Interviews

I have been writing poetry ever since I was thirteen years old when I rewrote my own version to Slick Rick’s “Children Story” song.

My journey as a poet has been long and challenging, but the turning point came when I was laid off from my teaching job, broke up with my ex-girlfriend, and dealt with the passing of my dad due to cancer, all in the same time span. I used the trauma as the driving reason to drop everything in America and move and live in Europe for three years. While there, I taught English as a foreign language and developed my writer’s voice by telling stories and expressing my deep emotions through poetry and narratives. 

I was initially drawn to poetry as a way to help me vent the anger and sadness I felt upon losing my best friend to a car accident when I was thirteen years old. Poetry has been my outlet and tool that I've used to cope with my mental health struggles.

Every written piece begins with an emotion. Whether sad, angry, stressed, hungry, or horny, all of my writing starts with the feeling and then branches out into words that transform into a concept that somehow displays a completed piece. I try to set time everyday to write and continually build upon a piece like a mix of legos growing into a marvelous statue.

I find inspiration for my poetry through emotion and telling stories that people can connect to based on the core emotion. So topics and themes related to fear, happiness, jealousy, death, love, hate, and life are all represented in my work as these are universal ideas that I know very well. 

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The one poet who significantly influenced my work is Langston Hughes because he was a brilliant writer capable of creating masterpieces across all literary genres including poems, short stories, plays, essays, and so forth. Due to his heavy influence from the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes incorporated jazz into his writing which allowed the reader to dance to the rhythm and beat of his narratives about the Black experience. Like Hughes, I try to incorporate hip-hop and rap into my writing because of my deep roots in the Bay Area music community.

With my poetry, I want the reader to take away the feeling of the experience. When a person is able to have an emotional reaction to a piece of art, whether good or bad, they prove to themselves that they are alive and human. We all seek meaningful connection in our lives and I strive to showcase that message by making sure the reader feels connected with my work.

When I was younger, I would write a lot of fiction that dwelled in fantasy and science fiction (think Dungeons and Dragons meets Star Wars). However, as I matured personally, my writing evolved toward narrating my own journey and the people around me who look like me and share similar experiences. Vulnerability about my own struggles with depression, disappointment, and death had actually helped me grow stronger as a writer and human being. If anything, poetry has saved my life, so I continue with my passion as if there is no tomorrow.

Poetry is needed in society just as much as music and movies because it not only provides an art form for meaningful entertainment, but it also allows readers to gain insight into themselves as well as the world. I once heard a saying, “If you reach one, your job is done,” but I hope to reach and connect with as many people as I can. If poetry can save my life, I hope to share this healing for anyone who feels damaged and in need of a life saver.

To make a character believable, the author must be able to see the world from that character's perspective and know the experiences and history within their background. Anyone can write a character but to make one authentic, you must understand the character from their point of view.

Start with the emotion whether it is anger, sadness, contentment, or hope and use the characters’ emotions to drive the plot and message. The audience like myself resonate with stories that appeal to my emotion which makes whatever story relate to an unfamiliar viewer. Also have your message take a full circle where you toss up the theme at the beginning and then hit home at the end.

Writers can celebrate the richness of culture by showing aspects of the experience true as they see the world. Although the view will be subjective, the story will show the black experience for its beauty of how far we've come as a people. By incorporating black contributions to music, art, literature, science, politics, and all aspects of society, the story recognizes the blended history through the characters' experiences.

It's tricky even as a Black author but I try to develop my characters in a way that they may appear in a box at first impression, but as the audience learns about them they understand the complexities of their persona. I avoid stereotypes by basing them on real people I know who might behave cliche but really possess many complex layers to their character.

Listen to people. Take mental note of their speech patterns, nonverbal cues, so forth. There is so much subtext and powerful imagery in everything everywhere. You just have to open your mind and see it and then capture the moment. Also there are so many stories to be told in real life. Reality is stranger than fiction.

Writers should be the champion in what and who they value. I value Black people and know what it means to live Black so I write about the Black experience. However, my work goes beyond just my culture. My work represents the struggles of people with mental disorders. My work represents Oakland and the Bay Area. My work represents the misunderstood youth and lost generation. My work represents anyone who has questioned their existence and doubted their self worth.