February 17, 2026 • 28 mins
Poet, performer, and educator edwin bodney joins Unapologetically Creative for a deeply honest conversation about writing closer to the nerve, transforming grief into a landscape for discovery, and creating work rooted in truth, vulnerability, and connection. Edwin reflects on their journey from early open mic nights at the Poetry Lounge to becoming a powerful voice in contemporary spoken word, exploring how performance sharpened their craft and how storytelling became a space for survival, joy, and radical empathy.
Together, edwin and host Andrew Ramsammy unpack what it means to live and create without apology, why spoken word sits at the foundation of all literature, and how artists can continue their own stories on their own terms. From grief and identity to creativity as courage, this episode is a powerful reminder that no one else gets to write the ending of your story.
2:04 Getting Closer to the Nerve
4:00 Grief as Geography
7:51 Discovering Poetry and Performance
13:44 First Time on Stage
15:55 Growth Over Time
16:22 Identity, Belonging, and Connection
17:50 Bringing Audiences Closer to Themselves
19:25 Living Without Apology
20:27 Spoken Word as the Foundation of Literature
21:14 Breaking Rules in the Creative Process
21:54 Where Performance and Writing Converge
23:59 Writing for Truth and Vulnerability
25:36 Expanding Reach Through social media
26:58 Continuing Your Own Story
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
I'm never writing thinking abouthow will this sound to an
audience. I'm always writing with the
first idea of how will this sound to me.
How does this sound in relation to my story?
In relation to how I feel? Welcome to Unapologetically
(00:24):
Creative, a podcast from the Vermont College of Fine Arts,
where we celebrate bold artistry, transformative
creativity, and the audacious voices shaping the future of the
arts. I'm your host Andrew Ram Sammy,
and in this series we dive into honest, inspiring conversations
(00:44):
with artists who are pushing boundaries and redefining what
it means to create work that resonates and endures.
Edwin Botany is a black, queer and non binary poet, the author
of A Study of Hands and. One of the most.
Powerful voices in contemporary spoken word.
(01:05):
Based in Los Angeles, Edwin is widely known for their
commanding performances at the Poetry Lounge and for their
features on Button Poetry, wheretheir work explores identity,
queerness, love, grief, survival, and the courage to
tell the truth. Edwin is also a visiting faculty
member in the VCFA Writing Program, where they bring lived
(01:27):
experience, radical empathy, andcreative rigor into the
classroom. This conversation, Edwin
reflects on what it means to write.
Closer to the nerve. How grief became a geography
they now live within, and how performance and writing have
shaped each other over more thantwo decades on the stage.
And on the page, Edwin Padney, welcome to Unapologetically
(01:50):
Creative. Hello Andrew, Thank you for
having me. Your.
Poetry is described as quote 101% autobiographical.
What's that extra 1% about? That extra 1% is about getting
closer than many of us believe we can.
(02:10):
Yeah, it's about it's about connectivity, not just because
of the work I do in community, but the work I do in self,
right? It's the way that I move through
my work, right? Is is I always I always kind of
use this image or idea of like getting close to the nerve.
(02:33):
But, and that's relevant to me in multiple ways, which I can
elaborate on later, but of yeah,getting close to the nerve
without damaging it. I think that a lot of our, you
know, those nerves, those threads in our work, in the
things that we want to talk about, how we want to express
may already be damaged, right. And so I think, yeah, it's like,
(02:54):
how do I sort of bump up againstthat and and really kind of feel
it in my hands without, you know, really just kind of
tearing it away, right? I think it's still valuable to
have and, and, and I think that there is something that is worth
keeping in, in those things thatfeel damaged, right?
(03:16):
And I think so. I think like, yeah, I just, I,
I, it's getting closer to the nerve that one person is like
how, how, how much more can I lean into that?
I, I'm doing it scared, right? It's like, yeah, it takes a lot
of bravery. There's, there's tons of fear in
the things that we talk about that we write about that we are
feeling. But I go, OK, well, what if I
(03:39):
just reach a little bit more andthen what's there?
I'm so interested in that. Yeah, as you get.
Closer to that, how does that then evolve into your writing in
terms of your own story and how you feel and and does it change
over time? Because I'm assuming it takes
time to get closer and closer and closer to that.
(04:00):
I think for me, I don't think ittakes very much time anymore.
And I say that, you know, to putit simply, I've survived so much
and continue to. And it's not that that's
isolated to me, right? We are all people living in the
world. But I've become less afraid of
(04:23):
how I feel about the things thatare in me and around me.
And so I think with that reduction in, in the fear that
we might feel on that, that I might feel on the surface comes
a more immediacy in the access that I have to my work and the
(04:44):
feelings that drive my work for so much of my life.
I shared a a sort of social conditioning of how grief
existed, right? I think that a lot of us might
have a very standard understanding or we might be
even taught to treat grief as this sort of handheld object,
(05:04):
right. This this thing that we kind of
grow largely around. And I've in the last maybe six
or seven years, I've, I've really, that's, that's
transformed deeply in that I said, well, not to reduce who I
am, but I'm not, I'm not growinglarger around my grief.
(05:29):
I've transformed grief into a geography.
Grief has become a landscape that I live in.
And I think where, where the real grief is, is do I choose to
just wander about this terrain or do I choose to harvest joy
(05:50):
from within it and all of the other beautiful components of
life, right. And so that's where I start.
You know, I say, OK, the terrainchanges.
It's also because it's this geography.
It, it's it's expansive and yes,it can feel overwhelming, but it
to me, it's like it's the same kind of overwhelming feeling
(06:11):
that I have when I like visit the Sequoias.
Well, and so there's so much depth and beauty in in that
overwhelming sensation, right? And so, yeah, it's like, OK, the
mountains are over here. What does that mean for me and
my grief? What is what do these trees mean
for me and my joy? What does the Meadow mean when
I'm laying in it with a lover, right?
(06:31):
Like those things. But all of that, the, the
fundamental soil of it all is really so centered around the
grief of, of my life, right? And it doesn't mean I don't have
a joyous life, right? I Lovejoy.
It's one of my favorite things. I love to laugh.
I love to make people laugh, butyeah, that's that's it's
transformed deeply. And so I think that that has
(06:53):
given me so much more immediacy because I say, Oh my God, look
at this world I'm in, right? I mean that in the metaphorical
way. And, you know, because we've,
you know, the real world is real.
But I say, look at this world I'm in and look at look at what
has become possible that my original understanding of grief
didn't make possible. And so that's where I am now.
(07:14):
Is it because that is more familial or is it more
comfortable? Is it more?
No, no, no. More.
Is it any less than? What is it that allows you to
do? That I'm.
I'm excited by the discovery of what this new terrain offers me.
Yeah. And so it just it it opens up
(07:34):
what? It's a new map and you get to
explore a new map. You know, I don't know my arch,
my RPG video game players, but it's that and I go, Oh my God,
look at all this undiscovered stuff with all these side quests
and I get to I get to do it and I love that.
I love that. What drew you to poetry and
performance and and how did you get involved with the Poetry
(07:56):
Lounge and button poetry, which is part of your your creative
voice? So I this is always funny to
talk about because I I was neverreally a literary person to
begin with. I hated reading, writing essays.
I was always like, I was always a good academic, right?
I always was able to understand what was being taught to me.
(08:18):
I was always able to excel, right?
I was someone who was constantlyin gifted or honors or whatever
the case might be, blah, blah, blah, or whatever metrics you
want to use, right? Because to me, it's either
neither here nor there, but I the, the first thing that kind
of opened that window of possibility was I was in 8th
(08:40):
grade and we were assigned an essay we had to write about, I
think it was a 5 to 8 page paperon any subject we wanted to, as
long as it related to the Holocaust.
And of course, you know, you're in 8th grade, you're in middle
school, you're like, oh God, like I'm just, I can't like this
is so heavy. It's also like essay writing.
(09:02):
I'm bored by essay writing. And so I said, OK, well, what
can I do right in order to make sure I get this done?
Because it was like one of our final projects.
I also, you know, at 13, you're like 5 to 8 pages.
That's impossible, you know, andthe next thing you know, you're
writing a full manuscript. So I, I did some research and I
(09:26):
stumbled upon a specific concentration camp that
imprisoned primarily women and children during the Holocaust.
And when, when they liberated these camps and, you know,
soldiers and whomever else went in and, and we're looking at the
aftermath of these things and, and picking up these different
relics and whatnot. They, they discovered a bunch of
(09:50):
bits of art and poetry in this camp from like scraps of paper
or etched into the walls or, youknow, into the dirt, you know,
whatever the case might be. And So what my essay turned into
was this intimate look at 3 poems written by three children.
(10:14):
And I was just, I remember just feeling like even my 13 year old
self just feeling so deeply moved and but also so deeply
interested in what these storiesmeant and what these poems
represented for the experiences that they were suffering
through. And I still didn't think of it
(10:34):
and I still didn't think anything of it, right.
I turned in the paper. I was like, thank God I got that
done, right. Like cool, but thank God I got
it done. And the teacher at the time,
this very stoic old white man who was actually pretty chill
for the most part, but he just always he, he was, he wasn't one
to ever really kind of crack a smile.
(10:55):
And this is also like, you know what, this is LAUSD.
I'm in, you know, most schools here, no shade.
You know, I, I'm, I'm an educator myself, but it's like
we're under resourced in so manyways, right?
And, and also so many educators for a like a number of valid
reasons are over it, right? And just don't really want to
(11:17):
put up with whatever's happening.
So that was an interesting dynamic.
But he he held me till the end of class.
He said, he turned over here. He gave everyone's papers back
except mine. And he kept me for a few minutes
after class. And I'm like, uh oh, you know,
you're like, oh, no, but who's it?
I'm suspended for life. And he hands me my paper and he
(11:40):
kind of cracks this little smirk.
And he's like, this was so well written.
And he says, I don't know if youever thought about it, but you
should consider a career in journalism.
And that was kind of like that keyhole into what could my life
look like as a writer? And so that that's where it
started. And then I and then my
(12:01):
stepfather introduced me to openmic spaces, you know, because at
this point, I'm now like, OK, I'm a teenager.
I'm like, OK, take me to the take me to the things, you know.
And so that was that became really valuable.
And, and at 15, like 14-15, maybe 15, that was my
introduction to the Poetry Lounge.
And, and so this is we're, yeah,we're in like 2004, 2005 at this
(12:22):
point. And I walked into that space for
the first time and I was just overwhelmed by the magic of that
space. It transformed me that night.
And I used to be a shit writer. I was a shit writer, Andrew.
(12:43):
It's like, and I, I say that especially to my, to, to
students, to, to pupils of mine,that it's like, yeah, like you,
you're hearing me now, but I've been doing this for 20 years.
And so it, it, you know, and, but like specific community
workshops also contributed to that, right?
I, I took a workshop when I was around 19.
(13:05):
And that's what kind of really opened my world up to like, oh,
here is what writing with intention looks like.
Here is what it looks like to reflect about the way that I
feel about things, the way that I see the world around me, what
I want to share in all of that, Right.
And so then that's when I reallystarted to ask those questions
because I was in design school, I wasn't thinking about it,
(13:27):
about writing that way. I was applying all of those
kinds of reflections to designing.
And then, you know, at some point along the way, you also
go, Oh well, poetry is also design.
Do you recall the first time when you stepped up to the stage
and stepped up to the mic and did your first?
Yeah, so it's actually very funny.
My first performance at the Poetry Lounge was technically
(13:48):
not at the theater because the Tuesday night that I decided to
finally share, they ended up having like an unexpected tech
rehearsal. And so, and it was chaotic
because we had an entire line, you know, that that line used to
go before we kind of, it was more casual, you know, now it's
more casual. People just kind of show up and
you just file in how you do. But before we used to have a
(14:11):
line that would trail all the way back out into that parking
lot, you know, a couple 100 people.
And so we were like, well, what are we going to do?
We can't just be like, oh, sorry, tonight's cancelled,
you're already here. So there was a, there was a
center across, there's a center directly across the street from
the theater. I think it was the like National
(14:31):
Jewish Women's Council or something like that.
And it was because it was so late in the evening.
We were, we went over there and we asked and we said, hey, like
can we use your space? They had like an auditorium
space. We said, can we use your space
just for tonight? They ended up agreeing to it.
And so we filed everyone across the street into that auditorium
and they let us use that until Ithink midnight.
(14:54):
It was, you know, as if nothing had changed.
And that was the location that Iactually shared my first piece.
It was about my grandmother and of course it yeah, you know, it
was as good as it was going to be at my like 19 year old self.
But yeah. And I remember and my knees and
legs are shaking and I'm just, you know, and I'm speeding
through. I also used to read way too fast
(15:15):
because I just was like, I don'twant to, I don't want to take up
time. And I also am terrified.
So how do I get over? How do I get this over with?
As soon as I can. So that was my first time
sharing at the lounge and. What was the reaction?
I mean, you know, the crowd, like the crowd is going to
applaud because they're, you know, they're applauding
bravery, the courage of it, all right?
And so, yeah, it was it was fabulous.
(15:36):
And that, but once I did it that, you know, once you break
the ice on that, they're like, OK, I could come back next, we
can do this again. And then that really the train
started rolling from there. And you know, here we are in
1516, years later, doing it evenmore.
Right. What's changed in the last 15 or
16 years? And you of you doing this?
I was just this tiny fire kind of just moving through the city,
(15:58):
and I was terrified of it all. I was terrified of my own life.
I was terrified of who I would become, if I would even make it.
It had. Did that have anything to do
with being black or or being queer or being non binary?
Like how did that either? Help evolve.
You as an individual or where? What did that?
(16:20):
How did that play into that? I mean, well, that was like 1
component, but I think more thanjust those aspects of my
identity, I was, I was searchingto be kept.
I was searching for, I think I was searching to feel protected
in a way that I kind of ended uphaving a sort of conjure in many
(16:42):
ways on my own right. My grandmothers were very, very
prominent figures in my life. Like truly my, they were my best
friends and the reason why I even made it to the point that
I'm at now, you know, they're, they've since passed.
It's been about 12 years. But yeah, I if for me it was
that it was like, I just, you know, some might say, OK, it
(17:04):
might be leaning in that world of like belonging right wing,
but it wasn't, it wasn't believethat I just wanted to feel
connected. And I think that that was what
terrified me because I, I, I wasjust like, I, I just feel alone
in the world and I have friends and I have people that bring me
joy and who confide in me about things.
(17:26):
But it didn't feel the way I needed it to feel.
And I think that that's definitely been an evolution
too, which is also something that is like, there's a self
determination there, right? Like it's, it's your own
journey. You have to do that as well.
When you look at a Tuesday nightand you say to yourself that
you're about to get on stage, whether it whether you're
hosting or whether you're performing yourself, is there
something that you're hoping to achieve?
(17:49):
Yeah, I, I hope I, I'm, I'm always hoping to achieve
bringing an audience closer to itself.
What do you mean by? That, that we, we know that in,
in so much of our literary work,a lot of discovery is made
right. But I, I hope that I can do kind
(18:10):
of what I've described right. And, and I hope I can, if not
open a window, I can, I can at least ignite the visualization
of a window for someone to say, ah OK, like who I am is not the
(18:32):
end of it, right? And how I feel is something that
I should be incredibly curious about and I shouldn't hesitate
or shy away from that. And so that that is what I
(18:52):
usually hope to leave with my audience.
I hope that they that they feel inspired, if you will, to
question who they are right now,who they want to be and and what
voice does their work share. Do you feel that you have a
(19:15):
responsibility to the LGBTQ plusand BIPOC communities to
Createspace for them? 1,000,000%, yeah.
What is that responsibility? The responsibility is to model
what a life is without apology. I don't apologize for existing
anymore. That's really, it's fundamental
(19:37):
to everything else, especially for those particular communities
that you've mentioned. And so that's I've, yeah, I say
please take that space and occupy it.
It's yours. Do with it what you will, right?
And I hope that it opens space for others in the process.
But yeah, that's my responsibility is of course, I
(20:01):
can write as much as I can. I can, I can exemplify, you
know, whatever art might look like or be right, in many
different contexts. But.
I I I champion people moving through their work without
apologizing for it. What do you say to the people
(20:22):
who say that spoken word is not literature?
I say there would be no literature without spoken word.
Before we documented it, we shared it in a circle vocally,
you know, with music, with sound.
(20:42):
It was all sound. It was all sound.
And so that's what I say. I say well, OK, if spoken word
isn't here, then neither are you.
Wow, especially as you now step into this academic space with us
and you've done a lot of also work too, even before coming to
to VCFA. What do you hope that the
(21:05):
academic space can learn about the work that you're going to be
bringing to us, and where does it need to go?
What needs to expand? I mean, at the base of it, I
hope that they learn to like notto police themselves in their
process. You know, don't police yourself
in the process. I know we, we, we know the
(21:25):
rules. We learn the rules.
I break a lot of the rules. But you, you can't.
I think you. I think you you put a hard
restriction on the discovery youcan make when you know, you
police yourself into something that is so rule bound.
So I hope that folks leave with that.
(21:48):
What's the connection between performance and writing?
What? How do you see those things, two
things working together? The performance gives you the
opportunity to translate the writing in another way.
This is it's very different fromjust reading your work.
It is talk. About the difference between
just reading your work and performing.
(22:09):
Well, work, yeah. I think I actually might have to
revise my response because I think that at a certain point
they converge. I do, I think because now
whether I'm holding paper or not, you're going to get a
(22:30):
performance and but I think thatthere is like a, it may not be
super linear, it may be some other kind of design or
whatever. But like for me, as I became
like, what accelerated the improvement in my own craft was
(22:52):
also performing the craft. Did that make you a better
writer? That's what I mean.
It made me a better writer. And he made me admit like I was
I was a better writer because I was, you know, I was exercising
the writing muscle. I was, you know, reading more.
I was also sharing tons of spaces now, you know, with a
bunch of other literary folks who I call many of them my
(23:12):
friends and some of them even family.
But there was that component. But then there was also OK
performing it. The reader isn't like the reader
is with this page, are with the piece, and they are connecting
to it the way that they are going to connect to it.
And I think the performance, youknow, it's that opportunity to
(23:33):
say, here's what I mean. You may still land somewhere
else with it, but I'm going to open up another bubble real
quick and show you this. And this is this is how I, you
know, this is how it is. And so, yeah, that I think it's,
yeah, it's hard for me to articulate in this feeling, but.
Well, let's dissect it. When you write, are you writing
(23:54):
for it to be read, or are you writing it to for it to be
performed? I'm writing for it to be told.
I'm writing for it to be. I'm writing for it to exist.
That's what I mean. Like, I think like they converge
at a certain point because now for me, there isn't very much of
A distinction. I think it's, it's, it's just
(24:15):
whether I've committed it to memory or not at this point, But
I'm, I'm writing with the idea in mind that I want my reader
to, I hope my reader can connectto something in it, right?
And that's just, that's just theright.
I want to know one, have I told the truth of it?
(24:37):
Have I also told it in a way that doesn't shy away from the
vulnerability that I want to center, right.
And then also it's like a bonus if you get to hear it and then
it kind of morphs it into something a little more
exciting, right? For for some folks.
So yeah, I'm never, I'm never writing thinking about how will
(24:59):
this sound to an audience. I'm always writing with the
first idea of how will this sound to me.
How does this sound in relationship?
You know, in relation to my story, in relation to how I
feel. Obviously, the world of of.
Print. Publication has changed
(25:20):
dramatically, but the world of online has just expanded and
exploded, and you have a very large following on social media.
How has social media expanded your reach as a poet?
It just it, it's allowed people behind me for sure.
The component I love about beingpresent on social media while
(25:45):
also being a writer that that people may, you know, feel like
they want to aspire to or be inspired by or just enjoy my
work, whatever is that I just I they also get to see I have a
real life. But like, again, I'm not this.
I'm not at the secret window, you know, in the middle of the
woods, right? It's like I could have a real
life, you know, like people got to see me like drinking a
(26:05):
Margarita on the beach last weekbefore I came here, you know?
And so that those things are so important.
I think they're even. I mean, you get delayed on
airplanes like everyone else is.Telling very much so and so that
that's what it is. It humanizes what writing can
be, what that process can be, what learning in that process
(26:28):
can be. You are the embodiment of when I
think of unapologetic creativity, you are there.
And I don't even have to ask youto define what unapologetic
creativity is because you answered it earlier.
But if you were to close, what would you recommend to the
audience that's listening to this?
(26:50):
How would you, how would you tell them to go about in life
living unapologetically? I would say regardless of if you
were a writer or not, whatever, whatever your life is doing, I
would say, hey, like my, one of my, one of my core philosophies
is that I have to continue my own story, right?
(27:12):
I think that we all have things that happen to us, right?
We have these experiences, good,the bad, the ugly, the
indifferent, whatever the horrifying.
And I think we sometimes get caught in that net of just being
there. And what I say is, however that
experience came to be, whoever caused that, whatever happened
(27:35):
to you, with you from whomever else or whatever other system or
source, they don't have permission to write my story for
me. And they certainly don't have
permission to end it. Wherever they were in it.
I get to do the rest. And so that's what I leave the
audience with. Edwin reminds us that creativity
(27:58):
is not about perfection, permission or rules.
It's about continuing your own story.
From their earliest experiences on the stage to the work as a
poet, performer and educator, Edwin speaks to the courage it
takes to live and create without.
Apology to claim. Space, and to refuse to let
anyone else decide where your story ends.
(28:21):
Edwin leaves us with a simple but profound reminder, no matter
what has. Happened to you?
No. Matter who tried to write your
story for you. You still get to do the.
Rest. And that at the.
Heart of it is Unapologetic Creativity.
Thanks for listening to Unapologetically Creative.
Be sure to follow the show and stay tuned for more insightful
(28:43):
conversations in the episodes ahead.
To learn more about the Vermont College of Fine Arts, visit
vcfa.edu.
I'm never writing thinking abouthow will this sound to an
audience. I'm always writing with the
first idea of how will this sound to me.
How does this sound in relation to my story?
In relation to how I feel? Welcome to Unapologetically
(00:24):
Creative, a podcast from the Vermont College of Fine Arts,
where we celebrate bold artistry, transformative
creativity, and the audacious voices shaping the future of the
arts. I'm your host Andrew Ram Sammy,
and in this series we dive into honest, inspiring conversations
(00:44):
with artists who are pushing boundaries and redefining what
it means to create work that resonates and endures.
Edwin Botany is a black, queer and non binary poet, the author
of A Study of Hands and. One of the most.
Powerful voices in contemporary spoken word.
(01:05):
Based in Los Angeles, Edwin is widely known for their
commanding performances at the Poetry Lounge and for their
features on Button Poetry, wheretheir work explores identity,
queerness, love, grief, survival, and the courage to
tell the truth. Edwin is also a visiting faculty
member in the VCFA Writing Program, where they bring lived
(01:27):
experience, radical empathy, andcreative rigor into the
classroom. This conversation, Edwin
reflects on what it means to write.
Closer to the nerve. How grief became a geography
they now live within, and how performance and writing have
shaped each other over more thantwo decades on the stage.
And on the page, Edwin Padney, welcome to Unapologetically
(01:50):
Creative. Hello Andrew, Thank you for
having me. Your.
Poetry is described as quote 101% autobiographical.
What's that extra 1% about? That extra 1% is about getting
closer than many of us believe we can.
(02:10):
Yeah, it's about it's about connectivity, not just because
of the work I do in community, but the work I do in self,
right? It's the way that I move through
my work, right? Is is I always I always kind of
use this image or idea of like getting close to the nerve.
(02:33):
But, and that's relevant to me in multiple ways, which I can
elaborate on later, but of yeah,getting close to the nerve
without damaging it. I think that a lot of our, you
know, those nerves, those threads in our work, in the
things that we want to talk about, how we want to express
may already be damaged, right. And so I think, yeah, it's like,
(02:54):
how do I sort of bump up againstthat and and really kind of feel
it in my hands without, you know, really just kind of
tearing it away, right? I think it's still valuable to
have and, and, and I think that there is something that is worth
keeping in, in those things thatfeel damaged, right?
(03:16):
And I think so. I think like, yeah, I just, I,
I, it's getting closer to the nerve that one person is like
how, how, how much more can I lean into that?
I, I'm doing it scared, right? It's like, yeah, it takes a lot
of bravery. There's, there's tons of fear in
the things that we talk about that we write about that we are
feeling. But I go, OK, well, what if I
(03:39):
just reach a little bit more andthen what's there?
I'm so interested in that. Yeah, as you get.
Closer to that, how does that then evolve into your writing in
terms of your own story and how you feel and and does it change
over time? Because I'm assuming it takes
time to get closer and closer and closer to that.
(04:00):
I think for me, I don't think ittakes very much time anymore.
And I say that, you know, to putit simply, I've survived so much
and continue to. And it's not that that's
isolated to me, right? We are all people living in the
world. But I've become less afraid of
(04:23):
how I feel about the things thatare in me and around me.
And so I think with that reduction in, in the fear that
we might feel on that, that I might feel on the surface comes
a more immediacy in the access that I have to my work and the
(04:44):
feelings that drive my work for so much of my life.
I shared a a sort of social conditioning of how grief
existed, right? I think that a lot of us might
have a very standard understanding or we might be
even taught to treat grief as this sort of handheld object,
(05:04):
right. This this thing that we kind of
grow largely around. And I've in the last maybe six
or seven years, I've, I've really, that's, that's
transformed deeply in that I said, well, not to reduce who I
am, but I'm not, I'm not growinglarger around my grief.
(05:29):
I've transformed grief into a geography.
Grief has become a landscape that I live in.
And I think where, where the real grief is, is do I choose to
just wander about this terrain or do I choose to harvest joy
(05:50):
from within it and all of the other beautiful components of
life, right. And so that's where I start.
You know, I say, OK, the terrainchanges.
It's also because it's this geography.
It, it's it's expansive and yes,it can feel overwhelming, but it
to me, it's like it's the same kind of overwhelming feeling
(06:11):
that I have when I like visit the Sequoias.
Well, and so there's so much depth and beauty in in that
overwhelming sensation, right? And so, yeah, it's like, OK, the
mountains are over here. What does that mean for me and
my grief? What is what do these trees mean
for me and my joy? What does the Meadow mean when
I'm laying in it with a lover, right?
(06:31):
Like those things. But all of that, the, the
fundamental soil of it all is really so centered around the
grief of, of my life, right? And it doesn't mean I don't have
a joyous life, right? I Lovejoy.
It's one of my favorite things. I love to laugh.
I love to make people laugh, butyeah, that's that's it's
transformed deeply. And so I think that that has
(06:53):
given me so much more immediacy because I say, Oh my God, look
at this world I'm in, right? I mean that in the metaphorical
way. And, you know, because we've,
you know, the real world is real.
But I say, look at this world I'm in and look at look at what
has become possible that my original understanding of grief
didn't make possible. And so that's where I am now.
(07:14):
Is it because that is more familial or is it more
comfortable? Is it more?
No, no, no. More.
Is it any less than? What is it that allows you to
do? That I'm.
I'm excited by the discovery of what this new terrain offers me.
Yeah. And so it just it it opens up
(07:34):
what? It's a new map and you get to
explore a new map. You know, I don't know my arch,
my RPG video game players, but it's that and I go, Oh my God,
look at all this undiscovered stuff with all these side quests
and I get to I get to do it and I love that.
I love that. What drew you to poetry and
performance and and how did you get involved with the Poetry
(07:56):
Lounge and button poetry, which is part of your your creative
voice? So I this is always funny to
talk about because I I was neverreally a literary person to
begin with. I hated reading, writing essays.
I was always like, I was always a good academic, right?
I always was able to understand what was being taught to me.
(08:18):
I was always able to excel, right?
I was someone who was constantlyin gifted or honors or whatever
the case might be, blah, blah, blah, or whatever metrics you
want to use, right? Because to me, it's either
neither here nor there, but I the, the first thing that kind
of opened that window of possibility was I was in 8th
(08:40):
grade and we were assigned an essay we had to write about, I
think it was a 5 to 8 page paperon any subject we wanted to, as
long as it related to the Holocaust.
And of course, you know, you're in 8th grade, you're in middle
school, you're like, oh God, like I'm just, I can't like this
is so heavy. It's also like essay writing.
(09:02):
I'm bored by essay writing. And so I said, OK, well, what
can I do right in order to make sure I get this done?
Because it was like one of our final projects.
I also, you know, at 13, you're like 5 to 8 pages.
That's impossible, you know, andthe next thing you know, you're
writing a full manuscript. So I, I did some research and I
(09:26):
stumbled upon a specific concentration camp that
imprisoned primarily women and children during the Holocaust.
And when, when they liberated these camps and, you know,
soldiers and whomever else went in and, and we're looking at the
aftermath of these things and, and picking up these different
relics and whatnot. They, they discovered a bunch of
(09:50):
bits of art and poetry in this camp from like scraps of paper
or etched into the walls or, youknow, into the dirt, you know,
whatever the case might be. And So what my essay turned into
was this intimate look at 3 poems written by three children.
(10:14):
And I was just, I remember just feeling like even my 13 year old
self just feeling so deeply moved and but also so deeply
interested in what these storiesmeant and what these poems
represented for the experiences that they were suffering
through. And I still didn't think of it
(10:34):
and I still didn't think anything of it, right.
I turned in the paper. I was like, thank God I got that
done, right. Like cool, but thank God I got
it done. And the teacher at the time,
this very stoic old white man who was actually pretty chill
for the most part, but he just always he, he was, he wasn't one
to ever really kind of crack a smile.
(10:55):
And this is also like, you know what, this is LAUSD.
I'm in, you know, most schools here, no shade.
You know, I, I'm, I'm an educator myself, but it's like
we're under resourced in so manyways, right?
And, and also so many educators for a like a number of valid
reasons are over it, right? And just don't really want to
(11:17):
put up with whatever's happening.
So that was an interesting dynamic.
But he he held me till the end of class.
He said, he turned over here. He gave everyone's papers back
except mine. And he kept me for a few minutes
after class. And I'm like, uh oh, you know,
you're like, oh, no, but who's it?
I'm suspended for life. And he hands me my paper and he
(11:40):
kind of cracks this little smirk.
And he's like, this was so well written.
And he says, I don't know if youever thought about it, but you
should consider a career in journalism.
And that was kind of like that keyhole into what could my life
look like as a writer? And so that that's where it
started. And then I and then my
(12:01):
stepfather introduced me to openmic spaces, you know, because at
this point, I'm now like, OK, I'm a teenager.
I'm like, OK, take me to the take me to the things, you know.
And so that was that became really valuable.
And, and at 15, like 14-15, maybe 15, that was my
introduction to the Poetry Lounge.
And, and so this is we're, yeah,we're in like 2004, 2005 at this
(12:22):
point. And I walked into that space for
the first time and I was just overwhelmed by the magic of that
space. It transformed me that night.
And I used to be a shit writer. I was a shit writer, Andrew.
(12:43):
It's like, and I, I say that especially to my, to, to
students, to, to pupils of mine,that it's like, yeah, like you,
you're hearing me now, but I've been doing this for 20 years.
And so it, it, you know, and, but like specific community
workshops also contributed to that, right?
I, I took a workshop when I was around 19.
(13:05):
And that's what kind of really opened my world up to like, oh,
here is what writing with intention looks like.
Here is what it looks like to reflect about the way that I
feel about things, the way that I see the world around me, what
I want to share in all of that, Right.
And so then that's when I reallystarted to ask those questions
because I was in design school, I wasn't thinking about it,
(13:27):
about writing that way. I was applying all of those
kinds of reflections to designing.
And then, you know, at some point along the way, you also
go, Oh well, poetry is also design.
Do you recall the first time when you stepped up to the stage
and stepped up to the mic and did your first?
Yeah, so it's actually very funny.
My first performance at the Poetry Lounge was technically
(13:48):
not at the theater because the Tuesday night that I decided to
finally share, they ended up having like an unexpected tech
rehearsal. And so, and it was chaotic
because we had an entire line, you know, that that line used to
go before we kind of, it was more casual, you know, now it's
more casual. People just kind of show up and
you just file in how you do. But before we used to have a
(14:11):
line that would trail all the way back out into that parking
lot, you know, a couple 100 people.
And so we were like, well, what are we going to do?
We can't just be like, oh, sorry, tonight's cancelled,
you're already here. So there was a, there was a
center across, there's a center directly across the street from
the theater. I think it was the like National
(14:31):
Jewish Women's Council or something like that.
And it was because it was so late in the evening.
We were, we went over there and we asked and we said, hey, like
can we use your space? They had like an auditorium
space. We said, can we use your space
just for tonight? They ended up agreeing to it.
And so we filed everyone across the street into that auditorium
and they let us use that until Ithink midnight.
(14:54):
It was, you know, as if nothing had changed.
And that was the location that Iactually shared my first piece.
It was about my grandmother and of course it yeah, you know, it
was as good as it was going to be at my like 19 year old self.
But yeah. And I remember and my knees and
legs are shaking and I'm just, you know, and I'm speeding
through. I also used to read way too fast
(15:15):
because I just was like, I don'twant to, I don't want to take up
time. And I also am terrified.
So how do I get over? How do I get this over with?
As soon as I can. So that was my first time
sharing at the lounge and. What was the reaction?
I mean, you know, the crowd, like the crowd is going to
applaud because they're, you know, they're applauding
bravery, the courage of it, all right?
And so, yeah, it was it was fabulous.
(15:36):
And that, but once I did it that, you know, once you break
the ice on that, they're like, OK, I could come back next, we
can do this again. And then that really the train
started rolling from there. And you know, here we are in
1516, years later, doing it evenmore.
Right. What's changed in the last 15 or
16 years? And you of you doing this?
I was just this tiny fire kind of just moving through the city,
(15:58):
and I was terrified of it all. I was terrified of my own life.
I was terrified of who I would become, if I would even make it.
It had. Did that have anything to do
with being black or or being queer or being non binary?
Like how did that either? Help evolve.
You as an individual or where? What did that?
(16:20):
How did that play into that? I mean, well, that was like 1
component, but I think more thanjust those aspects of my
identity, I was, I was searchingto be kept.
I was searching for, I think I was searching to feel protected
in a way that I kind of ended uphaving a sort of conjure in many
(16:42):
ways on my own right. My grandmothers were very, very
prominent figures in my life. Like truly my, they were my best
friends and the reason why I even made it to the point that
I'm at now, you know, they're, they've since passed.
It's been about 12 years. But yeah, I if for me it was
that it was like, I just, you know, some might say, OK, it
(17:04):
might be leaning in that world of like belonging right wing,
but it wasn't, it wasn't believethat I just wanted to feel
connected. And I think that that was what
terrified me because I, I, I wasjust like, I, I just feel alone
in the world and I have friends and I have people that bring me
joy and who confide in me about things.
(17:26):
But it didn't feel the way I needed it to feel.
And I think that that's definitely been an evolution
too, which is also something that is like, there's a self
determination there, right? Like it's, it's your own
journey. You have to do that as well.
When you look at a Tuesday nightand you say to yourself that
you're about to get on stage, whether it whether you're
hosting or whether you're performing yourself, is there
something that you're hoping to achieve?
(17:49):
Yeah, I, I hope I, I'm, I'm always hoping to achieve
bringing an audience closer to itself.
What do you mean by? That, that we, we know that in,
in so much of our literary work,a lot of discovery is made
right. But I, I hope that I can do kind
(18:10):
of what I've described right. And, and I hope I can, if not
open a window, I can, I can at least ignite the visualization
of a window for someone to say, ah OK, like who I am is not the
(18:32):
end of it, right? And how I feel is something that
I should be incredibly curious about and I shouldn't hesitate
or shy away from that. And so that that is what I
(18:52):
usually hope to leave with my audience.
I hope that they that they feel inspired, if you will, to
question who they are right now,who they want to be and and what
voice does their work share. Do you feel that you have a
(19:15):
responsibility to the LGBTQ plusand BIPOC communities to
Createspace for them? 1,000,000%, yeah.
What is that responsibility? The responsibility is to model
what a life is without apology. I don't apologize for existing
anymore. That's really, it's fundamental
(19:37):
to everything else, especially for those particular communities
that you've mentioned. And so that's I've, yeah, I say
please take that space and occupy it.
It's yours. Do with it what you will, right?
And I hope that it opens space for others in the process.
But yeah, that's my responsibility is of course, I
(20:01):
can write as much as I can. I can, I can exemplify, you
know, whatever art might look like or be right, in many
different contexts. But.
I I I champion people moving through their work without
apologizing for it. What do you say to the people
(20:22):
who say that spoken word is not literature?
I say there would be no literature without spoken word.
Before we documented it, we shared it in a circle vocally,
you know, with music, with sound.
(20:42):
It was all sound. It was all sound.
And so that's what I say. I say well, OK, if spoken word
isn't here, then neither are you.
Wow, especially as you now step into this academic space with us
and you've done a lot of also work too, even before coming to
to VCFA. What do you hope that the
(21:05):
academic space can learn about the work that you're going to be
bringing to us, and where does it need to go?
What needs to expand? I mean, at the base of it, I
hope that they learn to like notto police themselves in their
process. You know, don't police yourself
in the process. I know we, we, we know the
(21:25):
rules. We learn the rules.
I break a lot of the rules. But you, you can't.
I think you. I think you you put a hard
restriction on the discovery youcan make when you know, you
police yourself into something that is so rule bound.
So I hope that folks leave with that.
(21:48):
What's the connection between performance and writing?
What? How do you see those things, two
things working together? The performance gives you the
opportunity to translate the writing in another way.
This is it's very different fromjust reading your work.
It is talk. About the difference between
just reading your work and performing.
(22:09):
Well, work, yeah. I think I actually might have to
revise my response because I think that at a certain point
they converge. I do, I think because now
whether I'm holding paper or not, you're going to get a
(22:30):
performance and but I think thatthere is like a, it may not be
super linear, it may be some other kind of design or
whatever. But like for me, as I became
like, what accelerated the improvement in my own craft was
(22:52):
also performing the craft. Did that make you a better
writer? That's what I mean.
It made me a better writer. And he made me admit like I was
I was a better writer because I was, you know, I was exercising
the writing muscle. I was, you know, reading more.
I was also sharing tons of spaces now, you know, with a
bunch of other literary folks who I call many of them my
(23:12):
friends and some of them even family.
But there was that component. But then there was also OK
performing it. The reader isn't like the reader
is with this page, are with the piece, and they are connecting
to it the way that they are going to connect to it.
And I think the performance, youknow, it's that opportunity to
(23:33):
say, here's what I mean. You may still land somewhere
else with it, but I'm going to open up another bubble real
quick and show you this. And this is this is how I, you
know, this is how it is. And so, yeah, that I think it's,
yeah, it's hard for me to articulate in this feeling, but.
Well, let's dissect it. When you write, are you writing
(23:54):
for it to be read, or are you writing it to for it to be
performed? I'm writing for it to be told.
I'm writing for it to be. I'm writing for it to exist.
That's what I mean. Like, I think like they converge
at a certain point because now for me, there isn't very much of
A distinction. I think it's, it's, it's just
(24:15):
whether I've committed it to memory or not at this point, But
I'm, I'm writing with the idea in mind that I want my reader
to, I hope my reader can connectto something in it, right?
And that's just, that's just theright.
I want to know one, have I told the truth of it?
(24:37):
Have I also told it in a way that doesn't shy away from the
vulnerability that I want to center, right.
And then also it's like a bonus if you get to hear it and then
it kind of morphs it into something a little more
exciting, right? For for some folks.
So yeah, I'm never, I'm never writing thinking about how will
(24:59):
this sound to an audience. I'm always writing with the
first idea of how will this sound to me.
How does this sound in relationship?
You know, in relation to my story, in relation to how I
feel. Obviously, the world of of.
Print. Publication has changed
(25:20):
dramatically, but the world of online has just expanded and
exploded, and you have a very large following on social media.
How has social media expanded your reach as a poet?
It just it, it's allowed people behind me for sure.
The component I love about beingpresent on social media while
(25:45):
also being a writer that that people may, you know, feel like
they want to aspire to or be inspired by or just enjoy my
work, whatever is that I just I they also get to see I have a
real life. But like, again, I'm not this.
I'm not at the secret window, you know, in the middle of the
woods, right? It's like I could have a real
life, you know, like people got to see me like drinking a
(26:05):
Margarita on the beach last weekbefore I came here, you know?
And so that those things are so important.
I think they're even. I mean, you get delayed on
airplanes like everyone else is.Telling very much so and so that
that's what it is. It humanizes what writing can
be, what that process can be, what learning in that process
(26:28):
can be. You are the embodiment of when I
think of unapologetic creativity, you are there.
And I don't even have to ask youto define what unapologetic
creativity is because you answered it earlier.
But if you were to close, what would you recommend to the
audience that's listening to this?
(26:50):
How would you, how would you tell them to go about in life
living unapologetically? I would say regardless of if you
were a writer or not, whatever, whatever your life is doing, I
would say, hey, like my, one of my, one of my core philosophies
is that I have to continue my own story, right?
(27:12):
I think that we all have things that happen to us, right?
We have these experiences, good,the bad, the ugly, the
indifferent, whatever the horrifying.
And I think we sometimes get caught in that net of just being
there. And what I say is, however that
experience came to be, whoever caused that, whatever happened
(27:35):
to you, with you from whomever else or whatever other system or
source, they don't have permission to write my story for
me. And they certainly don't have
permission to end it. Wherever they were in it.
I get to do the rest. And so that's what I leave the
audience with. Edwin reminds us that creativity
(27:58):
is not about perfection, permission or rules.
It's about continuing your own story.
From their earliest experiences on the stage to the work as a
poet, performer and educator, Edwin speaks to the courage it
takes to live and create without.
Apology to claim. Space, and to refuse to let
anyone else decide where your story ends.
(28:21):
Edwin leaves us with a simple but profound reminder, no matter
what has. Happened to you?
No. Matter who tried to write your
story for you. You still get to do the.
Rest. And that at the.
Heart of it is Unapologetic Creativity.
Thanks for listening to Unapologetically Creative.
Be sure to follow the show and stay tuned for more insightful
(28:43):
conversations in the episodes ahead.
To learn more about the Vermont College of Fine Arts, visit
vcfa.edu.
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