can start working from there and don’t have to begin from scratch. I tell people that poetry is like pooping. If there’s a poem inside you, it has to come out. Sometimes that’s easy and comes out faster than you expect it to and sometimes it’s very difficult and takes much longer than you would like.
Where do the ideas come from and do you have a favorite place where you write or a ritual you follow while writing?
Ideas are everywhere. You’re surrounded by them. In my daily life, I’m always trying to pay attention to what’s going on around me as much as I possibly can, and various things take me by surprise me and get me excited and so I tend to pick up things from everything I see and everybody I meet. However, I need utter solitude to write. I can’t write in a café or a public place. People will think I’m crazy because I’ll be reading my work out loud as I write. I usually write at home when nobody’s around. Actually, I don’t want anybody to be in the house while I write. I can’t write if I’m surrounded by people even if they are friends.
Once you’ve begun writing a poem, are there specifics things you do to create a vivid image? Is there a structure you follow?
I try to write using as many concrete details as possible, so I stay away from phrases that are abstract which my audience won’t be able to instantly follow. If I want to talk about something that’s abstract, I use concrete details to describe it. If I say I love my boyfriend and he adores me, people will say that’s great without any emotion because love is very abstract and people have different understanding, definition and connotation of the word. But if I say that every morning when my boyfriend gets to the kitchen, I already have his coffee ready exactly the way I know he likes it – two sugar cubes, no milk – and people will gush over how much we’re in love with each other. Why the difference? Because everybody knows what coffee smells like, tastes like and what it sounds like when it’s gurgling. They know that coffee drinkers need their coffee a certain way, and if you’re dating a coffee drinker, you need to know how he likes his coffee; else you’ll have a grumpy boyfriend. All this information they process from the simple concrete detail of coffee. So when you use concrete details, the audience understands exactly what you’re talking about.
You’ve said that you write poems to understand things better. How’s that?
Writing poems is a bit like solving puzzles. I’m trying to solve puzzles that appear before me and usually it’s a puzzle I can’t stop thinking about. If I find myself thinking about something for too long or getting stuck at a thought and pondering over it more than I should, then that’s how I know it’s time to write a poem. The only means to find some kind of understanding is to write my way through it. Sometimes when I get to the end of a poem, I’ve figured things out and sometimes I’ll still not have figured out a thing, but at the very least I have a new poem.
Don’t you think that by writing the kind of poems that you do, you’re opening yourself up to scrutiny and that makes you vulnerable?
Oh yes, absolutely! But there’s a difference between private and personal. I write poems that are very personal but I don’t write about things that are private. If I didn’t feel comfortable sharing things with an audience, then I wouldn’t put them out there. I write about things that I’m okay with letting people know even if it may make me vulnerable. I find that everyone feels vulnerable at certain points and too many people want to pretend that vulnerability doesn’t affect them. Instead of pretending, I want to be able to openly talk about things that make me vulnerable so that I can communicate about those topics and get help in navigating them instead of trying to deal with it alone, in silence and shame.
You began your journey at the age of 14. How has your poetry changed over the years and how has it changed you?
I puzzle over different things more now than I did when I was 14. When I was 14, I was puzzled by my younger brother and wrote poems about him. I’m nowhere close to figuring him out but I’m not worried about not understanding him as much as I was back then. My poetry is a direct reflection of exactly who I am and where I am when I’m writing that particular poem and it changes as I change and grow. My poems are very accurate depictions of what I was feeling and thinking about at the time I was writing them. The thing that’s nice about that is that it means every time I write a poem, it’s like building a landmark to where I am at that moment and what I’m trying to figure out. When I go back and revisit old poems, I’m walking back to find where I’ve had been and see how far I’ve come.
As for how my poetry has changed me, I can’t give a definite answer because I’m still changing every single day. But I can definitely say that I’m more comfortable being vulnerable now.
What’s the most hurtful, demeaning thing ever said to you and how did you react to it?
You can’t print it. It’s that bad. Writers get criticized all the time and it’s supposed to inspire them. But it didn’t have that effect on me. I wanted to get under the covers and never come out. I’ve noted down all the mean things people have said to me. I have my own little archive. I don’t dip into it that often but I do sometimes, and it feels awful. But I also believe that it’s important that some people don’t like you. If everybody likes you, then you aren’t making a difference. You’re not causing a stir.
Just out of curiosity, what’s your favorite book and which writer do you admire?
I’m fascinated by a lot of writers. The list is never ending. Currently, I’m reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It’s a brilliant book. I love One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and Shadows of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. One of my favorite writers and poets is Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz. I’m her editor. Her poems are just amazing. She’s funny and smart.
Your movement – Project V.O.I.C.E – tries to inspire and motivate youth to use spoken-word poetry to explore and better understand the world. How has the process been so far?
I don’t think it’s all that very difficult to motivate young people. Part of motivating them means listening to them and I think most of the times they just need somebody to listen to their side of the story. Too many adults want to motivate them by talking without listening to them and that doesn’t work. Young people have stories they want to tell. They want to express their ideas. Project V.O.I.C.E gives them a platform to share their stories. It’s become an outlet to get their voices heard and so far the response we’ve received has been awesome.
What advice do you have for people who are interested in spoken-word poetry but haven’t found the courage to take it up yet?
You shouldn’t think of poetry as something scary. Don’t put it up on a pedestal and think it’s difficult or unapproachable. Poetry is real. It’s ugly, hairy and sweaty, just like people. You have to not fear it in order to overcome the inhibition of penning down a poem. Once you make it less scary in your mind, it becomes much more approachable. You have to remember that everybody can do it. I could and I’m no more talented or smarter than you. You just need to start.
From : Republica
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