Last weekend I walked into my favorite writing café, Pronto, to find two of my students seated at a
table across from one another, earphones on, intent on their screens. They’re both excellent scholars and poets,
and I had a brief moment of compassion that they were spending their weekend
sweating over some assignment. But hey, at least they were here at Pronto,
studying in solidarity.
“Professor Miranda!” Joëlle and makayla called me over to their table, faces illuminated with joy. No, it wasn’t because they saw me – it was what they were working on. “We’re editing our first podcast!! It’s called Living Poets Society and we’re having too much fun.”
I didn’t know it was possible, but these two just went up several more notches on my respect meter. A podcast?! When did they have time? One woman is a single mom of a 2-year-old (at a university where that’s rarer than hen’s teeth), and both are seriously engaged in senior projects and full-time classes and trying to get by. Both have taken several classes with me, and are in my current advanced poetry workshop.
We talked a little, and I asked for the link when the podcast dropped. I’d just mentioned to someone else about how the time for listening to podcasts has faded now that I live so close to work that my commute is a 10-minute walk or a 5-minute drive. But this podcast? This one, I’d make time for.
I was not disappointed. The link appeared in my inbox yesterday. I waited until this morning to listen. What. A. Treat. to eavesdrop on the thoughts and talents of Joëlle and makayla! This conversation is everything: manifesto, vulnerability, motherhood, sexual joy, ars poetica, black hair, eyebrows, softboys, and love. I mean, who talks about love anymore and means companionship, tenderness, sexual compatibility? These two women do.
Ya’ll should take a listen to Living Poets Society. You might learn something you didn't know. You will definitely learn something about being alive, 20-something, black, woman, poet, in a small private PWI in the un-fucking-believable year that is 2019. [p.s. the "Why I Write" piece that makayla refers to hearing in class is from Stephen Graham Jones. Sadly, a video of Jones reading this manifesto with a delightfully manic, feral, delicious gleam in his eye has since been removed from the internet. We can only hope it returns one day.]
I can't wait for the next episode.
Excerpt from Living Poets Society:
“Professor Miranda!” Joëlle and makayla called me over to their table, faces illuminated with joy. No, it wasn’t because they saw me – it was what they were working on. “We’re editing our first podcast!! It’s called Living Poets Society and we’re having too much fun.”
I didn’t know it was possible, but these two just went up several more notches on my respect meter. A podcast?! When did they have time? One woman is a single mom of a 2-year-old (at a university where that’s rarer than hen’s teeth), and both are seriously engaged in senior projects and full-time classes and trying to get by. Both have taken several classes with me, and are in my current advanced poetry workshop.
We talked a little, and I asked for the link when the podcast dropped. I’d just mentioned to someone else about how the time for listening to podcasts has faded now that I live so close to work that my commute is a 10-minute walk or a 5-minute drive. But this podcast? This one, I’d make time for.
I was not disappointed. The link appeared in my inbox yesterday. I waited until this morning to listen. What. A. Treat. to eavesdrop on the thoughts and talents of Joëlle and makayla! This conversation is everything: manifesto, vulnerability, motherhood, sexual joy, ars poetica, black hair, eyebrows, softboys, and love. I mean, who talks about love anymore and means companionship, tenderness, sexual compatibility? These two women do.
Ya’ll should take a listen to Living Poets Society. You might learn something you didn't know. You will definitely learn something about being alive, 20-something, black, woman, poet, in a small private PWI in the un-fucking-believable year that is 2019. [p.s. the "Why I Write" piece that makayla refers to hearing in class is from Stephen Graham Jones. Sadly, a video of Jones reading this manifesto with a delightfully manic, feral, delicious gleam in his eye has since been removed from the internet. We can only hope it returns one day.]
I can't wait for the next episode.
Excerpt from Living Poets Society:
“…What is your favorite hair style? Black. Black hairstyle.”
“Black. Cuz we’re black, black, blackity black black black unashamedly black unapologetically black, we don’t care, k?”
“Black and multi-faceted.”
“Yes...We contain multitudes.” [whispered]
“WE CONTAIN MULTITUDES.” [chanted]
“And probably way more than Walt Whitman.”
“Amen.”
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