June 8, 2021

Flint Poet Laurate Semaj Brown

Poet Semaj Brown is Flint's Poet Laureate. Her work in Flint uses poetry to address literacy problems with lead-poisoned children.

Semaj Brown is the first Poet Laureate appointed by the City of Flint. She delivers a riveting read of a poem she wrote for the people of Flint.

The Academy of American Poets recently recognized her talents as a Poet Laureate.

Semaj works in Flint using poetry to address literacy problems with lead-poisoned children. Semaj is also an accomplished playwright, published author, and lecturer.

In Flint, her work in the Flint Community School District has been nothing short of amazing. She has presented her poetry at many colleges and universities across the Midwest, including the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, Baruch College (NYC), Kent State, and Indiana University, just to name a few.

Semaj Brown is one of the most inspirational guests in Radio Free Flint's history!

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You can learn more about Semaj Brown and her poems by visiting her author's website.

Find Semaj Brown on the website of the American Academy of Poets.

A feature article about Semaj Brown that details her work and background can be located at My City Magazine

The Flint Journal reported that Semaj Brown was honored by the American Academy of Poets by receiving funding for her work with children in the Flint School District:

Flint’s first poet laureate awarded $50K to infuse poetry throughout city with focus on literacy

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Transcript

WEBVTT

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Hello, this is Arthur Bush.

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You're listening to Radio Free Flint.

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Thank you for joining me.

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Today's podcast guest is Samaj Brown, Poet Laureate for the City of Flint.

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Samaj is a playwright, a lecturer, an author, as well as a very accomplished poet.

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She was recently recognized by the Academy of American Poets of being one of only 23 in the past year's outstanding poet laureate.

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Poet laureates speak to the aspirations and humanity of a community.

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They can lift us up, raise us over, and help us see what our community is all about.

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In this conversation with Samaj Brown, we discussed how she came to Flint, what it is she hopes to accomplish, some of the work that she's been doing.

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And she shares with us one of her poems about Flint.

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I think you'll find it very inspiring.

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She's been a lecturer many places across the United States, including Kent State and Indiana University, New York City's World College.

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She's been a lecturer at the University of Michigan, Wayne State.

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So she has quite a quite a resume.

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So with no further ado, thank you for listening to us again.

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All your little children have been poisoned with leafliner water.

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Tastes like turpentine.

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And I have an exciting guest today, Samaj Brown, who's a poet laureate for the city of Flint, the first poet laureate, a very accomplished woman.

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Welcome, Samaj.

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Thank you for joining us.

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Thank you so much and wonderful being here.

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I'm excited to interview you.

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So my first question to you is how did you get this job?

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Well, let's see, what year was it?

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It's an organization called the Py Arians.

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And the Pyerians, it's an arts organization.

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It's national, and we have a chapter here.

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So they've been in Flint 30 years, they've been here in Flint.

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And they approached me and they said, We would like for you to be the poet laureate of Flint.

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And at the time, I said, Oh no, I can't do that because I had a lot going on.

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And I knew it would be a huge responsibility because anything I take on is always a huge responsibility because I make it my charge.

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About two years went by, maybe a year and a half, and they approached me again.

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And we had my husband and I had left and gone to Kentucky for a moment, and then we returned to Flint, and they approached me again.

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And I thought about it, and I saw an article that spoke about the literacy literacy.

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This is after the water crisis.

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Well, if we can say after, if it's appropriate to say post.

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But it was after 2015 for sure.

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There was an article, so it was five years later, and it was talking about the third grade reading scores as compared to five years before the water crisis had dropped 75% of the third graders in Flint.

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And I was incensed.

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I was so struck.

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But I was struck all through the water crisis.

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So this wasn't anything new.

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I'm an educator.

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I know that poetry can help um advance literacy.

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I know that.

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I've used it, I've seen it.

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So I I felt like I had some type of formula or key or an insight, and that to keep it to myself is unconscionable.

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And we have all these children that need to know how to read and read quickly, and that there is a one-to-one causal relationship between being illiterate and having a brush, if you want to call it, such if you want to use such a euphemism with the penal system.

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Those people, youth who cannot read, are more likely to be arrested, have long incarcerations.

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It's well documented.

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And so I thought about what do I need to do?

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I need to say yes.

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And so they um organized themselves and they went to the mayor.

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And at the time it was Mayor Karen Weaver and talked about having a poet laureate and appointing me as Flint's first poet laureate because they had seen the work I have been doing in Flint since I moved here with my husband.

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As soon as we moved here in 2003, my husband asked me if I would help him with the practice.

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He's a family physician.

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I was just getting ready to be a consultant for Flint Schools as a science consultant.

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And I thought, honey, what do you want me to do?

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You know, I'm not in medicine.

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And he said, the way you teach, the way you work, shop, because I also do professional development with educators.

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He said, I think we can get the word out about obesity, lifestyle change, uh, healthy eating, vegetables.

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And since we're vegetarians, and I had written a vegetarian cookbook that had all these crazy stories in it about vegetables.

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And the vegetables were on the green front.

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They were activists.

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And like Miss Potato Chip, for instance, wants to free the spuds from the factory because they're being denatured, you know, and she's and she's she's southern, too.

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She has a southern accent.

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And so she says, um, you know, they're making cone chips now, too.

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You know, corn is in danger.

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And you're talking about all these processed foods.

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So everything I do, I kind of turned it, uh, turned it into fantastical uh stories.

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And he said, if we could get this to the people and we could help the people, he said, and you could.

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I said, all right.

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So I decided to join my husband.

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So we were working since 2003, health fairs, three health fairs that we sponsored, two radio shows.

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One was Ask the Doctor on WFLT, one was the Freedom from Fat Radio Broadcast on Cumulus.

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Just so many workshops.

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I've done so many workshops in all the churches and the recs, it's the centers, and on healthy.

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They used to call me the vegetable lady.

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I would bring my vegetable basket.

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Go back to your question.

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Anybody that could help me would help me with this kind of um massive across the city programming that I would do.

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They probably said she'll work.

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They know she'll work.

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And so I was appointed.

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Why is it they just came up with this idea?

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Well, why is it you're the first one?

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I mean, I guess that's I I don't know why, but I tell you this because I'm originally from Detroit and I'm a Flintstone by choice, I'm very familiar with poet laureates.

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Growing up, um, Dudley Randall was the first poet laureate that I was familiar with.

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And then there was Naomi Long Magic, the late Naomi Long Magget.

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Dudley Randall was a founder of Broadside Press.

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Naomi Long Magic just passed away in December, this last December.

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Detroit, unlike Clint, has had quite a history of promoting young poets.

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And so, even before that, 1965 and on, before that, there's this long history of poetry that I grew up in.

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So I grew up in poetry.

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It is very natural to me.

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I was reading it when I was five years old, so it was just a part of my life, and so they saw fit, and that's how I became poet laureate.

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It's not a political job, is it?

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No, it's not.

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The Naomi Long Magic, for instance, Archer, Dennis Archer, yes, he appointed her.

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She remained poet laureate under Kwame Kilpatrick and also under Dugan.

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So she just passed.

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Now, I don't intend to be poet laureate for 21 years, but that's what she was.

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So it's not political at all.

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It's being a laureate, as you know, but a lot of people aren't really familiar with the term.

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That's why I invited you to come and tell us what it is.

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Most people have heard of a noble peace laureate.

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Most people, if I ask, they say, What is a poet laureate?

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I said, Well, have you heard of a noble peace laureate?

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They say, Yeah.

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Uh-huh.

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And I say, Okay, well, the Noble Peace Laureate is a person who has done extraordinary things in the area of peace.

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They have a body of work that is exceptional, that's recognized by their peers, recognized by the world, that they have been working in the area of peace.

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I said, So a poet laureate is a person who is considered exceptional in their area of expertise, which would be poetry.

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The whole laureate position was established by the Library of Congress, and the the date evades me, but it's been a long, long time.

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And so laureates are appointed by either the president of the United States for the national poet laureate, the governor for the state poet laureate, or the mayor for the city poet laureate.

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And so we're not we're not political in the sense that people think of things being political.

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Our job is to foster poetry, is to create an environment where poetry is uh appreciated, spoken, where poetry, your people have access to poetry.

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That's what we're supposed to do.

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It's all about the poetry.

00:10:52.799 --> 00:10:58.399
You have duties, do you have official duties or a job description or each good question?

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Each poet laureate takes upon themselves their own platform.

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Now, some poet laureates are very interested in um language.

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I know a poet laureate that's interested in by having people be bilingual, translating poems into Spanish.

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So that's their expertise, that's what they want to focus on.

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That's what they're it's a civic duty we're doing.

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We're talking, we're helping the community.

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Other poet laureates will have other um are are very much toward spoken word or slam, as you spoke of.

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They're gonna focus on the spoken word.

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My charge is literacy.

00:11:42.639 --> 00:11:48.000
I know that takes me to this P3 school uh program that you're running.

00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:49.200
Yes.

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Talk to me about that.

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This is the Poetry Pod project.

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I, when I was trying to think about what was going to be my platform and what was going to be my civic initiative focus, it just popped into my head the Poetry Pod Project.

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And the Poetry Pod, there's a pod ship, and you see it on the website, you'll see it on all the material.

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Uh, and it's green, and it looks like a spaceship, and it's actually um has these green pods inside of it.

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And I always say to uh people on Facebook and social media, the podship is gonna land.

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Watch for the podship.

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It's coming, it's going to land.

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And when it lands, it deposits these these pods and they open.

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And inside of it is poetry programming, and that's what's so exciting.

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So we have I've been working on the poetry pod ship since I've become uh since I was appointed.

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So there's been lots of programming all along.

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One of the ones that I really love that I did was the children's poetry show.

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That was done by the Kennedy Family Life Center.

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That's Pastor Reed.

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He had a program called, or he has a program called Reading with Pastor Reed.

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Every Monday the children would um come and they would have reading sessions and tutor them in North Flint, which is fabulous.

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He asked me if I would would if I would come to the center and read with the children and read poetry.

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Of course, that's part of the poetry podship.

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I will land there.

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COVID came and so everything went online.

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Contacted me and said, we're still doing it, we're gonna do it online.

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And so this was totally new for me because I am used to being um with a microphone or podium, face to face.

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I wasn't used to all of this online.

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So I said to myself, how am I gonna make this interesting?

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So I created a theme called Imagining is Happening.

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Uh Imagining is Happening, something like that.

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Dreaming is imagining is happening.

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And I received these books from the Genesee County Medical Society Alliance.

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They asked how could they help with what I was doing?

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I said, Well, I need books.

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And so we had a book list, and they bought these wonderful children's books for me.

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So I went through all the books and I saw a theme about dreaming is imagining, is happening.

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So I said, This was so this is right not too long after George Floyd were in the middle of the pandemic, and the children and everyone was marching, and I knew the children were afraid, rightfully so.

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So I said, we need to talk about dreaming as imagining as happening.

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So I took these books and I selected points from different books from everyone from Jane Taylor, who wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which is an actual poem with four verses that most people don't know, and about the wayfare and how the star leads them through the night, to Langston Hughes' uh dream boogie and dream deferred, and how these all have the element of dreaming in them.

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And so I I put on different hats, costumes, played the bongos, took up different voices, and did uh children's poetry show.

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And the children online, uh, they they were they had a class and uh they were asking questions, and it was wonderful.

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And so what we've done, we've taken those little vignettes from each poem, and now they're on YouTube, and anybody can utilize them, and people have been using them, and that's wonderful.

00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:10.559
So, fast forward to the Poetry Pod Project Award, the Academy of American Poets.

00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:13.039
You're taking me right down my outline here.

00:16:13.279 --> 00:16:26.799
So the American uh the Academy of American Poets has just uh selected you as one of 23 people throughout the country uh to fund to do what?

00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:29.519
You you're it's a it's a hell of an honor.

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It is what you've just received.

00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:39.200
It's very big because the Academy of American Poets is the it's 90 years old.

00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:44.399
It's a very it's esteemed, they might as well say the esteemed Academy of American Poets.

00:16:44.639 --> 00:17:21.440
So it's it's it's poetry's version of the Academy Award, and so it's very exciting out of all the poet laureates in the United States, and there are many, there are more than people know because as the at the event of um Amanda Gorman, every after Amanda Gorman's inaugural poetry uh poem, The Hill We Climb, many municipalities, tiny hamlets, and large cities all decided we need a poet laureate all at once, and it happened.

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So there is this mushroom explosion of poet laureates all over the country.

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To be selected is indeed an honor.

00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:39.759
You get to they they essentially uh select you to participate in some activities over the year that you create along with others.

00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:43.839
Well, yes, I created the poetry pod project.

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They know about the poetry pod project, they're excited about the poetry part project and the different courses that I have within it.

00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:58.480
And this um time, the poetry pod project.

00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.839
Last time I just talked about how they brought you the children's poetry show.

00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:07.200
Yes, this time the poetry pod project is going to bring you poetry letters.

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That's the name of this initiative, poetry letters.

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And inside of poetry letters, there are four different programs.

00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:30.079
They were so excited about that because what I'm talking about is poetry as a second language, poetry as a dialect, poetry as a way of being, as a communication tool.

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And so most of the time, poet poets write about things.

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They write about a chair or a tree or feelings, but this in this circumstance in poetry letters will be writing two things or two people, we'll be writing having conversations with things or with people or with ideas, it will be communication between entities, sometimes between an art piece and the poet, they'll be communicating.

00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:17.440
Sometimes in the workshop called Pin Pals, it will be actual people communicating, but they will be communicating in poetry.

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That's where the poetry letters comes from.

00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:25.359
So there are four different courses that will run throughout the year.

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And the first course, I can't tell you, you know, you asked me this, and this is where I get excited.

00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:39.039
The first course is called Flint Reads Poetry, Poetry Voices of Flint.

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Most of the time, people haven't heard poetry in a long time.

00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:47.279
They haven't heard poetry in a long time.

00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:54.160
They've heard the new slam poetry, but there's poetry that came before that that is very rich.

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What we're gonna do is create a poetry gallery, and it will be on Online, people from Flint, ordinary Flint folk, not necessarily artists or performers, just ordinary people will be reading these poems and we'll put them up for put on the poetry gallery.

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And we're going to start out with poems from the Harlem Renaissance.

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Zeta Beta Zeta, which is a chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, which are my partners in this year-long endeavor, explosion into poetry.

00:20:33.279 --> 00:20:38.559
They are going to begin reading those poems from the Harlem Renaissance.

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We've identified 12 different Harlem Renaissance poets, and we have all their poems, and they'll be divided up among the membership.

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And they're going to read them, then we're going to put them up on the post so not only schools can see it, community centers, parents, whomever wants to hear poetry.

00:20:59.920 --> 00:21:06.480
Now, the next time we're going to change it out, just like a gallery changes its exhibit, that will change out in January.

00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:09.119
And we'll have poems from the civil rights movement.

00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:12.960
And then we'll have another group of people reading those poems.

00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:23.839
And spring, oh my goodness, spring is going to bring the transcendentalists, David Thoreau, Wadsworth, all that uh poetry about nature and being.

00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:27.039
All of those poems will be part of the poetry gallery.

00:21:27.119 --> 00:21:28.559
The poetry gallery will stay.

00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:29.119
Yes.

00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:41.759
The Flint Public Library has there's been a dream, at least, with the African-American uh sports hall theme, according to Norm Bryan, who I interviewed a while back.

00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:44.720
And he wants to put kiosk around town.

00:21:44.799 --> 00:21:50.480
And I think he has kiosks in some, like in the shopping centers and that sort of thing.

00:21:50.720 --> 00:21:55.039
Have have you thought about putting this in public spaces?

00:21:55.279 --> 00:21:55.920
Yes.

00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:57.119
I have.

00:21:57.279 --> 00:22:00.640
In fact, the initial, I'm so glad you asked that.

00:22:01.039 --> 00:22:05.599
The initial Poetry Pod project was only in public spaces.

00:22:05.680 --> 00:22:07.759
We had billboards, I mean, what was written up?

00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:11.839
There were billboards, there are games being played, poetry games.

00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:14.880
It's all it was in all the public spaces.

00:22:15.039 --> 00:22:16.960
However, COVID came.

00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:20.079
And so I had to rework it.

00:22:20.799 --> 00:22:25.119
And so I said, okay, Samaj, put your thinking cap on.

00:22:25.359 --> 00:22:31.039
So I took it all to the virtual space, but it's already was designed for public space.

00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:35.119
So this um what I was awarded for is virtual space.

00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:37.039
So I'm really glad they're both.

00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:38.400
Both are going to happen.

00:22:38.559 --> 00:22:50.480
So we'll do the virtual space first, and it will be there for everybody to see and use, and then we will have we'll go, we'll continue into um public space.

00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:57.440
You speak in your work, and and I've heard you talk to others who've interviewed you.

00:22:58.079 --> 00:23:01.519
You talk about the trauma that people uh face.

00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:26.400
Your work has healing power and healing people who have suffered trauma or who have suffered loss in a in a bigger sense of the word, uh Flint has been traumatized by the phenomenon of deindustrialization, uh not to mention disinvestment where people lose their jobs.

00:23:26.720 --> 00:23:31.039
What role does your work play in that?

00:23:31.680 --> 00:23:42.559
In that in that process of trying to bring traumatized people some sense of a place and some sense of dignity?

00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:51.599
Well, part of being um traumatized or marginalized is um not having a voice.

00:23:51.759 --> 00:24:12.400
That's all part of it, being voiceless, not being heard, the trauma not being acknowledged, which is even further traumatizing, the annihilation of neighborhoods and of people not being recognized, which is even further traumatizing.

00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:38.079
The gaslighting, which makes a person, which is deliberately a technique to make people think that they're crazy for even saying these things, for speaking out, for saying this is what happened to me, oh get over it, oh, that was a long time ago, oh come on, it's not that bad.

00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:44.480
And it's not personal only, it's systemic.

00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:46.799
That's traumatizing.

00:24:47.599 --> 00:25:00.559
So when you have a writer that writes about what's hidden, and people who are traumatized say, oh, this is this is what I've been talking about.

00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:02.960
This is spot on.

00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:08.799
This is what happened to my grandfather, my great-grandmother, this is what's happening to me.

00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:18.720
They took all the black men out of the neighborhood, locked them all up three different times in history, four different times in American history.

00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:29.119
They're slaying them and the women, what's happened to the women, and what systemically happened to the children in the school systems.

00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:41.680
And people are just sometimes just trying to survive if all these assaults, and they're just trying to work and live and raise their children.

00:25:42.079 --> 00:25:52.640
They are not um all college professors studying what's happening to themselves, they're just trying to live.

00:25:52.960 --> 00:26:00.319
If a poet speaks the invisible into the visible, it makes a difference.

00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:02.319
It makes a huge difference.

00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:10.240
Because one, the words are saying, Oh, you're not crazy, though they are trying to drive you crazy.

00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:14.000
You are absolutely valid because you exist.

00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:21.839
You don't need this one of the lines from my poems, you don't need anything else to validate you, to make you worthy.

00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:24.559
Your existence makes you worthy.

00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:25.680
Period.

00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:33.680
You don't need a good degree, you don't need um to to be literate, you don't need anything.

00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:34.960
You're born.

00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:37.519
That gives you legitimacy.

00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:38.799
Number one.

00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:50.319
So, with that type of thinking, and that's where that's the premise that I really do come from, all of the false structures that say otherwise start to crumble.

00:26:50.720 --> 00:27:09.519
Because if your foundation is that I'm legitimate because I exist, I'm worthy because I'm here, that's enough, then everything else that's everything else that has been built, all these false uh contrived constructs that one must have must be to be worthy start to crumble.

00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:17.680
And so I think my work and poets to speak the truth is very, very important.

00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:22.559
It's a witness to what's documentation.

00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:30.480
Your documentation is taking place in a city that perhaps like a few others.

00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:36.240
You look at Akron, you look at uh Youngstown, you look at Cleveland, you look at Detroit.

00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:48.960
Cities like this have also suffered the same devastation from extreme capitalism, the loss of work, loss of dignity.

00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:56.640
And Flynn itself has suffered tremendous loss of the urban landscape that people knew.

00:27:57.039 --> 00:28:06.079
How does that come to play in your poetry as you're expressing yourself, as you see things disappear right from the face of the earth?

00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:07.680
I mean, big things.

00:28:07.920 --> 00:28:14.480
I mean, the biggest, some of the biggest factories in the whole entire world are gone seemingly overnight.

00:28:14.799 --> 00:28:16.640
That is disorienting.

00:28:17.119 --> 00:28:20.160
It's disorienting because of what it means.

00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:22.000
You don't have jobs.

00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:24.880
If you don't have jobs, how do you support yourself?

00:28:25.039 --> 00:28:28.000
And so now a black market is created.

00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:31.200
Well, it's also created a loss of history.

00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:36.880
They're taking your history away and creating as if you don't have any humanity.

00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:42.400
That I mean, I don't know that anybody wants to worship at the altar of General Motors.

00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:52.000
What that represents to people in terms of stability, peace of mind, it provided means for people to raise their children.

00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:56.079
I think it goes to the root to the question.

00:28:56.480 --> 00:29:01.039
You pull the thread, and if you pull this thread, you'll find answers.

00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:02.720
Why did they go?

00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:04.480
What happened?

00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:06.160
Why did they go?

00:29:06.559 --> 00:29:14.960
And so you take that, it's a little thread, and you keep pulling it, and then you find out something you said earlier about extreme capitalism.

00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:18.079
So they left for a reason.

00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:21.359
They left, what's the reason that they would leave?

00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:22.640
Why would they do that?

00:29:22.799 --> 00:29:28.960
It would devastate all the entire industrial complex, all these cities and states.

00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:30.559
Why would they go?

00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:38.799
What I do oftentimes is I ask the questions so that people can find the answers or that we can look at the answers.

00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:40.079
Why did they go?

00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:41.839
So why did they go?

00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:43.359
Or where did they go?

00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:44.319
Is a better question.

00:29:44.960 --> 00:29:46.000
Where and why?

00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:47.039
Why did they go?

00:29:47.200 --> 00:29:49.279
Well, and then people answer the questions.

00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:50.319
Well, they went overseas.

00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:52.400
Okay, well, why did they go overseas?

00:29:52.799 --> 00:29:55.200
Because there's a cheap labor market there.

00:29:55.359 --> 00:29:56.960
Well, why do they want to do that?

00:29:57.119 --> 00:29:58.480
Because they can make more money.

00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:02.720
I mean, it's just asking the questions, pulling the thread.

00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:11.039
And so then people start to see that this is not just Flint, it's not just Detroit, and it's not just the United States.

00:30:11.279 --> 00:30:14.559
This is a global problem we have.

00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:16.319
A global problem.

00:30:16.880 --> 00:30:29.119
But I do see in your work some expressions that deal with not just classism, which you've already talked about, but the mere brutality of it all.

00:30:29.440 --> 00:30:38.720
Uh, Flint has suffered, you know, the poisoning of its water, the loss of its employment, medical harm to its children.

00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:43.359
I mean, these are just unspeakable tragedies and catastrophes.

00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:48.720
But I asked the same question: why did any of this happen?

00:30:49.119 --> 00:30:51.680
Why was the water poisoned?

00:30:51.839 --> 00:30:53.759
What was the impetus?

00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:56.000
Why did the school systems fail?

00:30:56.160 --> 00:30:57.599
Why was there disinvestment?

00:30:57.759 --> 00:30:59.039
What was the impetus?

00:30:59.279 --> 00:31:12.000
We have a serious um class strata, racialized class strata problem in the United States that permeates everything we do.

00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:13.680
Everything.

00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:18.480
Found out that it's not just racialized, it's class strata.

00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:29.519
We found that out when the opioid crisis came, and the and the towns were mostly rural and white, and they just let those people just rot.

00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:59.920
Samash, one of the things that strikes me is you sort of have a couple axis of which your work, your work is centered, and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, although as as we first look at them, we might think they are, and that is you bounce around between the arts, which I would include poetry being art, and science.

00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:12.559
You have these really these things that would seem in many respects to be polar opposites, and you would you find a way to incorporate those, it's very unique.

00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:14.960
Where does that come from?

00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:19.759
Well, when I was very young, the poetry was a part of my life.

00:32:19.839 --> 00:32:22.880
I started reading poems probably around age five.

00:32:23.200 --> 00:32:25.519
Um, my mother, Bessie L.

00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:29.039
James, classically trained pianist who loved poetry.

00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:36.480
So every night we would read poetry one night for me, one other night for my sister, and we would have poetry readings.

00:32:36.640 --> 00:32:39.759
So she would say to me, Read that.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:41.680
Now, what does it mean?

00:32:41.839 --> 00:32:44.079
And I remember saying, I don't know.

00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:46.000
And she said, Well, let's look it up.

00:32:46.160 --> 00:32:49.279
And we would go through this every other night.

00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:53.599
And then we lots of theater every summer.

00:32:53.759 --> 00:33:02.160
I would go to Stratford, Ontario for the Shakespearean Festival with my um adopted grandmother, and we would study there.

00:33:02.480 --> 00:33:06.000
Broadside Press came out in 1965.

00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:15.440
Sonia Sanchez, Dudley Randall, Hakima Abutu, Gwendolyn Brooks, all those poets.

00:33:15.599 --> 00:33:19.440
They were just, I thought they were my uncles and aunts.

00:33:19.599 --> 00:33:22.880
They were their names were spoken so frequently in the home.

00:33:23.119 --> 00:33:26.480
And my mother was in contact writing letters with Gwendolyn Brooks.

00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:30.480
So I just thought these were just people we knew.

00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:32.079
And I was reading their work.

00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:33.519
So it was very natural to me.

00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:37.200
Meanwhile, that's happening while I'm a little girl growing up.

00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:40.640
I had a science laboratory in the basement.

00:33:41.039 --> 00:33:44.720
It was my father thought it was important that I learned science.

00:33:44.799 --> 00:33:48.079
And so there he bought a science laboratory.

00:33:48.240 --> 00:33:52.400
And back then there weren't any um, I suppose, regulations.

00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:55.440
Like now, I mean I'm I have been a science teacher for years.

00:33:55.680 --> 00:33:58.720
We could we couldn't get the chemicals now to do that.

00:33:58.880 --> 00:34:07.519
I suppose you can on the internet, but it's a it was a science laboratory with microscope and dissection kit and everything you would need.

00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:13.280
And so I would be down there experimenting, looking at things, exploring things.

00:34:13.519 --> 00:34:20.079
And so I just think early on, they got fused in my brain.

00:34:20.480 --> 00:34:23.440
And to me, they are so similar.

00:34:23.599 --> 00:34:40.400
I have even been quoted saying that they are the same, but just isomers of mirror images of one another, different configurations of the same thing, the scientific method, but then artists have a method as well.

00:34:40.639 --> 00:34:42.000
Is it not scientific?

00:34:42.159 --> 00:34:47.039
It's inspirational, but aren't scientists inspired as well?

00:34:47.199 --> 00:34:52.960
I mean, it's so it's all it's a commingling in my mind and in my brain.

00:34:53.119 --> 00:34:59.039
So whenever I teach science, when I'm teaching biology, the students will do bio art.

00:34:59.280 --> 00:35:04.480
Because if you look at the cell, oh, these cells are just they're art pieces.

00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:12.079
And so the students would do bio art, they would use clay, they would use jello, they would use um mobile, hanging mobiles of the cell.

00:35:12.159 --> 00:35:19.599
Um there's the lady down in uh Detroit, uh, and she's with a project called Arts and Scraps.

00:35:20.079 --> 00:35:22.239
Oh, I've used it so many times.

00:35:22.559 --> 00:35:25.679
I've interviewed her, and that's exactly what they're doing.

00:35:25.760 --> 00:35:27.840
So you must have been there, yes.

00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:29.679
I I've used I've used that.

00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:33.280
It was used to be on um CADU.

00:35:33.519 --> 00:35:43.840
I don't know if they're still on CADU, uh, but I've gone there many times as a science teacher, doing bio art, and just get so many things and have the students put it together.

00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:47.920
So now they understand DNA because they become DNA.

00:35:48.079 --> 00:35:50.880
And then you use theater as well.

00:35:51.360 --> 00:36:09.519
Because if a person can become a trans fatty acid, if they can, or if a group of young people can organize themselves into a trans fatty acid, they'll know what it is, they'll understand how the bonds are not broken or how hydrogen is is attached to oxygen by using their arms.

00:36:09.599 --> 00:36:18.800
And it's it's so you you have it's a different way of being, it's a different way of approaching life outside of poetry.

00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:28.079
Your poetry a lot of times is focused at talking to plants and trees and ponds and lakes and things in nature.

00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:32.559
It's true, because we are not.

00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:56.960
We really can't, even the ocean.

00:36:57.199 --> 00:37:09.440
I have uh, in fact, I have a book coming out called Waterbodies, but what it does, it explores poems that are related to water from fantasy all the way to environmental injustice.

00:37:09.679 --> 00:37:16.639
One of my premises is that we are water bodies, we are the rivers.

00:37:16.880 --> 00:37:23.440
We we are encased in skin and flesh, but we are rivers, walking, talking rivers.

00:37:23.599 --> 00:37:31.119
And if we understood that water in Western civilization, if you the classification system, water would be considered non-living.

00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:36.159
Let's take some of your poetry, have you read us something?

00:37:36.400 --> 00:37:48.960
It reminds me of a poem that you you've done what you just said, and let's see uh, let's give the audience a bit of a feel for what it is that that you do.

00:37:49.920 --> 00:38:07.920
Well, Kent State University contacted me in an initiative that they had called Vote the Earth Forward in conjunction with Columbia University and Earthethics.org in New York, New York.

00:38:08.239 --> 00:38:28.000
And they were asking poets and artists to give their variation or think about the idea of where am I from and look at it from a perspective of social justice and also from environmental injustice based on the famous Lions poem, Where am I from?

00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:36.559
So I wrote, I am from the blood river.

00:38:38.480 --> 00:38:58.880
I am from the blood of fire river, where the strike of friction against rock of flint smokes tongues of resistance, lead burning brains and bodies of the resilient, beautiful.

00:38:59.280 --> 00:39:08.239
I am Flint, Midwest bioregion, reconfiguring the world.

00:39:09.519 --> 00:39:25.280
Meet me, meet me where the water shed into Bay of Being, fed by underground railroad tributaries escaping the river killers.

00:39:26.480 --> 00:39:42.719
I travel the coast, witness four hundred decomposing beached whales, a homeless polar bear traumatized by the color blue staggers by.

00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:48.239
Am I drizzling in my grandmother's nightmare?

00:39:48.719 --> 00:39:50.320
Where am I from?

00:39:51.920 --> 00:39:59.760
I am from the conflagration, incinerating the revolving.

00:40:00.079 --> 00:40:02.000
Rotissory globe.

00:40:03.039 --> 00:40:08.800
They have savaged our bodies and our land.

00:40:10.719 --> 00:40:15.280
I burn for you our Brianna.

00:40:16.159 --> 00:40:24.880
Oh Brianna radiating volcanic social convulsions of African blazers.

00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:32.559