Amena Brown:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another new episode of HER with Amena Brown. I'm really excited about this episode because, y'all have to tell me as the listeners how you feel about Q and A episodes, but I love a good Q and A. I love a good Q and A, even when I used to do workshops and stuff like that. I've done a couple of conferences in the past where I had a performance slot, and then during the part where people would go to breakout sessions or whatever, during that part, I would just have a session where it was just open Q and A for people. And I'm sure that format probably makes some people feel really, really nervous, about the idea that people are just going to be throwing questions at you and you don't know what they're going to ask, but I loved that format.
Amena Brown:
I thought I had not done an Ask Amena Anything episode in a while and I thought I would do that. So, I want to say a big shout-out to all of you on Instagram and Twitter that submitted your questions. Let's get into it. Nish asked a very important question. Nish asked, "If you can pick one Beyonce song and one Beyonce song only, you're listening to it for the rest of your life, what song is it? Oh, Nish. I mean, I'm not going to lie about it. I think it's Formation for me. There's just something about the soul of that song. You know how there are certain songs that become hits and then over time they kind of become oversaturated to you and then you have to go a long period of time without listening to them? I would say, of Beyonce's hits, Single Ladies probably falls in that category. Right?
Amena Brown:
Or, Alicia Keys... Alicia Keys has quite a few songs that are like, that they sort of got played so much on the radio and so many commercials and so many things. And then I just get like, "Oh, I'm so tired," but then years later, when I haven't listened to that song in so long, I go back to it and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I love that song." Formation is not like that. Formation is not like that. It was obviously being played a whole lot around the time that Lemonade was coming out, and then we are hearing it again when Beyonce released the Netflix film and album for Homecoming. But I have to say, Formation still just the same way I felt the first time I was watching that music video before Beyonce performed at the Super Bowl. I still feel the same way about that song.
Amena Brown:
It's this call out there to Black women. And there's so many things about the way the song was written. Big Freedia right at the beginning there of that song. Ugh, it's so Southern, it's so New Orleans, Houston, all these things mixed together that I really, really love. And quiet as it's kept, I'm a person who loves to put together a playlist. And I have playlist for all manner of occasions. I feel like I've talked about this in a few episodes. And one of my most recent playlists that I created was a Get On Up playlist. Something that I can play in the morning to get me going. And that type of playlist is great for a song like Formation. I also have a playlist called Woman Shit, and that song is definitely on my Woman Shit playlist. It's just a playlist of all these songs that make me feel empowered and beautiful, that remind me of my confidence. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Formation for me. Thank you, Nish. That was a great question.
Amena Brown:
Katie asked, "If you had to eat only one flavor or type of donut for the rest of your life, what would you choose?" Ooh, this "Pick one" is really hard for a girl. It's really hard. Okay. I feel like if I'm telling the truth truth, my favorite flavor of donut, which Dunkin' Donuts was my original gateway into this donut, is the eclair. I feel like that would be my top pick probably to eat for the rest of my life. However, a girl gets into her thirties and discovers that she has sensitivities to dairy. A girl has to choose her doughnuts wisely. So, probably my second and better for my tummy choice would be any type of a lemon diet, almost like a lemon donut situation.
Amena Brown:
If I could have the spectrum of lemon donuts, because there's the lemon donut where it's sort of powdered sugar or cinnamon, not cinnamon but kind of sugary on the outside and then it has the lemon curd inside. And then, there's more of a lemon poppy seed, which is more your traditional yeast donut, but then it has the lemon frosting or icing glaze on top. So, anything lemon is probably better for me to be in that zone for the rest of my life. But if I'm being honest with y'all, if my tummy could handle it, it would be something between an eclair and a Boston cream pie donut. It'd be up in there somewhere. Thank you, Katie. That's a great question.
Amena Brown:
Sharifa has a few questions and they're all great, so I'm very excited to answer them. Sharifa asked, "What are your creative catalysts compelling you to write?" That's a really interesting question. I feel like the first term that's coming to my mind, Sharifa, is my ancestors. And I think sometimes we hear that and it can sound really generic. And then, depending on what your own spiritual traditions are, it may sound strange to you or not. Or if it's something that you're very, very familiar with, it may sound like home to you. But, I do feel like there is something in the women in my family that came before me that I do feel there are times that they compel me to write. And I do not know how to really better explain that, but I feel that feeling.
Amena Brown:
It's interesting because this week, my husband and I went to Janelle Monae's book tour event here in Atlanta for her book, The Memory Librarian. It was interesting, you're watching her in conversation with these two amazing Black folks, Eve Ewing and, I don't know the name of the person that was facilitating, but it was glorious. Glorious. And one of the questions that the facilitator was asking was wanting to know from Janelle and Eve, who collaborated on one of the stories in The Memory Librarian, which is a sci-fi book, I believe it's a sci-fi book of different short stories, and Janelle is collaborating with other writers and amazing creatives. The facilitator asked them, "With the consent of this person, if you could get someone else's memories and be able to study them, study their life even more in depth, who would you pick?"
Amena Brown:
I was thinking about my answer to that question. The first thought that came to my mind was I would want my great-grandmother, her mother, and her mother. Because, there are times, especially when I'm writing or when I'm about to go on stage, that I sense the presence of my great-grandmother, but I sense that there are other women with her and that they know me but I didn't get a chance to meet them. And that somehow their strength, their wisdom, their curiosities about life are also present to me. I do feel that they are a part of this creative catalyst that compels me to write. I think sometimes it's nosiness that compels me to write. I'm just curious about other people's business. And so, sometimes I can reimagine what their business might be when I'm working on a poem or working on a story or something like that.
Amena Brown:
I think music is a big creative catalyst for me, especially when I'm getting a chance to hear music live, but I would also say there are just certain albums, certain artists, that really get me to thinking and brooding. Brooding is a big part of creative catalysts that compel me to write. Just really thinking about life, thinking about conversations, thinking about our relationships to each other as humans. I'm a person who loves to brood. I like getting to have those types of conversations with people where you're just talking about life, talking about things you wonder about, things you don't have an answer about, things that are a mystery to you, things you're really trying to figure out, even if you know in your whole life you can never figure them out. I think all those things are the catalysts that sort of lead me to the page.
Amena Brown:
Sharifa also asked, "Do folks still ask you and your husband if you'd like separate checks at restaurants because they ask me?" And the answer is yes, Sharifa, they do. We do still get that. And for those of you who may be new to the podcast or new to me, I am in an interracial relationship. My husband is White, and Sharifa and I are also friends in real life so I know that her husband is White as well, and she's a Black woman like I'm a Black woman. It is fascinating the amount of times that people go through a lot of mental gymnastics they're doing to not think that this is your spouse or your partner because you don't "look alike" or don't look to them like you should be together.
Amena Brown:
This doesn't happen as much anymore, this example I'm about to give, the restaurant thing totally happens still. But, this example I'm about to give doesn't happen as much anymore because I'm just not performing in churches. I haven't been for a while, even prior to the pandemic. I was just slowing up on that, and then the pandemic was sort of a great way to be like, "Well, now that's done." But when I used to perform poetry in churches a lot, and most of my career I performed in predominantly White churches and predominantly White Christian spaces, and it was hilarious to me how many times my husband and I would show up to these churches because he traveled with me a lot, and they would assume he was my manager.
Amena Brown:
I've even had it happen at a couple of White churches where there was a janitor there or there was some other Black men there in the room that they weren't maybe familiar with. This happened probably more so at a conference where they're not in the church space but maybe they're in a venue and there may a Black man who's working at the venue. I remember a specific time that it was a Black man who was working as a janitor. My husband and I walk in, about to do sound check, and they look at both of us standing next to each other and they point to the random Black man, who's just doing his job, and they'll say, "Oh, we just saw your husband." And I'll be like, "Oh, I don't know him. I don't know him. I think he lives in the city here where y'all live and I travel here with my husband." So yes, that's always an interesting moment, Sharifa. You are not alone in that.
Amena Brown:
Sharifa also asked, "How often do you trim your ends?" And she said, "I'm so bad at this." Okay, so I need to confess right here. How I approach my hair care is a thing that I feel I was taught implicitly by my mother. I grew up in the house... For most of my time growing up, it was for a while just my mom and I, and then it was my mom, my sister, and I, and then right as I was about to leave high school, my grandmother moved in with us. I've had just mostly femme, woman experience growing up. Most of my influential figures were women, and not just women but Black women. My mom's rules about hair, what I learned from her implicitly is my mom was basically like, "If your hair needs to be shampooed, conditioned, styled," my mom was like, "I can do that. But if your hair needs cutting, if it needs color, if it needs chemicals, we don't do that at home."
Amena Brown:
I can count on one hand, possibly one or two fingers, the amount of time I gave my sister a perm at home. My mom was big on, "There are professionals who do this and we're going to let them this so that your hair doesn't fall out, so we don't do anything wrong to it." And I really adopted that practice for the most part. Before I went natural when I was wearing my hair relaxed, I was really good. I can shampoo, I could condition, I could style my hair. I could curl it. I could blow dry it. I could do all those things at home. But if it came to cutting, I was going to a professional because I don't trust myself. Even when the pandemic started, my current hair stylist, who styles only natural hair, my current hair stylist, I asked her to do a consultation with me since we were locked down and I could not get to her for her to actually style my hair.
Amena Brown:
It was a wonderful consultation. She talked me through what I should be doing in addition to my basic kind of shampoo, deep condition, leaving conditioner, whatever my routine was. I told her what I'd been doing. There's a few things I'd been doing that she told me not to do anymore. And then, she told me like, "You need to have some times that you do some deep conditioning. You need to have some times that you do some protein treatments on your hair." She walked me through all these things, many things that she would do when I would see her, but things that would help my hair to remain healthy until I could see her. And then, right at the end of the consultation, she was like, "Oh, you should go and order some shears and you can just dust your ends until I see you." And I knew as soon as she said it that I was not going to do it.
Amena Brown:
I just don't have whatever that sort of visual gene is. I don't have that. I don't have that. I can't draw. I can't paint. I'm not good at interior design. I am not great at fashion. I don't have visual giftings in any way, so I do not trust myself to trim my own ends so I don't do that. But, I go see my hair stylist about every eight to 10 weeks and I let her trim it. I'm going to tell you and for anyone listening that is Black and has natural hair, and even for some of you that may not be Black but you may have really, really tight curly hair, it's really hard when it's time to get a trim.
Amena Brown:
But, I can say from my experience as a Black woman with natural hair, it is really hard when it's time to trim because every time your hair grows, it feels so like hard one. You feel like you have worked so hard to get that half inch or that inch of growth that you have. And you don't want to be told by a professional that what you are thinking is your hair growing, now they have to cut that half inch off of there because it's time for them to trim your ends. So, among my Black women community, I do have many friends who are natural that avoid trims for that reason. They only get their hair trimmed twice a year because they really don't want to deal with losing the length of their hair that they love.
Amena Brown:
But, I have gone through some changes with my hair. I entered being natural with getting my hair colored. My initial hair stylist that was with me when I did the big chop and she's the one who cut off the last little bits of my relaxed hair on the ends, she dyed my hair that first time. So, for most of my time being natural, I've always been in and out of hair color. And sometimes, my hair was healthier doing that than other times. So, now I'm really about doing everything thing I can to keep my hair healthy and I have a hair stylist that's very focused on that. I think it's easier for me to go in and know that every eight to 10 weeks I'm going to get it trimmed. Then, actually, I would have to say doing that more often is helping my hair grow.
Amena Brown:
I'm probably have the longest hair that I've ever had I venture to say in my entire life right now, because I am trimming more often. And if you have access to a professional, especially a professional that specializes in natural hair on Black women, I think that is a good thing. When you have access to that, when you can treat yourself to that, I think you should. But, some of you listening that are Black women with natural hair or Black folks with natural hair, some of you listening are really good at dusting your own ends and trimming your own ends. And if that's you, if that's you, then yes, I think you should probably try to trim your ends every two to three months. Try that. That really helps your hair to grow.
Amena Brown:
And I do think even if you're very good at caring for your hair, maybe if you're great at doing your color and you're cut and everything yourself, I think it's good if you can to have some times that you go into a professional. Let them sort of assess how your hair is doing. They can even, while they're doing your hair appointment, give you some consultation on what you can do for your hair to make your hair healthier even in the process. Shout-out to that, Sharifa. I apparently had a lot to say about trimming ends, didn't I?
Amena Brown:
Okay. Sharifa also asked, "What is the one carb you cannot do without?" That's a tough one, girl. One carb? I'm going to tell you what I mean when I say carb. This is not a scientific definition because I know that technically like fruit, there are some fruits that are also carbohydrates. There are some vegetables that are also carbs. I really technically mean flour-based carbs. I'm not even about rice when I say this. I mean flour-based carbohydrates. That really for me falls in the pasta, cobbler, cake, brownies. I mean, a lot of it is sweet stuff, but it could be a Shepherd's pie. It could be a pot pie. It could all the different, various pasta dishes that we love. Okay, so just so y'all know what I mean when I say a carb.
Amena Brown:
I guess the one carb I could not do without, I feel like it would probably have to be just in general desserts. Because, I was trying to think to myself, "Is it dessert or pasta?" And I feel like if something happened and my doctor was like, "You are allergic to pasta, you can still eat dessert, but you're allergic to pasta," or if my doctor said, "You're allergic to dessert, but you can still eat pasta," I feel like I would be most disappointed about the desserts. So, overall, it's the dessert for me. It's the dessert for me. That's the carb that I need.
Amena Brown:
I think I could have zucchini noodles and just be like, "Yo, that's going to be my pasta, but that ain't going to replace a good creme brulee." It's going to be hard to... You can't be like, "Here with this banana, I will make a creme brulee." That's not going to do. "Here with this carob bean, I will make a chocolate cake." You won't do that. The chocolate cake is delicious, flour is delicious, and I'm not going to stop eating it. That's my decision. But yes, the one carb category for me would be dessert.
Amena Brown:
Natalie asked, "How do you rehearse for your poetry, and do you get nervous?" I feel like there's two different categories of how I would rehearse. And I think the one category is how I would rehearse poems that I know already and how I would rehearse when I'm working on a new poem. When I'm rehearsing poems I know already, a part of it is sort of this, I'm not in any way saying that performing poetry is athletics. But, I think because I participated as an athlete when I was in high school, I think some of the routine of what you are doing to sort of tune your body back into your sport, I think I kept some of that type of routine as it relates to my poems. So, some of it for me is about warming up my voice and getting my voice opened up, ready to project.
Amena Brown:
A lot of that is about hydration. I can't practice my poems or practice performing them if my throat is dry, if my body overall is really dehydrated. So, typically, when I would be rehearsing some poems I knew, I would start out just kind of opening up my voice. I would start out maybe performing a poem or two that I knew really well and getting in the rhythm of them, saying them loudly so that I can also get myself back used to projecting. But, I think that also plays a role in sort of opening me up to sort of getting relaxed into what it's going to feel like to be on stage.
Amena Brown:
I think that another part of that, especially when I'm not at home, like if I have a gig and I flew out of town to go to the gig and I'm in the hotel or I'm in the green room like I'm within an hour or two hours from a performance, I do sing to warm up my voice, to ground myself. A lot of times I'll sing a hymn, and I typically sing hymns that I learned from my great-grandmother. I'll sing Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. That's a hymn that my great-grandmother taught me when I was a little girl. And I learned the hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness, when I was a kid, but I learned it in church, singing in the choir. So sometimes, I'll take like a, to me, it is in part of spiritual practice, I think, because whether I am performing poems that are explicitly about God or not, there's something very spiritual to me about performing poetry.
Amena Brown:
And now, in the way my career is, I'm very rarely performing poems in any sort of a Christian or a faith-based type of setting. I'm getting to do a performance and do pieces about my life, about my husband, about my hair and whatever else. So, sometimes I might still sing or sometimes I might sing an India.Arie song, but I think the singing is about this opening up of the voice, opening up of my soul. It's about grounding me, and I like to sing what I would call like a memory song, a song that I have really wonderful memories about. And something about singing that, it does the physical work, I think, of helping me rehearse, but it also is doing some soul work for me too.
Amena Brown:
And then, a lot of times, I will rehearse the poems, say them out loud. I pace a lot. And then now, the way my poetry sets are... When I first started in my career, I was performing my poems one at a time. Well, now, I'm doing sets of poetry. Could be 30 minutes, could be an hour long. I'm practicing the poems, but I also have to think about what is the set of poetry I want to do. So say, in an hour, I want to do six poems, and then I'm going to tell stories in between the six poems. Then, a lot of times when I'm rehearsing, I'm thinking through like, "What's the usual story I tell to get between these two poems? Do I have a new angle I want to take on that I want to try," and then I kind of got to fumble through that and talk through that a little bit out loud to myself. And then, once I talk it together, I can kind of get it together enough to try it out on stage. I would say that's one way.
Amena Brown:
And if it's a new poem that I'm memorizing and rehearsing, I typically do that in these 20-minute rotations. I start out by handwriting the piece three times and then I will take... When I say 20-minute rotations, I mean 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off. Once I've handwritten it, then when I come back to are my 20 minutes on, I'll start kind of reciting the poem from the page and just keep going at it line by line, stanza by stanza, until I think I've got most of it. Pre-pandemic, when all the open mics were around, I would take that poem out to an open mic too, try to take it out a few times before I bring it to the stage where I've got booked to perform this thing, but sometimes I didn't get to do that. I also just reserved the right as a poet to say to the audience, "Hey, I've got this new piece. Is it okay if I try it out in front of y'all?"
Amena Brown:
All the performances don't have to feel so super produced. I think the most important part for my performances is that they feel conversational. I say to you all as listeners of this podcast that I always want the podcast to feel like a living room, like a HER living room. But, I think a living room is in my mind all the time. When I'm performing, I almost want the audience to have relaxed enough that no matter where we are, they sort of felt like they lean back into a couch a little bit. And I think there is a certain way I like to bring myself to the stage to make people feel that sense of warmth, feel that sense of belonging. I think that's a big part of it for me.
Amena Brown:
Natalie asked, "Do you get nervous?" Natalie, I get nervous every time, no matter what the size of the crowd is, no matter who is in the audience or not. If I had to perform that poem in front of two people or 2000 people, I would still be nervous. But, the interesting thing about it is I'll feel nervous like an hour before and right up until I stand there and start talking. And then once I've started talking, I don't feel nervous anymore, but I feel nervous leading up to it every single time. And I think that's a good thing. I think it's good to feel nervous.
Amena Brown:
I know every artist doesn't so it's not a bad thing if there are performers who just don't feel nervous. But for me, that's a good thing. That's a sign to me that I'm still in my humanity. I'm in the part of me that is still that kid that never knew anybody was going to pay any money to see me do anything, and so I get nervous, but the nervousness totally fades away once I say whatever that first word is on stage. Then after that, I just feel like I'm, I guess I would say I feel like I'm at home, but I feel like I'm making myself at home in somebody else's home typically, if I'm performing some place that I was asked to come there. It's not technically my home, but they were like, "Here's a big old living room. Make yourself at home." That's what I feel like I'm doing. Great questions, Natalie.
Amena Brown:
Christina asked, "What is your advice for an aspiring youth writer for figuring out a path after high school?" Wow, Christina, this is a really great question because you'll have to share with me and any of you listening that are in high school or are high school-aged or a college-aged, you'll have to share with me your thoughts about what you think a writer is at this stage of your life. When I was in high school, I thought a writer was in their forties. And I thought that I needed to find something to do from 17 till I turned 40, I just needed to find something to do to bide my time, and for some reason, all this good writerly stuff was going to come to me in my forties. But, I mean, in certain ways, that's kind of been true, but in other ways, it's not because that meant in my mind I thought there was no use for a young writer.
Amena Brown:
I thought there was no use for my thoughts at 17 or 19 or 22. I thought that my thoughts weren't going to feel important to anyone until I was grown grown. And I don't believe that's true. And it proved to not be true in my career because I started my career professionally at 22 years old, when I didn't expect that was going to happen. So, what my advice would be for an aspiring young writer, especially figuring out what they want to do after high school, I think there are many options for you after high school. I came from a family where it wasn't really an option about college. It wasn't like, "You could do this, you could do this, you could do this, or you could go to college." It was like, once I was a little kid, everyone just referred to that as when. "When you get to college, you'll see this." "When you get to college, you'll experience that."
Amena Brown:
I really just didn't have any other thoughts other than attending college. I don't believe necessarily that college is the path for everyone. I think it can be a good path if that turns out to be right for you, and I'll tell you what the pluses of that can be. As a writer, college can be a fantastic training ground. You're going get exposed to so many other writers, so many other authors that you didn't know about. I graduated from Spelman College. I'm actually celebrating my 20-year college reunion this year. Who can believe it, who can believe it? And when I think about that, I think about, especially having gone to a historically Black and historically all-woman college, I think about all the writers that I either was exposed to or took a much deeper dive into them. I mean, I got to read Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, one of my professors. Shout-out to Dr. Harper, was and is a Langston Hughes' scholar.
Amena Brown:
I got to read Frantz Fanon and Chinua Achebe. I got to read Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Audre Lorde. I mean, I was reading so many amazing writers. So, I think one of the pluses to college is that it kind of forces you into this spot that you are typically doing more reading than you might have done by yourself because you sort of have this structure of classes and different things, essays to write and all that. So, I think college can be a wonderful experience for a writer. I think also a writer has to live, a writer has to live and experience life and think about the stories in their own family. Think about the stories that they've experienced. So, I would say, if college is something that's possible for you, I would encourage that. Anything that you have that can bring you more learning, whether that's college, whether that's certifications, whether that's trade school. Anything like that will do nothing but enhance your writing.
Amena Brown:
And I think the plus now for the generation of folks who are graduating high school is that you have access to so many ways to do the work of your writing. When I was coming out of high school, it was sort of like if you were a writer, people were just like, "Okay, so you're going to put out a book?" There weren't really blogs that existed that much at that time in the late nineties. There definitely wasn't social media as we know it today. So, I would also say to a young writer, think about the ways that you can "publish" your writing that may not even be traditional publishing. I think there are some places where the playing field has been leveled, where you don't have to wait for some institution or some publishing entity to come and say, "You are worth publishing."
Amena Brown:
You actually get to decide that your words are worth sharing. And there are a lot of platforms that you can do that. And if you are a writer that is interested in performance writing, like spoken word, playwriting, and the type of things that are going to lead you to stage or to television or to film, I think it's really important to try to find that sort of communal space where you can share your work, whether that's an open mic, that could be a virtual type space where you can share your work with other writers. I think even if you're not a performance-based writer, having community with other writers in general and, in particular, having community with other young writers. How can you gather together with some other young writers you know? Maybe y'all can start a little writing workshop. You can share work with each other and help each other to become better. Maybe you have a book club where y'all read different books to help you become better writers.
Amena Brown:
Any of those things I would say are great places to start with figuring out what your path will be after high school. And just accept, there may not be this established path for you. You may feel like you're making some of it up. You may feel like you're trying a bunch of things and just seeing what comes out, and that's okay. So many people that you look up to, their journey to where you are looking up to them was very rough and tumble. They did not know, they did not have it all figured out, and it's okay if you don't know, it's okay if you don't have it figured out. But, it can be fun and interesting and curious just to see where life takes you, to try out some things, to try some different jobs, and get some different relationships and connections to folks whose work you love and admire, and let all of those places be places that you can learn. I hope that helped, Christina, and we look forward to being able to read more of your work really soon.
Amena Brown:
Lizzy asked, "What piece did you recently do that gave you an overwhelming amount of joy?" The first piece that comes to my mind to answer this question, Lizzy, is my poem, Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl. I love that poem so much. I actually kind of finished that poem during the pandemic. I had started it and was kind of refining it, but I never really got the chance to, pre-pandemic, do what I would've done with it. Take it out to the open mics and do all that. And I got a chance to do that poem on a television show called Social Society. Big shout-out to Social Society on ALLBLK network. You can see the clip of that on my Instagram, if you haven't checked it out already.
Amena Brown:
I love that poem. I love that poem because I love the reaction I see in Black women when they hear it. Sometimes, it makes them cry. Sometimes, it makes them laugh. Sometimes, I can look in their eyes and see that I made a reference that they're like, "Oh, that's me. That's my Black girl stuff." And I love the idea of Black girls and Black women continuing to be released from what people expect us to be, that we get to be just who we are and there is no singular way or monolithic way to be a Black girl. There are all sorts of ways. And I love that for us. So yeah, that poem gives me a lot of joy every time I perform it.
Amena Brown:
Jay asked, "What advice do you have for someone who is scared but interested in spoken word?" I actually get this question a lot. And I can understand that being scared because spoken word has this additional element. For those of you listening that may be poets but you're not necessarily interested in performing those poems, there's a nervousness itself in writing. But because spoken word is being written to be done in front of a crowd, that sort of becomes a barrier for some folks, that they're just like, "I don't know, I kind of want to do that, but I'm really, really scared." And so, I just want to say, first of all, that being scared is totally understandable. I mean, the thought of taking something you've written that's likely very personal and taking it to this room full of strangers and just reading it out loud, that is really scary, and kind of goes back to the earlier question that Natalie asked about getting nervous.
Amena Brown:
I think most poets that you love at one time were that scared poet or have had times where they scared. So, I would say, if you're interested in spoken word but you feel afraid, I think one of the beautiful things about spoken word, at least in my experience, spoken word is built in community and I feel it's best built in community. Spoken word is not something that is best done when you are just isolated away from other poets and away from that sense of community. And I think that's a part of how we help each other. You're going to have moments where the poet next to you is scared out of their boots, but you're there to egg them on, to heckle them in a positive way. My sister and I, when we used to go to open mics together, we would say we were positive hecklers. When someone we love would get up there to perform, we would yell wonderful things at them before they started their piece just to let them know there's a love out here in the room.
Amena Brown:
So, any way that you can get involved in the community of other poets, that will help you to start feeling less and less scared, because then it may not feel like a room of strangers. It may feel like a room of some people that you might actually know or might actually know you, and you won't feel so alone, because at any open mic situation, whether it's in person or virtual, there's always somebody there that it's their first time. And we can all remember our first time, and we want to give that person all this love. And so, you get to give that love and you also get to receive that love. That would be my advice, to start there.
Amena Brown:
And maybe if you live in a place where maybe there aren't open mics, see if there are virtual spaces like that, or kind of like I was talking about with Christina. Think about, are there other writers that you know? You can also build your own community if you don't have access to one. So, Jay, you're going to feel afraid, but it doesn't mean you should not try doing your spoken words. I'm hoping that some folks get to hear those pieces really soon.
Amena Brown:
TM asked, "Do you sit down to write and a poem comes out to you and then you write?" Okay. I have a smaller number of experiences where I sat down and the whole poem just came to me. Typically, the poems come to me in layers. I get maybe a couple of lines and then I wait several months, and then I get a few more lines. And then a few weeks go by, and then a few more lines. And then I'll have a conversation with someone and the rest of the poem will come. Most of my poems are written in some iterations like that.
Amena Brown:
Every now and then I've had a poem that I just... It's very rare that I have a poem and I have an idea and I sit down to write it and then it just comes to me. It's typically more like all of my poems sort of start as either one liner kind of things, or I do have sort of a concept or an idea and then I kind of have to come back to that concept later. And then months later, or weeks later, the poem will just show up.
Amena Brown:
That's the interesting thing about poetry. Of all the genres of writing that I've done, I've written as a journalist, I've written as a nonfiction author, I've written essays, and poems are different in how they come about. They will not be controlled. You will not go to a poem and say, "Today, I will write 500 words." You sort of have to go to the poem and see which poems want to be written. So, that's part of why I say that for me writing poetry is a very spiritual act, because it does feel very connected to this mystery of what some of my friends would call the divine, what some of us would call God, or just some force that's unexplainable and how creativity happened.
Amena Brown:
And I really do believe in that, because I sit down to write and I don't always know what in the world is going to come out. And sometimes I sit down to write and nothing comes out, and those are very frustrating days, but that doesn't mean just because nothing came out that I shouldn't keep going back to the work and just go back and try. Sometimes, I will have had a poem idea... This has happened to me several times that I've had a poem that I had an idea for years ago, and I could just never figure out exactly how to get it written. And all those years later, the poem will show up. I'll be about to go to sleep and I'll get all these lines and I'll be like, "Well, that's interesting," and just try to keep track of it. So yeah, I very rarely sit down and a poem just comes out. It sort of comes to me in fragments until I start to see the picture of the poem becoming whole, and then I'll start refining from there, if that makes sense.
Amena Brown:
Okay, this is our last question for this episode. TM asked, this is a very important question. "How do you use the bathroom while wearing a jumpsuit? In the podcast, you asked this question but you didn't answer it." TM, I want to thank you for bringing this up right now, because this is a part of what kept me from wearing jumpsuits for so long. Because, I would look at other women wearing them and I would be like, "Man, that looks so good on her. I love how that looks on her. Yes." But then I would be like, "How does she go to the bathroom?" And I'm going to say something, and this is going to be a little Easter egg for those of you that are fans so I'm going to get you, sucker. But, I really was like, "How to go to the bathroom with all that stuff on?"
Amena Brown:
Anyways, this is the deal with jumpsuits and going to the bathroom that I have learned. The best jumpsuit to make it easier to go to the bathroom is for me a jumpsuit that doesn't have a zipper. Or, if it has a zipper, it has to be easy to get in and out of it. But, I really recommend jumpsuits that don't have zippers when possible, because they are the easiest to go to the bathroom. Now, it might feel a little weird for you if you're pulling your jumpsuit down, and for those of us with breasts, it's like you're pulling your jumpsuit down and you're like, "Am I naked? Am I naked in the bathroom?" And then, sometimes, I have some jumpsuits that are baggier, so it becomes an interesting, sort of strange bathroom yoga pose that I'm doing to try to do the squat that one does when you're in a public restroom, but I'm trying to hold my knees in a certain way to keep my jumpsuit from falling down to the ground.
Amena Brown:
So, your best case scenario, when going to the bathroom wearing a jumpsuit is that you're wearing a jumpsuit that doesn't have a zipper so you can really just pull down the straps. Or if it's strapless, that you can pull down whatever the tube top of it is, but that it snug enough in the middle, in the waist, that it still stays up on you while you do whatever arrangements you're doing when you go to the bathroom. And then when it's time to put it back on, it's easy. Where it's a problem when you're trying to go to the bathroom wearing a jumpsuit is when the jumpsuit has a back zipper, and it's one of those zippers that either it would be better if you had a second person to zip you up, or that you have to get in some sort of strange eagle pigeon pose in order to get that zipper up by yourself.
Amena Brown:
I have some jumpsuits like that. I don't wear them as much anymore, but when I was traveling a lot and doing a lot of events, it would literally be that I would have to time how I drank water so that I could not have to go to the bathroom that often because I wasn't sure how long it was going to take me to get out of the jumpsuit to go to the bathroom and then to get back in it. Now, sometimes, you could just receive the kindness of a stranger in the bathroom if you feel up to this and just have to walk out and be like, "Can somebody help?" But, I don't like to be in that situation, so I feel like if you're going to do a jumpsuit, jumpsuits can be so wonderful on so many different at body types.
Amena Brown:
I feel like every body type can find a jumpsuit that works for your body. I really do feel that way, but I feel like if you in a place where you can try on this jumpsuit, you should try on what it feels like getting out of it and getting into it. And if it's complicated, if the zipper is sticking, if you can get the zipper up so far by yourself but then you got to bend your head down and try to fold up your arms and do all this strange stuff, really try to find some jumpsuits that look good on you and that make you feel good when you wear them but also that you can get in and out of easily.
Amena Brown:
Because, let me tell you, it's nothing like the panic of having a bladder that is super full and knowing that you've got a little bit of a journey ahead of you trying to get out of your clothes. No one wants it. No one wants it. Okay. That's my jumpsuit advice. That is how I use the bathroom while wearing a jumpsuit. Thank you, TM, for bringing that back up because I didn't want to leave y'all out there. I didn't want to leave those questions unresolved.
Amena Brown:
I want to thank you all for your wonderful questions. I hope to do one of these again soon in the next couple of months. I hope you all have a great rest of your week. And this week, I want you to try to do something that I'm trying to give as a gift to myself. Give yourself the gift of a slow morning this week, if you can get it. Give yourself the gift of a morning where maybe you don't have to schedule that meeting right first thing. Maybe you give yourself that little bit of time. Maybe it's a Saturday. Maybe it's a Sunday. Maybe it's a day off from work that you have. Maybe you only get one of these days a year based on what your schedule is, but give yourself the gift of a morning that you don't have to meet anyone's expectations but your own. And that's what I wish for all of you. Thanks so much. See y'all next week.
Amena Brown:
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.