A Virtual Interview with Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson

Background

Thursday, May 11, 2023 7:15 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Event Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bookwoman-2nd-thursday-poetry-reading-open-mic-wandrea-vocab-sanderson-tickets-556328562707

San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson will be our in-person feature for this hybrid in-store/Zoom event. Sanderson is the first Black Poet Laureate of San Antonio, 2020-2023 and a San Antonio native. Her debut poetry collection, She Lives in Music, was published by FlowerSong Press in 2020. 

Sanderson’s dynamic performance style is an originally crafted fusion of spoken word poetry, hip hop and soulful rhythm and blues. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including: Dream Voice 2018, People’s Choice Award 2019, Best Literary Advocate 2021 San Antonio Magazine, and The Arts and Letters Award by Friends of San Antonio Public Library in 2020. Best Local Poet 2021 by The San Antonio Current. She serves as a Teaching Artist for Gemini Ink.

In 2021, she received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. Vocab was recently awarded a NPN Creation Fund grant for her upcoming theater production, The Seasoned Woman co-commissioned by The Carver and Art2Action.  Her music is available on all music streaming platforms. https://andreavocabsanderson.com

The Interview

CH: What is your first memory of poetry? When did you begin to connect with it as a means of expression?

AVS: At age six I typed a poem for my mother on my aunts’ typewriter.  I remember being so excited to share it with my mom on the way back from Corpus Christi to San Antonio. I tried to make her read it while she was driving.

CH: You’ve had an interesting trajectory as a poet and performer, and I know that music has been important to you and theater has also played a part. How would you describe yourself as an artist?

AVS: I most describe myself as a performance poet , rapper and vocalist. It is very difficult to try to summarize it to other people, especially if they aren’t an artist themselves. I would like to think I am an entertainer most days.

CH: I understand that you began writing songs when you were in high school. What led you in that direction? How do you see the connection between songwriting and poetry? How did your relationship with music (inside the poem and outside the text) develop during this time?

AVS: I started rapping around 14 or 15 years old. That’s where a lot of frustration and also a lot of spirituality was housed lyrically. On paper I could let my imagination run and create other personas for all of my little character traits. I had different pseudonyms for all of my styles and I didn’t even realize how much was springing up out of me.

I grew up in a church being a part of so many different auxiliaries. I was on the drama team, the dance team, youth choir president, the praise team, the usher board, and even youth leadership. I did everything and always challenged myself to learn more and take on more responsibility.  So naturally when it came to my writing I wanted to sing just as much as I wanted to do all of the other forms. Then Jill Scott came along doing poetry and singing around the time I turned 20 and I felt like her style gave me permission to do it all together in one piece.

CH: I understand that for several years you focused on a career in slam poetry. Tell us a little about that experience. How did slam change your approach to writing and performance?

AVS: In 2004 I heard Amalia Ortiz and Anthony The Poet Flores for the first time. I saw how dramatization and spoken word met each other and I was determined to receive standing ovations, memorize my work, and finally slam for the 1st time. I made the San Antonio Puro Slam Team in 2005, 2006, 2007 I slammed for Corpus, 2008 I was back on Puro Slam team. I really developed my own voice through slam. I learned how to be professional and I was able to travel all over the U.S. I understood that if someone gave me their attention I had to give them a lasting impression and that being on stage is a shared experience for me and my audience.

CH: I think of the role of poet laureate as one of engaging community with poetry and helping raise its visibility, and you’re in a unique position as San Antonio’s first Black poet laureate. First of all, congratulations on that honor! What did you want to accomplish during your tenure? How has this opportunity impacted your practice of poetry?

AVS: I decided in January of 2020 that I wanted to make it a legacy year for me as a poet. I wanted to participate in and create as many programs and initiatives as possible.

I spent all 3 years of my tenure truly advocating for the literary arts, as well as the poets. I created The Echo Project. The Echo Project was funded by The Mellon Foundation through a fellowship I was awarded from The Academy of American Poets. You can see those videos from The Echo Project  on KLRN and Youtube. It was a project that combined interviews conducted of leaders in San Antonio with spoken word and videography. 

I did a TEDx Talk where I go into some more details about the things I did at the beginning of my tenure. I helped spread awareness about COVID safety. I worked with nonprofits doing organizing and bringing awareness to policing. I was in an award winning documentary for Juneteenth. I even did a few Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion presentations. I really could go on and on about my collaborations and artist residencies, but that would take a few pages. I just realize that we have to take our role seriously and then others will follow suit.

CH: Tell us a little about your debut book of poetry, She Lives in Music. How did this collection come about?

AVS: I won a grant from Luminaria Artist Foundation. It was based on the People’s Choice category. The book was published on FlowerSong Press in February 14th of 2020.

CH: I understand you also have an album, She Tastes Like Music, that came out in 2019. Given the parallelism between its title and that of your debut book, I’m curious—how do the two pieces of art relate to each other?

AVS: It was meant to be released as a companion project. The album came 3 months early. Every song on the album is also published in the book as a poem.

CH: You’ve sometimes been called upon to write occasional poetry, as in 2019 when you were asked to create a poem in honor of the San Antonio’s newly elected mayor, Ron Nirenberg. How do you approach writing occasional poems?

AVS: When I am writing commissioned  poetry, I like to have conversations with people and really just listen for clues and information I can incorporate into a poem.

CH: Your bio on the FlowerSong Press website mentions your involvement in theater, some of which has been in the context of dance companies. Does your interest in theater extend to playwrighting? What does your theater experience bring to your poetry?

AVS: In 2018 I created the Bad Mama Jamma Mixtape after the Carver Community Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio reach out. This theater production debuted to a sold out audience. I do not consider myself a playwright, yet. In 2020-2021 I had an artist residency at the Carver. In 2022 I won a creative development grant from National Performance Network.

CH: What do you read for pleasure? What’s the most recent book of poetry you’ve read?

AVS: No matter who I read, I always go back to Gwendolyn Brooks and Maya Angelou. Try Deborah ‘D.E.E.P.’ Mouton also her new book just dropped, Black Chameleon.

A Virtual Interview with Adrienne Christian

Background

 Upcoming Features

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BookWoman 2nd Thursday Poetry Reading and Open Mic with Adrienne Christian – In Person and On Zoom

February 9, 2023  7:15 .m. to 9:00 p.m.

Zoom Event Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bookwoman-2nd-thursday-poetry-and-open-mic-featuring-adrienne-christian-tickets-498453968237

Please join us for the first of our hybrid in-store / Zoom 2nd Thursday events! Our feature, Adrienne Christian, will be at BookWoman (5500 N. Lamar), and we will also be connecting via Zoom. Please note that BookWoman requires masks at all in-person events. 

Adrienne Christian is a writer and fine art photographer, and the author of three poetry collections – Worn (Santa Fe Writers Project, 2021), A Proper Lover, (Mainstreet Rag, 2017), and 12023 Woodmont Avenue (Willow Lit, 2003). Her poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and photography have been featured in various journals including Prairie Schooner, Hayden’s Ferry Review, CALYX, phoebe, No Tokens, World Literature Today, and the Los Angeles Review as the Editor’s Choice. Her work has been anthologized widely and has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize. In 2020, her poem “Wedding Dress” won the Common Ground Review Poetry Award. In 2016, she won the Rita Dove International Poetry Award and in 2007 the University of Michigan’s Five Under Ten Young Alumni Award. 

Adrienne is a fellow of Cave Canem and Callaloo writing residencies, and has been featured on panels by Ms. Magazine and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. She has served as editor or jury member for various prizes including the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize, the Penumbra Poetry and Haiku Contest, the Cave Canem Starshine and Clay Fellowship, and the Nebraska Poetry Society Poetry Award. She is an associate editor at Backbone Press, and founder of the Blue Ridge Mountains Writing Collective, and holds a BA from the University of Michigan (2001), an MFA from Pacific University (2011), and a PhD from the University of Nebraska (2020).

The Interview

 CH: What is your first memory of poetry? What drew you to poetry as a means of expression?

AC: My first memory of poetry was in second grade. My elementary school was having a student poetry writing contest. My teacher, Ms. Simmons, taught a lesson on poetry, and then assigned us students to write poems to enter into the contest. Mine won second place. A few years later, again in school, I discovered Shel Silverstein and was hooked.

CH: When did you first begin to think of yourself as a writer? As a poet?

AC: In 10^th grade. My Creative Writing teacher, Mr. Kiersey, would ask us students to read our short stories aloud. Whenever I shared my stories, he’d point to me and say to the class, “There’s a writer!”

CH: I understand you are a fine art photographer as well as a poet. How does your practice of photography inform your writing practice?

AC: I am so glad that you asked! Photography serves as a balance to my writing life. With writing, I am always sitting alone at my desk. With photography, I am out trekking in the world, meeting people. With writing, I am in my head. With photography, I get out of my head and into my body.

Also, I see photography as an extension of writing. Both are about the story. And, photography is actually translated as writing with light (Photo, as in photosynthesis (light), and Graph, as in writing/hand (autograph). So, photography is writing as well, just with light instead of with a pen. Writing on its own really has the power to move people. So does photography. Together, they are infinitely powerful, and I like that about being a Writer/Photographer.

CH: Congratulations on the publication of your third collection, Worn. What inspired these poems? How did the book come about?

AC: Thank you! Another really good question. Worn is a collection of poems that all feature clothing in some way. The why of what we wear runs deep – so, I wanted to capture that in these poems. At first, I was collecting clothing poems in an anthology I had hoped to publish. But reading so much about clothing poems, I felt inspired to write my own.

CH: I find that I want to read the non-capitalized poems of Worn as if they are in a more “interior” voice, especially given many appear toward the middle of their sections. Is this an intended reading?

AC: Yes. I want those poems to be quieter.

CH: In less than a decade, you’ve published three collections: 12023 Woodmont Avenue (Willow Lit, 2013), A Proper Lover (Main Street Rag, 2017), and now Worn (Santa Fe Writer’s Project, 2021). What through lines do you see in these collections? What’s changed the most in your approach to writing and revision over these years?

AC: The throughline is love. In Woodmont Avenue, the speaker is lacking and longing for familial love. In A Proper Lover, the speaker is on a journey to find, and become, a proper lover, in spite of what’s been done to her. Worn, too, is about love – agape, filial, and eros.

Another through line is the African-American experience.

A third is bravery – my poems tend to tackle sensitive topics that people are often hesitant to discuss, but want to, and perhaps need to.

A fourth is pain – I often go to the poetry page to write in response to something that is heavy on my heart or mind.

CH: The first two of these collections came out while you were pursuing your PhD in Creative Writing, and the first of them came out not long after you received your MFA. What started you on your academic journey in creative writing? What was the most surprising thing that you’ve learned along the way?

AC: Actually, Woodmont Avenue came out in 2013, two years after I’d finished my MFA at Pacific University. A Proper Lover was accepted in February of 2016, months before I was accepted to and went to Nebraska. And Worn was accepted in late 2020, a few months after I’d finished my PhD at Nebraska.

Now that you ask these questions, in fact, it gives me more clarity on my own writing process. I tend to write/publish books after I am done with school. School fills the well, and once I’m done I can tap the well. Does that make sense?

I decided to get my PhD for two reasons – I wanted to learn to write literary nonfiction, and I wanted to learn to do research.

One thing that has surprised me is how absolutely in love I am with the writing life. I love reading, teaching, writing, researching, listening to all things literary. I love buying books. I love supporting other writers. I love readings writers’ stories. I love writing retreats. I love craft talks. I love books all over my house. I even travel with books though they often put my suitcase over-weight. I just can’t get enough of this stuff – it’s like a love affair that never grows old, or stales. Living the Writing Life fills me up in ways that no other thing can. I believe that is why I came to this planet – to write (to change the world).

CH: In addition to poetry, you’ve published a number of non-fiction pieces. Where would you like to take your writing in the next few years?

AC: I have two nonfiction pieces I’m working on now, and I’d like to see them published. One is a collection of personal essays called How I Got Over. It’s a blueprint of how I went from a life of anguish to a life of joy. The second collection doesn’t have a title yet, but these are essays from my life on the road – the lessons I learned. I’ve visited all 50 United States and 62 countries. I learned a lot, and want to share what I learned with readers.

CH: I’m always excited to be introduced to writers who are new to me. Do you have a recommendation you can share for an outstanding debut poetry collection?

AC: Have you read Gabebe Baderoon’s A hundred silences? It’s a stunning collection. One anthology I love is black nature, edited by Camille Dungy – nature poems by Black poets. It’s lovely. Oh, and Frank Chupasula’ Bending the Bow, which are all African love poems. This is the collection I keep by my bed. I am very much interested in African love stories.

CH: What do you read for relaxation?

AC: Spiritual literature — Hafiz’s poems, African proverbs, Buddhism quotes. These books are also by my bedside.

Adrienne Christian

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A Virtual Interview with darlene anita scott

Background

Thursday, July 14, 2022 7:15 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Event Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bookwoman-second-thursday-poetry-and-open-mic-featuring-darlene-anita-scott-tickets-350112464807

Feature darlene anita scott will be reading from her new collection, Marrow (University Press of Kentucky, 2022). Part of the New Poetry & Prose Series from University Press of Kentucky, Marrow honors those who perished in the Jonestown massacre of November 18, 1978 in the Guyanese settlement of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project led by James “Jim” Jones. 

darlene anita scott is co-editor of the anthology Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and has appeared recently in Green Mountains Review, Pen + Brush, and Simple Machines. 

The Interview

CH: Tell us a little about your journey as a writer. What is your first memory of poetry? When do you first remember being drawn to writing?

das: My earliest memories of poetry happened in church. From the time I began attending Sunday School, around 4 years old, I was assigned “pieces” to memorize and recite for every holiday program—Easter, Christmas, Children’s Day. “Pieces” were rhyming verses that spoke on the occasion and Jesus and salvation and you aged into longer and more complicated ones.

I was drawn to practicing verse thanks, in no small part, to my great Aunt Eva who would write and deliver pieces—hers were witty long form rhyming histories—almost like a griot—on the more adult special occasions like Homecoming or the pastor’s anniversary. It seemed almost magical to manipulate words like she did, and as much as anything, I liked stories. Like, my dad’s a very physical storyteller, and I would sneak to read the stories my oldest sister wrote in her spiral notebooks back then. I heard James Weldon Johnson’s “The Creation” and Nikki Giovanni’s “Ego Trippin’” at some church function in those early years of my life. And I can’t leave out that hip hop was in the ether at the same time—the neighborhood boys blasting “boom boxes” and popping and breakdancing to its stories. So those are some of my earliest influences.

CH: When did you first begin to think of yourself as a writer? as a poet? How did your MFA contribute to your development as a writer?

das: The first time I named myself a writer was in a seventh-grade report. In the report we had to research and describe our career goal by answering a series of prescribed questions and illustrating the report. My career choice was to be a writer. Ironically, I remember that I wrote a lot in college, in every genre—screenwriting (I was terrible at it), broadcast journalism, essays of course, poetry. But when a professor asked us—in an upper-level elective writing course no less—to identify ourselves as writers, I was as hesitant as my peers to say—she had us chant the words—“I am a writer.” I stuttered the words with the other girls but in that moment I think it was affirmed. I was a senior at the time and took a gap year before starting my MFA. The MFA bought me time to figure out what “being a writer” was going to look like for me. Because I had no real models. I flailed around a lot but in the flailing, my poetics evolved; I read more widely but still not nearly enough during those three years; I think I began to write more authentically and less with the goal of manipulating language.     

CH: I understand you are a visual artist as well as a poet. How do you see the relationship between these artistic aspects?

das: The relationship for me reminds me of humming and singing. Sometimes you hum whether you know the lyrics or not. I tend to let the occasion or situation choose. Whether I’m humming or belting out lyrics, I’m achieving the goal of feeling, expressing the feeling, and using what best suits the occasion at the time. I’m also very visual in general; my dreams are very involved; they’re like movies. I often see my poems, even the lyrical and less narrative ones that way. So I guess they’re like fraternal twins (I’m a fraternal twin)! The relationship is more intimate than that of siblings but they’re not, I guess, indistinguishable—if that makes sense.

CH: I recall that the media coverage of the Jonestown murder/suicide placed a good deal of focus on the leader, “Jim” Jones, but far less on the individuals who formed the community. How did you become interested in writing about the members of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project (popularly known as “Jonestown”)?

das: Yes, the way the historical record focuses on Jim Jones and the lack of focus on the individuals is definitely a touchpoint for me. I generally start writing with a question; something I want to make sense of. I wanted to know who the “people” of Peoples Temple were and not just as the monolith of “the 900+ dead.” I was curious about their interior lives and what lead them to follow this man who was portrayed as erratic, psychotic, egomaniacal. I was especially interested in all the Black people I saw in imagery of the murder-suicide and how they would have chosen the leadership of this white man, especially this kind of white man. They looked like people I knew. That was enough for me to believe they might be like people I knew and as a result I wanted to know how people I knew could be drawn to this man, this congregation, especially in that point in history.

CH: How did you find your way into the many voices of the members of the Peoples Temple? What was your research process like?

das: I spent the most time with images. There is an excellent regularly updated archive of photos, primary documents and ephemera, and creative and critical interpretations of Peoples Temple at a website called Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. I would spend hours just scrolling through photos there, imagining and evoking the people in the pictures—their personalities, idiosyncrasies, their corporeality. You know, images don’t just preserve a time, place, subject; they make the time, place, subject tangible. So, my process was engaging with those images. I call it invitational (plenty of times it was uncomfortable too all things considered) because I would I summon members to come to me as I scrolled. I also read all the autobiographies I could find and listened to tapes and read primary documents both from the Peoples Temple and from the historical moment with the same goal of kind of disappearing my subjective lens and foregrounding the people of Peoples Temple.

CH: “Rostrum” seems a pivotal poem in the book’s first section, engaging with the effects of the lived history of the Middle Passage and all that has come since on the speaker’s faith. I’m fascinated by its use of repetition and would love to know more about how you approached writing this poem.

das: Amazing reading of that poem—I never explicitly considered the Middle Passage during the writing of “Rostrum” but who can deny the lived history of it and how it was weaponized, really, against the Black membership? Unsurprisingly, Jones used the Biblical story of Exodus that is endemic to Black theology, embedded in Black spirituals, and relevant to Black life in the so-called New World to persuade members to move to Guyana. The “Rostrum” from which he delivered his sermons is a weapon huh?

The poem began as a single stanza. Yet, every time I reread it and manipulated the order of the lines, each new iteration felt “true.” So I did that exercise where you print the poem and cut it up and move the words around like puzzle pieces. It seemed worth it to animate the manipulation in a way that reinforced the multiplicity of ways the rostrum was used, the multiplicity of ways people experienced it, and Peoples Temple, and what transpired and transformed over the course of its trip in the cargo hold.

CH: What were some of your greatest challenges in writing and arranging the poems of Marrow?

das: One of my earliest challenges was trying to make the text “like” other texts. I love Brutal Imagination by Cornelius Eady which corporealizes Susan Smith’s made-up carjacker and I thought I would, to borrow 80s hip hop vernacular, “bite” off of Eady’s approach. (So ambitious and naïve of me to even try!) Luckily, I shared this sentiment with a workshop leader fairly early in the development of the manuscript and was told to stop biting and write my own book. Over the course of its development, I worried over being respectful and honest in my treatment. I worried that I would cause harm in the attempt and frankly, I believe that fear shows up in the text as over explaining sometimes. All I can hope is that it’s not a distraction. Anyway, when it came time to arrange the text, I wanted to arrange the text chronologically but it didn’t make sense for the story of Peoples Temple, which is so not linear or clear-cut. So, really, I guess trying not to be heavy-handed was The Challenge.

CH: Now that you have completed this book, what is the focus of your writing practice?

das: I am currently in the very early writing stages of a collection of poems called Age of Discovery. It’s sort of an off shoot of Marrow because it’s also investigating local, national, and historical moments of my coming-of-age years. But this project is more personal because I’m trying to identify how the moments contribute to my self-hood.

CH: Who are some writers to whom you turn regularly for inspiration?

das: I reread Delana Dameron, Patricia Smith, and Lauren Alleyne. And if I pick up Gwendolyn Brooks or Nikki Giovanni, I will probably be gone for hours.

CH: What is the most recent book of poetry you’ve read?

das: Stacyann Chin’s Crossfire.

A Virtual Interview with KB Brookins

Thursday, February 10, 2022 7:15 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Event registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bookwoman-2nd-thursday-poetry-presents-kb-brookins-and-renee-rossi-tickets-230165259487

Background

Features KB Brookins and Renée Rossi will be reading to celebrate their recently-released titles from Kallisto-Gaia Press. 

KB Brookins’ chapbook, How to Identify with a Wound, was selected as the winner of the 2021 Saguaro Poetry Prize from Kallisto-Gaia Press by ire’ne lara silva. KB is a Black queer nonbinary miracle: a poet, essayist, educator, and cultural worker. In addition to authoring How To Identify Yourself With A Wound (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022), their debut full-length poetry collection, Freedom House is forthcoming in 2023 from Deep Ellum. KB is a 2021 PEN America Emerging Voices fellow and an African American Leadership Institute – Austin fellow, and has words published in Cincinnati Review, ANMLY, and elsewhere. Follow them online at @earthtokb.

The Interview

CH: What is your first memory of poetry?

KBB: Probably around the time I was 12 in a 7th grade class. My English teacher did a reading of one of her former students’ poems, and I remember it really impacting me. Though it was essentially about a boy not texting the girl back, I — for the first time — felt like I felt all the emotions the girl felt, and it felt heavy! That piqued my interest in poetry, and I started writing poems of my own 3 years later.

CH: What draws you to poetry? When did you first begin to think of yourself as a writer?

KBB: Reading and experiencing other people’s poems draws me to poetry. Since the beginning, I’ve been a communal poet — one that really thrives when other poets are doing their thing around me. Though I had been writing on and off since I was 15, I think I thought of myself as a writer around 23. It was the year I started really moving inward and seeing my body as less of a nuisance and more of a mainstay. I guess that’s when I started being embodied, so I started being a writer.

CH: You are an essayist as well as a poet. How would you describe your identity as a writer?

KBB: I don’t know that I have an identity as a writer; just vision and purpose. I write to acknowledge my feelings, learn about my emotional/physical self, be reminded of my genius (we all have some genius in us), and to archive my life. A Black, queer, trans life that often goes unarchived. I share that writing to validate the feelings/ideas/experiences of folks like me, to give others access to new feelings/ideas/experiences, to connect to other writers writing on similar topics, and to contribute/offer material for movement work — especially movement that leads to justice for marginalized people. Whatever medium that’s necessary to help me achieve this vision and purpose is fine with me. 

CH: I understand you were a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow last year. Tell us a little about that program, and how it has impacted your life.

KBB: The PEN fellowship was exactly what I needed at that moment in my writing path. In my application, I shared that I was feeling like I didn’t have mentorship, or affordable education opportunities, or a consistent community of writers that were passionate about the work of words. I’m a Black queer & trans poet without an MFA or the luxury of money/literary industry access, so these things are often hard to get. During the duration of my fellowship with PEN, I was able to connect with other writers in similar positions as me, get education on things like “getting essays published” and “getting an agent”, and have the confidence/mentorship to finish a manuscript of poems. I also got connections to folks that could answer questions the fellowship couldn’t, due to my mentor and PEN staff generosity. I don’t think I would have my amazing agent (Annie DeWitt), my debut full-length forthcoming with Deep Vellum Publishing, or other awesome connections fostered from June-October without PEN. And for that, I’m very grateful.

CH: Your focus and determination have been evident for quite some time. How have you charted your path toward the writing you want to do? Where do you seek sustenance?

KBB: Thanks for that! Due to (honestly) anti-Blackness and queerphobia inherent in many literary entities, I’ve had to do a lot of digging. Digging in books, digging in myself to write the most authentic stuff, digging out of the holes made for me to fall in/for others to patch up with me in them… it’s been a lot. Over the years — especially from 2018-now, I just marketed myself super hard. On social media, at open mics/readings, in Submittable. I’ve shot a lot of shots! To this day I’ve submitted to 500+ opportunities and maybe…. 75 of those have been Yes’. The Yes’ come as you work on yourself, I think. I’ve been just staying alive and staying dedicated to what I believe is my purpose and vision. I seek sustenance in community, and in the words I produce. I also seek sustenance in reflection and listening. 

CH: Congratulations on the publication of How to Identify Yourself with a Wound, winner of the 2021 Saguaro Poetry Prize. Over how long a period were the poems of this chapbook written? How did you approach sequencing the work?

KBB: 90% of the poems were written from 2018-2019. There’s maybe… one poem from 2020 and one poem from 2021. I think I went to an event at Malvern Books in 2019 where Ire’ne (the 2021 judge) was speaking with Natalia Sylvester I believe. Ire’ne said “when you identify yourself with a wound” at some point in an answer during the Q&A, and I was so struck by that phrase. I went home and researched and wrote what ended up being the How To Identify Yourself With a Wound poems (all of which have the same name) and… the chapbook just happened from there I think. I thought I had another chapbook, but I abandoned that because the premise of this one felt more interesting. Then I sent it to 7ish places, and KGP picked up. Also, sending the manuscript to friends and trying out like… 5 different orderings of the poem helped.

CH: I understand your first full-length collection, Freedom House, is slated to come out from Deep Vellum in 2023. Tell us a little about the book. How does it relate to How to Identify Yourself with a Wound? How did the process of collecting a full-length volume differ from that of putting together a chapbook?

KBB: I honestly think they’re polar opposites; haha. Though some themes like Blackness, queerness, and gender come up (I can’t escape my life’s context), the premise is a bit more place-based, and large in scope. I see How To Identify as this self-facing debut that’s so much about me trying to find my place in poetry/the world, and Freedom House’s process is different. These poems are more 2021, more critical of politics, gender as a construct, and more. If I could give it a sentence, it is a speaker exploring personal, systemic, and interpersonal freedom through the metaphor of a house. 

Collecting it was surprisingly easier than How To Identify. I was a lot more confident this time around, since it doesn’t have the pressure of being MY FIRST BOOK, haha. 90% of the poems were written during my time as a PEN fellow. Hint: a number of individual poems that got picked up by me last year are in that book. I think people will like it, and see my growth as a writer after reading both. 

CH: Your bio identifies you not only as a writer, but as a cultural worker. How has your work as a cultural worker impacted your writing?

KBB: Cultural work is what I’ve done for almost as long as poetry, so I see them as inherently linked. When I say I’m a “cultural worker”, I mean I work toward dismantling harmful cultures through education, art, and community-building. For me, that looks like offering workshops, keynotes/lectures, conflict facilitation, and publishing art that critiques culture — especially the rampant cultures of anti-Blackness, queerphobia, transphobia, ableism, and other things inherently American.

In the past, my cultural work has been participating in protests, being a part of advocacy groups, starting the nonprofits Embrace Austin and Interfaces, and other things. All of that has been in the name of finding justice. Writing is not just words on the page; I can’t act like I don’t live a politicized life. And I hope that comes off in How To Identify, Freedom House, and all other writings I choose to publish. My hope is that my words start much-needed conversations and actions that create a better world. 

CH: What’s your vision of yourself in 5 years?

KBB: My vision is that doing the things I’m already doing with more financial/social support. I’d like to have stellar physical, mental, and spiritual health. In December 2021 I started doing artivism and consulting full-time, so I’d like to be doing that still — performances, workshops, etc. — in 5 years.

I’d like to have a CNF book out, and a 2nd full-length out or under contract. I’d like my work to be translated to at least one other language — Spanish especially since it’s the 2nd most spoken language in Texas. I’d like to be fluent in Spanish and ASL. I’d like to be exploring work in other genres — plays, songwriting, TV writing, and Afrofuturism intrigue me. I’d like to have tried stand-up at least once. I’d like to have a band, and assistant, and some video-poems out.

I’d like to organize toward an Austin and Texas that is livable for poor, disabled, Black, queer, and trans people through my art and cultural work. I also envision being able to do some kind of artivism fellowship, and regularly contribute to literary/social good causes that I love. Last is that I’d like to be somebody’s poet laureate, and at least a finalist for an NBA/NBCC/PEN award. Those are my manifestations. We’ll see. Haha.

CH: What’s the most recent book of poetry that you’ve read?

KBB: Dreaming of You by Melissa Lozada-Oliva.

A Virtual Interview with Loretta Diane Walker

Background

Thursday, January 14, 2021  7:15 – 9:00 p.m. Contact bookwoman2ndthursdaypoetry@gmail.com for meeting information, or register with Eventbrite: (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bookwoman-2nd-thursday-virtual-poetry-reading-and-open-mic-tickets-135623037155)

Loretta Diane Walker is the author of five collections of poetry, and her sixth collection, Day Begins When Darkness is in Full Bloom, is forthcoming in 2021. Her most recent title is Ode to My Mother’s Voice (Lamar University Press, 2019). Her third collection, In This House (Bluelight Press, 2015), won the 2016 Phyllis Wheatley Book Award. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, a nine-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Net nominee, she is not only an award winning poet but a musician who plays her tenor saxophone sometimes, a daughter navigating a new world, a teacher who still likes her students, a two-time breast cancer survivor, and an artist who has been humbled and inspired by a collection of remarkable people. Of her work, Naomi Shihab Nye writes, “Loretta Diane Walker writes with compassionate wisdom and insight—her poems restore humanity.” 

The Interview

CH: When you last featured for the BookWoman 2^nd Thursday series, it was 2016, prior to your winning the Harlem Book Fair’s Phyllis Wheatley Award for In This House. Congratulations on winning this national award. How did it change your life as a poet?

LDW: I garnered recognition from various entities I would have never considered. I was asked to deliver the commencement address for the 2016 fall commencement ceremonies at the University of Texas at the Permian Basin. In 2018, I was invited to serve as one of the back-to-school convocation speakers for the Ector County Independent School District.

I have been invited to read/present at a variety of poetry venues and have been asked to judge a number of poetry contests. The award afforded me a new level of respectability.

CH: Since 2016, you’ve also published two more volumes of poetry—Desert Light and Ode to My Mother’s Voice: and other poems, both from Lamar University Press. Tell us a little about how your relationship with the press came about.

LDW: Jerry Craven heard me read from the anthology Her Texas at The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas weekend. He heard me a second time at Angelo State Writer’s Conference. After the presentation at Angelo State, he said, “I like your work, send me something.” Afterwards, he gave me his business card. This is how Desert Light came into being. I submitted a second time, Katie Hoerth accepted my manuscript— Ode to My Mother’s Voice: and other poems came into fruition. I hope to publish with them again one day.

CH: What have you learned in the process of publishing these most recent books?

LDW: First of all, I have received the gift of “belief” in my work from the publisher. Twice this press has invested in me. This is also true of the other two collections (Bluelight Press). These last two books revealed, if I were writing a novel series, light and the night sky would be the protagonists. My reference to them is numerous. Also, when my mother was about to share something about herself with me, she would make a reference to something in the sky as a segue to the conversation. If she said, “That’s a harvest moon; we used to pick cotton by it,” I knew to listen. I mean really listen. She was about to share something that would make her vulnerable.  I have deduced the night sky is a perfect example of vulnerability.

CH: The sense of place that permeates the poems of Desert Light is striking. Please tell us a little about your experience of these poems, and how the book came together.

LDW: Odessa is nowhere on the top 100 places to visit in the world list (LOL), but it has a barren beauty that mesmerizes me. The sky here is absolutely intriguing. To watch it change is a show in and of itself.  In Desert Light, my goal is to share this beauty—from the way pink streaks a morning sky to the way the wind blows autumn leaves. This collection is a tour guide for hidden beauty in a desert place. 

CH: One of the pleasures I had in reading Desert Light was to encounter in the poems the presence of the night sky and the liminal surface between darkness and light. As a writer, how do these subjects call to you?

LDW: I have had an obsession with the night sky since childhood. I can remember stretching out on the sidewalk or in the grass looking up, ogling at the stars, the moon, or clouds skirting the moon. I felt a connection then, and still do, that I cannot verbalize. I believe as long as there is light in the darkness there is hope. Perhaps what I am actually writing about is hope— a hope that I have carried from childhood, hope I will carry into the future.

CH: Your fifth volume, Ode to My Mother’s Voice: and other poems, came out in 2019. Tell us a little about your connection to the ode, and how it informed the poems of this collection.

LDW: Since the ode is a platform to offer praise and honor, I thought it would be a perfect vehicle for what I was trying to achieve. The purpose of this collection is to honor my mother. All of my books thus far contain poems about her, this one however, is to “spotlight” her wisdom and essence. I asked my siblings to share at least one life lesson, or “Mary Walker sayings” as we fondly refer to them, with me to include in this book. Many of the epigraphs in this collection are things she said to us. Mother died June 15, 2018. My siblings and I experienced her slow decline starting in September 2017 until then. She spent much of that time in the hospital. All of us, including her caregiver, rotated time spending the night/day with her so she would never be isolated from her loved ones. I wrote some of these poems from her hospital room. Ode, in a sense, is my mother’s eulogy. 

CH: The way that you employ metaphor in your poems lends a plushness to the work, a deep dimensionality. How do you approach the use of metaphor in a poem?

LDW: I truly wish I had an intellectual answer for you. What I can offer is this—I view life in metaphors.

CH: How has the pandemic affected your life as a poet? I’m thinking not only of direct impacts, but of your work as a teacher and the extra demands the pandemic has made.  

LDW: Unfortunately, my pandemic reality includes a new cancer diagnosis. Much of my energy is spent on doctor’s appointments, visits to the oncology center for treatments, CT scans, all the care healing entails. Also, I teach face-to-face and I am also responsible for providing instructions for virtual students. This requires a great amount of energy as well. As far as writing, I write when I am in the waiting room, in the infusion chair, on lunch breaks, on the weekends if I have the energy, and sometimes in the evenings after work. Gratefully, I have had various opportunities to present workshops and do readings via Zoom.  

CH: What are you working on now?

LDW: I am working on a collection entitled Day Begins When Darkness is In Full Bloom. It is forthcoming from Bluelight Press in 2021. It is eclectic in nature, thus the title. Some poems address my current bout with cancer for the third time, teaching face-to-face during COVID, my response as a black person to our nation’s current social unrest, and how I am dealing with COVID in general. I don’t know how many times this proverb has been quoted to me: Things will look better in the morning; I find it quite ironic morning begins at the darkest hour. However, where there is light in the darkness, there is hope. This collection is my journey through the darkest part of morning, to the brightest part of day where the sun is hope incarnate.

CH: What is the most recent book of poetry you’ve read?

LDW: I am currently reading, “Mary Oliver’s Devotions, Jan Richardson’s The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Time of Grief, and Karla K. Morton and Alan Birkelbach’s A Century of Grace. I have one book in the bedroom, one in my office, and the other in the living room. This is the way I read poetry. (LOL)

A Virtual Interview with Sequoia Maner

Background

Seqouia Maner will be the featured reader Thursday, February 13. 2020 from 7:15 – 9:00 p.m. at BookWoman (5501 N. Lamar #A-105, Austin, TX),

Sequoia Maner is a poet and Mellon Teaching Fellow of Feminist Studies at Southwestern University. She is coeditor of the book Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era (Routledge, January 2020). Her poems, essays, and reviews have been published in venues such as The Feminist Wire, Meridians, Obsidian, The Langston Hughes Review and elsewhere. Her poem “upon reading the autopsy of Sandra Bland” was a finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize and she is at work on a critical manuscript about the history of African American Elegy.

The Interview

CH: When did you first start thinking of yourself as a writer? What inspired you to become a writer?

SM: I’ve kept journals since I was a girl for song lyrics, poems, and intimate thoughts. I was a quiet observer as a child (still am if I’m honest) and writing was how I processed / articulated in my own special way. I think there are many reasons I was drawn to libraries, books, and music. I spent a significant portion of my childhood in foster care & this special bond with books was a way to process trauma. Books opened worlds for me & libraries have always been a singular refuge. Also, I am sensitive to sound, an auditory learner, so music and poetry play significant roles in my life for mediating the world. I have always been just dazzled by the possibilities of language.

CH: When did you start to think of yourself as a poet? Do you have a primary identity as a writer?

SM: I didn’t have people in my life who wrote for a living & I didn’t even think to dream that I could someday write books like Morrison, or Angelou, or Shange. Those were writers; that couldn’t be me. It wasn’t until my college experience at Duke University that I first called myself a poet but, even then, I didn’t realize a career for myself as a writer. I knew that I would write poetry for a lifetime as a personal self-care ritual, but I was open to career paths, studying chemistry & photography, relegating poetry to the sidelines. As an English major, college was the first time I studied major writers and eras, learned form and structure, and wrote with a close circle of writers. Before then, my writing had been for myself, you know. I started to experiment with public performance in the form of spoken word & collaborations with other artists—even still, I never called myself “a writer.” After college I moved home to Los Angeles, California & was working in an interesting & lucrative career field but I was writing bullshit for corporations and yearned to truly create from a place of intention. So, I enrolled in a PhD program, sold most of my things to move to Austin, TX and never looked back. Now, I am a writer.

I refer to myself as a poet and scholar, giving equal weight to both. Teaching in the classroom plays just as central a role in my life as wiring literary criticism and poetry.

 

CH: I’m currently reading Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era, which of course you recently co-edited. Encountering its discussions of elegies that refuse both consolation and narrow boundaries of time and location has been quite an enriching experience for me. How has the experience of editing this book influenced you?

SM: Oh, it has been beautiful and heavy. I’ll simply say that this project has reaffirmed my dedication to working against oppression and violence in all of the spaces I inhabit.

CH: I recently read your poem, “upon reading the autopsy of Sandra Bland,” and first would like to congratulate you on it being a finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize. I love the way this poem uses etymology and definition to explore alternation of meaning as it investigates and grapples with its subject. The poem is in the form of a justified block of text in which phrases are separated by a slash (“/”), which made me think of the way poems with line breaks are quoted within prose. How did you arrive at this form for the poem?

SM: Thank you. I am so humbled to have been named a finalist—its beyond my dreams!

I have to tell a quick story about this poem! I first wrote this in response to Kenneth Goldsmith’s abhorrent, offensive reading of Mike Brown’s autopsy report as “poetry” to a Brown University audience in 2015. I was so distraught by Sandra Bland’s death. We were the same age. Her arrest and jailing happened two hours away from where I live, on a road I drive often. She was an outspoken activist. She loved black people. She believed in the transformational power of education. She was resilient and inspirational. I didn’t know her, but I feel like she was my sister. She is my sis and I loved her. So, I read every damn word of her autopsy report. Gosh, this was on Christmas Eve (morbid, I know) and I was in a work session with my homegirl, painter Beth Consetta Rubel, and we was vibin. I was in the zone. I wrote this poem in two hours & have never edited it since. It came out in a trance & I remain astounded that I am able to honor her in this way.

This was my attempt to recapture the beauty and brevity of Sandra’s life / to honor breath / to breathe / to acknowledge an afterlife / to unravel the structures that bound her / to identify all the ways one can asphyxiate: miscarriages – economics – policing – mental illness – black womanhood in a white supremacist nation / to release her from all that shit.

Yes, this is an etymological poem that pivots along the varied meanings of “ligature” and “furrow.” I was thinking about how the language of the autopsy report tells us everything and nothing… the language is useless in reviving the dead, useless in telling the truth of it. Although it is a poem about meaning, I think it is a really a poem that reaches beyond meaning, if that makes sense.

Last thing I want to say is that poem was chosen by Patricia Smith as finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks prize. I submitted it for this purpose alone. I knew that she was also writing exquisite “autopsy poems” & I hoped that she would get it. She got it. I am so honored to have had her read and anoint this poem.

CH: How do you make room for your creative endeavors during the busy academic year? What advice would you give someone struggling to find that work / creativity balance?

SM: I have no balance, really. I’ve been in a dry spell with my poetry for too long & I’m really frustrated. I am in the early stages of my career as a professor in a tenure-track role & this job is all encompassing. There are teaching demands, publishing demands, and service demands. This means that for the past year or so I’ve been focused on other kinds of writing: I published the co-edited book, two essays, and a couple of book reviews. I try not to be hard on myself for producing less poetry because shame is useless and debilitating. I try to tell myself that I am building other muscles for the time being and will be stronger when I rec-enter poetry in my life. I am headed to the James Baldwin Conference in Saint Paul de Vence, France for a creative writing workshop in the summer & I am so excited to rediscover my poetic voice.

CH: Who are some writers that changed the way you looked at language and writing?

SM: I return to Langston Hughes at different stages in my life. He is so deceptively simple, so pure in his love & hope for black people, and unabashedly critical of oppressive power. Hortense Spillers and James Baldwin are master essayists I look to. Evie Shockley & Douglas Kearney are some of my favorite contemporary poets—I think I share their experimental sensibilities. Brenda Marie Osbey & Sonia Sanchez teach me the power of chant and repetition and pacing. Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Keats, and John Milton have taught me something about formal rigor and beautiful images. Steinbeck’s opening pages of East of Eden rocked my world as did so many of Morrison’s openings—Paradise, Sula, and The Bluest Eye come to mind. I consider two books my literary bibles: Lucille Clifton’s Collected Poems and Zora Neale Hurston’s Collected Letters. Both of these writers teach me about authentic voice & the unabashed celebration of black womanhood.

CH: What are you working on now?

SM: I’m working on two monographs. The first is a critical study of Kendrick Lamar’s work. The second is what I’m calling a critical history of the African American elegy.

CH: What do you read for pleasure?

SM: Fiction. I have about four novels on my nightstand at the moment. I adore the detective novels of Chester Himes, the speculative fiction of Octavia Butler. I return to Baldwin/Morrison every other summer, reading their respective bodies of work in full. I love everything Kiese Laymon has written. Right now, I’m about halfway through Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings, it is marvelous.

CH: What’s the most recent book of poetry you’ve read?

SM: Right now I’m toggling between Chad Bennet’s Your New Felling is the Artifact of a Bygone Era, Faylita Hicks’s Hood Witch and AI’s Vice. Additionally, I’m teaching with Rampersad’s Oxford Anthology of African American Poetry, so I’ll be reading nearly the entire volume over the next few months.