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.