t’ai freedom ford is a New York City high
school English teacher and Cave Canem Fellow. Her poetry, fiction, and essays
have appeared in The
African American Review, Apogee, Bomb Magazine, Calyx, Drunken Boat, Electric Literature, Gulf Coast,
Kweli, Tin House, Obsidian, Poetry and others. Her work has also been
featured in several anthologies including The
BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to
Queer Poets of Color. She was a 2015 Center for
Fiction Fellow and the Poetry Project’s 2016 Emerge-Surface-Be Poetry fellow.
Most recently she has won awards from the Community of Literary Magazines and
Presses (CLMP) and is a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship inaugural fellow.
Winner of the 2015 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize, her first poetry collection, how to get over is
available from Red Hen Press. Her second poetry
collection, & more black, is with Augury Books, available Summer 2019. t’ai lives and loves in Brooklyn where she is an editor at No, Dear Magazine. More at: taifreedomford.com
1 - How did your first book
change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How
does it feel different?
I think
mostly what the first book did was to validate my existence as a writer/poet.
To take up space amongst the myriad of published works, let me know that I
belonged. It also placed me in a long lineage of Black writers and for that, I
am proud and honored to be a part of that legacy.
My second
book is very different from my first in that the first centered around lyric
and persona. It was obsessed with telling the story of me, my family, the Black
family. My new work is more obsessed with form, the sonnet, and Black art. But
like the first book, I engage similar subject matter: the Black body, Black
linguistic practices, Black life and love, Black queer sexuality, etc.
2 - How did you come to
poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I’ve
always attempted to express myself via poetry although my first poems may have
actually been raps, written when I was 10 years old. But as a poor Black kid
growing up in New York City, I couldn’t afford violin lessons or gymnastics,
but I always had pen and paper, so those were my first instruments of
creativity. But non-fiction and fiction were right there. In 1985, when my
mother decided to move us to Atlanta, I began writing my autobiography in the
back of our station wagon as we drove the 15 hours south. And later, when I got
bored with poetry, I would write short stories. Years later, I would earn my
MFA in fiction, not poetry.
3 - How long does it take
to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come
quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their
final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
For this
collection, because the form was so specific, I feel like a lot of the work
came very quickly because I had a container to pour words/images into. Also,
because many of the poems are riffing off of or in conversation with works of
art, I was gifted a lot of material to work with. But most of the work does
come out very close to a final draft.
4 - Where does a poem or
work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end
up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book"
from the very beginning?
5 - Are public readings
part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who
enjoys doing readings?
I do
enjoy attending readings and often jot down beautiful lines I hear. I covet
them and use them as springboards of inspiration. Reading my work is often
necessary to feeling my work. I’m able to animate the work in a unique and
personal way that invites folks into the work and the worlds I attempt to
conjure.
6 - Do you have any
theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you
trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions
are?
I am always asking:
What is the point of my art if not to speak to and for my people?
What is the point of all these words if I am not saving a life
(especially my own)?
How is it that we have survived this long? And who am I if I do not acknowledge,
archive and celebrate these survivals?
7 – What do you see the
current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one?
What do you think the role of the writer should be?
My role
is to honor Black literary traditions and legacies. To speak to and for my
folks. To give voice to the voiceless. To give permission to those who feel
silenced. To honor my Creator by being creative. To maintain sanity via the
process of art-making.
8 - Do you find the process
of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
It’s
definitely necessary in that writer’s can miss so much because we are so close
to the work. Editors bring fresh eyes and are able to see the book wholly and
the poems individually and how they work together. However, I am a Black queer
woman working with language in ways that may be challenging for folks outside
of that demographic. Cultural sensitivity and openness on the part of the
editor are essential in these cases.
9 - What is the best piece
of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
10 - How easy has it been
for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to essays)? What do you see
as the appeal?
I bore
easily (typical Aries), so being able to move between genres has always been
appealing to me. Interestingly enough, the genres tend to blur. People will say
that my fiction is “so poetic” or that they appreciate the storytelling quality
of my poetry. Ultimately, I’m less concerned with genres or being pigeonholed
as a poet… When people ask, What do you write? I’m inclined to answer: Things
with words. Because honestly I want to write it all: poems, short stories,
novels, screenplays, essays, children’s books… everything.
11 - What kind of writing
routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day
(for you) begin?
I don’t
write routinely, but I typically write early—morning is when I’m at my creative
peak. And usually I will have worked out first and had food before I’m ready to
write. But sometimes, I will awake from my sleep and begin writing because the
urgency is there.
12 - When your writing gets
stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I go to
museums, art galleries… I watch videos of lectures or interviews by Fred Moten
or Arthur Jafa. I watch short films about artists. I read Toni Morrison or
Lucille Clifton or Wanda Coleman.
13 - What fragrance reminds
you of home?
Honeysuckle
reminds me of Atlanta (which was once a home of mine).
Chimney
smoke reminds me of winters in New York.
14 - David W. McFadden once
said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence
your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
My work
comes from Black music, Black art, tweets, celebrity beefs, Black death, the
news, the ingenuity and resilience of Black folk.
15 - What other writers or
writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
16 - What would you like to
do that you haven't yet done?
Buy a
home. Win a major prize for my book. Travel to West Africa. Sky dive. Publish a
children’s book. Secure a book deal for my novel. I could go on….
17 - If you could pick any
other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you
think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I would
be a chef. And I am a teacher and I would have been that whether I wrote or
not.
18 - What made you write,
as opposed to doing something else?
Writing
is a mode of survival for me and one of the ways I maintain my sanity in an
insane world. An insistence in having my story heard made me first write. But
I’ve endeavored other creative outlets like painting, jewelry making,
deejaying, cooking, but writing is my most stubborn preoccupation.
19 - What was the last
great book you read? What was the last great film?
Call Me By Your Name based on the Andre Aciman
novel.
20 - What are you currently
working on?
At work
on a novel about how folks grieve after the loss of a loved one while
simultaneously having to contend with the loss of sacred space—their
neighborhood aka “da hood”.
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