I don’t understand every word of this, but I understand enough to know that it’s a brilliant critical engagement with my poem “Respect” and that it provides insights I had not yet stumbled upon myself. I am forever grateful to poet/scholar/doctor Vivek Tailor for all the ways he uses his great mind to help others.
What’s the earliest experience, or a stand-out experience, you can remember that made you realize that you can be yourself, write as yourself, and write about issues that matter to you? Has this been difficult for you?
Telling my truth as a woman and a writer has not only been difficult; it’s one of the greatest, most ongoing battles of my life. I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that almost every day I write is a day I struggle to say what I really think and feel. As well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also acknowledge that what I really think and feel is at times so repressed by and so buried beneath everything I am supposed to be that I can hardly find it to write about it.
Realizing that you can be yourself, write as yourself, and write about issues that matter to you is not the same as feeling empowered to do so. For me, it’s a process, and the biggest awakening has been reading Audre Lorde. I’m not all the way brave or all the way awake yet, but reading Lorde shook me up and startled me out of a sort of debilitating politeness. She made me realize that it’s not only my right—it’s my responsibility—to speak my truth. I came to her late, through my girlfriend, Amy King, and I wish I’d discovered her decades ago. My whole life would have been different. I keep Sister Outsider on my desk, and I keep quotes from “Poetry is Not a Luxury” and “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” on my hard drive. Lorde says:
We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.
What liberates me is not overcoming fear but taking fear for that wild ride from my gut out to the page.
Read the rest of the interview HERE.
To celebrate hosting the Super Bowl this year, among other lovely happenings, Houston is getting all dressed up in POETRY. I’m thrilled that some of my lines were selected and are now on banners across the city. What a great project. What a great city. Below are a couple of articles about The Houston Banner Project and Figurative Poetics. One of them is by Miah Mary Arnold, curator of the project, and the other is by Clifford Pugh, Editor-in-Chief at CultureMap.
Here are a couple of paragraphs (from Miah’s article in the Houston Chronicle) that tell about the beautiful intent of the project:
“The project is the brainwork of Alan Krathaus and Fiona McGettigan of Core Design Studio. The Houston Downtown Management District wanted to create something bold and inspiring with the new banners they were going to hang, and asked Core for ideas. Their answer — ‘Figurative Poetics’ — was adventurous from the get-go: Whereas most downtowns have banners with simple promotional slogans, McGettigan and Krathaus wondered, what it would be like if Houston’s banners could reveal the city like the complex and unlikely character that it is?
What if walking down the street could be like having a conversation? What if each new path through the city created a new narrative, and each story was as dynamic as the city itself? What if Houston could sing its innumerable voices?”
I’ll share pictures of the banners with my lines when I find them.
Here’s a fun new podcast hosted by Paul Harrison. I was delighted to be on the first episode, along with Shaindel Beers. Below are Paul’s notes about the show and a link to the Fiction Earth website.
Fiction Earth Podcast 1: With Melissa Studdard And Shaindel Beers.
Welcome to the Fiction Earth podcast.
In this first podcast I had the pleasure of chatting with poet, authors and teachers Melissa Studdard and Shaindel Beers.
In this first podcast we discuss poetry, writing, creativity, personal inspiration, and also throw in a little bit of fun and nerdy entertainment.
On the podcast
Shaindel, Melissa and myself had a fantastic chat and covered everything from spirituality to Star Trek, as well as looking at personal inspirations and motivations.
Hope you enjoy the podcast.
http://fictionearth.com/podcast/melisa-studdard-shaindel-beers-discuss-poetry-creativity-pordcast/
