WEBVTT

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As POC writers,
how have you dealt

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with like tokenism versus
being a viable asset

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in the publishing market?

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Good question and
a difficult one.

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I think the thing about
tokenism is it's something

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that it's so hard.

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I can't control that.

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I can't control people's--

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I think-- or their instinct
or their decision to include.

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And why they're doing that.

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So I just kind of take things as
they come and say what I will.

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And use the space that I-- use
the space to say what I think

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is important when I get it.

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And I try to always kind
of use what platform

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I have to call attention to
what I think is important.

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And also to call attention
to other writers of color

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that are doing amazing work.

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To kind of-- if I'm in a
situation where, you know,

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where it's new--

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where that information
would be new to introduce

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the idea that there's
more than one of us.

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There are so many.

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And to make that
clear to people.

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I had a conversation
once with a woman

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at a reading who was like, it's
like these new writers of color

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just they've come
out of nowhere.

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And I was like, not
really actually.

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So I think just like
taking whatever opportunity

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I can to amplify other
voices who are doing work.

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I think that's kind
of all I can really

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do from the position
of the writer.

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Yeah

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Yeah, that's a very important
question, and you know,

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Camille hit it on the head.

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I think, for myself, we can't
control the ignorance of others

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and the irresponsibility
of others.

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You know, I think, when I
think of myself as a writer,

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I have to think of
where am I at my best?

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And I can't exhaust myself
tending to ignorance.

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And so my agency as an artist
is to not see or concern myself

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necessarily with the
blindness and the shortfalls

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of uncreative thinking.

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But rather, see my community.

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And so I think, in
that sense, there's

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urgency in making the work.

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And for me, it's not without
its terrors and fears

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in being misunderstood,
misseen, misheard.

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But I think the urgency
to speak, as a community,

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to the things that are
important to me, that's--

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that urgency
outpaces the terror.

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And I think that's how, for
myself, the work gets done.

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I see a question.

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So Ocean, this is
for both of you,

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but addressing
Ocean's "Ars Poetica."

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In the body,
everything has a price.

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I wanted to know whether
or not that is your body

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or like, your
collection of poetry.

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Your body of work.

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Or each poem as a body.

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And what that
connection means to you?

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For myself, I think the
body is very important.

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And I think, especially
as a writer of color,

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I think often there's
this interesting result

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of publishing a book,
is that publishing

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a book is also in many ways
a severance from the work

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from the self, right?

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Before our ancestors
carried stories with us.

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The Iliad was memorized and
performed in its entirety.

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And now there's this
technology of printmaking.

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And I think there are
great advantages in beauty

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in disseminating work and
communicating with one another,

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but there's also this
danger of valuing the text,

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perhaps even more than
the body that created it.

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And I think when we think
about art, not only in writing,

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but in music.

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We think about the
music of this country

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and all of the people,
different types of people,

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different backgrounds, who've
made the growth of a genre

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or innovation possible.

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I think it's very
easy to erase them.

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And so, for myself, the
body is a central space.

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And I don't want it to be so far
removed from the text itself.

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And I guess my
question for myself

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is what happens
when the body has

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to be considered
inseparable from the work,

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despite the severing
of publication.

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And so I think, for
me, in order to achieve

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that in the book itself, I
have to keep calling attention

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to the body.

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That-- not only one
body, but many bodies

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made a life possible.

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Made a life flourish and
therefore the text possible.

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Got time for one more if
we've got another hand.

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You both have such a-- thank you
for that reading, first, that

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was wonderful from each of you.

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But you both have such
distinctive styles.

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Camille you're really-- you
have these really direct,

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short parsed sentences.

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And Ocean you this kind of
outpouring of attention.

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For both of you, is that still
something that you've been--

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you developed over
many, many years

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or is that kind of
where you started?

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And where-- if you could
trace where that came from?

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Where did you-- where do you
think that came from for you?

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I guess I'll start.

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No, I did not start there.

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I started in high school
and it wasn't pretty.

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It was not pretty.

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So no.

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But I don't-- I think it's hard
to kind of quantify how you

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arrive at a voice in poetry.

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I don't know--

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I don't know how I got there you
know, except that a part of it

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is maybe just a part of the
way that I think about poetry

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and about how I form phrases?

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You know, I think a lot in
terms of sound and rhythms

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and how things fit together.

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And kind of, I think that's
a part of why my words are

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the way that they are.

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There's a sort of sense of
awareness of syncopation

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and staccato and legato.

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And like, I'm-- I have a
musical background so I think

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that's probably a part of it.

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But a lot of it too
is what I pick up

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from reading and from my various
varied influences in poetry

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and writing.

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And I listen to the radio a lot.

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I like to hear stories and
people's patterns of speech.

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And all of that, I
think, informs the way

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that my voice is formed.

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And it's a very difficult
thing to pin down for me.

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But I think that it's
just whatever feels right

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at the moment, you know?

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And-- it was--

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I mean, I think it
is a long process.

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I think it always to
arrive at any poem.

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And it's definitely
not the way that I

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write now is not the
way that I was writing

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10 or 15 years ago at all.

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It's always kind of
transforming and changing

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depending on what feels
right to me in the moment.

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Yeah, thank you
for that question.

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Styles, I think, the
idea of style to me

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is very interesting.

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I'm not so concerned
with having a style.

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I'm sure-- I think
part of me believes

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that we all have this voice that
is as idiosyncratic as our DNA.

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And by voice, I
mean our obsessions,

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what we return to,
the way we think,

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the strange beauty of it.

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And so I would hope for
myself, that if there

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is a style, that it's one
that is constantly in flux.

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We think about
arriving at a style.

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And for myself, I think
a style is perhaps

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most useful is if
I arrive at it,

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I can quickly depart
it to go elsewhere.

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And I think that's
why I go to art.

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To unshackle myself.

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And I think of
poetry not so much as

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whether it can be enough or
even enoughness, but more

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as what else can it hold?

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Of a moreness.

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So in that sense, I am
suspicious of these notions

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of what's your voice?

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Having a voice.

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Having a style.

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Because then it starts to
look like these similar

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and very familiarly toxic modes
of commodification, right?

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Protection.

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And it starts to look like a
lot of the systems of capitalism

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that has infiltrated
creative thinking.

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And so, for me, I
would hope to keep

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changing as much as possible.

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Like for example, right
now I'm writing prose.

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It's scary.

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It's new.

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But I want to be surprised.

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And-- but with that said, I
think we all have a style.

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Just the way we
have a tone, right?

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I can say anything,
whether I'm praising,

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or cursing, reading a poem,
or reading a dictionary.

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It's my one voice.

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And so I think
similarly, when it

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comes to the style of
writing, we all have it there.

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Whether where we
think so or not.

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And I like to think that one's
voice and style is already

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fully possessed and it's
just a matter of adding

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and maneuvering
within those spaces.

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Thank you for those
wonderful answers.

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[APPLAUSE]

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