30. The Gravity of Words: The Poet

In this episode of In Our Own World, Emmy-nominated poet, performer, and playwright Christell Victoria Roach brings us into the heart of her process—where language meets lineage and spirit meets story. We explore the power of poetry as a living archive—a way to connect with ancestors, honor untold family stories, and breathe life into those who are no longer physically present. We dive into the tension between truth and storytelling—where Christell beautifully reflects the emotional honesty of Blueswomen and the blurred lines between fact and fiction. We reflect on public intimacy in art as an act of courage that invites others to see themselves reflected. Christell speaks to the power of love as a deliberate choice, and as the force that has sustained and strengthened the Black community through generations of hardship. From climbing trees as a child to read books to exploring archives in search of her Bahamian roots, to creating art to preserve memory and reclaim identity, this entire episode unfolds like a poem. Rich with rhythm, memory, and emotion as Christell weaves stories of ancestry, identity, and creativity with the kind of vulnerability that feels both personal and universal.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is the first time in this country that folks
are literally getting on stages telling their stories out loud
in front of everybody. And I'm like thinking, you know,
Maul Rainey Bessie Smith singing, my man don't love me.
He treats me awful, mean, he's the meanest man I've
ever seen, and it's like, beloved, you are not with
a man last night, And we're like, does that mean

(00:20):
that it's not real? Do you have to be in
a heterosexual relationship to know what it's like to feel overlooked,
to feel cheated on, to know what it feels like
to be in love or whatever? Because when you get
something that's real, sometimes the best things like they don't
even sound right, they're out of tune, they're like disjointed
all types of things, but they're so raw. I didn't

(00:40):
think that you could love someone so much that you
wouldn't let yourself be with them.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
So we create spaces of our own that we have
to share with everybody. I think everyone talks about strong
black women, Everyone talks about resiliency, independence, you know, the soldier.
But I'm like, I see black women and I see tenderness,
Like even myself I'm a Thafty.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Hello friends, Welcome back to in our own world.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
Today's guest is someone whose words have a way of
sticking with you. Her poetry doesn't just speak, it sings.
She tells stories that bridge the personal and the historical,
exploring identity, culture, and heritage with incredible depth.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
She's a writer, a thinker, and a voice that cuts
through the noise. And there's a lot of noise these days.
Whether she's on stage or on the page, her work
leaves you feeling something, and that is also rare.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
She's a Stanford Wallas Stagner Fellow, a PhD candidate at FSU,
an Emmy nominated writer, and a Melon Research Fellow.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
She's also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. I
never was any sorority, so I have fo Beyond her
impressive resume, there's this presence that she has about her.
It's calm, but it's very powerful and it makes you want.

Speaker 5 (02:07):
To just lean in and listen.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
We're giving you that opportunity right now. On a personal note,
this feels like a full circle moment.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
We go way back to our school days, very scary
school days, by the way, so seeing her step into
her voice and her power has been a gift.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Without further ado, we present to you, Christelle Victoria Road.
Welcome to in our own world. Welcome to stay having me.
Of course it's our honor. Were very excited and you
should be out there too, And the cosmos are twirling
and the stars are eagerly awaiting.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
So I want to start this because, of course I
know you and I love you, but I had to
do some research outside of what I already adore about you,
and I found a quote of yours from when you
were fourteen. Oh and this is just a little piece
of it. Of all the arts I've dipped my toes into,
the artist in me rest assured that writing is my forte.

(03:05):
My sole desire is to move someone through poetry and
allow for my voice to be heard.

Speaker 5 (03:11):
Those baby Stell's. That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
It is okay that now it is.

Speaker 4 (03:18):
So my first question to you is how did you
discover poetry as a form of self expression?

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Actually, you know it was high school musician. My whole
life I played the viola, I was an orchestra and
after years of just like being an orchestras, playing in
chamber groups and whatnot, when we went to mac to
my marriage charter.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
They had the oar. They had the choice that you
could do two.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Arts yep, And I was like sure, they said, I
remember Jen Caretnik. She said, Oh, do you want an audition
for creative writing. I'm like, creative writing is an art?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
What do you mean?

Speaker 1 (03:57):
I'm like, I passed the fcat, but I don't know
what you mean. And it's just like, just come in,
come in. And I like wrote a story. I wrote
some poems and whatnot, and I knew something shifted, but
I was just like, so, writing is an art? Interesting
because I loved I loved reading. I come from a family,
a big family. I have a lot abouthers and sisters,

(04:19):
well one sister, a lot of brothers. And whenever I
needed some quiet time by myself, I used to climb
trees and read in the dream. So I just loved
to read and like be in my own space. So
the idea that I could write something, it just never
dawned on me, like outside of school. So yeah, that's
kind of when I actually thought of it as being

(04:41):
something creative was like high school. And then I found
myself gravitating towards it more and more. I felt like
other art forums. It was like what I was supposed
to do. My parents put me in these rehearsals, these classes,
but I found myself writing of my own volition. Like
I was just like, I need to write something.

Speaker 5 (04:58):
I'm going to write a story. You know.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
That's amazing.

Speaker 5 (05:01):
So it was.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
It was really like a pivotal moment because before that
I felt like I was a good daughter who did
everything that like I was told to do. I just
like I was good at.

Speaker 5 (05:14):
Things, you know.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
But it was the first thing that I didn't care
about being good at. I cared about like, you know,
seeing me on the page, your passion.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:24):
Yeah, so that was the beginning.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Wow, I didn't know that. And you guys actually studied together,
like you mentioned, so you probably heard a lot of
your earlier work, right because.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
So I was actually telling Emily and Janelle this morning,
I'm like, you know, that room was a very scary
but incredible place because we went there with our first
or second, our final drafts and we had to read
it in front of each other.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
I was like, even if I don't.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
See Christelle very often, like there's a part of our
souls at all, Like you're really naked and then not
only do you read it for everybody, which is already
scary because it's scary enough to put it on the page, right,
but now.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
You have to recite it.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
That's a whole other thing, I know.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
And then they basically, luckily everybody was so loving, but
they basically like, pick apart your work and with you there,
this doesn't make sense, Well, well how did.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
I make it make sense?

Speaker 5 (06:21):
What did you mean?

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Kind?

Speaker 6 (06:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (06:24):
What did I mean?

Speaker 3 (06:26):
And we would workshop it as a group.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Really, that's that is terrifying. It is very My minor
was philosophy, so we were thinking out loud not.

Speaker 5 (06:35):
I was really grateful for it, though.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
I think that like it really set me up because honestly,
going into college and being creative writing, there were a
lot of like writing workshops in colleges, and a lot
of people you know, would join these writing workshops and
it would be their first writing workshop. So to get
that in high school, I felt like, you know, in
on something or introduced to something that was special that
like I felt prepared, if.

Speaker 5 (06:58):
That makes sense.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, And so when I went to college, I felt
like I was just like, oh, you know, oh this is.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
That thing, This isn't that bad. No, we're gonna survive this.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
It's gonna be fine.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
You weren't green. And when you studied this in college
and as you continue your studies and your research, do
you find that there is one universal truth when it
comes to writing or is everything gray? Like is there
a writer or wrong? Because like, for example, I'll put
myself out there, I have terrible grammar, right, so maybe

(07:28):
I could create a piece or write something that you
know makes you feel something, but it's riddled with errors,
like what would you say? Or do you think there
is one universal thing about writing that you've learned in
all of your studies.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
I think that everyone has their own voice. And I
know that's I'm like, oh, but I really mean that
because like, for example, growing up in Miami, you know,
people speak so many different languages. I learned that, Like
it was wild when I saw me writing in English
with Spanish grammar, or even adopting my sister unless she's German,

(08:03):
the way that she spoke English was kind of with
like German grammar. And I found myself like talking and
they would say, like Christil, you're talking backwards.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
I'm like, well, this is how it came to me.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
And so I found myself really listening to the ways
that I think and the ways that I speak. And
you know, I learned a lot from my friends who
speak multiple languages, because they're like, this is the language
that I dream in, this is the language I speak
at home, this is my family language. But when it
comes to writing, you know, it feels distant from me
writing in English. So I'm trying to get that same
intimacy with English. And so I found myself thinking when writing,

(08:39):
like I want to get something that feels intimate and
true to the way that I see it. And if
it's na grammatical, if it's there's like a thing that
my mom used to say.

Speaker 5 (08:49):
Because we used to write bus train, buskeets.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
School, and my mom would be like, y'all got me
waking up four day in the morning to take you
to school. And she said, you got me waking up
before day in the morning.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
So how do I write that?

Speaker 1 (09:03):
I'm like, four day, I put, I put apostrophe f
O R E day in the morning, and workshops ripped
that apart.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
They're like, what do you mean?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
And I'm like, I mean what my mom said, you know, yeah,
so I think that in a way, and what I
love like I found an interview of my nana who
has my name, who was interviewed about over town in
like the nineties, and she's talking about growing up in
Miami all of this stuff, and it was just so
interesting the way that the person who transcribed the interview

(09:36):
wrote her voice, because it wasn't paying attention to like
the composing something. It was paying attention to getting what
she said. And I found that I almost like heard
my nana's voice even though she's not here. So I
think I believe in the power of voice, and I
believe that, you know, not everything is going to look

(09:57):
the same on the page that it does on the stage.
Like I think every poem that I've ever like performed
looks one way on the page and it's totally different
on the stage. And I think that that, like, I'm
okay with that. I'm okay with multiple multiple like drafts
or forms of the poem because there's always different audiences

(10:18):
and I want to speak in the language that I
want to be understood. So it's like, I think that
the most true thing that I find in writing is
creating space for your voice. And I will tell my students,
I'm like, hey, you sound like a robot. Like what
I'm like, who is talking here? Why are you saying thou?

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Like?

Speaker 5 (10:39):
What are you saying?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
And I see them trying to sound like someone else,
and I'm like, why do you want so badly to
be good at sounding like someone who knows what they
sound like?

Speaker 5 (10:51):
You know?

Speaker 1 (10:52):
So like, I just think that the journey is to
find something that feels good, something that sounds true, whether
it like looks right on the page or not.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
You know, wow, talk about you mentioned Miami and your nana,
And something that I love about you is that your
work often bridges the historical with the person. How do
you what's your approach to blending both of those?

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Ah, So I'm not going to inundate you, no, please, you.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Could you could if you never will in trying.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
So honestly, I think that this is just the project
of my life. I feel, you know, being the youngest
person in my family, I grew up in the wake
of a lot of death by the time I was ten,
like generations were wiped out. And you know, for me
to be named after my nana, for folks, I remember

(11:48):
my great grandmother. So my nana is my grandmother and
my great grandmother. We called her grandmother. So I remember Nana,
I remember Grandmother, I remember Aunt Wilhelmina, and like, I
know what they look like, I remember their voices.

Speaker 5 (11:59):
There, skin was super soft.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
But like my sister, for example, she had a decade
more of a relationship with each of them, and everyone
in my family did. And I think the most pivotal
thing that I realized, and I don't know that I
knew that I realized it, but I was sensitive to it,
was the fact that my parents were mourning when I

(12:21):
was growing up. So, you know, my uncle, my uncle Vaughan,
he died, you know, when I was born. Like my
mom was in the hospital while he was you know,
like passing away, and it was really hard that it
was like you know, they say like with every birth
come with every death comes a birth or whatnot, and

(12:41):
it's like it's kind of wild. My mom was in
the hospital for like four months before I was born,
and then Uncle Voughn got sick in New York and
then he came to Miami to be with his family.
But when he came to Miami, he's like, you know,
kind of on his deathbed for four months, and so
like you know, like this Tuggle war and it's like

(13:02):
I feel I like to think that he made room
on the family tree for me. And you know, he
was the other artist in the family.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
He made pants, he was a.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Musician, he was I look at his photos on like
he was good looking and tall.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
I'm like, come on in the band. I'm like, of course,
I'm just like, you know, another artist.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
And it's so funny because all the writing, poetry, everything
that I do, it feels like a supernatural conversation with them.
It feels like my way to extend my relationship with
these people that either I didn't meet or my time
with them was so short. So like I have I

(13:44):
have a friend of mine who said, oh, you're Nana.
She passed away and I'm like yeah, like and she's like,
the way you talk about her, I thought she.

Speaker 5 (13:50):
Was still alive.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Well she is in that way.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Honestly, And I think that that's the power because you know,
I don't know who said this, but someone said that,
you know, the final death is when people stop telling
your story and they stop saying your name. And so
everyone in my family, I'm developing relationships with people I've
never met before. My unseas called me from the Bahamas
last year. They're like, Christ, we need you to find

(14:15):
our matriarch in the Bahamas. I'm like, okay, okay, how
to do this?

Speaker 4 (14:21):
What do you mean?

Speaker 1 (14:22):
And then I go and I'm like in the archives.
I'm in church records, baptism records, slave records, all this stuff,
and I'm finding people and then I'm finding newspaper articles
about them. I'm finding that they were causing brawls, you know,
in NASA, and then they were rum running in Miami.
I'm like, so y'all were, and then they were getting

(14:43):
deported and then they come back and they buy their
boat back from the coastguard. I'm like, yo, what are
you doing.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
It's nineteen twenty you are black.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
So it's just like I just there's a there's a writer,
Leonard Pitts.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
He says.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Our ancestors deserved the dignity of memory. And I think
a lot about that, and I just feel that poetry.
You know, everyone's alive. When I'm engaging their story, telling
their story, learning about them, it just feels like like
a you know, like a space where just like time
is warped. It's just like everyone's here, you know.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
We saw this incredible piece that unfortunately I don't think
is the blood Quilt. I don't think it's going anymore right.
It's a play that's unbelievable, and it's this group of
women who you know, so on to a quilt from
their ancestors, you know, over the years, and she had
accumulated all these different quilts from all her different bloodlines,

(15:55):
and every piece of fabric meant something else. And they
would as they sow the piece on, talk about that person,
talk about their stories and connect And you said spiritual,
which before we move on from that, I would love
to touch more on that, because another workshop that you
do is I saw Lucille Clifton one and you talk

(16:16):
about or briefly mentioned that spiritual writing. You know, to
use writing as a tool like that of connection of
divinity or darkness, depending on what it is that comes to.
My question to you is like, how do you connect
to that part of yourself that's so vulnerable and like
not you know, scholarly or corporal, right, and then make

(16:37):
it art? Like how can both of those things be
make how can you make both of those things happen?
Like connect to that but also have something to show
forward at the end of it that maybe somebody else
can now take and read.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
This is great.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
I feel honestly I learned from performance. You know, I
would share works. I think that my favorite poems when
I was younger, I'm like, oh my god, that line's
so good, they're gonna love it. And people are like, oh,
that was a nice boem. And then the poems that
I felt, you know, were probably more raw or like
I wrote it the night before and then I did it,

(17:12):
Like people are coming up to me saying like, oh
my goodness, like you said exactly what I was thinking,
Oh my goodness, like thank you for that poem. Like
if I felt like the language wasn't just mine, I
felt like I was like on a reconnaissance mission to
get words for a feeling that you know, that we
all feel, and so in thinking about it like that,
I feel like if no matter what, if it's true,

(17:34):
if your heart's in it.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
That's the bar.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
I think that, you know, especially people say like kids
are really honest. I feel like, you know, the average
person knows when something's fake. People ask me all the time, like, uh,
how do you know when your students are using AI?

Speaker 4 (17:50):
I'm like, trust me, girl, I probably forget about that,
because of course they must.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
So it's just like I find that the most compelling.
Oh I love to start the like I love teaching
this class, and I'm teaching with my students, and I
think about twenty sixteen.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
I teach freshmen right now in college and I can't
do this class anymore because they're getting younger and younger.

Speaker 5 (18:19):
Born in two thousand.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
But I'm like, so, yeah, do y'all remember twenty sixteen
when Lemonade came out?

Speaker 5 (18:26):
And they were just like I was like, okay, that's yes,
just say yes, Please say yes because a body.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Of and so thinking about when Lemonade came out, everyone's
talking about, oh my god, jay Z cheated on her
about all this stuff, I'm like, oh my god, did
you see that interview where Beyonce was like, oh I
caught jay Z cheating on me in this place with
this woman. See her, this is her face, this is
what she looks like. Yeah, and then we had a talk,
a little heart to heart, and you know, it was

(18:55):
just it was it was a lot. But then I
went and wrote Lemonade, and like people are just like
I wants it to be like, yeah, I saw that
on Like you're lying, And I'm like, I do not
care what happened in these people's household.

Speaker 5 (19:09):
You know that's their business, right, But what if this
man didn't cheat on his wife? Oh yeah?

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Does that mean that eliminates fake? Does that mean for
for for is fake? And then I think about here
we go blues. I think blues women, and I'm like thinking,
you know, Maul Rainey Bessie Smith singing, my man don't
love me. He treats me awful, mean, he's the meanest
man I've ever seen, and it's like, beloved, you are
not with a man last night? And we're like, does

(19:37):
that mean that it's not real? Does that mean do
you have to be in a heterosexual relationship to know
what it's like to feel overlooked, to feel cheated on,
to know what it feels like to be in love
or whatever? And I'm thinking about that emotional truth that
is in the blues, that is a legacy that Beyonce
is a blue woman. Yet, sir, for sure, I'll write
it someday. That's what I see Beyonce in a lineage doing.

(19:59):
Is this same work that these blues women were doing?
Where they're creating songs that are emotionally true. And I've
seen it like online or whatever. You know, someone goes
on like American Idol and they're like, oh my gosh,
she's saying that song so good made me want to
go get in a fight with my man.

Speaker 5 (20:15):
Did you hear what you said?

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Like someone saying something so good that you felt it
that it was almost real enough for you to want
to go get in a fight with their men. So
things are emotionally true, there's an emotional conversation happening. And
so when we're writing something that is emotionally true, I
think that that's the bar, you know. I don't think
it's a matter of like how good or how bad,

(20:38):
because when you get something that's real, sometimes the best
things like they don't even sound right, they're out of tune,
they're like disjointed, all types of things, but they're so raw.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Amy wine House literally Amy wine House.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
So I just I believe in things that are just
like real, you know, And I feel like if your
heart's in it, and like listen, it could be a mess.
We could start with that mess, we could shape it up,
and we can choose to keep the mess right. Here,
and then we could just be really slow and intentional
right here, you know. But I think it's more about

(21:13):
curating as opposed to trying to perform something because I
think it's there. So that's what I think about. Was like,
and I love Lucille Clifton, her spirit writing, and this
is what she did when she would write. She would
write and she would consult like the Ones. She would
use a Ouiji board almost like a like a word bank,
and then she would write, you know, like the Beat generation,

(21:35):
they had like automatic writing that they would do. And
so this is kind of her version. But it's deeply ancestral,
deeply spiritual, and she's writing from the ones, and she's
channeling the voices of her ancestors, of her mother, and
so she's like, I know these voices. I have been
in archives, like last summer when I was searching for

(21:55):
my people, and I'm like, how am I gonna?

Speaker 5 (21:58):
Where do I even begin?

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Right the way that things appeared. I was in Jamaica
in the Maroons, in the mountains, and this man begged
me to take photos. He's like, take photos, take photos.
We're proud of our history. I'm like, okay, and I'll
never forget. There was a name of one of my ancestors,
Tuesday Cambridge, and I'm just like, I know we're from

(22:22):
Beantown and Nasa in Bahamas, and I know that Tuesday
Cambridge was liberated African from a slave ship. And I'm like,
wait a minute. And I know that if it's signed,
that means that that person wrote their name. If they
could not read or write, they would put an X
and say his mark.

Speaker 5 (22:37):
Her mark.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
So this person said their name so he could translate
his name or something. So he wrote his name, Tuesday
Cambridge given name, Okay, Tuesday. A lot of people were
named after days. Yeah, so if your name's like, if
you're born on a Monday, your name's Monday. That person
in the mountains in Jamaica, three months before I was

(22:59):
in the Bahamas me to take a photo and I
just took photos, took photos, and I'm like, wait a minute.
I look at the photo. There's a naming chart and
if their their name was if they were born on
a Tuesday, their name was Tuesday and it was Quadbena
And I'm like, is.

Speaker 5 (23:12):
That is that you?

Speaker 1 (23:16):
So it's like I don't even know how to begin
to like cause I feel like a lot of the
things we have.

Speaker 5 (23:21):
To do is proof, proof, proof, prove. But I felt guided.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
And I have another like my nana. Her name is
Christelle Roach. Also she has a photo album and she
has two photos in there. And as I'm looking and
it's a photo that says mother receiving one million dollars
from the millionaire, I'm like, why is d A Dorsey
giving us a million dollars?

Speaker 4 (23:42):
What?

Speaker 1 (23:43):
He lived next door to my family, next door and
across the street from the whole family on Ninth Street
and over Town, And I'm like, why is Dorothy giving
us a million dollars?

Speaker 5 (23:51):
I go ask my dad.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
He's like, oh, we thought it was fake. Nobody saw
the money.

Speaker 5 (23:54):
I'm like, bo.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
But I go to the public and I'm just like,
I don't know. And I saw this photo and I
skipped past it.

Speaker 5 (24:03):
She's like what is that.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
I'm like, yeah, I don't know why Dorsey's giving us,
like giving us money, but hey he did. And then
she's like that's not Dorsy And I.

Speaker 5 (24:12):
Was like, what do you mean.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
She's like, there's only two existing photos of Dorsey and
I was just like threefore, like what do you mean?
And then She's just like, oh, well, the photo is
stuck in the book, though I can't pull it out
because usually they wrote the names on the back. Right,
I got two photos. One says the millionaire and the
other says mother saving a million dollars. And I'm like,

(24:36):
don't make me prove myself right. Prove me wrong, because
I had I could back it up. But that knowing that,
I'm like, why would Dorsey.

Speaker 5 (24:44):
I didn't even question it. I just knew it.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
And then I, of course I had to go write
the poem where I proved it.

Speaker 5 (24:50):
And I did.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Worse.

Speaker 5 (24:53):
So I just believe that.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
You know, when going to writing that spirit writing, I
really admire what Lucille Clifton's doing because it requires deep listening,
a lot of trust, and personally what I think is
the work of the descendant, you know, thinking about that
supernatural conversation, that's not just a mean thing. I think
we all have access to that. We're all placed somewhere

(25:15):
in a lineage, whether it's you know, just your family
and music and writing. You know, we all have different
lineages that we're actively a part of. So many people survive,
so you could be here, and so I think when
you call on that lineage and you place yourself in
a lineage that's that's some powerful stuff, you know. So

(25:36):
that's where it becomes spirit writing. No matter what you do,
it's going to be charged with that lineage.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yes, I feel like we're getting a free class.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
No, no, no, we are. We are.

Speaker 5 (25:47):
Have warned you.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
No. We love it here and it's a pleasure to
hear you speak and here how you're spending your time
on this earth. I feel really sad, you know, because
we're latinas and I I see so many children who
aren't learning Spanish, who aren't learning our languages, our cultures,
our foods. Like I'm blessed to say. Like, we had

(26:10):
a friend the other day who was like, when I'm
around you guys, I feel like I get a little
bit of Cuba, you know, And I'm like, I'm proud that,
you know, growing up in Miami has allowed us to
develop and our families to preserve so many of those
things that connect us to our ancestors. I mean, even
just the fact that I could have a conversation with
my grandma and children now they don't speak the language,

(26:31):
and they just don't even ask them questions or they
can or they can't understand them or understand their voice.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
So, speaking of preserve, I think that your work also
serves as an active preservation.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
Yes, what does that responsibility ability.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
Feel like to you?

Speaker 1 (26:48):
It feels like again, like I feel like it's traditional
because you know, especially in this country, ain't nobody was
checking for our history, you know, in like nineteen twenty,
nineteen thirty. But what I have are just a bunch
of photo albums from my family, all the women. They
like the scrap book Aunt Wilhemina. She got a camera

(27:09):
and she took all types of photos her and I'm oh,
my god, interviewing her mother. I'm like, God, I'm looking
at all this stuff. I'm like, I'm so grateful because
you know this like little sketch on, like you know,
a mini oral history on a blank sheet of printing paper,
talking about when they came from Key West to Lemon

(27:31):
City in like the turn of the century.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
I'm like, your ancestors are like some of the first
black pioneers.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yes, And I'm like, wait what, And so we have
all of this because they took the time to really
just like curate it and storytelling this way. But it's
like you know, like the quilting you're talking about, like
the same way someone likes to quilt or just knit,
or you know, cooking, even these things that we do naturally,

(28:00):
when we preserve.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Cooking, cooking recipes, Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
And I think that honestly, when we preserve, like when
we just like start that up again, basically, you know,
that's preservation. That's like neo archival stuff. Yeah, that's not
me Erica Johnson. She's at Duke. She talks about the
neo archive with Dion Brand. Don't get me started, Pleason,

(28:26):
just be a podcast girl, please could be an archive.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
She's busy, she's in the throws of her pH D.

Speaker 5 (28:40):
Even get her over here, it'll be like it'll call
it be called the ocean. We're just gonna swell everybody.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Like what.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
I'm here for?

Speaker 5 (28:50):
It signed me up, honestly.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Okay, you said something blues woman, and you mentioned Beyonce
and Marainie, Bessie Smith and yourself. I mean, I don't
know if I'm if I can call you that, but
I would consider you blues woman, and I'm sure you
do yourself. What would you say is the modern day

(29:13):
blues woman? Because we need some some more.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yeah, I don't think I'm special, like I'm the only
person doing it. But I think that the modern day
blues woman is still music, but it's also spoken words storytellers,
because I think that to because I like what I think,
what I think of as bluesing or what I call
bluesing is like a black woman's space creation process where
you're telling your story, the call and response, the getting

(29:41):
on a stage, and like the erotic freedom, the emotional truth,
just like actually just telling your story and the witness
that's happening because you know, Virginia Wolf says all that
a woman needs in order to write fiction is a
room of one's own with lock and key, And then
Alice Walker says, okay, what about like Phyllis Wheatley, who

(30:04):
she didn't have no room with her own with lock
and key, much less she didn't own herself, but she
was writing. And so I pushed that further, and I'm like,
look at the blues women look at like blues women
like you know, Zorniel Hurston for example, she's the god
of their eyes, are watching God. She made up a hurricane,

(30:24):
and that hurricane is the catalyst for a black woman
telling her story. So she literally made it up, like
you know. And so the same thing with these blues women,
like singing these songs and talking about fighting back, talking
about you better get it, keep it and put it
right here.

Speaker 5 (30:39):
You know.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
And then I think about yes the other day, and
I honestly think that that is just powerful work, you know,
thinking about this lineage of blues women is from music
to poetry, and I definitely think that it's spoken word today.
But the Blues was the loses a storytelling movement, yeah

(31:01):
for sure. And it is the first time in this
country that folks are literally getting on stages telling their
stories out loud in front of everybody. Before that, like
in the musical timeline before that, like blues you got
like you know, rag time, you got menstreul Zy, you
got Vaudeville, Blues, you got Vaudeville like all of this stuff.

(31:22):
You could get a lot from European theater, like's all
this stuff. But in the Blues people are pinned to
page or just sitting down and saying, my man don't
love me. Yeah, yoh, does that you know what happened to?
What stays in my house? What happens in my house
stays in my house. So what we get is public
intimacy because you know, Phyllis Wheatley, like Alice Walker says,

(31:45):
she didn't even own herself, so everything that she did
had to be publicly intimate. And that's what we see,
like with Mammie till And you know, sharing her son,
like that's public intimacy. That grief is so publicly intimate,
the same way that our love is so publicly intimate
because it has to be, so we create spaces of

(32:06):
our own that we have to share with everybody, you know.
And so when I see storytellers operating in this lineage,
we're still doing it in music, of course, but when
a storyteller gets on stage and is like talking about
their mother, talking about you know, learning to cook, you know,

(32:27):
that's powerful because you're getting someone basically calling in all
their ghosts, calling in their lineage, and saying placing themselves
in that lineage, being publicly intimate, being erotically free, being
emotionally true. And that's what I think a Blues woman is.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
I could hear her speak for days, I really could.

Speaker 5 (32:49):
I good.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
I want to bottle her little lessons like like ursula
and a little like you know, intimacy.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
I think this is important.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
It's so amazing here because you're seeing I wrote my
questions in my hand and you've already answered so many
of them without even asking them. I'm just here like
in awe and complete all of you.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
A simple question, how do.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
You decide when the poem remains on the page and
when it begs to be spoken?

Speaker 1 (33:35):
I think all of my poems I do say them
out loud when I write them. I don't got a
lot of spoken word poems, but the poems that come
to the stage, I'm like paying attention, you know, versus
I feel like, you know, when it comes to a book,
a publishing or you know, in a literary journal or
something like that, this is for whoever it might be for.

(33:58):
And I feel like, you know, when I'm sharing a
poem in real time and like I'm like, listen to urgency,
I'm like, everybody gather around down, you know, because I
feel like, you know, urgency is the word, because I'm
like whatever that is on the back end of rage,
on the back end of excitement, you know, that thing

(34:19):
that pushes you like, oh my god. So that's what
I feel. And I don't always feel that like before.
My most recent piece, I think the last spoken word
piece I probably wrote. It was like years go by,
The years go by, they do, so you know, I
think I read poems like every frequently, but my performance

(34:40):
pieces years go by.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, when when it's when.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
It calls Yeah, they're amazing, No.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
They are, and please I encourage you to go read them.
And in a lot of your work, I realized this
one piece particularly that that stuck out with me. It's
has a lot of water imagery, like walking through the water.
And also that there's a quote on your website I
think somebody else said it about how like water has
memories and it's just trying to like rush back to
where it came from. And in another way, that fascinates

(35:10):
me as well, because I know that scientifically, even they
do studies on like crystals and waters, water where they
say it can actually has the potential to hold memories
or remember things. So I'm wondering, first of all, thank
you because when you read her work, it throws you
in a place. Yeah, and you do that so well
without even noticing that you're doing it, because all of

(35:31):
a sudden you're getting the nuance of what's happening, but
you feel like you're there without you having to overly
describe it, which I think is so amazing. Sure, like
Jim brought up the whole thing about Miami, like so
much of your work I feel hot or I feel
wet or you know, things like that. So I'm wondering
feel wet.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
I gotta let that pass. But why would I?

Speaker 2 (35:53):
That wasn't me this time.

Speaker 7 (35:55):
I'm here trying to be all nice and scholarly improper
and naz boom. That makes a freaking wed joke. Sorry,
I almost want there. This is like I had been
be so well behind.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
She really is.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
Joke.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
I do always say Miami feels like somebody's wafting between
their legs, Like that's what it feels like.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Well, yeah, it depends on where you're walking. Girls. Sometime's
waffed in somewhere. Anyway. Anyway, sorry, way to ruin my
beautiful question. My question was about water. My question is
about the elements, like do you feel like the earth
and the elements play into your work or into also
what feeds your work, like do you feel like water

(36:38):
inspires you?

Speaker 5 (36:39):
Well, I definitely am a scorpio.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Ah.

Speaker 5 (36:43):
But yeah, So that was Tony Morrison.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
She said, all water has a memory of where it's been,
and I think like it's forever trying to get back
to it. And so I think about that a lot,
about the memories tied to water, and it's i one
of the things that I found in looking at the
looking at my family history. For example, my family has
been here a long time, but they migrate a lot,

(37:07):
and I'm like, y'all, we're just common and going when
ye like it, ye to and from the Bahamas. And
then like my great great grandfather was Miami's first black
boat captain. Wow, and he was a rum runner and
all of this stuff. I'm like, so you were just

(37:27):
hopping on boats and going Yeah. I was like, that
seems a little early. And so, you know, I think
that that's what I admire is the freedom found on
the water, and just growing up in Miami, I felt
most at peace by the water. And you know, I
also like the ocean is the old graveyard, you know,

(37:51):
but it's also the thing that connects all of us.
It's definitely connects us to our ancestry, like thinking about
like the Middle Passage, it connects me to my most
immediate ancestry, thinking about like the Bahamas. It's like even
with my unt Gladys, like her family going to Cuba,
Like it's just like thinking about migration. Like people talk

(38:13):
about movement a lot, but what was the vehicle for
that movement, you know? And it was a water, and
so thinking about that, you know. And then also one
thing that I think is just so profound and how
I think about my family is when I learned about
a whale fall and the idea that when a whale dies,
it takes decades for it to fall to the ocean floor.

(38:36):
Wo and in that time, like colonies of fish, like
whole like generations of fish are feeding on that whale.
And I'm like, that's what it feels like to lose
my nana. That's what it feels like to learn about Carmichael.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
Cambridge or whatever.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
I have so many whales fallen in my family, you know,
And I feel like, you know, deep as an ocean.
You know, we don't know what all is in the ocean.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
You're not the aliens that they're up there. We've been
up here for three years now. We haven't seen nothing space,
So I believe it.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
And I think the water is just powerful, you know,
and then I.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
And then I also found I think I was first
haunted by water. I did almost drown when I was
a kid, and then my parents said that they came outside.
They're like, you were floating in the water and you
didn't know how. I remember being scared of the water,
and then not being scared of the water. I know
when that happened. So just thinking about water in my

(39:38):
relationship to it, and like different hauntings, you know, like
I do think a lot about you know, during the
Middle Passage, how people would just like lighten the load,
they would just throw people over. And then even the
idea that shark paths in Miami like sharks on the
coast of Florida, shark paths, sharks still fall all the

(40:00):
same shark paths that changed because of the Middle Passage
and the frequency of bodies going overboard. And so again,
like this is another writer, Christina Sharp. She talks about
this being in the wake and like a ship's wake,
but also awake at a funeral, the wake the record
recoil of a gun, and the wake like a gathering

(40:21):
like but being in the wake, I feel like we're
definitely in that wake, and my wake is definitely tied
to the water.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Me too. No water for me is its powerful? And
you know all those guano's over there, what are we
gonna do?

Speaker 4 (40:36):
Yeah, I remember learning that about you a while ago,
and I had forgotten that that there's a part of
your family that's in Cuba.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, it's and I never understood it. So my matriarch
is Gladys, and I'm like, Gladys, how.

Speaker 5 (40:54):
Explain it to me? She explained it, like I think
for a decade, never understood. Oh, Cuban. I guess, like whatever,
You're always.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Six degrees from a Cuban okay on the Caribbean. Yeah,
But then I find that Willie Franks, the rum runner
and the boat captain, I hope I got this regulatus.

Speaker 5 (41:18):
His sister got married.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
They're all coming from the Bahamas, got married to a
Cuban man, and they wait to Cuba.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
With stick and married Cuban man.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Their whole family, uh is rooted in Cuba in the
way that our family's rooted in Miami.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Got it.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
So I never understood that at all.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
I was just like, Okay, but yeah, I think that
that's also I think the power of just like migration
in history because I was just like, I.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Still have family in Lebanon, and if you don't look
at my leg hairs and our hairs and eyebrow hairs,
and I don't say, if you best believe we connect it?

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Okay, connected through the follicles.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
My god, between my Cuban ancestry Spain. All that is hair, hair, hair, hair.
It's true of hair, every It's so true.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Cubans are so hairy.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
Maybe send it up like Bigfoot or small Foot.

Speaker 5 (42:13):
I'm screaming, I'm dead some kind.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Of Well, babe, do you want to ask one more
question before.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
I'm like seventy more? I have a few more every more.
Obviously as a black woman yourself and black.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
Womanhood being a theme that you explore in your writing,
I wanted to ask you, what's a narrative that you
feel is lacking in the mainstream conversation.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
I honestly think that, like I'm actually doing this study
right now with doctor Leisha Gaines, who is phenomenal, amazing,
super smart, makes me feel stupid interesting, And she's talking
about the plant, the legacies of the plantation and whatnot.
And I think that you know, just growing up learning slavery,

(43:03):
civil rights, Obama that's our history there.

Speaker 5 (43:09):
You know.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
I kind of got to a point where I, and
I'm sure a lot of people felt the same way,
where I just like, oh, I'm like I know about
that same same old I get it, Like I understand.
But in revisiting the plantation and learning and looking at
the plantation and people working there who are trades, people
who are cooks, who are caretakers, who are like literally

(43:33):
like gardeners, like like, let's just decenter all that violence,
you know, like like that that doesn't have nothing to
do with us. But what we're doing is like we're
creating life. We're creating crops where literally like woodworking like
trades people. One thing that I see when I look
at well, I just do it. I love me some us,

(43:58):
you know. Right now, this is where my.

Speaker 5 (44:00):
Brain is currently I'm writing this.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
I think about how intentional and life saving love was,
you know, especially thinking about the legacies of the plantation
that like, you know, love was rare, you know, especially
when your body is actively being colonized, used to abuse,
your children are being taken from you, and there's so

(44:23):
much fracturing of your personhood, fracturing of your family, and
fracturing of just like your sense.

Speaker 5 (44:30):
Of self, your spirit. Love was a thing that filled cups.

Speaker 8 (44:36):
You know.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Love was the thing that you know had strangers become siblings.

Speaker 5 (44:42):
You know.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Love was the thing that you know, just save people's
lives because they knew someone loved me. And so I
think the thing that I admire I love my mom.
I think my parents are like weirdly perfect, like I
always say, the greatest life story I've ever known. My
dad's my best friend. My mom is actually perfect. But

(45:06):
I think that I really respect them, you know, even
being like of child bearing age and the friends having
kids and like getting married. I see them like, you know,
being parents and making decisions. And I'm like, y'all absolutely
chose the life that you gave us. You consistently showed

(45:26):
up and did all of this on purpose. And I
think the thing that I admire and I want to
acknowledge is the tenderness I see in black women, Like
the softness the I think everyone talks about strong black women.
Everyone talks about resiliency, independence, you know, the soldier. But
I'm like, I see black women and I see tenderness,

(45:47):
Like even.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
Myself, I'm a softie.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
And so and I think that that tenderness comes from
a place of life giving love, you know. And you know,
like even when I was younger and I would be
in school, like it was always somebody's auntie and saying
you're good, you all right, you know, And so I'm
just like, you know that that right there. I see

(46:15):
that as a legacy of the resiliency of slavery. There
are a lot of legacies of slavery that are institutional systemic,
that are violence, that are racism, but there is love
that comes from that place that was in spite of
there was love that was created for the very purpose

(46:39):
of like making sure that someone was okay. So I
think that, you know, people talk about, you know, falling
in love, like this thing that happens to you that
you can't help it or whatever. But I think absolutely,
a lot of Black people, a lot of black women,
even myself, I think love has been and in the
black community absolutely is a choice and it saved lives

(47:01):
and it's changed lives. And so here I am still
choosing it, trying.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
I need to give her more.

Speaker 8 (47:10):
You don't know, but there's a whole applause you hear
Arena stopping for you.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
You are phenomenal you've always been. But I learned so
much from you all the time, just speaking in any
kind of proximity to you, and I just need to
interject to say what a treat it is to learn
from you.

Speaker 5 (47:42):
I love you.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
I love you like I love being here and watching.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
I feel like when when we met, I was really
I think I was probably really quiet, lot you were
really quiet, and I knew that like you got me.
I knew that if something happened, like you were just like.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Mess with her, and I was just like, and she's
still that way all those years. You might have been
why out there, but something loud was going on here.
I'll tell you that. Oh yeah, Well, before we put
you on the spot, I do have one last question
for you. Part of the thing that I loved so
much about hearing you speak is how much you pay

(48:20):
it forward to those people that you learn from and
that you study and admire and research. If you had
the opportunity anybody, anybody in the entire world, in any
time period, you know somebody who inspires you a lot.
It can be anybody in the world that you could
sit with them and have a conversation with them. Who
would it be.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
I think about this a lot because I don't know
how to explain how I felt when she died. I
felt like what used to be a room with an
endless sky. It didn't have no ceiling. It was just galaxy.
Imagine above you, the ceiling is a galaxy. That's what
literature was entering rooms with her words. And when she

(49:06):
left this earth, I found myself craving her words, finding interviews,
listening to her audio books because she recorded them. Her
name is I was WHOA not be about to say
her government Tony Morrison.

Speaker 5 (49:19):
I thought you were talking about Tony because.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
I think she I always say, like, looking at like
black literature in this country, I'm like learning from people
who had their language is stripped from their mouths and
then had to create space for themselves in a totally
different language when they weren't allowed to read or write.

(49:43):
I want to learn from them people.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (49:45):
And I think that the radical love.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
That she has for her community, that she has for
the self, that she has for women, that she has
for minoritized people and marginalized.

Speaker 5 (49:54):
Voices, that love teaches.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
And you know, I think that it's just like I
had a mentor whence tell me oh, Christel, you need
to study a.

Speaker 5 (50:03):
Writer who's dead.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
That way, they can't change on you. You know, Oh you
can see like fine, their whole work. And I was like, oh, okay,
I think that she is a finite teacher, and that
you can see someone who has a worldview, who has
their own language, who has a language vocabulary, if you will,

(50:27):
a visual vocabulary, and she has it all. And I'm like,
you know, I feel like if I lived in Germany
and I had students who want to write about their heritage,
who want to write about their community, anything, I would
still be walking in that room with a bunch of
books by Tony Morrison.

Speaker 5 (50:42):
I'm like, this is how you do it. Like, this
is literally.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Someone doing that, and it's the epitome of someone creating
something that is for a specific community, but it's accessible
to everyone, so you can.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Use it in any community.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
Go home reads all of Tony Morrison's.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Person We have a responsibility everybody on this planet. I
don't need to learn about our ancestors, but what our
ancestors did to other people's ancestors and how to change
the world so we don't make the same dumb mistakes. Again,
clearly we're not learning very well. Well, everybody needs to
realtle more Tony.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
Yeah, we do.

Speaker 5 (51:22):
She recorded her books herself. Oh oh my god, I
go to sleep listening to them. It's literally ah, it's
like a bedtime story.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Like I love that.

Speaker 5 (51:33):
I'm a fangirl.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
Yeah, I love that. That's what a great person to
be a fan girl? Love perfect?

Speaker 4 (51:41):
Okay, I I know that we have to run. I
could be here forever, really, we really could. So I'm
only gonna ask you two more. Oh and that's like,
and you know I have more than two. My first
one is what's a question or maybe questions, but we'll
say question, what's a question that you're still trying to answer.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
And you're writing no porression or anything, JEMG.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
I trust me. I knew who I was at I
knew who I was going to have here on the
couch with.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
Us today where I am right now, Like in thinking
about love being a choice, I'm writing this right now,
and I'm just like love being like something that is
life giving and saving. There's so many different types of love,
and I think that. For example, my grandfather and my nana,

(52:28):
they were sweethearts, high school sweethearts, and they were never
together in my lifetime, but I would my grandpa. He
was alive and my nana she passed, and so I
would go visit him and what not, only hey Grandpa,
and I just was like, you know, they weren't together,
they were separated, like they died, Like, oh, they're divorced.

Speaker 5 (52:50):
I think.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
I don't even know. They don't love each other. They're
like they're they're old.

Speaker 5 (52:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
And so one day I went to go visit my
grandpa and I said, hey, grandpa's Crystell. And he was older,
he had dementia, and he was just.

Speaker 5 (53:08):
Like Christal, oh baby, oh oh.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
And I was like, Grandpa's Cristeal, It's Kevin's daughter. And
then he's like oh and then he's like and then
I'm like, buzz me up. And then I came upstairs
and I walked in and his eyes.

Speaker 5 (53:28):
Were teary and he was just so just thrown off.
He was like. And then I was like, I.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Thought he didn't like love love her anymore, Like right,
I look around the room, photos.

Speaker 5 (53:45):
Of her everywhere. Oh wow, He's like.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
And we would just look at photo albums together. So
I'm like, okay, Grandpa, let's look at a photo album
and I'm looking at the photo albums. I'm like, Nana, Nana, Nana, Nana,
them together their wedding photos.

Speaker 5 (54:00):
I'm like, oh. I was like, were they together? Were they?

Speaker 1 (54:04):
I was like, I just assumed that they didn't love
each other. I assume that it just the Wes, you
don't love each other. And then I'm like, wait, you
love her? And I was like, oh my god, what
type of love is that? Because again, it didn't. I
never thought that, you know, someone loving someone means that

(54:26):
they didn't get to be together as opposed. I thought,
if you love someone, you're together. I didn't think that
you could love someone so much that you wouldn't let
yourself be with them.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
And I was just like oh, and they're like again
and again.

Speaker 5 (54:43):
I look at news stories.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
I look and I see like people making impossible decisions.
A book, one of those books, a Mercy by Tony Morrison,
Like the first chapter, the mom, you know, like some
guy comes to like take the girl is coming and
he wanted to take her from that plantation. And they
wanted to take the mom. But the mom knew what

(55:08):
her daughter would suffer on that plantation, and she said
take her instead, the daughter looks at it like the
ultimate betraying, right, But the Mom's like, if I leave,
you're gonna take my place and everything I.

Speaker 5 (55:21):
Gotta do here?

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (55:23):
Yeah, all she had to and so she like that mercy.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
You know, I'm like, what type of love is that?
So I think that that's the question that I'm always
asking is what type of love is that? Because love
isn't always pretty. It is not, you know, as simple,
and it's not you know, I feel like love can
be really messy and it can be torrential, and also
it can just be beloved a mercy killing, you know, like.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
It's just like complicated. Wo yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
So I think the question is what type of love
is that? Lord?

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Crowdly warm, I want you to come over and look
at the way my dad will look at me and
tell me what a type of that? Well that's honestly.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
I did have another question, but I don't think I
need to ask it. I think that my question was
what can we leave our listeners with?

Speaker 3 (56:17):
And I think that you've already given.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
So much that I I say, I have nothing else.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
I have nothing else.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
I have a lot to think about, and I have
a lot too to process just from this conversation, I
can't say thank you enough.

Speaker 5 (56:32):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
I feel the same way.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
I'm glad you've been able to experience the gift that
is hurt.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
I got to get up in a tree and read.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
You too, Hey, baby stelf.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
No, but you know what I think would be gran
that we can share with you afterwards. We can put
together a little list of what you would recommend to read,
maybe a few things for our listeners, I tell you
right now. But yeah, I feel the same way. I'm
very grateful that you that you shared your time with
us and your words with us, and in our way,

(57:05):
we got to archive a little bit of the amazing.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
I have a feeling, just a sweet feeling, whatever becomes
of in our own world. Because we are finishing our
third season, this conversation will be referred back to often.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
I'm going to listen to you on an audio tape
when I go to bed.

Speaker 5 (57:26):
Yeah you will.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Maybe then I'll wake up taller and smarter.

Speaker 5 (57:28):
I'm screaming.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
I know about that.

Speaker 4 (57:32):
Well, listen, we have another surprise segment, but you're not
going to hear it in this episode. So if you're
listening now, tune back in because on World Poetry Day,
We're going to share a little bit of Crystelle's gift
real time with you.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
But before we give you that amazing gift, which you
have to come fine World Poetry Day, I want to
share a little bit of what I do here in
space with you. So this is just I just report
the news. It's one hundred percent true, Oh it is,
but I this is the research that I do. I'm
you know, connected to all intergalacrim.

Speaker 6 (58:12):
And this everybody's us over the space news, this music,
this week in outer space, Earthlings, the blood moon came
and went and was glorious, but did have some serious repercussions.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
My leg hairs are two inches long and hard to
the touch, and I can't stop uncontrollably howling. To be fair,
this this start about a decade ago, so it probably
isn't tied to the blood. No, you get it, You
get what I just reported. Okay. Astronomers have revealed new
evidence that not just one, but four tiny red, yellow, purple,

(58:54):
and green planets are circling around Bernard Star, the second
yearest star to NASA, announcing their names respectively, Wait a minute,
as Tinky Winky dipsy La La and Poe, is that
where Ela put the Teletubbies.

Speaker 5 (59:10):
I'm screwing.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
The Teletubbies. Free the Teletubbies, get them out us here. Lastly,
in outer space, three D printing will help space pioneers
make homes, tools and other stuff they need to colonize
the Moon and Mars, which means the only thing being
screwed will be them when they run out of ink
and Wi Fi.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
And this has been space.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
Thank you, Crystal, still sitting there doing the calculations of
how much of that was actual?

Speaker 5 (59:40):
It was not the emotional truth.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
There you go, exactly exactly right, It was all true.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
I just can't believe the Teletubbies are trapped in space.
I know that's crazy. Makes sense though, that's crazy. Well,
we have loved having you here with us listeners on
the flight, not as much as we loved having Crystal,
But we love you guys, and you can find us
on in our own world pod and where can we
Where can they find you? On socials?

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
I have an Instagram and it is Crystal at Chrystal
Victoria christ E L.

Speaker 5 (01:00:15):
Victoria. I also have a website.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
Yeah, you have some of your work on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Can I do a shameless pot no, no, please moment
you should even say anything about it. But during National
Poetry Month with Oh Miami, I am having an event
where I will be debuting my digital exhibit showcasing my
family archive in location on nine Street in Overtown. It's

(01:00:43):
called over the Town and it'll be a little bit
of a walking tour writing workshop.

Speaker 5 (01:00:49):
It'll be really dope.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
I'm excited by it. I'm also very daunted. It's tech,
but you know, I'm really stubborn. So it has to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
So and it will happen.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
And so we'll see her debut book, Losing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
You're a busy girl and a PhD. What does she
not do? Go, get to work, get you've allowed to?
Let read a book because I need to. Thanks for
flying with us.

Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
We love you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Buy Launch.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
This podcast is brought to you by Moonflower Productions in
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Speaker 5 (01:01:26):
Wild podcast Network.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
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