While we're giving folks a second
to think of their questions, I thought maybe
we could start off.
Tarfia, I was curious what you said about optimism and poetry
and how you have to be an optimist.
And I wonder if you could say a few more words about that.
And Francine, if you have any thoughts, chip in also.
I just listened to this interview with--
there's this amazing podcast called "On Being,"
which oh, my God, it's just so good.
And so the host of the show, she interviews thinkers, basically.
Psychologists, biologists, poets, doesn't matter,
is a physicist.
And so she interviewed Grace Lee Boggs,
who's an activist who lives in Detroit who just turned
100 years old this past June.
And so one of the things Grace Lee Boggs talks about
is how you have to find a way to make a way out of no way.
And I feel like poetry does something very similar,
because you have to start from scratch, in a way, every time.
And I think you have to kind of be an optimist.
Like, we were talking about possibility today,
and I think you have to be able to see possibility in order
to be an artist.
And so I guess that's why I think
poets are eternal optimists.
Plus, like, it's rough going.
You know?
Like, it's rough going being an artist, period,
because a lot of people think that you're selfish,
or they think that you shouldn't be compensated for it,
or they think of it as an indulgence.
I think you have to also be an optimist
to live the life of an artist too.
That's a really hard question for me.
Why?
Because I struggle with cynicism so hard.
And it's funny, I've had full on, actually Facebook
conversations about the difference between skepticism
and cynicism.
Because at the time--
I've thought about this differently since then.
But at the time, I was arguing for cynicism.
[INAUDIBLE]
But I guess I was trying to think
about the notion of protection.
And I have this thing that I think about in terms of trust
when it comes to what you read.
And you were talking about listening,
and listening is an act of trust.
I will take this in, and ingest it,
and allow it to be inside me.
Right?
So if you're cynical, you're sort of pushing away from that.
But the thought that I had today,
which is completely unfinished, but it's just I'm
already thinking about this today, this idea of optimism.
It's that cynicism is a selfish act, because you're
in your own head so much.
The little example that I can think of
is, Tyler, when you picked me up,
there was a woman walking her dogs, and I don't like dogs.
I just don't.
I don't do dogs.
She had these two little sniffy dogs,
and they came up to me to my-- and my natural inclination
is to just back away.
And she said, "Oh, you're too cute to have a dog
to touch you?"
And I was like, "Yeah, I am."
Yeah.
And I like walked away.
And the reason I'm thinking about this,
not thinking about this, is because I'm thinking about,
well, what do I do with that thing?
It was kind of mean.
Right?
But like, I could wallow in that,
and that's a selfish act when I'm
about to do this amazing reading, right?
At this amazing center, with Tarfia.
And like, this is the first time we've read together,
and it's this beautiful evening.
And I feel like things like that,
like if you're so in yourself enough to feel
vulnerable to that, that you don't allow anything else in.
I don't know if that's a thought about poetry or just going
through the world, but like cynicism, it's
completely selfish.
Does that make sense?
Whatever.
What was that person?
I mean, she sounds pretty cynical or something.
And to be honest with you, maybe I heard it wrong.
She might have been playing with me.
But I don't know.
More so I was just like, oh, I can obsess about this right
now, or I could move past that and be
optimistic towards this next moment which is coming.
Do you know what I mean?
Just something I notice at readings,
since this is about readings.
And music, I go see a lot of concerts and live music.
And after every song, you clap.
You don't wait till the end.
I feel bad, because I really want to clap after every poem.
Or somehow I'll say, yeah, yeah, not, snap my fingers.
But it's just something I noticed,
and I feel kind of hemmed in or something.
Anyway.
I think you should do what you want.
I don't know.
Anyway.
I think that it depends on the crowd that you're in.
There's definitely, like, livelier
crowds that will clap after every single thing you do.
I think the thought is that language
works in this weird way where it takes a minute, right?
And so clapping interrupts whatever
that resonance is going to be and it doesn't
get a chance to sink in.
You were talking about Valzhyna Mort.
And the time I saw her read, she gave the longest amount
of space between her poems that I've ever heard a poet give.
Like, it was almost a full minute.
I don't even remember if she said anything about it,
but it had such a crazy effect that it
was like a moment of silence, basically,
after every poem she did.
Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.
I have noticed that some readings are just, like, you
can hear a pin drop sometimes.
And then other readings are--
usually the ones at bars are a little livelier.
But I think--
I don't know.
I think I go back and forth, because I've
been at different kinds of readings,
and some where people clap after poems, regardless of
whether it's quiet or not.
And it seems like everybody kind of decides together
that they're not going to do that.
But I feel like, again, like I think--
I thought it was so great that you clapped.
You know?
Yeah.
And because I think that sometimes too--
I don't feel this way so much these days,
but when I first started doing readings,
and it was just complete silence,
I was just like, oh man, I suck.
Like, I was just like, these poems are terrible.
I knew it.
So I also think it's nice to hear the appreciation too,
I think, because what we do is so solitary in the first place.
You make me think differently about silence, I guess.
I can do that now, I think, a little easier.
I have to walk back there.
OK.
I'm almost there.
It's kind of a question for both of you.
As POC writers, how do you feel, like,
if there's an expectation to include your culture,
or the color of your skin, or anything
like that in your writing?
If there's any expectation that you feel from your readers?
Or just in writing in general, how do you feel about that?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I feel like I'm supposed to be
more political than I guess I--
wow, just as soon as I said that, I was like,
ah, don't say that.
But it's true.
I feel like I'm supposed to write more politically.
And so it's this thing.
You know how you cry when you're not supposed to cry,
like even if you might not have cried?
Just the fact that you're in some place where you're not
supposed to cry, you cry, because it's
that weird anxiety.
And I feel like that about writing
political, whatever political means.
Whatever.
Like, any poem that I feel like speaks to something
that I actually care passionately about, right?
Whatever.
I can't do it.
It's like this weird anxiety, because I'm
thinking about it too much, or something like that.
But I do feel, I don't even know if it's
an expectation from anyone else as much
as it's like, I want to do that, I wish I could do that.
And I feel like it's something that I struggle with,
because I think it's partly because I think
poetry is supposed to be open and free,
and so the idea of having a statement in poems
is a little odd.
I haven't figured that out yet.
Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean, I feel like I put the pressure on myself
at first more than anybody else would necessarily.
And I don't know.
It's not like when I was revising
I would be like, oh man, I forgot to put a sari in here.
Better make sure that--
[LAUGHTER]
Better make sure there's a mango so people know that I'm brown.
And I don't feel that way anymore.
It's something that I did to myself at the beginning,
I think, of my writing life.
And as for the political thing, yeah.
I think this is such an exciting moment for American poetry,
because there's not necessarily sort of like representatives.
You know?
Like, it's more like they're real individuals who
are saying, this is how I move the world,
this is how I see it, this is how I think about it.
And if part of that includes henna, or Blackness,
or whatever it is, then that becomes
part of the material of the poem rather than
a way of forming an identity.
Because I feel like, for myself, one of the things that's really
just kind of sort of like such an affirmation is like,
I felt like such a weirdo growing up
as a South Asian Muslim in West Texas in a small, pretty
conservative Republican town, and now I
just kind of feel like--
like I was really afraid to write about going to Trinity,
for example, because I was like, I
feel like I should instead be writing about these things.
But you know, that's just what happened to me,
and it's what I'm fascinated by.
So I try to write what I'm fascinated by
more than try to represent any group of people.
And I think in that way, when I see other people do it--
I think Francine does this, for example.
I feel like there's something that true bias and true sort
of stereotyping is being pushed against,
because there's an individual saying,
I'm a group of a community, I'm a member of a community,
yes, but I'm also utterly myself,
and that's the poem I'm trying to write.
Well, thank you both for great answers and great questions.
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