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.