Exclusive Interview: Zoe Dorado

How did you first discover spoken word poetry, and what draws you to it more than other literary forms?

I got into spoken word in multiple stages. In eighth grade, my English teacher, Ms. Waters, had us do a spoken word unit. She cared about poetry that wasn’t just on the page, but performed — especially by young people. We watched clips from Louder Than a Bomb in Chicago, and I remember seeing “Look” by Nate Marshall. I was entranced — not just reading a poem, but re-watching one for the rhythm and performance. That was the first moment when I realized how powerful spoken word could be.

Later, during my freshman year — when the pandemic hit in March 2020 — I fell into a Button Poetry rabbit hole. Olivia Gatwood was my true gateway into spoken word. I was 14 or 15, a teen girl in lockdown, and finally felt represented. I wasn’t alone in what I was feeling. I re-watched her poems constantly, and I started attending Youth Speaks workshops and open mics. A lot of my early poems sounded like Olivia Gatwood because she was in my head so much.

When you prepare a poem for a live audience, do you anticipate specific reactions, or do you avoid thinking about the audience at all?

It depends on the room and who’s in it. Am I performing for poets I know? For first- or second-gen immigrants like my mom who might not be familiar with poetry? For wealthy white donors where my poem is supposed to be hopeful so they’ll support the organization? Is it a competition with a time limit? All of that affects how I perform and how nervous I feel.

There are definitely lines where I anticipate a reaction — almost like stand-up comedy: setup → punch line → pause for laughter. If you don’t leave space, people will get lost. At YoungArts, my mentor Noel Quiñones helped me build the arc of on and on gal meets corporate feminism: starting playful so the later, frantic parts land emotionally.

I’m now more interested in humor, uncertainty, and surprise. Spoken word often chases a “mic drop moment,” but what happens if you work against that expectation?

In your performance, you step away from the mic at the beginning. How do you think about using stage space — physically and vocally — to amplify a poem?

That staging choice separated the epigraph from the main persona of the poem — almost like “pre-poem vs. poem.” When do you put on the mask of the persona? When do you take it off?

More broadly, stage space inherently changes how the poem is received. I’m short — five feet — so in a room on the same level as the audience, I feel like I’m looking up, trying to be seen. On stage, you’re physically elevated; even lighting grants you authority. Page poetry removes the body entirely — but in performance, you can’t be illegible. You are seen.

Like comedians — Ali Wong for example — the body is part of the storytelling. Spoken word lets me use how I physically show up to add meaning the page can’t.

What personal experiences or social observations inspired your critique in “on and on gal meets corporate feminism”?

I’m from the Bay Area, surrounded by Asian Americans in tech and corporate spaces. I kept thinking about the “model minority” narrative and the pressure to climb toward prestige — who it benefits, what gets lost, who gets left behind.

There’s a line in the poem: “There’s no such thing as broken English.” English is treated as the prestige language, yet it often hides meaning, creates distance, or masks harm. Calling other languages “broken” implies powerlessness. I wanted to reject that.

I was also thinking about gendered language — how femininity gets tied to incompetence or unseriousness. The poem plays with that: “girlboss of the sky” said with vocal fry.

Corporate feminism — like “Girl, you too can be a capitalist!” — is funny and tragic. It empowers while reinforcing the systems it claims to resist.

I’m interested in implicating myself too. What if I am part of the problem? That kind of honesty invites connection: we’re not outside the issue — we’re inside it. Once you admit that, you can articulate the problem with more specificity.

Looking forward, what current or emerging social dynamics are you interested in exploring next through poetry?

I’m thinking a lot about masculinity. The political right has a very clear — though narrow — idea of what “good masculinity” looks like. The left… not so much. It’s either:
• good masculinity = simply “being a good person”
or
• masculinity turned into satire — the overly feminist boyfriend stereotype, for example

We’re constantly poking fun at these tropes, and feminism has also become satirical in many ways. So I’m interested in where earnestness went. Can we return to sincerity? Or do we keep leaning into satire as a survival strategy?

I’m curious how poetry can explore all that — especially where power, humor, and gender intersect in this post-#MeToo, post-Roe v. Wade era.

Exclusive Interview: Michelle Myers

To begin, how do you see spoken word and oral tradition shaping your role as a poet—especially when you’re writing about memory, fragmented identities, and collective trauma like in “Notes from the Underground: Remembering Vincent Chin”?

Sure, that's a really wonderful question, by the way. So thank you so much for asking it. I think for me, as far as how I view myself as a spoken word poet, I really see that as something that is very intricately enmeshed with my own idea, too, of being a storyteller, and also as spoken word poetry being a modern day form of oral tradition, and just in terms of how oral tradition has been used for, you know, hundreds of years, if not 1000s of years, right in the oral tradition is the oldest, I guess, in terms of creative expression. It's one of the oldest creative expressions There is in terms of documenting historical events as well as you know, human uh. human feeling and human thought and so forth and and so for me, I think that as a spoken word poet, I feel like I have a responsibility to document things, especially if I feel as though that there is some kind of active force out there that is trying to erase it okay? And so as far as Notes from the Underground is concerned, I there were a couple of things that led to the creation of that particular poem. So that poem actually is pretty old. I first started to write. I first wrote that poem back in 2002 which was the 20th anniversary of Vincent Chin's murder. And I was involved with remembrance events that were taking place to to honor Vincent Chin, as well as to try to build across communities and so forth. So I had gone to Detroit in 2002 to be a part of those remembrance events and to perform. And that particular poem was inspired by. the we went to the grave site where Vincent Chin is buried, and his mother had actually just passed away a couple weeks before the remembrance events took place. And so at first it was kind of a documentation of my some of my observations about being at these remembrance events, I mean, since it was called a remembrance events, it, you know, wasn't the term, you know, the language that was being used wasn't 20th anniversary of Vincent Chin's murder, right? It was the remembering Vincent Chin. Remembrance events around Vincent Chin. And so that that word, remember, just kept resonating with me, that that entire weekend. And then when we finally did go to the grave site, and we saw not only Vincent Chin's breathe, but also his mother's grief, because she was buried right next to him, and it was a new grave, you know, all of these things just kind of swirl together in my mind to create this poem where I kind of question this idea of of memory, and also, like the you know, memory as as a form of resistance, especially when there are forces that are trying to erase or trying to make us forget or trying to deny or outright lying about these things that have taken place, which I think all of those things are very much encapsulated in Vincent Chin, and what happened to Vincent Chin, and how even you know now because, because I'm also a professor and I teach Asian American studies, I still have students who have never heard, who take My Asian American Studies class, who have never heard of Vincent Chin? Do you know what I mean? So how do those things get forgotten? And so I'm sorry if I'm still like, this is a really long answer.

feel like all of those things are kind of what motivated me to want to rewrite, to write this poem to begin with. And then, you know, and then over the years, over the past 20, you know, 23 years or whatever, since I first wrote this poem, just seeing how, you know, events occur that still fit within the question that I'm asking in that poem, which is, how, how can we as human beings Look at another human being and then deny their humanity to the point where we're willing to cause them harm or even kill them. Do you know what I mean? Like, where does that? Where does that disconnect happen? And so and so, that's how I try to also keep it current, is by adding those, you know, contemporary or current day events into the piece, yeah,

How do you navigate the tension between personal vulnerability and collective narratives when you write—using your voice to amplify community truths without overshadowing others’ experiences?

Yeah, I think that as a poet, I'm very much aware that everything that I write and perform is being filtered through my consciousness, my filtered through my perspective. And I know that, just like for everybody else, my my experiences are unique to me. I mean, even other Asian American people may not have the exact same kind of experiences is me, and so what I try to do with my with my poetry, when I do incorporate my own personal viewpoints or my own personal feelings or my own experiences into my poem, is I try to think about how The personal can also be representative of a universal feeling or universal perspective, or collective consciousness, or something like that, right? And so the main way that I feel is, though, as a poet, that I can do that is by bringing the audience into my emotional space, what I'm feeling in that, the presence, you know, the present of that poem as I'm performing it. And the only thing that that I hope for is that the poem, that the audience is present with me as I'm performing the piece. Because if they, if the if the audience can be present with me as I'm performing the piece, then what I'm hoping is that even if, if, for some small part, they're feeling what I'm what I'm feeling, do you know what I mean? Yeah, so and so, as a as a poet, I'm willing to share my own vulnerabilities, if it's going. to help to the help the audience, to break down those barriers where there is that disconnect, where they detach, where they don't where they say, Oh, not me. That person is not like me, or I am not like them, or can't relate, or whatever it is that they say to themselves that that creates that disconnect. I want them to say, oh, yeah, I can, you know, I can relate to that, or I feel this, or I know somebody who went even if it's not something for them, for themselves. I know somebody who went through this. I know buddy, someone I care about, you know, like I try to get them to think about this is someone, you know, this could be someone that you care about. It could be your loved one, it could be your brother, it could be your mother, it could be your sister, it could be and so forth, and so on, right? And, and so, yeah, so I try to as much as I can balance that out, and there's no, I mean, I just want to say, for me, there's, like, no formula for how I do that. I just kind of feel it out as as I'm performing the piece, you know, because there's always, you know, I don't know how your process is when you're writing your poetry and you're performing, but for me, like there's, you know, you start with the written form of the poem, like, whatever the poem, The form of the poem is on the page. And then, you know, right? And then you start to, like, say it out loud, right? And then as you say it, as for me, as I say it out loud, I just try to be in tune with how I feel as I say the lines, you know what I mean. And I just, I just feel as though, if I can feel it, then I believe that I can get the audience to feel it too. As long as I can feel it, I believe that I can get the audience to feel it too. If that makes sense,

How did you first encounter spoken word, and what mentors or moments helped you claim anger, vulnerability, and authenticity on stage?

Yeah, you know, spoken word poetry for me was something that I came across by accident. So I was, I had just finished my master's degree, and I had taken some time off because, you know, grad school, grad school, just like, suck my soul away from me. Yeah, so I was feeling just completely drained, and plus, I was pregnant with my oldest daughter at the time, and so I had decided to take a leave of absence before I went back to I hadn't even decided at that point whether or not I was gonna pursue my PhD, but I had just finished my masters, and I was watching this in the late 1990s on B, E, T, there used to be this show called Planet groove, and it was a dance show, and I enjoyed watching it. And so there was this one time, and like, I had either just given birth to my oldest daughter or was about to give birth to her, I can't remember it was, it was around that time, and I was and this one time, I was watching planet groove, and usually they would have musical guests on there. But this time they didn't have musical guests. They had spoken with poets. And so that was the first time I had seen they had at who, at that particular time in the late 1990s it was the new Eureka slam team of Saul Williams and mom's the poet and Jessica Care more. And Bos was a part of that team too, but he wasn't on Planet groove on that particular show. And then there was somebody else. I can't remember who his name was, but that was my first introduction to Saul Williams. He opened the show. And it was just really, I don't know, I immediately felt a connection to it. I just responded to it in such a, you know, in such a very, very strong way. And so then I started to write poetry on my own, but it was just for me personally. And then I think that, as I, you know, started to well. Then I, I became a part of this writing and performance workshop at the Asian Arts Initiative, and that time at cats eat. And that writing and performance workshop was facilitated by a Filipino American playwright and performer whose name is Gary San Angel. And Gary was just a really wonderful, wonderful mentor for me. And I think that what Gary had me, you know, and his background was theater, it wasn't spoken word poetry, but I think that what he helped me to discover with my spoken word poetry and with my performances, is to it is to you know. I can. because it is a scary thing to be vulnerable, you know, it's very it's something that is, is, you know, because there's, there's so much that you expose of yourself, right when you, especially when you get up on stage. And so in that particular workshop, I think Gary gave me the tools to be able to kind of tap into my emotion and say to myself, it's okay for me to as long as I know where my boundaries are, to step on stage and just kind of like let it all out. And that actually there was a kind of liberation in that. And so all these and then I have to kind of add to that Cassie during that writing and performance workshop, because I was writing poetry, but the poetry that I was writing at that time wasn't angry yet. It wasn't angry poetry yet. And I think there was a part of me that was afraid to be angry. And so When katsy heard because she wasn't writing spoken word poetry at the time, she was doing theater, and but when she heard my spoken word poetry, she asked me if I had ever heard of a group called I was born with two tongues. Do you know two tongues? I don't. You should look up two tongues. I can share some tracks with you. So she asked me if I had heard of I was born with two tongues, and I said no. And she was like, Oh, you have to listen to their CD, right? This is back when we listen to CD, right? So she gave me their CD, which was the only CD that that two tongues ever did together, which was called Broken speak. And it was mind blowing. That CD was mind blowing. So it's a four member group, um, two, two Asian American women and two Asian American men. And so full, so full of just this fierceness, this this fierceness, this rage, unapologetically, unapologetically angry, right? And that is actually one of those poems, not your fetish, which was written by Anita and Emily, the two Asian American women who are part of two tongues. That poem is the one that inspired, I'm a woman on a flavor. And this was the first time that I had ever heard Asian American people, not even just artists, Asian American people, express themselves with anger. And it kind of gave me permission, because I wanted to be angry, and I had all this rage inside me. But there are so many we, you know, different my my mom telling me not to be angry. Society telling me, oh, as an Asian American woman, you're not supposed to be angry. But all these, all these things, are conditioning me not to fully express myself in that way. But then hearing two tongues express themselves with, you know, with with with anger, with rage, with fierceness, and doing it unapologetically and courageously, gave me permission to do it. And so then after that, it was just again. It was just like liberating. So like meeting cats and listening to tongs CD and being mentored under Gary San Angel, all at that appetite, at that particular time period was just like, just the perfect environment for me to be able to find my own voice and then express myself and not be worried about just trying to be as authentic and honest as possible. When you know, I'm out there performing on stage and you know, not worrying about what the audience might think. Yeah,

Can you share moments when your work created communal healing or opened eyes—times when audiences told you how your poetry impacted them (positively or critically)?

Yeah. I mean, I think that for me, that that's been the greatest blessing of doing spoken word poetry, of being a spoken word poet and and and also having the honor of having the opportunity to be on a national stage, like that Poetry Jam, and then Kathy and I being able to travel all over the country and tour and, you know, meet people. And then, you know, she and I both have different projects now, you know, we have different things that we do, so we don't perform together as much, and so, you know, and then for me to like, just on my own, like as a solo spoken word poet, being able to go out there, I think that you know that that's part of the blessing is to be able to be in community with others and to hear, you know, have people come up to me and express themselves to me in a way where they feel safe to right? And there are a couple of things I can, you know, definitely, like memories that I have, of things that people have shared, like, for example, when Kathy and I performed, Listen asshole on Deaf Poetry Jam. And, you know, again, we didn't we. We didn't know what people were going to say or how they were going to respond. I mean, we actually got a lot of negative responses in our early years as spoken word poets, people who constantly challenged us, especially men. I mean, at that particular time period it was spoken word poetry, I would say is male was very male dominated, especially when it came to performers who had a hip hop influence, type, you know, anybody who was like, rhyming and stuff like that. Like, we were some, like, some of the only like, women period, not just Asian American women, but women period that were, like, trying to get up on stage and rhyming, you know, and so we were constantly being challenged about that. So we didn't, we didn't really know how people were going to respond. So, you know, after our we performed on Deaf poetry on the show, and then it aired, we it was just amazing, because we would get emails from people who would tell us that when they saw us perform deaf Poetry Jam, that they cried because the first time they had ever heard an Asian American, you know, express themselves in that way, like they would say things like you said everything that I've always wanted to say but didn't know how, or was afraid to, or whatever, you know, and and that's very powerful, And it's also a very like heavy responsibility to feel like you're speaking for people who feel like they've been silenced for so long. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, there was, there was another time too, you know, where katsie And I went. We were performing in Hawaii, and we were after our show. The you know, people were lined up because that's when we used to sell CDs. And, you know, this is way back in the day our merch would be our CDs and stuff, right? And people would wait in line to buy our CD and talk to us. And there was this one, there was this elder who came, and he waited in line for us to speak with us and to buy our CD. And he said to us that he hoped that his granddaughters grew up to be like us. No, yeah,

I'm still getting emotional. Yeah,

2020, years ago, you know, yeah. And then, of course, you know, there, we've gotten our negative comments too, like we had, you know, we've had, like, Asian, like, there was this one time this, this woman who identified as being from Hong Kong, but she lived in Canada, and she told us that we were a disgrace to Asian women. You know, we get those kind of things as well, but you know, we again, I know that we're not going to speak, you know, to everybody, or not everybody's going to connect. But I'm just really grateful to have the opportunity to be able to touch people and and it's just a blessing when it does happen, and if somebody comes, you know, you know, expresses that to me, then, then that's, that's the only thing that matters. That's what makes this work meaningful, you know

As a professor working with young people, how has your classroom experience evolved—from pre-pandemic to now—and how do you see students engaging with activism and community?

You know? I think it's really interesting, because I've been teaching Asian American studies now, probably for 20 years. And it doesn't whether my students are Asian American or whether they're not Asian American for, you know, anytime I'm teaching my students for that semester, kind of become like my kids, you know what I'm saying, and I have to find this balance, I think when I'm in the classroom of like, you know, trying to guide them, but doing so in a way where I, you know, I think what I'm trying to say is that sometimes I worry about putting too much pressure on them, like, you know, When I bring up things that are happening, and I like, out in the world, and I show it to them, and I'm like, you know, you you guys, have to, you're the future generation. What do you think? And then I have to tell myself, okay, Michelle, we gotta, like, we gotta kind of like, cool, cool. It a little bit with, with the students and stuff. But I think, I think that for me, you know what I what I mostly want them to do is to discover for themselves how they you know, how they can contribute to the conversation, and they have to decide that for themselves. And it might not be something that they do now, maybe more now it's like, it's they're learning things that are new for them, and so they're just absorbing the information. And then I'll have other students that are, they want to be active. You know what? I mean? They want to mobilize. And so, and I'm always really excited when I get those students and so for the last couple years, and I do feel as though I did, I did witness a shift between that. You know, those kinds of interests in my students, pre pandemic, during pandemic, and post pandemic. Like pre pandemic, like teaching Asian, Asian American Studies, like the students that came to class, they wanted to learn about it, but they were still kind of like, I need to get my schoolwork done. I'm just focused on my schoolwork. I really don't want to be an advocate. I don't want to, you know, that kind of stuff. And then during the pandemic, I think that they, you know, they started to reflect on things more and everything. And then once we got back into the classroom. Students wanted to organize. They wanted to be out there expressing themselves. They wanted to be able to advocate for the things that they felt strongly about, you know, and they wanted to become they wanted to do more community building and and so forth. And so, like my students, I teach Asian American Studies at Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and I've you know, every semester, I feel like I see my students more and more both I teach Asian American Studies and immigrant America, and I feel like I see my students more and more like figuring out ways in which they can participate. Not only like, within like, like protests, for example, or within community, like we had the no Arena in Chinatown. I'm not sure if you're familiar what was happening in Philadelphia and the Chinatown with the 76 arena, there were all these protests that are going on around that, and my students were getting involved and going to the protests, and then they were like, connecting and networking with students from other colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area against the no arena and Chinatown movement, and then bringing that back on campus, and, you know, trying to raise awareness about issues that were important to them, and wanting to do activities around mental health and so forth. And so I think that, you know, especially among my Asian American students, I feel like I see them wanting to be more active, you know, wanting to to raise their voices more and to be heard, and when they're not being heard, like not backing down, like insisting, like, if somebody's telling them to be quiet, they're insisting, no, you're going to listen to me and you know, I'm going to make sure that you know that what I have to say gets out there, and so I think that, you know, for me as a professor, I'm, I'm happy to see them, um, discover those things about themselves and for themselves. And I'm just really excited for the future, you know, and for where they go, like, once they graduate and stuff like that. Yeah.

Given rapid cultural shifts and turmoil in recent years, what themes or projects are you focusing on next—in poetry and beyond?

Yeah, so that's a very interesting question. So actually, Katsie and I are working on this project. We're going to be part of an exhibition at the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles, but we and so we've been commissioned to write new poetry, but we're not writing it together as yellow rage. We're writing separately as individual artists. And there are other artists that are involved with the exhibition too. And it was like, that was kind of what the prompt was like, you know, thinking about what's going on now, and you know, what's happening in your Asian American community, given everything that's going on now. And I think that for me, it's really, I think one of the things that's been challenging for me in terms of the very rapid changes that's been happening since the new administration has, you know, taken over, plus, given everything that's been happening, like you mentioned, globally and and so forth, I have to pace myself and, you know, make sure that I Don't overextend myself, because I think it can be very easy to get overwhelmed and also feel a sense of despair, because it's like, what, what do we do? Like, what can we do? What can I do as a person? You know, is there anything that I can do? So, like, with, with the the genocide happening in Gaza, right? I really wanted to do something about that. And not really knowing what I could, what I could do, like, what was feasible. And then with everything that's happening, you know, in in the United States and politically, and how that's extending into, you know, social, you know, into social, you know, into our social situations, into our educational institutions, and so forth and so on, right? Like, what is it can I that I can really do? And so in the new poem that I just wrote, I for me, I think that the answer that I've come up with is, I just want to be able to inspire other people, young Asian Americans in particular, just to be proud, to be proud of being Asian American, right, and to at least have some awareness that there are these forces out there, number one, that is going to want to make us feel ashamed of who we are, and in making us feel ashamed of who we are, denying our history, denying our experiences, and then when we, you know, deny our history and our experiences, then that leads to what we were talking about earlier, which is the forgetting, then we forget, right? And then when all of those kinds of factors come into play, when those dynamics are are interacting together in that way, then basically we've given power over someone else to define us, to tell us we are. And so the the most recent poem that I've written is called a peace call. It's a it's a poem that's called Peace power people. Peace power people. And so in that poem, it's really about trying to encourage Asian Americans to number one, to remember right to not forget, right to define ourselves, to be to be authentic and to express our own truths, and in all of that, have pride and be unified as a community. Those are the things that like. Those are the themes that I really wanted to highlight in this new poem that I've written. So that's as far as, like, something that's more, I guess, has a vision that's more centered around community and community building, but I think that I've also been just, you know, just really quickly, I just wanted to share that, like, I've also been thinking about how I can expand out from spook award poetry to reach other communities and other readers. And one of the ways in which that I've been wanting to do that, and what I've been working on actually for the last few years, because this poem that I was commissioned to write for the Chinese American museum is probably the first poem that I've written in the last three years, or three or four years, because what I what I've been working on, is a middle grade novel, and so it's a it's a middle grade novel that celebrates intergenerational storytelling and also wants to explore those themes of belonging and self discovery and coming into one's own and appreciating culture and identity and all of those things. And so I'm hoping that I because I did finish writing it, and so I'm moving into a process of publishing it. And so I'm hoping that sometime next year the book will come out. It's called Talk me, a story about Moon Rabbit and so, like, I'm trying to incorporate all of these Korean folk tales I've grown up with, but then also that I would read to my kids, and then, you know, put them into a middle grade novel that also honors my mom as being the first storyteller in my life. So trying to kind of accomplish all that. So, like, you know, I do feel as though they're for among young people. I feel like that middle grade group is particularly vulnerable, right, the fifth to eighth grade, or something like that. I think that sometimes, because there's they're so, you know, they're in between in so many different ways, right? And because they have so so many growing pains that they're experiencing right through, you know, starting going through puberty and feel, you know, in some ways, being a child, but also being on the verge of being a teenager and wanting to be, you know, treated like they're older. You know, they don't want to be treated like a little kid anymore. Sometimes I think that they can be challenging to work with, and I think that because they can be challenging, that sometimes people just, generally speaking, ignore them. And I think that it's that group, you know, that particular group of young people, who really need a lot of support and a lot of attention, and so that's why I decided to write a middle grade novel. So that's what I'm trying to do as a spoken word artist, but then also as a storyteller in other mediums as well.

Exclusive Interview: Arielle Estoria

To start with your piece “A Prayer for the Church Girl”: can you walk us through the emotional, mental, and spiritual space you were in when it arrived? What felt urgent to say that poetry helped you voice?

I mean, in general, I tend to process and communicate through poetry just because that’s where my brain goes. You know, that’s like the first thing I feel like I latch on to. And this specific poem, “A Prayer for the Church Girl,” I literally was listening to Beyoncé’s “Church Girl” song for the first time through. And I actually—I recorded myself responding to it in the moment, because I was like, Wait, she has a song called “Church Girl” on the album—what is this about to be about? And so I recorded myself dancing to it and then stopping halfway through and actually listening to the lyrics. I kept it on repeat a few times, and I literally wrote “A Prayer for the Church Girl” right in that moment as a response to what I was hearing.

She has a lot of language around, like, she’s not trying to hurt nobody; she’s just trying to dance; she’s just trying to be herself. And as someone who grew up in the church—I’m a pastor’s kid and everything—I felt really connected to it, and I really resonated with the idea of, like, Yeah, I’m just trying to be free. I’m just trying to be me. I’m trying to dance, you know, and chase some booty every once in a while, and just exist without all these chains and things like that. So that’s where that poem came from. It literally was a direct response to Beyoncé—church culture.

How do you see pop culture and poetry working together to engage deeply ingrained cultural narratives?

Sure. Well, I mean, if we really look at music in any capacity, all of it kind of starts as a poem. You know, even if songs are fun and poppy and you think they’re not talking about anything, they most likely are talking about something—and talking about it in a way that grabs audiences so they think they’re just dancing and having a good time, but they’re actually responding to something really impactful.

Because I tend to respond to the world around me through poetry, music is one of those ways I go about doing that. I’m very activated—or triggered, or whatever you want to call it—by music and by listening to music. I can imagine that Beyoncé has a book of poems somewhere that turned into the songs that she has. We know that Tupac did, and Kendrick, for sure, does. And I’m pretty sure SZA journals every morning. I think these are people who are very reflective in their thoughts, and it starts as a writing form and then turns into music. All of that art is cyclical and intertwined; it’s almost inevitable that it comes back to a single, consistent throughline of communication. Yeah.

Do you consider your poetry activism, healing, both—or something else? Where do those intersections live for you?

I think it exists as all of it. I don’t know if I ever go into something necessarily trying to be like, This is a protest or This is activism, but just me expressing as a Black woman in America and using my voice to do so is, in itself, its own form of activism—its own form of protest. Writing about my body and existing as a woman and interlacing femininity and spirituality is an act of healing.

I approach it as: the words need to be shared, and the back end of it—the weight—is going to be whatever it needs to be for that time. I do think artists are meant and called to speak to the world around them. By nature it becomes activism; by nature it becomes healing, because we’re choosing to express who we are, how we show up in the world, and how that affects us and the world around us.

One line that stayed with me: “Returning to our feminine is the closest to God we’ll ever be.” How has expressing your femininity deepened your spirituality?

Yeah. Well, a lot of the spirituality I grew up with was very—one, one-sided, and two, male-driven. So any ideas of divinity were always pointed toward a male. Any ideas of being connected to spirituality always had this very patriarchal landscape to it. A lot of my spiritual undoing really started when I first heard a pastor refer to God and the Spirit as feminine—as “she,” using female pronouns. That completely turned everything upside down for me, because if we believe there’s an image and a reflection of all people and all living things, why would it not correlate both male and female?

For me, doing things to exercise and be in my body—Zumba and yoga—all these things reminded me of my own body and, in return, the connectedness and the spirit I believe exists in there. And if it exists in there, I don’t know if it’s necessarily a male spirit; I don’t know if it’s necessarily a pronoun spirit at all. Tapping into, like, No, I know my body is good, and I know a lot lives here within her—that, in itself, brings me more to the feminine and to a spirituality that’s so much more fluid than the one I was given.

Spoken word asks us to say the honest thing out loud. How does that vulnerability shape your relationship with audiences and community?

I think there’s so much power in not only writing the honest thing, but saying the honest thing out loud—and spoken word is such a vehicle for that. There are many poems I’ve written that were meant to be read. Most of the poems in my book I wrote specifically to be written and read, not necessarily spoken.

When a poem is said out loud, there’s a certain message, urgency, and emotion you’re trying to convey. Every time, there’s a nakedness that comes from it. It’s honest and exposing, so a lot of times it will feel that way. You might feel a little naked after you get off the stage—I do sometimes. But I also know I wouldn’t want to do anything else or express in any other way. I have to be careful with how much I show up in that space, but my favorite thing is: you say the honest thing, the vulnerable thing, and people are like, “Can you get out of my head? How did you know I was feeling that?” That moment of connectedness and relatability with people you might not expect—that’s the best feeling ever.

What would you say to emerging poets facing self-censorship (family, community) or actual institutional censorship?

I’m actually going to read Audre Lorde—she has a quote I use as the intro to my last album:

“What are the words you do not have yet? Or for what do you not have words yet? What do you need to say? List as many things as necessary. What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? List as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow, and the day after. If we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language and definition, ask yourself: What’s the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?”

That quote plays in my head all the time. It played in my head when I was writing my album—What are people going to think? What are my parents going to think? When I wrote my book’s first draft and my editor said, “You’re holding back,” I was like, Yeah—because I don’t want everyone to read this and judge me, or think of me this way, or what if I get disowned?

The work is coming to you because it needs to be said. It is not our job to figure out how it’s going to look. Are the words coming to you? Then your job is to put them down and share them. Yes, it’s vulnerable and exposing, but often we’re revealing a truth—an honesty people are too afraid to admit. There’s so much freedom in saying it with your whole chest and allowing yourself to be open and bare, because if you don’t, that will destroy you. You’ll be less whole, less healed if you don’t—and I can’t let fear be the thing that keeps me from being whole and healed. Yeah.

Your poem’s tone feels gently resolute—convicted without closing the door. Was it always that way, or did you explore angrier/quieter versions?

I always tease that I have a really hard time writing an angry poem. It always comes back to a bow—or a rainbow—or some type of hope. I kind of say I’m the queen of silver linings. I always want to find where the light is, even in situations like that.

In “A Prayer for the Church Girl,” there are waves. I also say, like, “trying not to be angry at the ways that they used to keep us in cages; eventually we were made to break.” There’s anger in having to write this poem at all, in having to be in this space. But if I’m going to be in this space, I don’t think it serves us to just sit angry and not have it funnel into something else. If the anger doesn’t turn into action—if I can’t lash it out and then release it—there has to be a funnel. We can’t hold and stay angry just for the sake of it.

Most of my poems are written in one full sweep—I say “spilling” instead of writing. I spill the words; that’s how they show up. There might be some tweaks and edits—especially for that poem, like, Oh, that sounds weird when I recorded it, or that shows up weird on video—and I make edits. But mostly, my poems exist in that setting: how I say it and how it shows up on the page or verbally is just how I was feeling in the moment. I try to sit there and honor that—whether it’s a wave of anger or something else.

On structure: the piece moves almost like a sermon—rhythm, return, revelation. How do you approach structuring a spoken-word piece versus a page poem?

Yeah—again, I don’t have a lot of thought process. I mean, obviously there are thoughts, because I’m writing them down—but the poem’s structure creates itself. I really just put it on the page.

I am a pastor’s kid, so I cannot help but get a little bit “sermon-y” with whatever I approach. I’ve always been that way, and I still hold on to that from my upbringing. I’ll preach for a second—I don’t mind—especially in that poem. What an ironic twist to “sermonette,” something people would say is not a sermon or not valid. I’m like, No—there’s a whole congregation of women who are not free, and this is the thing that will help them be free. So I’m going to preach it for a second.

I look back and I’m like, I don’t know—the poem did that. I can’t take a lot of credit for how that showed up, because that’s how it wanted to be shared and interpreted.

Are there narratives—within or beyond faith/gender/sexuality—you feel called to explore more deeply in spoken word right now?

Um, I don’t know. I feel like so many poems exist—especially in spoken word—and when you add competition, people have gone in on so many layers. That’s the beautiful part about art: we’re not writing a new thing; we’re saying and perceiving it in a way that fits the setting we’re in—the zeitgeist we exist in.

For me, I’m in a season of continuing to say the honest thing out loud. I absolutely worry about how people will see or perceive it. I’m in a play right now, and the content is thick and spicy and fun and outlandish—but I’m like, Oh, my parents cannot come and see this. People who knew me in a church context probably should not come. And if they do and have their thoughts, that’s what it is.

I’m excited for it. At the end of the day, it’s like, Can I be proud of the work, even if it rattles me? Even if it shakes me? With that poem, with the album—always: What would I say if I didn’t have this limiting belief or this one way of perceiving the world? What else would I say—and how daringly would I say it? Yeah.

You work across forms—acting/theater and poetry/spoken word. How do those practices inform each other?

Yeah—poetry kind of came from acting. I went to an arts high school in Oakland. We did academics from 8–12, and our emphasis from 1–4. My emphasis was theater. I was also one of those theater students who wrote a lot, so I kept getting invited to literary arts and poetry workshops because I wrote, too.

Poetry started because I was writing monologues and perspectives: What’s a love poem from the perspective of Coretta Scott King? What would it be to see Martin Luther King Jr. as partner/husband/lover—not just a great man? What does it sound like when Emmett Till’s mother is grieving? Those monologues were poetically written, and that’s how I processed them. That turned into more poetry.

They’re interconnected. My heart is to create—to build a world and a life where I can show up creatively. I put acting aside for a long time because of poetry, and now I’m making my way back (commercially or on stage), and it’s fun. Who I am as a poet sets who I am as an actor up: I know how to be vulnerable and honest for myself; now I can be vulnerable and honest as this character—as this woman showing up in the world just the same.

Finally, in larger cultural dialogues about faith, freedom, and feminism—especially in spaces that haven’t welcomed these conversations—what role do you envision for yourself?

I think I’ve always sat in those places, like, Why don’t we say these things out loud? How can I say it so people aren’t turned off but drawn in? That’s a lot of why my bachelor’s is in psychology. This is artwork and mind work—being an artist—and I wanted to tap into that.

There’s a lot of fear in those spaces. I wanted to find holes in the fear and poke where something needs to gush or flow. If words can be the caveat for openings, then why not?

I don’t know if I consciously try to do those things. That’s who I am and how I show up. I can’t help but put that out, whether I want to or not. There are times I’m like, I don’t want to say that. I’d rather not write that poem. But the due diligence and responsibility is that we show up to it and don’t let fear get in the way.

I will always be a mouthpiece where I can—speak to hope where I can, find the light where I can, call things out where I can—and do it in a way that is sustainable and loving, that pushes us toward being whole and healed, each of us.

Exclusive Interview: Lyrical Faith

Where did your pen name come from, and what does it represent for you as an artist?

So first of all, thank you for inviting me. And secondly, what a wonderful question. I love this question.

I grew up in the Bronx, New York. I grew up pretty close to—if not the exact neighborhood as—Hip Hop Boulevard, which is what it’s called now, but essentially the neighborhood where hip hop was founded in the West Bronx. Throughout my entire life, I’ve been very into hip hop culture, hip hop music, and I was even writing raps and rhymes before I found poetry—always very entranced by that culture.

Now, as an adult, I also study Hip Hop education and implement it as a researcher. It’s something that’s always stayed with me. Lyrics have always been a huge aspect of who I am, what I do, and how I engage with the world around me.

This was in college—sometime between 2012 and 2014—when I was thinking about what I wanted my stage name to be (that seemed popular in the early 2010s). I was thinking about what felt all-encompassing to my persona as an artist, my work, my life, and what I want to represent. “Lyrical” came from my love for lyrics, and “Faith” is the Swahili translation of my birth name, but also representative of how I engage and move through the world as a woman of faith. I felt “Lyrical Faith” was a name that allowed me to express my inner artistic voice. It stuck, and the rest is history.

How does your spiritual identity shape your creative choices and the way you move through the world?

Absolutely. As a Christian, I am very much in a season—and have been through many seasons—of thinking about how my faith is integral to my artistry, and my artistry is integral to my faith. I believe the two are intertwined. I believe that God has given me this gift on purpose, because God knew I was someone who wanted to be able to speak to people and impact people in a certain way, and this was the talent He chose to give me.

I take that very seriously; I don’t take it lightly. I want to continue to use my voice, my messages, and my love for the craft and the art form to speak to people and express myself in ways I thought unimaginable. Before finding poetry, I was someone who felt very silenced and didn’t really have a voice that people wanted to listen to. Poetry gave me a platform where it didn’t matter who didn’t want to listen to me—what mattered was who did—and that turned out to be a lot of people. So yeah.

In “Wade in the Martyr” and elsewhere, how do you decide what personal experiences to share while speaking to a larger collective story? Are there narratives you consciously include or exclude to keep that balance?

Yeah, of course. Wade in the Martyr is one of my favorite poem-writing experiences. It took me a pretty decent amount of time to write. Shout out to my coach at the time, Anthony McPherson, who was the primary person I worked with throughout the writing process. He coached the poem, provided ideas and inspiration, and pointed me toward background research—things I had to do on my own to really embody and understand some of the poem’s themes. He was a huge motivator throughout slamming the piece for several years.

It took about 12 pages of research: my own Google doc where I looked at everything I could find online around inequality within the women’s rights movement—the women’s rights struggle—and how Black women’s struggles have existed for centuries before anybody cared or paid attention, often swept under the rug, whereas when white women started speaking up, suddenly everyone cared. That’s essentially what the poem is about.

Roe v. Wade, in and of itself, is such a polarizing topic in today’s society. I wrote the poem around 2022, when overturning Roe v. Wade was within the Supreme Court’s hemisphere—everyone was rallying and fearing its loss. I wrote within the energy of that time period; the Court ended up overturning it, and everything that happened after happened after. A few years later, here we are in a Trump presidency again. History repeats itself and stays relevant when you write about uplifting marginalized voices and identities—particularly policies that affect Black people, and especially Black women.

So Wade in the Martyr continues to tell itself. As a Black woman, I’m well-versed in how the women’s equality and equity struggles have differed for Black women historically and today compared to white women. Even with women’s suffrage—voting rights—Black women were on the lines advocating but didn’t get those rights until long after white women. Did white women get back in the protest lines and say, “Hey, Black women still need these rights”? We have always been the bottom of the barrel in the fight for rights and equality, no matter the political issue. We fight for it, and when it doesn’t turn out our way, nobody wants to fight for us, though we fought for everyone else.

This poem is an American story—about history and the raw, authentic emotions Black women have endured day in and day out to the present. My identity is intertwined with that: understanding the weight of that struggle, how I have to fit into society, process it, and give voice to it through my writing.

In that piece you write, “We have no choice but to midwife their movement,” referring to white feminists newly affected by the reversal of Roe v. Wade. How do you envision true allyship—what should co-conspirators do?

My vision of allyship in these spaces—yes, thank you for that line. Once again, like I said, I was working with a brilliant coach at that time on this poem. Shout out to my coach, Anthony McPherson, for the editing and support.

“Midwife their movement”—the line explains itself. We have to be this middle person in the movement. And what happens to the middle person? They get lost in the sauce. We have to be the messenger, the conduit—the carrier of the struggle—without necessarily experiencing the fruits of our labor.

How do I envision allyship? I think Bettina Love said it best: we don’t need allyship; we need co-conspiratorship—where white people utilize their privilege to leverage how Black people can receive some of that privilege. They put themselves on the line so people less privileged than them can benefit.

It’s like my other poem, “Seven Lessons Learned at the Protest.” The first line is, “Let the white people get in front.” At protests, who comes to the front? Police officers trying to stop protesters. When police come to the front and white people are there, officers are less likely to put their hands and weapons on white people than Black people. These are statistics—historical facts. Because of that, Black people can be in the march and not get hurt, while white people use their privilege to fend off harm coming toward Black people present.

So allyship is co-conspiratorship. Generations of harm and tragedy have been inflicted on the Black community and on the activists on the front lines fighting for everyone’s equality, including ours. We often see other forms of equality taking place but not the full rights we’ve advocated for. Economically, so many groups have received reparations; Black people are still—half in jest but truly—asking, “Where are the 40 acres and a mule?” which were literally promised for the plight of chattel slavery.

I envision privileged people—white people—truly interested in being part of the struggle for equity who use their positions to say, “Hey, this Black person is being treated unfairly here,” on a one-to-one level, and also at the legislative level. Certain people of power and privilege won’t be attacked the same way Black people in those positions are. Plenty of members of Congress and senators will speak out and say the most racist, denigrating things on certain issues. Then Jasmine Crockett speaks up—straight facts supported by statistics and research—and gets told publicly to “tread lightly,” as though she doesn’t have the same freedom of speech as those saying harmful things.

These are the realities for people of color, Black people, and minoritized identities in America. My hope is that my poetry sheds light on these issues—sparking conversations and bigger ideas in the atmosphere about what people are truly trying to say and what they’re grappling with. Poetry is a conduit of truth-telling, and spoken word is a conduit of storytelling by way of truth. It lets us raise awareness about things people often don’t want to hear or deal with in regular conversation.

When you want a poem to provoke immediate action or feeling, what does your craft process look like—from research to mentorship to performance?

I try to—this is something I grappled with in college while coming up with my stage name and artistic persona. I had an amazing mentor in college, Cedric T. Bolton, director of the poetry program Verbal Blend at Syracuse University, where I did my undergrad. My time in Verbal Blend, under Cedric’s mentorship, was truly transformative.

Those were my early slam years, being exposed to slam at a really competitive level. I kept thinking about what I want people to receive when they hear me get on that stage—what I expect them to receive when I perform.

I was a Public Relations major and a Sociology minor. Sociology was truly groundbreaking for me. It led me to the degrees I pursued later and where I am now with social justice—it was my first exposure. I thought about how passionate I was about these issues: the issues I acknowledged in the community and education system I grew up in, the schools I went to. If I’m going off to college and doing all these things with my artistry—“making it big” by leaving my neighborhood and doing this thing that’s hard to do—then what am I giving back to the spaces I’ve come from? How am I honoring the shoulders I stand on—my mother and grandmother, both advocates for education (my grandmother was an educator), who set the pathway for undergrad, then a master’s, who pushed my mom, who pushed me?

So if God has given me this platform and the opportunity to stand in front of crowds and win competitions, I need to take it seriously and think about how what I’m saying helps someone think differently about issues I care about.

In undergrad (2012–2016)—very interesting years—Trayvon Martin was murdered right before I went to college. That was huge for Millennials. We saw ourselves in Trayvon; he was literally my age—his birthday is about four days from mine. It felt like it could have been any of us. That’s scary. These stories go viral; it becomes scary to go outside. Your timeline becomes traumatizing. Then you go to work or class, sitting next to white kids living their best lives, and you’re like, “There are two Americas.” You have no idea what I’m going through psychologically, acting like everything is normal when someone who looks like me was murdered in cold blood in broad daylight.

I wrote about that. In 2013, George Zimmerman was acquitted for Trayvon Martin’s murder. I’ll never forget that day—July 13, 2013, if I’m not mistaken. I was at a barbecue; folks checked their phones—breaking news. The energy went from buzzing and popping to sad. Another turning point: we hit the streets. We protested, yelled, screamed, cried. The Black Lives Matter movement started in response to the acquittal.

Over and over: 2014, Michael Brown in Ferguson. I wrote a poem about that. We did protests and die-ins on our campus and in our library. I wanted to use my voice—as a pathway to enlighten, to speak out, to react, to critique, to respond and say, “We are not okay, and I’m not going to be silent. My voice matters. My life matters. I’m going to tell you exactly how I feel.”

What topics or stories do you feel remain under-explored in society—or in the arts and spoken word specifically?

Oh man, that’s a hard question. I almost feel like there’s nothing new under the sun—that people have written about almost everything. It’s how you decide to talk about it, and what perspective or angle you take, that makes it new, fresh, and original.

There’s news every single day, so there’s always something to talk about, advocate for, or respond to—especially today, with chaos, confusion, and an executive order seemingly signed every day that takes away more rights. As we continue along this path of what the current world is handing us, it’s important we continue to use our voices to speak out.

I think Senator Cory Booker—who made history yesterday by delivering the longest speech, over 24 hours (I believe it was 25), breaking the record—used his voice to make history in a way that spoke out for the rights of the marginalized, rights being taken away: Medicaid being taken away, the people affected, the fear. He broke the record of a racist, segregationist Southern senator from the 1960s, who spoke a little over 24 hours against civil rights. Booker said, “No—this is my time to speak out about what’s happening now, and I’m going to break the record that once stood for speaking against racism,” because that cannot be the precedent or standard.

In this day and age, there is much to explore, as we’re making history every day. It’s the artists’, creatives’, poets’, and performers’ responsibility to be the griots of our time and continue to tell these stories. Personally, I think every time you step to your pen and paper—and then to the stage—if you’re telling the truth, being authentic, being vulnerable, and leaving as much of yourself on the page as you can, you’re exploring a topic people need to hear.

Exclusive Interview: Journey Rosa

To start, where did writing and poetry begin for you?

More like a childhood thing. I love to write, but life, but further, but I can relate, and I didn't exactly know what to do with that, yet, there had been, like, the first thoughts of self harm, and then it's like, I think I want to try something that's healthy and something that I think I really like. So I started really like writing seriously in 2022 and I I was decent at it, and my mom had come in center, and that's where I really started writing. And with that, I had done my first competition in 2022 as well, with the poet influence being the judge, and I had sorely lost. So that made me, like, really determined to come back, like, a lot straighter than I had before. And then with that, I went back to compete in 23 same competition, different judge, and I had first place. And I was like, Okay, I think I'm finally getting good at what I'm doing. And then I went back and the same day of the slam, I competed at another competition, and I had won that first place as well. And I was like, okay, and like, I became really confident in it, and it became a way where I could get my feelings out, but also enjoy myself when I'm doing it. Yeah, we love influence.

When you write about themes like social realities, racial prejudice, or violence—do you start with these concepts, or do they take shape through emotion as you write? How do you approach turning those initial thoughts into a poem?

So in a way, rather than like, sitting down with I'm gonna write a poem today. It's I'll feel an urgency I don't like. I'll feel something like rage, brief exhaustion, defiance, and that feeling like inside of me, I feel like it demands to let itself out, because they spread into more of a widely known topic. My best poems, I'd say, like a color mind at times that the more racial based ones come out when I'm not censoring myself on the topic like environment. Um, for example, for the colorblind, I started with an image, like an argument, a spoken argument. And the way I try to write my poetry, it starts off as how it affects me, and then it blooms off into how it affects the world. So, like I structured it in a way that makes it feel like the constant push and pull between the races that I have inside of me personally, like a conversation I've had like a billion times, and I never dropped to finish. And like the repetition in the way it builds was all like intentional, because identity itself is something that people try to simplify, but it's not something simple. So I try to, like, put how I see it into words for other people to understand. And my other one times up, I started with, like, more of an image, rather than a feeling, for this one like, I started with the image of a chase, like the sound of boots stomping and sirens howling and heartbeats racing, and from there, the whole mill itself went away. I wanted the rhythm to mimic the adrenaline that fear of running for your life, even when there's nowhere else to go, because, like, I know that's something that some people really go through.

Who do you imagine you are speaking to through your poems?

Usually when I write, I write in the perspective that my audience would be the opposing side of my argument. So, for example, mine would be the colorists of the world, the people who support colorism. Me trying to explain the other side of the world that they don't get to see.

When balancing personal experience with historical or political narratives—do you feel a responsibility to one over the other?

I feel like the way I write, each of my poems come from a place of personal truth, but also a broader sense of responsibility. Like the color line was inspired by the concept of historical dehuman dehumanization of like black people or mixed people's lives. The title itself being a reference to the concept of the problem of the color line and the way, like race determines opportunities, freedoms and like even survival. I wanted to write something that captured the like fear of being colored in a world that criminalizes our existence. But I wanted to write it in the way that I've experienced it through my eyes, telling it how I've experienced it personally. Because everyone's story is going to be different, and how everyone is affected by colorism is always going to be different. No one, it has the same one story,

How has audience reaction impacted your relationship to your own work?

Yeah, certainly the opening to that poem was, I was 13 when I first learned my skin was a question, no longer the answer, and from that point on, and I was like, Wait, other people relate to this in the same way I do. Yeah,

Did you begin writing poetry meant for the page, or performance?

I've always written them to be spoken. Because why I originally started writing alongside to like help push off trauma is to help educate the world on issues like I'm only 15 as of right now, but through what I'm doing and the connections I've made along my journey with poetry, I've been able to get through to a lot, including on the 19th I'm going to the state to testify, and I'm reading a poem of mine about like colorism, the loss of funds, and like issues with color colored individuals in schools. So I think that it's certainly like me trying to spread awareness and try to fix problems. So my poetry has always kind of been made to be read out loud.

What role does performance play in how your message is experienced?

Performance is a really big thing. I don't know if it's for everyone else, depending on their style, but for me, performing pieces aloud is a different kind of vulnerability on the topic. It's one thing to write about pain, but it's another to stand in front of a crowd and bring them into it yourself, like um, the color line was originally meant to be slow, almost suffocating, in pacing, because that's the piece that all of these worldwide issues are going at. But because of three minute limit, I had to read a lot faster. But it worked in its favor, because the speed made it feel relentless, like there was no time to breathe, which is exactly how the poem should feel like, the buildup of injustice. It needed to hit that hard and fast, and it's very in people's face, very like there was a lot of pointing and very like hand gestures, and I feel like it, speaking, it out loud, being able to, like, really perform it, rather than just write it, it. It gives a lot, and it also gives people the time to listen, but also sit with the discomfort, feel the discomfort, and it gives more insight on how people will receive it, because the way everyone interprets poetry is gonna be different the tone they read it in but if you're right there giving it as the way you thought it, it's a lot stronger, in my opinion.

Do you ever feel conflicted about how vulnerable to be?

Yes, actually, it's been a it was a big issue during this plan, to the point where I changed one of my poems last minute, because I had felt like this wasn't the type of thing where I can be this vulnerable and like, I felt like it wasn't the right moment. Because there's times where you can be like, really vulnerable, and then there's times where it's like, this might not be the right time and place to be that.

How do you see poetry’s role in conversations about race and justice evolving today?

I do kind of think that it's changed, not for the worse, because it gives poetry, gives room for everyone to speak, and you don't exactly have to be well. Everyone's perspective on good is different, but you don't have to be good or reality standard of good to be able to do it, something everyone can do, so everyone's able to get their thoughts out. I love the fact that COVID trees like wormed its way into more conversation because it makes more room for those who those that's the way other people express themselves, which I am one of those people. I express myself primarily through poetry, and it's it's made it a lot easier to be able to express myself.

What do you hope your poetry and your advocacy will leave behind for others?

The way I went into the slam, for an example, winning that title was overwhelming, not because of the competition itself, but the way, like of because of what it represented, I went into that slam gathering myself, doubting that I wasn't good enough or that people wouldn't believe me. And, but standing on that floor, performing words that came from the Rawls parts of me, I realized that this was what I was meant to do. And I also had the. Would be a role model for those who don't get the same opportunities that I do and not I keep I get to keep doing that, not just for myself, but for those who feel unheard because I know that not every 15 year old can speak on colorism in the way that I do, or articulate their thoughts in the way that I can. But more than the title and more with more than the win itself, what stays with me is the fact that my words mattered that night to several people that people listened, people snapped, people whistled, people agreed with me. And somewhere in that audience, I don't know where, I don't know who, but I know somewhere in that audience, someone saw themselves in that poem and felt less alone. And that, to me, is everything.