Danez & Franny VS Getting Grown
Brittany Rogers
You said three, two, one? That's where we start with the three?
Franny Choi
Sure.
Danez Smith
Yeah.
Franny Choi
This is all you. This is your show!
Ajanaé Dawkins
That is so crazy!
Franny Choi
This is your show. We’re the guest, ya know?
Ajanaé Dawkins
That’s bananas. Alright, here we go. Go ahead, best. I love you.
Brittany Rogers
I love you. Alright, three, two, one.
[SOUND INTERLUDE]
[JOYOUS SHOUT]
[Sampled music by Bronxio plays]
Ajanaé Dawkins
Hi, my name is Ajanaé Dawkins. I'm a poet and educator. And right now I am rewatching A Different World.
Brittany Rogers
Hey y’all! I'm Brittany Rodgers also poet and educator, as well as long nail connoisseur, and I am patiently not so patiently waiting for the next episode of Caresha Please to drop. And we are your co- hosts of VS, the podcast where poets confronts the ideas that moves them.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Hi, co-host!
Brittany Rogers
Hey, co-host! (Laughing)
Ajanaé Dawkins
This is wild! Look at us!
Brittany Rogers
Who would have thought it?
Ajanaé Dawkins
Who would have thought it?!
Brittany Rogers
So on that note, we are so so excited to be talking to our faves and your faves, Danez Smith and Franny Choi.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Yes. And this interview I know already is holding a special place in my heart after spending a weekend in Detroit doing a retreat where they really just blessed us in helping us dream about the future of VS and do you want to get into their bios, best?
Brittany Rogers
Yes, let's get into the bios. Danez Smith is a Black queer Poz writer and performer from St. Paul, Minneapolis. Danez is the author of Homie, Don’t Call Us Dead, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award, and [insert] boy, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. They are a member of the Dark Noise Collective and is the former co-host of VS with Franny Chile,
Ajanaé Dawkins
And Franny Choi is the author of several books including The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On,Soft Science,Floating, Brilliant Gone, and a chapbook Death by Sex Machine. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times,The Nation, The Atlantic Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is currently an Arthur Levitt junior Artist in Residence at Williams College. Ou! Let's get into this interview, best.
Brittany Rogers
Let's get into it, co-host!
Danez Smith
(Laughing)
Brittany Rogers
This is very surreal!
Ajanaé Dawkins
It feels a little crazy. I'm not gonna hold you.
Franny Choi
But it feels right!
Danez Smith
It feels so right. Let me bring the mood down with a depressing poem. [Recites poem “less hope”]
apologies. i was part of the joy
industrial complex, told them their bodies were
miracles & they ate it, sold someday,
made money off soon & now. i snuck an ode into the elegy,
forced the dead to smile & juke.
implied America, said destroy but offered nary step nor tool.
i paid taxes knowing where the funds go.
in April, my offering to my mother’s slow murder. by May
my sister filled with the bullets i bought. June & my father’s life
locked in a box i built. my brother’s end plotted as i spend.
idk why i told you it would be ok. not. won’t. when they aren’t
killing you they’re killing someone else. sometimes their hands
at the ends of your wrist. you (you & me) are agent & enemy.
there i was, writing anthems in a nation whose victory was my blood
made visible, my mother too sugared to weep without melting, my rage
a comfort foaming at my racial mouth, singing
gospel for a god they beat me into loving. lord
your tomorrow holds no sway, your heavens too late.
i’ve abandon you as you me, for me. say la vee.
but sweet Satan – OG dark kicked out the sky
first fallen & niggered thing – what’s good?
who owns it? where does it come from?
satan, first segregation, mother of exile
what do you promise in your fire? for our freedom,
i offer over their souls. theirs. mine
is mine. i refuse any Hell again. i’ve known
nearer devils. the audience & the mirror. they/i make you look weak.
they/i clapped at my eulogies. they/i said encore, encore.
i/we wanted to stop being killed & they/i thanked me for beauty.
&, pitifully, i loved them. i thanked them.
i took the awards & cashed the checks.
i did the one about the boy when requested, traded their names
for followers. in lieu of action, i wrote a book,
edited my war cries down to prayers. oh, devil.
they gave me a god and gave me clout.
they took my poems and took my blades.
Satan, like you did for God, i sang.
i sang for my enemy, who was my God.
i gave it my best. i bowed and smiled.
teach me to never bend again.
Brittany Rogers
Oooh, Danez.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Good lord.
Brittany Rogers
I love this poem.
Ajanaé Dawkins
My God, if I could throw things at you, I would. I’m still in like the habit of throwing things at people. You know, I don't know if that's still like the cool thing to do, but I throw things at people.
Brittany Rogers
It’s the old school slam habit.
Ajanaé Dawkins
The old school slam.
Danez Smith
A pin to the forehead means you did good.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Honestly.
Franny Choi
Congratulations. Pin to the forehead, wow.
Brittany Rogers
I feel like that poem is givin’ me such like grown up vibes. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is a mature version, like not just of you as a speaker, but of like, what it means to be able to reflect and think back on the ways that we're implicated in something that we've done.
Danez Smith
Honestly, it feels like in one way I feel kinda cliche, because somebody told me one time that poets in their fourth book started writing about poetry. (Laughing) And I was like oh gah-damn here I am writing about poetry, but I think, you know, I think so many things happened during the pandemic. So many things happened at the end of or around the end of our time being the host of VS even just like the shift of just poets calling for more accountability, and literally, like more money put into the field for the Poetry Foundation. And I think after writing, you know, for so many years, I've been writing y'all like, now more than half my life, I'll be 33 I mean, I've been writing since I was 14. So more than half of my life, you know, and poetry now I don't get the same thing from it. And I think one thing coming out of Homie that I really had to do was sit with myself and say, why are you doing this? And why are you doing it the way that you're doing? And what is your, your politic within this space? You know, and how do you use poetry that's politics? And I think this poem really opened up a lot for me, I think I just had to say a lot. You know, I think I've had this long career, been a great career, but not one without complication. To exist within the space of American poetry is still to exist within the space of America, and I think I had to untie, what does it mean to be American and successful? What does it mean to be a Black poet? Somebody that has called themselves an elegist and all these other kinds of things? What does it mean that my career has risen alongside the Black Lives Matter movement, right? That my first big poem was where eulogies were poems calling for action. And how those poems turned into capital, you know, (laughing) and comfort.
Franny Choi
Now, I want to ask you a question about like, accountability and craft but then I’m like, wait, I'm not the host of the show (all laughing). Bring it back, bring it back.
Danez Smith
Go and ask it. Final chance, Franny (laughing).
Franny Choi
This is my last chance to ask you a question about poems, but oh no! (Laughing).
Danez Smith
I guess in crafting accountability, I think that's what I'm exploring now. You know, I’m writing a lot of ars poeticas, a lot of things like that. This next collection that I'm working on, it feels as much like a collection as it is a craft statement, you know, as it is a manifesto of saying this is what I believe poetry is and what it should do in the world, and while I think that poem [“less hope”] is maybe a little bit beating myself up a little bit, I think that has to happen, right? I don't want to be pointing the finger as I'm like, Y'all the poets who messed up yeah, you know, and I also want to be an example.
Franny Choi
But more like what are we doing?
Danez Smith
What are we doing and also an example for younger poets to say like, “Hey, watch out.” You know, watch out for what you do.
Brittany Rogers
Because I don't think that that's something that like as a younger poet, we get mentored into. I think, you know, we get advice about publishing, we get advice about how to land a book. We don’t get advice about how to be ethical.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Yeah, this is a conversation me and Brittany have a lot. It took me years to start processing what are the ethics of like writing? And what are the ethics of the stories I'm telling and who the lens is on and why that lens and when does it turn back to me? I'm really invested in seeing writers who are like, more seasoned, you know? (Laughing).
Danez Smith
Are we seasoned or are we salty? (Laughing)
Brittany Rogers
But we are wondering in terms of thinking about moving from spaces of being emerging writers or emerging poets to being more seasoned or more experienced, what are the first ways, whether in poetry or life in general that you knew that you were like, grown grown?
Ajanaé Dawkins
And like, what did you do with that freedom?
Franny Choi
So many of the early forays into writing were like, predictive like trying to predict what would be good, trying to predict what would work, and then like trying to say, like, how can I make something that will work and then I'll test it out. And then if it's successful, it's successful. And if not, you know, and I feel like there's a difference between trying to like predict what will work in a poem, and then trying to do that, versus like, having built up like, certain kinds of muscle memory in order, like through practice, in order to just like, improvise on the page, when it comes to the writing of it. This is like, maybe like, really in the nuts and bolts of craft, like letting go of drafts like for this new book I wrote, like, there are like six poems in this book that I like have four or five full drafts of like completely different poems that were just like scrapped, scrapped, scrapped, scrapped, and I'm like, maybe it's just like the letting go of that preciousness, about, like, the idea that this might be the last poem I ever write. And so like, you know, therefore, it's like my precious baby, and I have to protect it. Like, I feel a lot less protective of my poems, if that kind of makes sense.
Brittany Rogers
That makes sense. So I think I hear you saying something, not only about like intuition, so knowing when the poem is done, or know what it needs to shift, but also about trusting that you can let it go and that it's going to come back again?
Franny Choi
Yeah, yeah! And I think that that's the trust is about what that that first thing to like, not I think that like trying to predict what's going to what's going to work in terms of an audience or a readership is like, not having trust, you know, like, the trust is built on like, I have these years of practice now. And I've built up this practice.
Danez Smith
Trusting your tools.
Franny Choi
Yeah, it's trust in the tools, it's trust in the tools. And I think that that, like, that's the thing that has, like, freed me up to like, be more imaginative, you know, I don't know if as far as like, the grown as a person, I feel like I'm still working on that (laughing).
Danez Smith
Married homeowner.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Franny Choi
But I think that like a married homeowner who's like on the way to taking responsibility for her emotional life. You know, like, that'll be, that'll be when I really know that I'm grown. When I can really take care of my own feelings, I can have I can have the mortgage, but if I can't take care of my emotional life I’m not grown.
Ajanaé Dawkins
I love the grownness about the interiority and like not the exterior. That’s pretty cool.
Danez Smith
I mean, honestly, I will have to say, Franny, (inaudible) now, what's like, seven, eight years? No, ten! Ten! Ten years! And I think you're much more emotionally intelligent, right. And I think it's like stages of grownness that it took me to grow into. Because I really resonate with you and Franny about trusting the tools. And I think trusting and maybe this is also like, the talkings of somebody who had had suicidal ideation, who was like thinking about their Black body in America, what America could do to it, who like I kind of maybe thought that I was going to be a member of the 27 club before I passed that number. 27 club for anybody listening doesn't know, it's just like, there's a large group of musicians and artists who died around the age of 27, or at the age of 27. And I think it was really me realizing that I'm going to live. And I think as long as I'm going to live, I'm going to be a poet. And so if I don't write for two years, you know, God willing, I don't die in those two years. And that's happened to me, but like, I will come back to it. And maybe that time in between is study, is listening, and it has been all those things. I am no longer trying on my fave’s tools, but I feel like I do have my own kit.
Brittany Rogers
Period. Period.
Danez Smith
And that type of confidence is like why I'm like, Okay, I'm grown because I'm me, right. I'm a school Goddamnit. Not in a cocky way, but like pay attention and you might learn, you know (laughing).
Brittany Rogers
First off, I love that energy (laughing).
Ajanaé Dawkins
And I love hearing the undercurrent of trust in the way I think trust solidified, almost like a clarity of identity. And like once that clarity of identity happened, you were more unmovable. And also this ability to define your own poetics, right. I feel ike that's such a hallmark of being grown. I listen to so many people talk about being grown as a settling into yourself. And like, almost like the edges no longer blurring like having that kind of definition. I feel like when I hear y'all talk about these undercurrents of truth or these undercurrents of trust is trusting the tools but it's also trusting that you are this person, you're not aspiring to be a person but that that's who you. And like the edges aren’t blurred. You know what I mean? Yeah, so
Danez Smith
Thank you for that, Ajanaé. That is wonderful language.
Franny Choi
I mean, what's interesting also is that I hear Danez you saying that like the trust has kind of like solidified your place a little bit, and whereas I feel like also for me, it has done that but also freed up some movement and some like some some experimentation too, you know, like that even if I even if I move from this place, I'll still be me like that was how the trust has been manifested I think for me.
Brittany Rogers
Because I think that’s a type of anchor, right, in knowing that you have yourself to return back to.
Franny Choi
Yeah.
Brittany Rogers
And I think is scarier or at least it sounds like y'all are saying it's scarier when you don't know who you are. Because then you experiment and maybe I'm not myself anymore. Who am I if I'm not writing this poem, this way, or not doing this thing versus I know exactly who I am so I know I can veer off a bit, and when I come back, I'll still be here.
Danez Smith
Right. Because like settling into itself doesn't have to mean stagnant. There's still growth, there’s still experimentation, right? But it's a trust. I don't trust all my products. I do trust my process. You know, I do you trust myself to experiment. I do trust myself to try. Right. And I know what those tries look like, I think, you know, the work will continue to develop and have different energies, you know, life events keep happening. You know, I'm very excited to see what 50 year old Danez is writing. Very excited to see what weird ass like fucking funky as shit, that 50 year old Franny is doing, you know, like, there is a different…Yeah, I think yeah, it's like that, once you, I'm just gonna borrow Ajanaé’s language, once those those borders, you know, those edges are no longer blurred, and they're defined, you still see a vast amount of land in there, right. And like, every poem, every collection, every project, whatever the genre may be, even the project of emotional work can only can hold so much of you. You know, and so like, even though I'm like three books in and maybe I've only showed you my hand, maybe only even a finger, right? And so there's still so much of this landscape that I have to show you if I'm using the body as a map of area, right. And there's even so much land that I haven't discovered yet too, and so now that my borders are defined, I'm no longer confused about where I am. But I still have so much room to roam.
Ajanaé Dawkins
I do want to ask y'all, y'all are like the the season folks like this is y’all’s first time on VS as guests. What is it like to be on the other side of the table?
Franny Choi
Lol, I feel it's a little, it's both moving and confusing.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Franny Choi
Like, I feel like I don't really know what my role is, like I said, I keep wanting to interview y'all. Like, what do you mean by that, Ajanaé? Say more about that, you know what I mean? So but it's mostly it's just like, unbelievably moving and like feels, so it feels weird, but also so right. You know, like, I'm just so thrilled beyond my dreams to be able to pass this off to you all, you know, like, as two people who have been, who have just like, held community spaces as educators, as poets, as artists, as friends, as as mothers, you know, as a mother, and, like, who better to be able to hold this space? Like I just I just know that the listeners of VS are just going to like to remember like the love that I felt coming into spaces where y'all were present like here in Detroit or like at slams years ago, like knowing that that is the experience that listeners are going to have it just like makes me happy. So yeah, that's what I feel.
Danez Smith
I feel the same. I also feel like y’all are doing a great job so far.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Franny Choi
Really amazing job! So much better than we were doing a few years ago.
Danez Smith
Oh my god, you know. If y'all go back and listen to the first two seasons of VS with me and Franny, be gentle (laughing).
Franny Choi
Be gentle.
Danez Smith
But I also, okay, selfishly I'm a Leo, and an extrovert and so I'm like very happy to like be unabashedly asked about myself, so I don’t have to feel bad when I have to talk about my own self (laughing).
Franny Choi
It’s true! I was like oh Danez’s answers are loooong.
Danez Smith
Girl, I always tell my interviewers, I'm like, I'm long winded so let me go. But you know, but I think like, it's, it's beautiful, because it makes me, I think what I'm getting right now being on this other side is confirmation that this was a good space to build. And I think, you know, we're looking for new hosts, a lot of fantastic pairings came through. So many fantastic pairings and I think what, as they got smaller and smaller through the processes, the only thing that we had as a compass is an energy that we wanted to hold. But it lets me know that like poetry needs this type of conversation, right? I think we're so like, you know, for so long poetry, or I won't even say all of poetry, but like, you know, I think spaces like the Poetry Foundation were siloed into like, sort of an academish side of poetry where I think there's a particular kind of behavior.
Franny Choi
Did you say academish?
Danez Smith
Academish, yeah. I won't say it's academia because it's not. But it’s academish (laughing).
Franny Choi
The new series (says jokingly).
Danez Smith
And I think that like implies like, you know, kind of feeling a certain professionalism. You know, I think, you know, I felt it always like spoken word and slam spaces that there was a freedom and a love and like sort of a full humans were able to show up, but I have not felt that in a lot of academic spaces. I think it's always been like, this is how you are a poet and like, I don't know, like, I feel like we have a different kind of conversation here at the VS table. I really feel like y'all are going to be grand stewards of that. And that that is a needed type of space because it's not always about poetry, the high art sometimes it's about poets, the humans who see and feel and make these things. And I think you know, and that comes sometimes with some cussin’, or with some sloppiness or thinking on one's feet that in these like unperfected, ungrandly crafted ways. So yeah, I'm feeling very confirmed and also just excited because after this episode, I just get to listen. And I'm such a fan of y'all. So just so excited for Episode Two.
Franny Choi
How does it feel for y’all?
Danez Smith
Yeah!
Brittany Rogers
Not the question on the other side (laughing).
Danez Smith
Especially Brittany! You were like, you were like a big VS fan.
Brittany Rogers
I was a big VS fan. Like I listened to absolutely every episode, while I'm cleaning and doing other things. It feels really surreal. It feels like talking to old friends. I think I'm excited at the possibilities. I think more than anything, for me at least this represents like one of the first times that I really was like, okay, I'm taking a shot at something. And like imagining that, like, I can step into a role that maybe I haven't known before. I think everything else that I've ever done has always been like very I don't know if structured is the right word, but like, okay, so I went to school to become a teacher. And then I did student teaching. And I did this like the natural progression, of course, I'm going to become a teacher because this is what I've been like, working towards. And I think that this is like the first shot that I was like okay I’ve never done a podcast. I've never done like anything like this. But like, what if! And me and best were like, “Best, what do you think? What if!” And then we decided to, so like to be I don't know, this is just so surreal I think to be here.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Surreal is definitely worth the word. And then I think also like our what ifs becoming tangible because me and Brittany have been working for 10 years together. And at this point, we're starting to look like alright, what if these what ifs are like? Or these things like me and Brittany make vision boards together every year, and we make personal ones and we make ones for our friendship.
Franny Choi
Aw, you make boards for your friendship? That’s the cutest shit I’ve heard in my entire life.
Danez Smith
Literal friendship goals!
Brittany Rogers
Friendship goals is where we map out like what trips we want to take, how we want to pay for each other, what areas where we hold each other accountable.
Ajanaé Dawkins
So we’ll make calendars together.
Franny Choi
Danez, are we slacking?
[ALL LAUGHING]
Danez Smith
I think I think we have to. Let's do that.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Do the friendship vision board. And then you keep it with your vision board. So you always know to cover the other person's dream. And you know what things that you're supposed to be stepping into with them?
Franny Choi
I’m obsessed, I’m obsessed with this.
Danez Smith
I’m so heart horny right now.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Franny Choi
Heart horny is exactly the right phrase.
Brittany Rogers
Imma start picking that up. I’m usin’ that shit right there.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Ajanaé Dawkins
And I think I feel like I'm sitting inside a dream that we didn't know to dream. You know, like, and like that is like adjacent or like in all of the things because me and Brittany do a lot of dreaming together. And whether those things always become tangible, I think something that we've always been for each other is like I don't be seeing if I can do this, but you can do this. And so with doing something like this together, it was like you can do this, you can do this and it was like it feels very surreal, but it also feels like really good. And I feel really comfortable. So yeah, I'm I'm excited.
Danez Smith
Oh, praise God.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Praise God. Now, can ask what’s moving y’all?
[ALL LAUGHING]
Danez Smith
Oh I've been preparing for this for so long.
Franny Choi
I feel like I should have been preparing for this, but.
Danez Smith
I think I know. Want me to go first?
Franny Choi
Yes.
Danez Smith
Okay. Hashtag I am a human and I'm sensitive about my shit. And this is very new to my life. But what's moving right now and I'm not gonna cry, but I might cry. I am three weeks sober from the drugs.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Period!
Brittany Rogers
Skin glowin’, lookin’ fly.
Danez Smtih
You know, thank you, you know, Mary Jane was often my main mama but you know, you know, there were there were side chicks. And, you know, I think I reached a breaking point in my life. And I think braking is necessary, right? There are many things that cannot heal without breaking right breaking a bone intentionally. And I think a pressure with something that had been fun and had been a medicine and had been even like an artistic tool for a while became a not only a crutch but a burden upon my mental health and I didn't know how to let it go. I think this is the longest yeah this three weeks is the longest I've been without being high since I was like 20. And I think I was so also so scared to like what if I don't know how to write anymore? You know it has been so freeing. You know, there have been times of course you know, when you're exiting addiction where there's a struggle. You know, I've been very thankful for spaces for like, affirming that like, you know, this is a hard thing. But I have my mind back y'all, and I that is I didn't know how bad I missed it. And I thought I had it. And it's been so liberating. I'm so supported by my partner and by my mother, I feel like I feel again, and I don't have to perform feeling. And I don't have to perform joy that it is authentic. And it is mine. And it is a liberation that I don't fully have words to explain yet, but like I am out of a fog that I was often creating with my own lungs. And just to be out of that, and be clear, you know, I have a fucking bigger vocabulary.I told you all the other dayI use the word paramount.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Danez Smith
And not talking about Paramount plus, like, like, you know, I was like, That is not paramount right now! And I was like oh bitch! Okay! You know? And so I'm just like, wow, like, there was a whole other mind back here. I'm like, I think I'm writing some of the best poems in my life right now. I am like, you know, I am more present with my partner. I am less angry with my family, you know, there's just so much peace within this. And so what is moving me is one, a stillness. What is moving me is having moved back home, having moved back into my body and my mind, having moved out of this space of “lethargcy”, is that a word? You know? No?
Franny Choi
Lethargy.
Danez Smith
Lethargy, lethargy, there we go. You know, sometimes I don't know, once you start making those word, other words
Franny Choi
I got you.
Danez Smith
This is why we've been co-hosts (laughing). You know, so I've been that word that Franny just said that I already forgot. And I feel like maybe I've been saying, like, I don't know, I don't know if it's an old Danez that I'm meeting again, because I'm definitely not 19. But maybe it is a new Danez that has a spirit and an energy that can do more like, I want to write all the movies and all the books and do all the things and like there was like community work that I was like failing at that. I feel like I can actually have the energy for now. There was so much more space. Now that I've cleared this, this space of smoke. And it's so wonderful.
Brittany Rogers
I love that for you.
Danez Smith
Thank you babies.
Ajanaé Dawkins
I love that for you too.
Brittany Rogers
Glad to meet the new Danez and the Danez I already knew!
Danez Smith
The new Danez, that bitch is a lot louder (laughing)
Ajanaé Dawkins
You know what I'm very invested. I feel like I have follow up questions. I want to know Franny what's moving you, but can I ask a follow up question about the sobriety?
Danez Smith
Yeah, for sure.
Ajanaé Dawkins
I'm wondering if you ever struggled with a gap because when we talked about this, I was like, oh, that's so interesting. Not interesting in like a weird voyeuristic way but a gap almost between how other folks see you versus like, the things that you're wrestling with in terms of like in like your interior space. I think especially for someone I mean, we're talking about being grown and the craft being grown and career are no longer being emerging all of these things. So being somebody who has had like, realistically, I think the kind of like success in your work that people only dream of, and then also having this other thing on the other side of it, that maybe people don't process as existing in the same way. I think we do maybe for like musicians. I don't think we do for poets. I don't think we process those things existing in the same way we do for other artists.
Danez Smith
We also kind of fetishize it, right?
Ajanaé Dawkins
Yeah.
Danez Smith
I think we do kind of fetishize mental health in poets. Like of course you’re repressed and lonely. Go write those good poems.
Ajanaé Dawkins
We do for sure.
Danez Smith
You know, like I've even heard people say, like, oh, like their music was better when they were on drugs (laughing). You know, I mean, I think that talking about myself personally, and that distance, and how I even helped aid that distance. And maybe like, was like, depending on that distance to help me still depend on the substance, these substances. I think have to go back to childhood and talk about how a nigga learned compartmentalization, right. This is a safe space. Me and my mom talked about this. We also talked about not being ashamed to talk about this, if any other family members or for some random reason, listen to this right now turn it off. But I grew up in a home with domestic violence, right. I grew up in a house, I think I've talked about it on the show before it's also in my work, but I grew up in a house where my grandfather, God rest his soul, was very, very violent and a horrible husband to my grandmother. And, you know, the thing about his alcoholism and his violence is that at least by the time I showed up, it was very compartmentalized into the weekend. And so Friday and Sunday, were hell, right? And we all knew was hell and we could recognize in hell and there was yelling and screaming, and it was fighting and you know, eventually I was big enough to also fight him and that's when he stopped, but on Monday, you bet not talk about that shit.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Mmmm.
Danez Smith
On Monday, Grandpa's nice and cuddly. And you better not recognize that everybody in house was crying two days ago, and that you was just pullin’ him off yo grandmama because now it’s all good, and he a good man, and he come home, and he bring home the bacon, and he bring the whole check, you know, and like, so. And then Thursday is the last day of that because on Friday, everybody comes home from work and school a little different, because we know what's coming at night. And so that type of compartmentalization of like having to write and Bell Hooks talks about this, right. Like how, how abuse can not square with love, right. You know, but having, you know, it was a logic I think a lot of us are familiar with, how do I make logic out of this person who abuses me, or who abuses people that I love, we're also calling this love. And in that distance, there's so much room to hide, to make excuses to, to, you know, there's so much room for other violences to come within that distance of the logics of abuse and love, and how you're trying to hold on to both of those at the same time, so you can feel loved, and so you can survive. And I think that type of compartmentalization is I think, what I saw as an evidence, you know, because I knew how to play the role, right? I knew how to act on Monday, you know, I know how to, and that's the same thing with my life. I know, you know, even if I'm breaking down, I can kind of (sniffs), and we do that for poets, right. You can, as a touring poet, you can be having the shittiest day in the world. And when 7:30 hits, and you gotta be on that stage, or you got to teach that class and you gotta sign them books, and you got to be friendly, you (sniffs), you hold it up. I gotta be okay, for the next three hours, I gotta be happy for the next three hours.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Charming.
Danez Smith
I gotta be charming, I got to be smart for the next three hours. And then I can go back to this hotel room and crumble. You know, and that is the type of, you know, performance work that I think so many of us do. And I think now I feel like what I'm actually talking about when I talk about having my mind back, I feel like I could be my whole self. Right. And I think not only in happiness, I feel like I'll be able to bring my you know, my vulnerabilities. Like the times when I'm not good. I'm able to bring that I feel like I will be hopefully I think I already have been in some small ways. Check back in on me when this is a little bit further down the road. But you know, like, I think I'm able to bring more that whole space and not be like, okay, this is a Danez you need to be even around the homies, right. Like, I'm not telling them everything was going on in me until it was the breaking point, right? Because I've had other low moments and it's just like (deep gasp) you can no longer hold it in and then I'm texting everybody being like will somebody please call me check on me, because I'm just not okay. And I probably should have hit y’all niggas up a couple months ago. But here I am now (laughing).
Franny Choi
I love that for you. I love that like, the end of compartmentalization is like part of what makes you whole and that like this step is ending that.
Danez Smith
Yeah, no more rooms, I want an open concept, ya know.
Brittany Rogers
I love that.
Franny Choi
Open concept subjectivity!
[ALL LAUGHING]
Danez Smith
Yes, yes, you can see all parts of the interiority.
Brittany Rogers
I just want to say the analogies on the show, the metaphors!
Ajanaé Dawkins
Honestly! Honestly!We're doing our part.
Danez Smith
We are. Learn something. Learn from this! You learn from this! I was rooting for you.
[“We were all rooting for you” collective chant]
[ALL LAUGHING]
Ajanaé Dawkins
Franny, what’s moving you?
Franny Choi
Oh, you know, I think that what's moving me, I think it's two things that are related. And one of them is domesticity and like, my, my, like life in my house with my love. And then the other is mortality. Death. And I think that the reason that related is, is because there's this mortality meditation that I have done a few times, where it's basically it's about like, what are the priorities of your life? You know, it's like a pretty simple concept. It's like, you know, say, you know, in in 40 years or like, one year like, 90, 100 you're on your deathbed, you're looking back and thinking about your life. Like, what are you glad that you've done? What are you taking with you? What are you like, holding in that moment? And then you and then it's like, go back, okay, like 10 years say like, it's like 10 years from now? What are you like, happy that you have like, put your time and energy into while you've had your time on this earth? And then it goes, it's like, say you have a year, say you have a week, say you have a day and so then it's like, it's today it's today, look back what, what was what was important and doing that, like, has clarified so many things for me, mainly that the thing like the answer has, has just been writing poems, writing poems that are like the work of my life and not just trying to like dance for other people, but like are the work of my life and then spending time being happy with the people that I love. And oh, here come the emotions. Okay. And I
Danez Smith
Take a minute, Franny. Would you like a hug?
Franny Choi
No, I'm okay, thank you (choked up). Being happy with my person has just made me realize how unhappy I was previously, you know? And so yeah, I think it's just like the recognition of recognizing that it is recognizing that it is possible to be happy in love and to make a home with this person, and then it doesn't take much that we don't need anything that we have so much more and like need so much less. And that's what's been moving me.
Brittany Rogers
I was gonna say, I gotta breathe for a second.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Yeah, if we could all just take a lil moment.
Danez Smith
You bout to make me text my nigga, girl.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Danez Smith
I’m like baby! We don’t need nothin’!
Ajanaé Dawkins
Just us! Just love!
Danez Smith
One small room (inaudible). That is a testimony. Thank you Franny for sharing that.
Franny Choi
And so like, you know, that's just it's meant like, the past week like Cameron and I've been we’ve just like been unpacking in our new house. And like, I like used a weed whacker. And I was like, I was like, the happiest I've ever been whacking those weeds.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Franny Choi
I was like, I love this. We like painted a room. And I was like, there's literally nothing else I want more.
Danez Smith
It's something about nesting that is just so wonderful. Like me and my partner have just moved in together recently. And I definitely, yeah, I definitely was crying as he was washing the dishes. Like I was just like, looking for the right like place to hang the picture and like ask him like, what do you think? And then I was like, I do that a couple times. I think I do at least once a week. I'm just like, I'm just so happy to like, live a life with you. In the simplest moments, you know, it ain't got to be when we got in the bomb vacation. Just, I'm happy that we're watching TV together.
Ajanaé Dawkins
I do want to like one of the last questions we wanted to ask y'all was what as the space is opening, so coming out of VS is like a transition, this is something that y’all have been nurturing and building and growing for like five years and like dreaming for and we kind of want to know what you're dreaming for yourselves beyond VS now.
Danez Smith
I mean, I think for me, some of that is like very much like, I just want to like I need the space to work on myself for a little bit. I want to grow this relationship so much that I've been in and now I'm entering a new space with. You know, I feel like I learned so much from the guests of VS in the process of just doing VS that I'm excited to, like, see how those skills manifests in other ways also, like, you know, I feel like I have more energy than before to do projects and things that like I've either let slip through my fingers or just let's sit on the backburner that I'm like, Danez now is your time to like, grab hold of those dreams and really, like, put the work and the effort into them to make them manifest. And so you know, I hope to be, I don’t know, I've always I'm like, I need to I need to write movies, I need to like write novels. And like, there's all things that are like currently drafting and building. And so that's what I'm looking forward to. But I think always I come back to the question of use and like, how was me and my work? Not just the written work, but the work I do in the physical world. How was that manifesting goodness and use in other people's lives? And so..
Franny Choi
And VS has been like, has been that in so many ways.
Danez Smith
Yeah, has been part of that, you know, and I'm excited to I mean, I think I need to like, you know, I think part of it is like making sure that like I can enter these spaces responsibly and be accountable to the work that I say I'm going to do. And so yeah, so I just like hope to like always be like, you know, especially as life has afforded me so much comfort, and I feel like that I want to just continue to ask that question of like, what is more useful? Right now, I feel like there is a particular artistic Wellspring that has popped up in me that I feel like I have more attention to. But also like, you know, I think like VS was very beautiful. Like, I think I love podcasting. And I think like, we're excited to like, explore some new projects. We not gone say too much right now. There's a pot on simmer on the stove.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Okay den! Not a sneak peak at the exclusive.
Danez Smith
You know you know it’s cookin’ slow and low right now. It’s gettin’ tenderized, it’s breakin’ on down. You know, but you know, so yeah, so I'm just excited for that to continue to. And I think I did build a career, you know, at some point during my 20s and now I'm like, let me build my life (laughing). You know, and
Franny Choi
For sure. That’s some very like, 30s. It's a very 30s move.
Brittany Rogers
30 gang!
Franny Choi
Sorry, Ajanaé.
Ajanaé Dawkins
That’s okay! I'm excited for 30, but 27, 27’s good. I'm lit here. I’m lit.
Danez Smith
Yeah, enjoy it.
Franny Choi
Yeah, I mean, I love that idea of youth, though Danez. I mean, I think I think about that all the time. And like, I remember, like, a major life, not a major life shift, but maybe like a moderate life shift happening when I realized, like, I wasn't being used to my full, like, I wasn't being as useful to the world, as I knew that I could be, you know, which meant that like, I had to be maybe even, like, for a second a little bit less humble, so that I could do a little bit more and like, be a little bit more useful. And I feel like so a lot for so long VS has been one of the ways that I've felt useful to like, a larger community of people who love poetry, or like, maybe, maybe love poetry, like maybe love thinking or something. And now I feel like it's like, a lot of that energy is going to go and has been going into Brune Forge and like, yeah, like building up this place where artists and movement workers can kind of, like, meet and dream together. And you know, and, and some of that energy is going into teaching and like really kind of stepping into my own as like a professor.
Ajanaé Dawkins
I know that’s right!
Danez Smith
Married homeowner professor, Franny Choi.
Franny Choi
Yeah, and like, you know, just like actually really dedicating myself to like, continuing to growing my teaching practice and like doing right by my students and stuff. So I guess I think that that's where the like, outward, the outward energy is going. But I also like, I don't know, VS has been, like, the way to meet and talk deeply with 22 poets a year. You know what I mean?
Ajanaé Dawkins
Yeah.
Franny Choi
I'm sort of like, okay, like, how am I going to do that now, you know? And so that's, that's something that I'm thinking about, like, how to continue being, like, in conversation, like very not, if not, like, super literally, like, in other ways with like, poets, thinkers, maybe it's a listening diversity. You know, maybe that's what it is. But yeah, that's what I'm thinking about.
Brittany Rogers
Okay, so, a question about influences, right? Because we think it's really important to think about ourselves as like, who informs our work yeah. Um, so if somebody wants to like deeply deeply get into your work, right, they want to understand you they want to know where you're, you know, where all your thinking comes from? How are they brewing happens. Who had like three people across any medium that they should engage with to know you better or to know your work better?
Danez Smith
Any medium?
Franny Choi
I have a list of at the end of my book, I'm holding a galley of the of the book
Brittany Rogers
Oooh, can you tell us the title of the book?
Franny Choi
Oh, yes, the title is The World Keeps Ending and the World Goes On.
Brittany Rogers
Oooh, where can people get it?
Franny Choi
People can get it in your local independent bookstore. And on like, all those other things that aren't Amazon also, but yeah, at the end of it, I have in the notes, like just a list of like, just many of these poems, you know, like, like, I know, like, where I've like stolen a line or borrowed, borrowed like a phrase or something. And also, I say, additionally, many of these poems owe their lives to the work and voices of and then there's just like a list of poets, which was like a way of freeing myself from like, remembering which which things but also like don't knowing that everyone's voices are with mixed in with everybody's voices. Yeah, like Patricia is on this list. Patricia Smith is on this list.
Danez Smith
Did you say Douglas Kearney?
Franny Choi
Douglas Kearney is on this list. I mean, Linda Gregerson is on this list. I mean, this is like so I don't know if this is would be like my top three across any genre, but that's my that's my starting answer.
Danez Smith
Word. Okay, Marvin Gaye is somebody you have to understand to understand my work. I think his relationship between to the to sex to melancholy to politics, to the divine. I am the biggest Marvin Gaye fan, my college roommates will tell you like in the like prime trap years of like me being in college in from 2007 to 2012 I was probably listening to Marvin Gaye. At any given time. Okay, who else to understand my work? Detroit poets. Even though I am from 10 hours away in the Midwest, I think I think what we say about Patricia Smith is also true very much so for all Detroit poets in terms of poets who were so skilled in the air but who were having a fierce attention to how the words were falling on the page and the like beauty of the written word.
Brittany Rogers
Shout out to Detroit school.
Danez Smith
Yeah, Detroit, Detroit, you know, like, Detroit school. It just comes to mind like from generations, right? Like from the older Detroit poets when you know, and like to middle aged Detroit poets to the young Detroit poets to like when I meet Detroit, the youth poets you know, there is such a fierce attention to every space in which the craft can be engaged and I think so much especially like being a young spoken word artists I think like so many of my favorite poets are coming out of Detroit. Shout out to Airea D. Matthews. Shout out to Aricka Foreman. Shout out to the late David Blair. Shout out to Jamal Mays. Shout out to just you know, not the Nandi Comer. Just so, so, so many great Detroit school poets who I think have have really been a model for how to really approach every aspect of the craft of poetry well. And I don't like that white man. I ain’t gone say his name, but I do like his art. Honestly. No, I'm gonna go ahead and say it because sometimes, you know, our influences aren't always the best people but Quentin Tarantino. Quentin Tarantino, I think his work is profane, is imaginative, it fucks with history. I think at the end of the day, mostly I agree with his politics I liked that he killed a lot of slave owners and Nazis in those two movies but yeah, but Quentin Tarantino like I think like he he's just great you know, I think like especially like a work I was really late to I just watched it last year for the first time but like, I saw Pulp Fiction and everything like shifted for me. You know, and like I've been a lover of the Djangos and all this other kind of stuff. You know, I think like I critique you know, I'd say like dinosaurs in the hood. I think don’t let Tarantino director this, but the secret is I would love Tarantino to direct this.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Danez Smith
Maybe just give him a good ass assiatant director (laughing).
Franny Choi
Don’t let Tarantino director this unless you're listening, Quentin Tarantino. In which case, call my people.
Danez Smith
He can be a producer, right you know, I actually want
Franny Choi
Don’t let him directed it, do let him produce it (laughing).
Danez Smith
Do let him produce, you know, like, we want your money and your insight. But like we're gonna give it to Mr. Jenkins, you know, to actually direct so or Ms. DuVernay or actually Ms. Asghar over here. Ya know, Fatimah Asghar, a phenomenal director. I loved My Sibling’s Vision. So shout out to Fatimah Asghar who I actually believe if y'all motherfuckers act right and pay attention is going to be one of the most groundbreaking directors of our time here. You heard it here first. Actually, you didn't hear it here first, but you heard it here again.
Franny Choi
Okay, I think I got my three. But it's actually a four. Okay, the three slash four are Park Chan-wook who's the director, the Korean director who made like The Handmaiden, like Oldboy, those those movies did make
Danez Smith
That’s a bad muthfucka.
Franny Choi
Yeah, it's like somewhere between him like Virginia Woolf. And like, Patricia Smith. There go I. You know what I mean?
Danez Smith
That actually makes a lot of sense.
Franny Choi
Like somewhere in there. And then I think what was my fourth one? Now I can't remember maybe it was like (inaudible) or something.
Danez Smith
Okay. Oh, can I add a fourth though, because I feel like it actually is very important to my work. A lot of you guys know who I'm talking about but Reverend McAfee. Reverend Jerry McAfee from the Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Minneapolis. That was the first poet that I watched perform every week. Watching his sermons the emotion that he could elicit with just the power of his voice and his words was one of the strongest lessons that I took for myself going into spoken word. I think it would be a disrespect to my work if I did not acknowledge the role of the art of preaching and the Black church as a foundation for what I do. So Reverend Jerry McAfee shout out to you.
Brittany Rogers
I love that for us, I love that.
Ajanaé Dawkins
I do. We're gonna go to break really quick.
[MUSIC PLAYS]
Ajanaé Dawkins
So for a game of fast punch,
Danez Smith
Wow. Wow. To once be the puncher and not the punching bag.
Brittany Rogers
We love to see.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Honestly. Yeah, I'm invested.
Brittany Rogers
Okay, so do y’all wanna be optimists or pessimists?
Franny Choi
I'm gonna go with the I'm gonna go with optimist. I'm gonna go with best.
Danez Smith
And I will go with the worst.
Franny Choi
Yeah, I think that that tracks.
Brittany Rogers
I think it’s very on brand very, very on brand.
Danez Smith
Actually, in our literal lives I think you're the pessimist and I'm the optimist.
Ajanaé Dawkins
I would have said it was in inverse.
[Overlapping chatter]
Franny Choi
Inside face, outside face for sure.
Brittany Rogers
(Inaudible)
Ajanaé Dawkins
Then, Franny I will start with you.
[Trivia music plays]
Franny Choi
Okay. Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. I can hear the ticking in my mind.Okay. The metronome. Okay, I’m ready.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Shower song.
Franny Choi
“Since You've Been Gone”.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Yessss. Oh, that was quality. Poetic device.
Franny Choi
It's still me? Okay, poetic device. Oh, I learned this recently, chiasmus. Do you know this? It’s like when you, it it makes like a cross so when you say like the king of time, the time of kings or something.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Y A novel.
Franny Choi
A wrinkle in Time. The classic.
Ajanaé Dawkins
That is very wholesome. Sci-fi being.
Franny Choi
Like any any person? Person, thing, okay. Uh I mean robots, a cyborg. No, wait, no, okay. Okay, like the AI system on a ship is what I mean Okay, that's that's just gonna be who I who I pick right now. So Zora on Star Trek: Discovery is like the AI system on when when they're ever there like computer like calculate the distance or whatever. But then she on Discovery like starts to have a consciousness and starts to experience feelings and have emotional intelligence and have to process her emotions. I love that I'm into it. Yes.
Ajanaé Dawkins
My heart. And before bed snack.
Franny Choi
I think it's just like I think it's just like a ginger tea with honey. Is that a snack? Does it count?
Ajanaé Dawkins
I count it. I'll pass it to you.
Franny Choi
Okay wait yeah, did I do it? Did I fast punch it? Did I punch it fast?
Danez Smith
You did, you did. Good job, girl. You floatin’ like a butterfly and stingin’ like a bee.
Brittany Rogers
Period.
Franny Choi
I don’t know why that was stressful.
Brittany Rogers
Okay, I'm gonna turn it to you, Danez.
Danez Smith
We here. What’s up?
Brittany Rogers
Worst poetic device.
Danez Smith
Oh, overuse of alliteration when it actually doesn't make any much sense.
Franny Choi
Yep, for sure.
Brittany Rogers
Very fair. Sounds lovely. But it means nothing. Got it. Worst R&B singer.
Danez Smith
Woo! Um, Trey Songz. He yodles.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Not yodles. Wow.
Brittany Rogers
Worse drink.
Danez Smith
Worst drink is oh fernet I hate that shit.
Brittany Roger
What’s that?
Danez Smith
Fernet is like this like licorice tea alcohol that people be trying to put up in stuff and like I love licorice, but it tastes like black licorice, which is the worst licorice and it tastes like Twizzlers black licorice which is the worst of the worst. And it's just nasty and people be trying to put it in drinks and it ruins any drink that was ever tasty. Also, milk when it's hot. But I love milk, but when it's hot it's justnot that poppin’.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Really?
Danez Smith
Like when it’s hot outside.
[Overlapping chatter]
Danez Smith
Not warm milk. No, no no sorry (laughing).
Brittany Rogers
Ou I feel bad because I also do not like warm milk. The idea was like yikes! I was side-eyein’ y’all.
Ajanaé Dawkins
It’s comforting.
Brittany Rogers
(Laughing) Worst Disney movie.
Danez Smith
Worse Disney movie is The Hunchback of Notre Dome.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Oh! Take it back. I ain't mad at it. Stand in your truth, Danez. Stand in your truth.
[Indistinct chatter]
Franny Choi
But what about [sings “Out There” from The Hunchback of Notre Dome]
[Overlapping chatter]
Franny Choi
No? It doesn’t do it for you?
Brittany Rogers
Danez does not look moved.
Franny Choi
Wow.
Danez Smith
I really, yeah.
Franny Choi
Honestly, that that actually might be my top out showers song.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Brittany Rogers
She say scratch the first answer (laughing). Okay, and finally, worst date night possibility.
Danez Smith
Wow, a white man.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Danez Smith
Actually, you know that is not true to my history. I am going to be honest, I have loved a I loved a Caucas or two in my days you know for brief moments. I am from Minnesota, I went to school in Madison. I had very few options had to break open the seal. But worst date night possibility. Oh, is it first date or just any date night?
Brittany Rogers
Any date.
Danez Smith
Any date, okay. Oh, a competitive thing like bowling if you're not good at losing, because I hate that. Yeah, especially like dating guys is just like that you like they take you to the thing (mumbles) and they lose and are having a bad time. Like well nigga… you should have known your limitation!
[Overlapping chatter]
Danez Smith
So let’s put this together, a sore losing white man. Worst date (laughing).
Franny Choi
That is a nightmare.
Danez Smith
That’s a metaphor for America.
Brittany Rogers
(Laughs)
Franny Choi
Yeah, it is.
Danez Smith
We are on a bad date y’all.
Franny Choi
It’s not even a metaphor, it's just literally what it is.
Danez Smith
It’s literally what it is. It's time for us to exit the date, America. We did it!
[Celebratory cheers]
Danez Smith
We fast punched! I’m so proud of us, Franny.
[Sound effect of audience cheering]
Brittany Rogers
Franny, we would love it if you closed us out with a poem.
Danez Smith
This is why we're the former hosts.
Brittany Rogers
(Laughing)
Franny Choi
Because we don't know how to act.
Danez Smith
Wait Franny, are you going to read something from the book? From the new book?
Franny Choi
Yes, I'm going to read something from the new book. But before I do, I think that maybe we should just say like, thank you. And like, what a joy and a good good, good thing this has been. And it makes, in the words of Ajanaé, it makes my heart smile.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Aww.
Franny Choi
It really does. It makes my heart smile and cry and like to spin around.
Danez Smith
It does. Y’all are about to be fantastic. Like, if this is our first episode (laughs) y'all did so good.
Franny Choi
And like, also, thank you for having us. Thank you for inviting us to
Brittany Rogers
Listen, right. We were like we're interviewing them? This is so crazy.
Danez Smith
No, y'all are y'all are, y'all are truly gifts and can't wait for this gift to show up every two weeks in people's inboxes.
Franny Choi
And it'll be easier once you have, you know, not two people who don't know how to behave. But just one person who doesn’t know how to behave.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Franny Choi
But yeah, so I'll read a poem from the from the new book. And I wanted to read this one because it Danez is in the title, and sort of written for, for them and for our friends and for all the people we love. So it was like after Danez posted on Twitter like asking for recommendations of like songs to dance to in other languages, very danceable songs in other languages. So the poem is called “Danez Says They Want to Lose Themself in Bops They Can't Sing Along To.” [Recites poem “Danez Says They Want to Lose Themself in Bops They Can't Sing Along To”]
Danez Says They Want to Lose Themself in Bops They Can't Sing Along To.
and I’m thinking of the years I spent sweating
to the choreo of every K-pop song with a decent
dance break, me and the other girls from church,
practically saintly in our diligence as we
rehearsed our isolations and body rolls, winding
and rewinding the tapes, our noses almost
grazing the screen, though in truth I only understood
maybe about half the words, the other half
mostly sounds, which nevertheless sank
into my muscles, pathways laid by so many
hours of industrious mouthing that now,
when humming idly some stupid tune
at the sink, I’ll realize for the first time ever
what! that line meant (though of course
pop everywhere’s a language so reliable
it’s nearly nothing, baby let me know and
I need you in my arms on babbling loop
through the ages), and I’m thinking, too,
about how this, my first love of losing myself in
the scaffolds and percussives of an unparsed lyric,
doomed me for life to never be able to hear,
actually hear, the words to any songs, even
in English, even my favorites, like Jamila’s,
which I put on when I’m adrift and sunken and just need
to feel at home in something—even those
harbors are built, mostly, of sonics—
not gibberish, I mean, but language so sacred
it’s not my place to try to decipher it,
phonemes holy as stones on a string, mysterious
as the names we give to animals, or words
we know only in prayer—at Rebecca’s mother’s funeral,
for example, where, when invited, I added my small voice
to the reciting of the Kaddish, and the perfect
thunder of it lifted one part of me higher
than air, while rooting another
deep into the fragrant earth, a bit of which
I later scooped, as gently as I could bear,
onto the casket, the shovel heavier than any
word I knew, and more full of light
than even the birds overhead, who,
as we wept, kept, of course, right on saying
exactly whatever they needed to say.
Danez Smith
Wow, Franny.
Franny Choi
Aw, thanks y’all. Thanks friends, thanks friends.
Danez Smith
Thank you.
Franny Choi
I love you.
Danez Smith
I love you.
Franny Choi
And the poem for not knowing the words to the song.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Oh my gosh.
Brittany Rogers
Y’all gone have me crying in public. Oh, my God.
[Background music beings to play]
Ajanaé Dawkins
I was about to say.
Brittany Rogers
The Taurus can't take it. I can’t take it.
Ajanaé Dawkins
It has been a lot of feelings, and that was like, that was the final straw. That was like, that was it. That was the one.
Danez Smith
Good job, y'all.
Franny Choi
Yeah! Good job.
Brittany Rogers
Good to have y’all! Thank y’all! Woo!
[Instrumental music playing]
Brittany Rogers
Whew, best, that conversation did so much from my heart, like, I don't know, I think I feel really, really nostalgic. I wasn't expecting to feel this way. Like I'm thinking about the baby version of me, the baby version of you. The version of Danez and Franny that we both met versus who they are now. I don't know. I just feel like we've come a really, really long way, best.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Same and it has me thinking about the conversation we had about how you and I have grown and changed and the things we've learned and unpack. It's different although being grown is more fun than I felt like the adults tried to tell me it was.
Brittany Rogers
(Laughing)
Ajanaé Dawkins
like, and I don't know if they was doing grown a little different than I'm doing grown but
Brittany Rogers
(Laughing) Probably, to be fair to them, probably.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Oh, man. Yeah, best in what ways are you different now, than, than a younger version of yourself?
Brittany Rogers
I think a younger version of myself felt responsible for everybody. And so because of that, I think I just felt like I couldn't take any risk in any area. Lowkey that version like exists somewhere in pictures. Don't look for her. Don't find her. But that version exists. There was a version of me that was like, super religious, super, like legalistic, super, super, I want to do everything my matriarchy, told me I needed to do to survive. And it's hard to have imagination when you're like, okay, well, I'm just trying to stay alive. So yeah, I think just very afraid to have any joy or any autonomy for myself.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Hmm.
Brittany Rogers
What about you, best? What ways do you feel like you have changed as you've grown up?
Ajanaé Dawkins
Whew! I think a lot of getting grown for me and knowing myself beyond all of the expectations and rules that have been on me, I feel like a lot of it has actually been just figuring out who I am like, what do I specifically want? What are my interests? What brings me joy? And what things do I need to unlearn to live the healthiest version of myself. And then also, part of me getting grown has been thinking about the way our position shifts in community. A whole range of responsibilities that I get to walk into, and accept and share with the people who are coming in and are new, because I have nothing but beautiful things to say about the people who loved me when I came into my space. And like when I came into these spaces, I have nothing but fond memories of the way people loved on me and created space for me as a youth. Or as somebody who was just new to the space. Even if it wasn't about age, I was just the new person.
Brittany Rogers
Best, I'm so emotional. It is a gift to be somebody's mentor. Right? It's a gift to be able to walk somebody through a process that you've already been through or that you're still going throug. Being able to pour it back into people what's been poured into you. Woo not us both in our chest. I love you best best.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Big in my feeling.
Brittany Rogers
Okay, well before we start crying in the club, let's do some general thank yous and then let's prepare to get out of here. I think in the spirit of talking about mentorship and growth and people who've seen us from the beginning, I always have to shout out Aricka Foreman, and Matthew Olzmann and the Detroit school because they really saw potential in this super young, super new writer and have continued, who holds space for me and who challenged me and who encourage me. And then in terms of peer mentorship, I have to shout out Witness first loves the folks who still read my poems to this day. I think peer mentorship is so important and so slept on. But yes, I gotta give a shout out to them because they held me down. What about you best?
Ajanaé Dawkins
Shout out to Witness. Oh my gosh, I also want to give a shout out to Aricka Foreman, who was my first poetry teacher, first person I ever took a poetry workshop with, which is wild. I want to give a shout out to Mariah Burton. I want to shout out (inaudible) for being a space of peer mentorship, but also mentorship and it's traditional capacity. So shout out to in that space. We've been spoiled in how well we've been loved.
Brittany Rogers
Listen, y’all, Ajanaé is not the best at goodbyes, so we'll be here being nostalgic all day. So best, can you thank our peoples and then we're gonna get out of here.
Ajanaé Dawkins
Okay, got you. We want to offer our thank yous to the Poetry Foundation. Itzel Blancas, Ydalmi Noriega, Elon Sloan, Cin Pim, our producer and Ombie Productions, period and the audio engineers of Detroit, Robert and Mike, please don't forget to rate and review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcast. We appreciate you.
Brittany Rogers
Bye!
Ajanaé Dawkins
Bye!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Franny and Danez grace us with insight on being grown and dreaming toward the future. These former VS hosts talk with Brittany and Ajanaé about the way sobriety, domesticity, and clarity about their identities as writers is shaping their lives.
Resources:
Our Until Next Time Resource one-pager can be found on our twitter @Vsthepodcast
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Franny and Danez grace us with insight on being grown and dreaming toward the future. These former VS hosts talk with Brittany and Ajanaé about the way sobriety, domesticity, and clarity about their identities as writers is shaping their lives.