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 an 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, physicists.
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, it's rough going.
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.
And I think you have to also be an optimist
to live the life of an artist too.
Oh, is that [INAUDIBLE]?
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 changed.
I've thought about this differently since then.
But at the time, I was arguing for cynicism.
[LAUGHTER]
[? Sorry, ?] [INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGHTER]
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, ingest it, and allow it to be inside me.
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 I was thinking--
I'm already thinking about this today, this idea of optimism,
is 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.
[CHUCKLES] I don't do dogs.
She had these two little sniffy dogs.
[LAUGHTER]
And they came up to me-- to my-- and my natural inclination
was just to back away.
And she said, "Oh, you're too cute to have a dog touch you?"
[LAUGHTER]
And I was like, "Yeah, I am."
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, then I 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 I can wallow in that, and that's a selfish act.
I'm about to do this amazing reading at this amazing center
with Tarfia.
And this is the first time we've read together,
and it's this beautiful evening.
And I feel like things like that, if you're so in yourself
enough to feel vulnerable to that,
that you don't allow anything else.
And I don't know if that's a thought about poetry or just
going through the world.
But cynicism, it's completely selfish.
Does that make sense?
Whatever.
[LAUGHTER]
Who was that person?
I mean, she sounds pretty cynical or something.
I guess-- and to be honest with you, maybe I heard it wrong.
Maybe she was being-- she might have been playing with me.
But I don't know.
It just-- but more so, I was just like, oh,
I could 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, which
is about readings and music.
I go see a lot of concerts and live music.
After a song, you clap.
You don't wait till the end.
I feel bad when-- because I really want to clap.
[LAUGHTER]
[INAUDIBLE] calm, where somehow I'll say yeah,
yeah, and not snap my fingers.
But it's just something I notice, and I
feel kind of hemmed in or something like that.
Anyway.
I think you should do what you want?
What?
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah.
I don't know.
And I think that it depends on the crowd that you're in.
There's definitely some 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.
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 every time I saw her read, she
gave the longest amount of space between her poems
that I've ever heard a poet give.
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 think--
I hadn't thought about that.
And I've noticed that some readings are just--
you can hear a pin drop sometimes.
And then other readings are usually the ones at bars--
[LAUGHTER]
--are a little livelier.
But 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--
I thought it was so great that you clapped.
Yeah, and because I think that sometimes, too, when--
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.
[LAUGHTER]
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.
Make me think differently about silence.
I can do that, I think, a little easier.
[CHUCKLES]
I have to walk back there.
OK.
It's almost here.
I'm almost there.
[LAUGHTER]
It's a question for both of you.
As POC writers, how do you feel--
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?
Yeah, I feel like I'm supposed to be
more political than I guess I--
Wow, just like, as soon as I said that, I was like,
ah, don't say that.
But--
[LAUGHTER]
--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,
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, [LAUGHS]
because it's that weird anxiety.
And I feel like that about writing political, whatever
political means, whatever.
Any poem that I feel speaks to something
that I actually care passionately about,
like I miss--
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.
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 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.
I better make sure that--
I better make sure there's a mango--
[LAUGHTER]
--so
so people know that I'm brown.
[LAUGHTER]
And I feel that--
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
mean, I think this is such an exciting moment
for American poetry, because there's not necessarily
representatives.
It's more like there are 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 such an affirmation is I
felt like such a weirdo growing up
as a South Asian Muslim in West Texas,
in this small, pretty conservative Republican town.
And now I just kind of feel like--
I was really afraid to write about going to Trinity,
for example, because I feel like I should instead
be writing about these things.
But 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 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.
Thank you, both, for great answers and great questions.
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[APPLAUSE]