One of my highest priorities as an educator is to be as inclusive as possible.
Life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
Hands learn more than minds do, hands learn how to hold other hands...
Some people read palms to tell your future, but I read hands to tell your past. Each scar makes a story worth telling. Each callused palm, each cracked knuckle is a missed punch or years in a factory.
There is hurt that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.
When words become a poem, it makes sense to me, but I don’t know how to explain to someone why the words are the way they are. It’s just the logic of the poem to me.
You can be an artist, work hard for your work and also share while trying to create community with other artists.
Things that I have a hard time being able to fully grasp, sometimes writing the poem helps me work through it. Or I get to the end of the poem and I still haven’t figured anything out, but at least I have a new poem out of it.
The first spoken word poem I ever wrote was when I was 14 and I wrote it because I was accidentally signed up for a teen poetry slam. Because I loved poetry I said that I’d try it out.
Thinking about writing as an act of celebration is sometimes a helpful framework for me. It allows me to prioritize what I want to call attention to and what I want others to know about me. It makes me ask: What is worth celebrating?
I write poetry to figure things out. Any time I’m trying to wrap my head around something, poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me.
I fell in love with poetry through storytelling, so my poetry tends to be fairly narrative. I like characters, I like having a beginning, middle, and ending, though not necessarily in that order.
I do like celebrating women, I do like celebrating different lifestyles and choices and people and it makes me happy when others find my work empowering.
Our day-to-day lives are pretty chaotic. So in terms of the writing part, you have to get pretty disciplined about finding quiet moments and making sure you’re making time for the art side, on top of all the time-consuming business side.
Poetry makes people nervous. Especially in schools.
It is equally important to listen as it is to speak.
Part of what I try to do in schools is take poetry off of a pedestal and make it a little more accessible and approachable.
I want to welcome folks to poetry, especially those who may have previously felt unwelcome; I want to celebrate everyone who is trying to make sense of this world through poetry the way I try to.
I write poems to figure things out.
Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.
Spoken word teaches that if you have the ability to express yourself and the courage to present those stories and opinions, you could be rewarded with a room full of your peers or your community who will listen.