My Poetry Reaches (ft. Mason Granger)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Join us on the Poetic Odyssey, a celebration of voices, cultures, and.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
The power of words. I'm Amanda Ecking.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to the poet Speaks, where every syllable ignites inspiration
for get you involved with what stories are on these tracks?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
This idea of the bronx. Now, boogie down Bronx.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
That's what people say, right, don't become someone's subway story.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Medicate me with a lick of the like.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
I am not afraid to love you.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
All of us have a story.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Microphone magnifying.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
No one want to listen, So I think that's what
made me in writing the writing disco.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
You ready, amazing poetry O. It's hello everyone, and welcome
back to the poet Speaks podcast. Now our next guest
is a spoken word artist with over a decade of
experience on stages and in educational settings across all fifty

(01:18):
states in nine countries. Is work centers around matters of class, nature, sustainability,
both of ourselves as human beings in the world we
share all from imaginative and forward thinking perspective. Is the
Innamur Opponent residence of the Schwarzenegger Institute at USC in
La Paris. Twenty twenty four Poetic Games Olympics Showcase Award.

(01:39):
E been featured in ESPN, PBS, The Golden Gloves, multiple
national magazines, and founded a spoken word YouTube channel, slam Fine,
with over one hundred thousand subscribers. He's done so much. Everyone,
Please welcome to the Poet Speaks Podcast. Mason Granger. Mason,
how are you?

Speaker 3 (01:57):
I'm feeling good? Feeling good here? Yeah, thanks for having Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Absolutely absolutely With a bio like that, how could you
not feel good? Twenty four to seven.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, it's all. It's all like a that's a long
way of saying I'm old and has been doing things
for many moons.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Ah, that's funny, that's funny. That's the first I've heard
so say that. But hey, you know, you gotta you
take it astride, right. But like I said, I mean,
you have an amazing bio and we're going to get
into a lot of that right now. But first and foremost,
I want to ask you where are you currently at
in the world. Where are we speaking to you from.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
I am beaming in from Los Angeles, California, moved out here.
I'm originally from Philly and you know, South Jersey, East coast,
lived in New York for ten years, moved out here
right before the pandemic, and been posted up ever since.
It came out here all bright eyed, like, oh, I'm
gonna get to know a new city and a whole
new coast, and then it was like, no, I'm gonna

(02:55):
get to know this apartment very well. And then but
since then there's been it's been great. It's been great.
I come to love Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
No, that's amazing. It's making a move during the pandemic. Whoa,
that's definitely a lot. But we'll get into that. I'm curious.
So you were born and raised in like you said, Philly, correct.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, yeah, Philly, and then like we moved after sixth grade,
moved like twenty minutes away into South Jersey town called Willingborough.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Wowowow. So tell me a bit about your childhood. Now,
you've done so much, as I read your about, you've
done so much with poetry in ways people probably, like
I said, ESPN PBS Award shows right, a lot of
people probably can't even conceive how poetry could take someone
into the multitude of these types of spaces. Tell us,

(03:41):
did you find poetry in childhood when you were a
kid in Philly or did you find it later down
your path.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
In life poetry? As I know it's spoken where poetry
found me in college at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
But I can say that kind of the seeds from that,
like looking back, definitely started in high school. Me and
a couple friends of mine, we started making these like
weird Al Yankovic type tapes where we're by like the

(04:09):
instrumental for like a Mace song or something, and then
like rewrite the lyrics and record our own songs. My
dad as a musician, so I always grew up with
recording equipment and stuff in the house and just kind
of knew how to work it my whole life. And
but it wasn't until then that I started like seeing
writing as a creative thing that I could do for

(04:32):
fun and not just for a school assignment. And so
I think those tapes, those tapes are really the genesis
of my poetry career.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
That is amazing. So y'all just took you just took
those tapes. You just re recorded songs, y'all. Just y'all
like slick with your pen game, Like what y'all have
going on? Y'all have a group. How did y'all get
this together?

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Okay, so this even this story, I have not had
this thought in like decades. So my friend Dan and
his neighbor made these tapes. They were DJ Spoons and
there and DJ Cornflake, and they would make these tapes
and they would bring them in to class on just
like cassettes and just playing on the walk man either

(05:13):
like before school at lunch and like we're like, this
is ridiculous and fun. How can I get in? And
so I was DJ Roundhead and so I made a mixtape.
It was just you know, the Mace song, Been Around,
Been Around the world. So I rewrote the lyrics. I

(05:35):
was like, my head is around, My head's around like
a pearl, and and you know, fast forward. Then I
was on PBA. No, it was.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
No, but it was.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
It was so ridiculous and like but so fun. There
were like no rules. We just saw like weird out
Yankovic redoing all these songs and making videos. It was just, yeah,
just somewhere to put our creative energy that felt like
it was for us and not in any kind of
like prescribed sort of way. And plus like, okay, this
is the late nineties, and so the kind of the

(06:09):
technology was in our hands, so we you know, we
had mics and low cassette recorders and everything, so we
just started like busting off mixtapes short.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Now, that's such an amazing kind of story, and it
kind of brings around that kind of like youth full glee.
I wonder for you now, with all that you've done
with your poetry, do you still have that same kind
of free perspective that you did when you were a kid,
where it was just we're just doing what we love
has poetry. Because you've done so much and so much prestige,

(06:39):
do you still have that same kind of like childlike
almost mindset of just that freedom with your words.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Still hunted percent and honestly, like, that's That's the main
thing that I like to get at. That's the thing
that I like to feel in myself as I'm writing.
That the thing in any talkback or workshop or from
talking to kids or adults, like, that's the thing that
I want to get across is like, Yo, you can

(07:08):
do what you want to do and feel good in
the moment. Like I always say, the feeling of when
you're writing and you don't know quite what you sat
down with any intention to write something and like, oh,
I had this thought and I want to like find
a way to say But when you're writing and it
starts coming out in a way that's different from how

(07:30):
you went in and you are enjoying it, and you're
like watching yourself write and you're kind of like the
pilot and the passenger of whatever's happening, like and you
feel like, oh, yes, I'm on the something right now,
like this this slaps yes, yes, yeah, Like when you
do that, then you're doing it right.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Regardless of whatever, of whatever else, Nothing that I wrote
was gonna you know, those times are not going to
get me a Caldecott or Pulitzer, but like, those are
going to get me some of the best memories that
I've had as a grown adult connecting with the world
and trying to like convey those moments and show other
people what to feel for when they are writing so

(08:12):
that they can have those moments too, Like that's kind
of that's a big part of the crux of why
I'm here.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Absolutely no, that's absolutely beautiful. And to be able to
share that message to people as you teach children, middle aged, young,
old doesn't really matter all alike. That's amazing. So let's
fast forward a bit. Tell us a bit about kind
of you know, so you found poetry wasn't in your
childhood but we said college correct, Yeah, yeah, more so

(08:39):
towards college at Rutgers. Kind of tell us about that
transformation than to kind of when it becomes something where
you said, I can actually do this professionally as you
found that passion in you know, in your years in college.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah, no doubt so. I one of my classes, it
was the Honors Colloquialum at Livingston Campus, Rutgers, and the
professor was kind of like old time homies with Miguel
Algrin and other folks who were like founders of the
New Eurekan Poet's Cafe in New York City. So he
set up a field trip for our class. We're going

(09:14):
to go to New York and one night all hop
on the bus, drive up to New York and be
there for some poetry. And this is an O one
And I only say that to set the stage of
like this was you know, before internet video really before
YouTube really and so like there weren't it wasn't like
today where there's spoken word poetry, videos and clips floating

(09:36):
around for anyone to see getting served up on the timelines.
It was really like if you had never been there
and seen it, you didn't know it existed, particularly for
like a young person I like eighteen nineteen at the time,
and so I had definitely in my head a vision
of what I thought it was going to be, and
I had already jumped to the conclusion that I was

(09:57):
not going to enjoy this particular field trip. Really the
only reason that I went was for it was because
the girl in the class I had a crush on
was going, and so I was like, all right, is
a free date? Hey, want to sit next to me
on the bus? You know? So I was like, Okay,
I'll go, and it'll be free and it'll be something,
get to hang out, hang out with Carrie, Okay. But

(10:17):
then we get there and and I remember the first
the first person to get up, just like this squarely
looking dude could have been carved out of the cement
of New York City itself, gets up on the mic
and he's like, just so everybody knows, I'm not usually
this angry, and like instantly like goes in and I

(10:41):
remember like kind of like a flash run off, and
I was like, Yo, this is because as you're listening
to it. I was always like a smart kid, and
like a subversive smart sort of way, hence my satirical,
weird al type of writing. Some high school always like
kind of like smart put a chip on the shoulder kit.

(11:02):
So seeing spoken word poetry there for the first time,
they were like emmoting and you could still hear the
craft in it. They were being introspective in a very
extroverted kind of way, and I remember it having its
like oh, this is what it means to like the

(11:23):
phrase keep it real, which was also popular in No One,
like this is really what that means, Like acknowledging all
your sides at once and not just having to do like, oh,
be the cool guy now, Oh be the this now,
oh be the academic. Now you could be like smart
as hell and angry and still put clever wordplay in

(11:47):
there to show that you still like to smile and
give smart you know, just all that stuff wrapped up
and I kind of just took to it. I was like, yo,
I want to do that, And then very serendipitously, actually
the following week in the school newspaper was an article
about on campus open mic called verbal Mayhem, and it

(12:08):
was a student run, student founded, and it was going on.
It was every week in this off campus house, and
I just started showing up. I was like, oh, this
is here, and like I don't have to take the
train to New York. I can go over here. Cool
showed up. It's called verbal Mayhem, and I remember the
first time I went just went to watch and it
was it was that it was in the living room,

(12:31):
just people sitting on the floor, write your name down,
get up, talk, sit down, next up, do it, and
like I just never stop going.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
No, that's amazing, that's amazing. I'm curious looking back, if
you would, if you could now talk to yourself those
years ago, getting a time machine, would you have believed
that this is where Poultry would have taken him?

Speaker 3 (12:56):
Not at that point, not in that moment. No, it
was it was just like I went, I saw it.
I was like, this is just as good as in
New York. So then the next week, I like, I
remember I went to the there's this little pond on
the campus Ruckers and I went and sat on the
bench under the willow tree, and it was like I'm
gonna write something for Verbal Mayhem next week, wrote it out,

(13:17):
went and like got up and performed Wow, nervous, nervous
as can be, my first time doing anything like that. Yeah,
I and it did the poem and like seriously, the
response was like a smattering of but in my head
I was like a standing oh it was it was
like I did it and it just kept kept going

(13:42):
from there.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
No, that's amazing, that's really really amazing.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
But to get back to, but your actual point of
like the moment of when it became like, oh, I
could really do this. So I started going weekly, became like,
you know, a semi regular. The two hosts you know,
went the whole rest of the year. Then it came
to the end of the following year and they were graduating,
and then me and another friend of mine who are regulars,

(14:07):
we were like, yeah, we don't want we don't want
Verbal Mayhem to end. When yes, Scott Kyle an TONI leave,
like do you want to host it next year? Cool?
So then me and Kelsey start hosting Verbal Mayhem.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
And I think it was during that year that then
the guys who were the initial founders of Verbal Mayhem
went off and they started a poetry touring group called
the Mayhem Poets.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
And then so they're doing that, getting that off the ground.
I'm here kind of like posting and organizing and getting
my you know, my feet wet in the world of
all that. That was all new to me at the time.
And then yeah, they gave me a call and you know,
some of the some of the members had of Mayhem
Poets had split off to do some other things, and
they're like, hey, Mace, like, are you free January sixth

(14:59):
to stand in for show? And the seventh, and the ninth,
and the tenth and the fifteenth. They just led off
all these dates that they already had booked. And I
was like, yeah, I remember I hung up. I was
with my girlfriend at the time in a Williams Sonoma
in the Menlo Park mall, and I was like, yo,

(15:19):
I think I have a new job at being a poet.
All right.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
So yeah, yeah, but that's how it happens. That's how
it happens. No, that's that's beyond amazing now, but hey,
you know it's it's that's how it happens. And then
before you know it, I mean, you then become the
Poldon Residence at the Schwartzenegger Institute. Kind of going a
bit more now into your career. So now, you know,

(15:45):
we'll tell us a bit about your experiences as the
Poldon Residence and tell us when did this this is
a relatively newer title. Tell us about when you started this,
and then tell us about kind of what's really led
up to this. A lot of people, you know, there's
so many in residence positions. You know, I don't think
too many people know about having a poet in residence

(16:06):
and what that really means.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, so, like you said, it is a very new position.
I'm really like getting my still getting in on it.
But it's basically I had. I was fortunate enough to
cross paths with the guy who's the president of the
Schwarzenegger Institute, which is Arnold Schwarzenegger's foundation. It's kind of
affiliated with USC, part of their School of Public policy,

(16:30):
and they do a lot of work and the realm
of air pollution, environmental sustainability, physical and mental wellness, and
what I like to say the sexiest one anti congressional
district jerrymandering initiatives. But they do they do work in
all those things, and I, you know, in talking to

(16:53):
the guy, I was like, yeah, I everything that he
was telling me describing what the institute is and what
the institute does, a little thing went off in my head.
I was like, Yo, I have a poem literally about that.
That's a poem that I have been performing for seventh
and eighth graders for years now. And it kind of

(17:14):
like went off and was like, Yo, the poet what
does the Poet Laureate of Los Angeles do? Just like
in a theory, what does the poet lord as Los
Angeles do? They do poetry initiatives within the city of
Los Angeles for the sake and you know, betterment in
the arts community of Los Angeles and Angelino's and they're

(17:36):
kind of a representative of the city of Los Angeles
artistically when they're out and about doing poems and doing
their thing in the world. I was like, what if
the Schwarzenegger Institute had the Poet Laureate of the Schwarzenegger
Institute and this person who I would like, you know,
before it was actually established. I was like, and this

(17:57):
theoretical person could do poetry workshops and speak at all
of the conferences and events and all the things that
the Institute gets into. And when I'm out in the
world as a you know, as a touring spoken word artist,
I'm still spreading the message on air pollution. I got
poems about this, poems about that, and it worked out.

(18:18):
It wasn't. It wasn't. This is over the course of
a couple of years, a conversation with the President over
a couple of years where we kind of like hammered
out what it would look like, hammered out like hey,
and then you know, always the big thing in any
part of the arts is like, Okay, where could the
funding from this for this position possibly come from? And
you know, he's definitely championed the arts. Yeah, it made

(18:41):
it happen. They were able to find the funding and
pitched a proposal, and so I'm really excited to get
down on that.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Now. That's beyond amazing to kind of, you know, piggyback
on what I was saying earlier. You know, you seem
like a person you've really expanded your reach with poetry
like this position and at the Institute. I mean literally
it sounds like you created the opportunity for yourself. Is
really kind of what it sounds like you literally just said,
you know what, I may not see this opportunity, so

(19:12):
I'm gonna see the world and say, you know what,
I'm going to create opportunity for myself. I'm curious, how
important do you think that is as a specifically as
a spoken word artist, but just anyone, you know, you
could even speak to anyone in any career field. How
important is it to foresee be your biggest fan, be
your biggest supporter, and create sometimes just create the opportunities

(19:34):
for yourself when you may not see any.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
That's a perfect question. The first thing that comes to
mind when I talk to young people about like who
may aspire to a career in the arts or at
least in some way thinking about it considering it, and
they're like, how do I how did you do this? How?
But implying how did? Tell me how you did it?
So then I will know how to do this. And

(19:58):
the one thing it's like kind of unfortunately how I
did it isn't really a thing. Let me rewind that.
It's like the doors that open or that we're presented
with are so like in that point in time you

(20:19):
have lived your life, and up to that point in time,
and that opportunity has developed through so many iterations for
you to cross in that moment, and then it's just
up to you to see that, to recognize it, and
for your life up to that point has been full

(20:41):
of enough, you know, either pats on the back from
others or kind of the pats on the back that
are artists who's kind of more self fueled and just
believes in themselves, like to go for it when the
moment comes up, and to not let the fact that
you've never heard of this before. Kind you either never
heard of it before because one it's a bad idea

(21:04):
and other people have tried it and it just simply
doesn't work and you just don't know it yet, or
it just hasn't been done yet. And every great idea
has been done for the first time at some point,
and maybe this is that.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
So yeah, yeah, I mean it's a lot though, you know,
it definitely is an act of courage and confidence and
esteem even within itself because like in patience, like you said,
it took years. You and the president were talking for
years about what that role being the Poe in residence
there would look like, what the funding would come from.
So it's definitely a large range. I think of emotions

(21:40):
of foreseeing and believing in yourself that goes into it.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, And I was also fortunate enough to like I
had a I was gainfully employed at the time. I was, like,
I was the deputy director of Get Lit Words Ignite
Youth Poetry nonprofit in LA and so I always had
the heart of a That's what I'd always done prior
to moving to LA and always knew that, like, hey man,

(22:05):
I I love to do this, and so it's to
me it's the pinnacle of things to do. And so
that's where gravity takes me towards wanting to do. But I,
you know, I didn't. I was I was fulfilled at
work and you know, could do that and shoot off
some emails and keep the conversation going to see, hey
where could this go?

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, No, And it's definitely a lot. I mean, I
think a lot of people can relate to that, you know, again,
like it's such a waiting game. Though on the same breath,
I mean, like you said, you were just shooting off
emails again years you know, but there's also the financial component.
You know, you've never seen something done before, but you
also need to pay your bills today. So it's it's

(22:46):
such a it's such a mixed bag of things. But
now that's very such an interesting story. Now you mentioned
it a bit already, but let's get into it. You know,
how is your role at get Lit Words, Ignite and
also Bowery Poetry. How was that really? Tell us how
those roles came about.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, I'll start with Bowery. I'll go chronological order. So
I started hosting the weekly open mic at bower Poetry
Club in New York at the top of twenty seventeen,
and just through that and through kind of like having
this arena to cultivate what I had seen on tour works,

(23:31):
to get a community of poets of various levels of experience,
various levels of who even care all of that, to
like create an environment where at the end of the show,
everyone who came walks out thinking, yeah, I do that again. Yeah,

(23:52):
that was it. That was the baseline, Like, and if
you do that, then your community, the thing that you
love will grow cool. So that was kind of like
the foundational purpose. So did that and it went well,
went well, went well, cool, cool cool, And then some
administrative changes happened at Bowery it was a whole we

(24:13):
need a whole nother podcast to hop in to hop
in through that. But then I became the director at
Bower Poetry and eventually the executive director while still hosting
the open mic. And so that was my first time
like really on the administrative side of running an arts nonprofit,
and you know, it was a crash course to say

(24:34):
the least. And so that was twenty nineteen. Then I
moved to LA in January twenty twenty. Kind of when
I saw the move coming, reached out to get Lit,
which I knew was the analogous youth poetry nonprofit that
operates here in LA just seeing film, Instagram and whatever,

(24:55):
and I was like, yo, that's that's what I do.
So reached out they Fortunately somebody was actually about to
take a year abroad, and so I slid right in
into that position and then just rolled from there. And
I think in both of those positions, when events unfolded
and there's a seat and everyone looks to me to
sit in, it is because I have a matthy brain

(25:17):
and so like, yeah, artist and poet and all of that,
but like I can, I can also do the operations
and do the budgets and all that stuff, and so
I think it was a kind of a natural fit
for the nonprofit. Isn't just like the mic, it's like
paying for the electricity to run the mic and like

(25:37):
all that stuff too. Yeah and so so yeah, so
that was that was really my my my main thing
at get Lit was I was running the operations and
kind of like overseeing the day to day all the
all the initiatives that we do with the young people.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, man, Mason, you make me want to go just
try my luck and get some Lino numbers. The way you,
the way you've been picking up these jobs throughout your
life is just it is lit. I mean, you're just
calling up places and they're just making it happen for you.
That's what's uh wow, golly, I mean what do you
think about that? I mean, do you do you like,

(26:12):
do you really kind of ever take a moment to
kind of think, dang, this is really this.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Amazing like what you do every day and every day
in like a not as much as the like like
if if I step outside of myself and I'm like
a third person observer looking at me, I'd be like, Yo,
that's amazing me as me. I'm like, yo, this is

(26:37):
a sequence of the luckiest happenstances that have ever happened
to a person. And I embrace and appreciate and like
adore whatever karma slant has brought these things to me
and kind of take it as confirmation or affirmation of Like,

(26:57):
all right, Mace, I presume you're you're doing something right.
You're living the right way in some kind of way.
It ain't broke. Keep doing what you're doing based on
the tenants that you feel good about and being a
good person by whatever definition you've come to in the world.
Just keep doing that. And you know, forty two and
it hasn't run out yet, So I'm gonna keep doing it.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah, keep doing it. And yeah, folks gonna listen to
this listen to this show and just be like, all right,
bet let me go brow my dice too. Shoot, now,
that's beyond amazing. You know, I kind of want to
now ask you about So you're you've been in and
out of the open mic scene, and you know, one
of the biggest places in the world New York City, right,

(27:39):
No place like New York City all across the country
at this point, I mean, tell us a bit about
your perspective. How do you envision the future of spoken
word poetry kind of evolving, especially in the open mic
scene over the next decade.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah, okay, so I I used to have a very
definitive answer, and I used to be like, yo, everything
that I've seen from when I first was like throwing
my name in open mics in the early two thousands,
and then toured and get to see poetry and poetry
events in all the states. I was like, this is

(28:17):
inevitably going to be everywhere. Everything will will involve poetry.
And then like seeing that kind of like cross the
development of various tech platforms and like mobile videos and
just everybody having an HD camera in your pocket. Do
poetry being the most accessible art form in terms of

(28:40):
the lowest bar of entry. All you need is a
pen and paper and you're doing it. You don't need
to buy a saxophone to start doing it. Like anybody
can do it, and anybody can make a solid video
and recording of this and put this out in the world.
This is inevitably going to be everywhere. I pause on that. Now,

(29:00):
I don't know if that is where it's going. Now,
what I think is going to happen is it's going
to go. It's still going to be niche, but it's
going to be a layer of everything. It's not going
to be everywhere, but whatever the lane is, there will

(29:23):
be poetry there. Like you go see poetry poetry at
environmental conferences. Now you're gonna see poetry at I mean
every protest and rally that I've seen in the past
couple of years has had a spoken word artist there.
But I'm even thinking, like there's going to be poetry
at wine tastings in your local wine shop, you know,

(29:47):
and like it may not be the biggest commercialized thing,
but I do think it's going to, like the little
uzy tendrils of spoken word are going to get into
every where and everything. And I also think that just
live performance art, small scale live performance art, which spoken
with poetry is perfectly cut out for I think is

(30:09):
going to have a resurgence and as it dance apart
from the digitization of everything else that like people are
going to be like you know what, I seen these
videos and like scroll sc scroll, scoresc scroll. Okay, I
just want to go sit in a room and like
vibe with some human beings and that's that's where you're

(30:30):
gonna find spoken with poetry.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
You know. That's that's such an interesting h casting off
for the next ten years, especially when something as you know,
some would say something as deplorable or as positive as
AI artificial technology artificial intelligence excuse me, has like really
taken over the world, which I wonder too. I mean,

(30:54):
what is your thoughts in terms of poetry creating poems?
When you have an a I co pilot, you can
just create the best poem in the world, I mean,
and you didn't even have to lift the pen. How
does that kind of affect the person to person type
of spirit if you will.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
The creation of it using AI and you know, copilot
type tools to create the poem. It doesn't appeal to
me because I like to do that myself. So if
there's any part of being a professional spoken word poet
that I would like to automate, it's not the writing
of the poems. That's the shit I would do for
free anyway. It's the like collating your mailchimp list, do

(31:36):
that like you know, you know so so implementing it
into like my practice as an artist, I would would
not so much, But then I get the conceit and like,
I can imagine someone creating just the jopest poem with
copilot and hybrid and like, yeah, you have to prompt it.

(31:58):
So in some way, whatever the finishing, the output is
at least a hybrid of your creative input. And then
if you take that and you go to a room
of folks and you share it, and you you've honed
yourself as a as a performer to make your voice
and presence kind of a conduit for some emotion for

(32:19):
the people in the room to feel, and what they
feel is genuinely connected. Okay, but I would argue that
they're connecting to you the person. And like I've seen people.
I've seen people. I'm sure you have two at at Mike's.
It's you know, the poem. There are people who could

(32:41):
read me the side of a cereal box and I'm like,
I'm like, oh, nyasin of make me easy, Like yeah,
and they can give it to you, but it's their presence.
It's like, and that still is is the human element
to me?

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, yeah, no, I really do describe performing poetry is
a full body experience. You're using all of your senses.
It's one of the rare things in life where you
actually are using all of your senses, all five senses,
to really project to the people around you. So no,
that's a good argument and a good case in point
as we kind of, you know, work with this new

(33:21):
kind of world that we're living in with technology and
what that's going to soon look like. In a lot
of these spaces, especially in the space of poetry, I
want to kind of get kind of more in depth,
you know, like I said, you know, you have a
role at Get Lit Words, Ignite in La obviously with
a bowery poetry at one point, tell us about how
that those experiences though, are working in especially working in

(33:45):
these leadership positions. How has that kind of shaped your
perspective on poetry and education? Like you said, you know,
you've taught students all across the country now about poetry.
You made poems just for kids. How is your perspective
on how important and having something the linguistics of poetry,
the emotion of poetry, the style of poetry, How important

(34:07):
is that to really infuse in our education system, not
only with youth but specifically with youth, but also education
as you know, people grow, education is from birth to
the grave. How important is that to really infuse And
how is your perspective changed now playing a leadership role
in a lot of these very well known organizations for poetry.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
Got it. I think that my role in the two
organizations did not, I'll expand on it more, It did
not change my view of the importance of putting poetry,
and particularly particularly I really think spoken word poetry writing
for the purpose of getting up in a room and

(34:49):
talking to the human beings there. I think that like
getting young people into that is of paramount importance, kind
of to the previous point as well, particularly today where
so many other things are turning digital, and so I
feel like just the moment of encouragement because like, okay,

(35:13):
every middle school and even high school kid has moments
where and we all did growing up of like I
have this thought, I am looking out at the world
around me. Maybe it's my circle of peers, maybe it's
my you know, my my town and kind of like
my church, my town, people raising me. Whatever. I'm looking

(35:37):
out and I am not seeing this thought represented out there.
So you're kind of like knee jerk instinct is to
think like I must be wrong, and I feel like
just receiving the encouragement to like, hey, take that idea

(35:57):
and at least run with it, see what it'll go.
Tease that thread out and write it out to the
most emotionally authentic degree that you can. Here are some tools.
Maybe you can use these tools to kind of like
get at more of the subtler things that you want
to get at. You want to connect to ideas. Oh,

(36:19):
here's a way that other poets have done that, but
you're you're just giving them the tools to whittle and
carve out that thing that's already in them. And the
act of doing that, and then the act of taking
that which you have carved into what we'll call a

(36:40):
spoken word poem and getting up in that same sphere
where you didn't you didn't see it reflected back, but
you getting up and putting it out there. The act
of that whole process, Dude, multiply that by every person
on earth, and just imagine if were like in a
world where that was a standard way to go about

(37:03):
things of just like, yeah, really diving into what is
in you and everything that has passed through you and
honoring each thing as potentially valuable and giving it the
time and space to become the best version of whatever
that thing is, Like, that's that's what I want to see.

(37:25):
So my view on that and specifically that has not changed,
and I think that that's why we see you go
to a spoken more poetry and why like a lot
of the young people and not even necessarily young people,
anyone who gravitates towards it. You're going to see a
lot of people from there's no way to say it
that doesn't sound gross, but like traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds. That's

(37:49):
why you're going to see that, Like folks who look
out and especially don't see their voice or their idea
or the idea of them presented in the world around
them take to this art form, all right. I think
that that's that's why you see that. I forgot my
overall train of thought on that, but that's that's what

(38:10):
I think is important. That's what I think is important
now from being a position of kind of leadership within
the organizations and kind of just seeing how non profits
are expected to run and continue to exist. It's tough, man,

(38:31):
It's it's tough to It's like, oh, you're supposed to
just do that forever like that, when you see like, oh,
you have to you apply for grants and like people
are like, oh, you want to do a thing, just
apply for a grant. Someone will give you money for that.
It's like, yeah, once, but I plan on being alive

(38:52):
several decades more. And like, really, and the thing that
controls my food, as like an employee of an organ
of a nonprofit is the whim of whoever decides to
give grants that particular year, and like they have their
own sets of initiatives and their own priorities, and there's

(39:13):
turnover there as well. And I gotta like apply for
permission to do what I feel is important in the
world every year and just hope that people with money
deem it important to re up the grant. Again, that's
just not that's not sustainable. Yeah, it's very it's very stressful.

(39:36):
And I know that that's not it's not unique to
the arts nonprofit world either. So many nonprofits exist on
the whim of whoever decides or not to give them
a grant. And you have to, like you got to
make your budget at the top of the year, factoring
in grants that you haven't even been awarded yet. You know,
it's just it's it's wild.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah, no, it's definitely a lie, I mean, and it's
a lot to think about. Yeah, yeah, it's this. That
grand game is no joke for sure.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
One more thing and with that experience makes kind of
taking into your hands to do your own thing seem
less of a crazy thing to do.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Oh, I could write grants and kind of like rely
on who knows who behind the curtain to like hit
me this loot or I do. I believe I'm good
at this. I believe I can do this. I believe
I have to know how to do this. I'm gonna
just do it.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, yeah, one thousand percent. Yeah, taking that kind of
putting the wheel in your own hands, it's it makes
a huge difference definitely. Now speaking of that, I mean,
I want you to kind of, like I said, your
works have featured all over from ESPN to the Golden Globes.
First and foremost, tell us what what did your work
look like as a poet on ESPN or the Golden Globes?

(40:57):
What does that call even sound like? How do you
get there?

Speaker 3 (41:01):
We'll tell us yo, Okay, so these are so the
ESPN one was this is the most out there sports reference.
So I was, like I said, from Philly and a
Philly sports fan. The Eagles, Philadelphia Eagles football team made
a trade for a guy. No, I'm the awesome Wah,

(41:24):
this is like over ten years ago, and.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
That's Kerrie Washington's husband. Yeah, Kerry Washington movies. Yeah. I
just know that because I was a fan. Scamble, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
All the world's the World's the world. So now I'm
the awesome. Wall got traded to the Eagles, and he
was like a shutdown corner at the time. And then simultaneously,
the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team traded for a guy Hunter Pence.
He was another star dude coming in. I wrote a
poem about Philly, like an ode to kind of Philly

(42:00):
sports and Philly sports on the come up, using those
two moves, those those two trades as the jump off
point of the poem, and I went in the backyard
of my mom's house, the house I grew up in Willemburn,
New Jersey, and like set the little recorder up and
recorded myself doing this video, and then I sent it
to ESPN. It was like, oh, got something to say,

(42:23):
click here and give us your comment. And I like
went on the website and like sent it through, it
got seen and got picked up and got some burn.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Wow, Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
It was it was. It was. It was probably just
like I imagine someone on the other side looking at
that and being like someone wrote a poem about like
these obscure sports trades. Hey, Tom, get a load of this,
and it just spread throughout the office, just incredulousness.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Yeah, no again, rolling dice, Let me go, chop.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
On, it's all shot. Shoot those shots.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yeah, there you go. Tell us about tell us about
the Golden Globes. How did that opportunity that's a major
award show here in the USA. I mean, tell us
about how that opportunity came about them?

Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, So the Golden Globes thing came through partnership with
get Lit. So the Hollywood Forum Association, they were the
ones who ran the Golden Globes at the time. They
reached out to get lit and were like, oh, can
we can we do a thing they had like supported
with grant support over the years. They're like cool. So
it fell to me and I wrote this poem and

(43:39):
then it was performed by youth poets who were a
part of the get Lit program and actually filmed by
the get lit like our in house media team, which
is also like a little educational wing and so created
that I think it was like ninety seconds long. Okay, wow,
And then it aired on as part of the Gono

(44:02):
Globes pre show Nice and so yeah it was. It's
cool man, opportunities coming through.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, just I mean, it's just you know, your your
career has been just such an just a smortgage board
of just getting those opportunities and just seeing how far
life can really take. You tell us kind of how
important do you think it is to spread your reach
across because you know, obviously ESPN Golden Globes get lit

(44:29):
by our poetry. You that's such a you know, Schwarzenegger Institute,
that's such a wide range of audiences now that you're
touching with your work. How important do you think it
is as a poet to spread your reach across different
types of audiences.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
I think if that's what you love to do, then
it is of then the utmost importance to be doing it.
And again I come back to like spoken word poetry
because that's the world that I've been in. I've not
published a book. I really like everything that I write.
It's with the intention that I'm going to be there

(45:04):
when I say it, and so the sharing of the
work is an inherent part of what it is that
I that I do, and so it's of like the
most utmost importance. I had a side as you were
asking the question, I had a side quest. I wanted
to say, but I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Well what you You performed a present presidential inauguration too,
you just didn't mention that what else you got on?

Speaker 4 (45:29):
No, No, it it's more like like because I simultaneously
don't feel like I need to be in a world
where everyone agrees with me, and I kind of have
enjoyed opportunities to speak at places where you you.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
May not instinctually think like, oh these people are going
to be down with spoken with poetry a guy from
New York. But finding the way to get a point
across to anyone, M like, I love that. I do
feel that's an important, a very important thing. And I
think that maybe just the way that i've part of

(46:17):
it is just naturally who I am, how it was raised. Okay,
Also part of it is like I cut my teeth
as a spoken word poet in performing in public schools.
There's rules there you can't can't do this, can't do that,
can't say this, can't say that. Also, you're talking to kids,
so there's kind of just like the life experience difference

(46:42):
to try to take an idea or concept that I
think is important and keep as much of the complexity
of it and the subtleties of it, but put it
in a way that anyone can grasp that like, that's
what if I had to choose my own headstone, That's
what I would like to be remember it as doing,
like that's what I try to do.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, No, absolutely that that that really got me thinking.
You know, that idea of almost having those types of
you know, your presence and your poetry disrupting spaces where
maybe people didn't expect your presence in that space. It
is very powerful. And it's almost like because I'm very

(47:24):
much the same way, and I almost want to say,
like I get like riled up by it, Like I
don't want to say like I'm ready to fight, but
like it is almost like it's engaging as an artist
because it's like you're turning the stereotype, is turning the
status qull on its head, and you can just tell
in people's faces huh, you know, doing the kind of

(47:45):
strange thing, maybe taking all these different roles, different you know,
different different context. Now that your that your mind, body
spirits is in and you as an artist, as a
poet are in. People really just to see the con fusion,
but also to see it's madness. But it's a lot
of beauty because it's a lot of people still, you

(48:06):
know there, their eyes are open, you know, they're just
seeing things they never seen before. I almost like it's
like I'm turned on by it.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Yo. No, So two thoughts, and that's part of what
the difference of it being live brands because if this
was a book or something. My poem is a text,
as soon as they got to a part that kind
of like m I don't know about that it's they
would be more inclined to just put it down. Yeah,

(48:34):
come to a video and you're like, m no, I
know where this is going, and you stop it. But
in the room you can't like, yeah, yo, there I
got you for three minutes. And so if this first
minute kind of makes you feel uncomfortable, like you're gonna
just take these next two minutes and then to take

(48:56):
that and and flip it around. So that the end
of the three minutes, they're like, oh, you got me,
Like they learned. They learned at at least like one
extra grain of patience was brought to them in that moment.
Next time that they are encountered with something that they
might recoil a bit, they'll be ever so slightly less

(49:18):
inclined to shut down because of that experience of it
flipping around in a positive way for them, And like,
I love that. And then also when you said the
word disruption and disrupting spaces, I think that's exactly exactly right,
and I would I wish maybe you know, one, is

(49:39):
there a word for the act of disrupting a space
that does not have the connotation of like like a
negative connotation to it, Like I want to, yeah, disrupt
it from the quo, but in a way that everyone
there is like, Yo, that was that was tight. Not

(50:00):
I'm not trying to to Yeah, you see what I'm saying.
You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I told you, Yeah, I don't even know if there don't,
I don't know. I couldn't think of what would the
word be. Yeah, I get what you're saying, disrupting the space,
but it's in such a positive way. I don't I
don't know. I don't even think it's not coming to
me now.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
Yeah, yeah, disrupting because the actor disrupting a space kind
of implies destroying what was there. But that's not necessarily
what you need to do every time. Yeah, you do,
and that's where you say the word. Sometimes you pluck
the space.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
But it kind of goes back to your point. I
love how you had said earlier, you had made mention
of you know, like if we were talking about AI
people you know, using like chat, GBT or whatever to
create a poem. But it's you. It's you that's still
performing the poem, that's bringing life to the words, and
so much of that is that is kind of what
you know, That is what the art is all about,

(51:01):
a spoken word performance. It is you. You. Your body
tells the story, right, people always use the famous quote
of that book your body tells the score. Well, your
body also you know you look like your life, your face,
your body, your movement, your aura right overused word, but
you know you're all your sensibilities. You bring that to
the space. So whatever you're performing with your voice, that

(51:24):
is so much it's a disruption. Just you be existing
in some cases. I mean, really, so that's such a
powerful thing. We'll find out what that word is someone
someone listening somewhere. I know y'all got the word for it. No,
I love that. I love that. I love that. It's
been so great Mason. I mean, it's really had a
great time talking to you and dropping so many gems.

(51:46):
I kind of want to know as we wrap up
towards you, you know again, you know you've had such success.
I mean, and I wonder for you. You know, you
have so many examples of poets, both mainstream in the
closet poets, people that have loved writing but just never
thought they could pursue it. You know, there's so many,
so many people around our world or writers, But what

(52:09):
is one thing, you know, especially as a poet, they
find they're finding success, they're finding traction. How do you
think poets can stay balance, staying true to their voice,
but you also want to reach a wider audience. Is
there a way to actually contemplate balance the two or
do you have to give up one or the other.
What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (52:30):
My first thought is that it would probably depend on
what your authentic voice is. How much alteration or not,
it would have to to try to like infuse if
you are specifically aiming for like mainstream success and just

(52:51):
the quick example of like I tend, I tend to
not curse in my I tend to like all my
poems are some degree of PG. Their team is. That's
where all my poems were intended for an education market.
And so if you do that, then you will most
likely be more commercially I don't know, viable, but but

(53:14):
but it depends what your voice is. If your if
your voice is not that, if your voice is more
pushing the envelope and edgy, then like the very fact
that you speak the way you do and put the
ideas out to what you do will increase it. Yeah,
it's so hard to hard to say, but all that

(53:35):
the crux of the question. I feel like not every
poem that you write has to be for other people
or has to be for everyone. So if you're you're
a poet, you're an artist, like to feel, I understand

(53:56):
feeling like boxed and out. I gotta do this thing
because this is this is the way to get success
is to do this even though my voice wants to
do that. Well, like the thing that comes to mind
is Prince Prince like made albums and then he had
a whole nother vault of songs that he made for
himself that he was like, this is too good for

(54:18):
Sony to get, or you know, he was like, nah,
these these are for me. This is what I do
for this, and this is what I do for me.
And if you line them all up, then you have
the whole like spectrum of that person's artistic abilities and
what they do. And so I think that that same
concept can apply to any artist really, Like I got

(54:39):
poems of a poem, I said wine tasting earlier. I
have a poem about a glass of pino no War
that I drink and I like and like it kind
of is about bitcoin too. I'm not I'm not going
to do that at the show for you know, for
Virginior High kids. It's not it's not the bet for that,

(55:00):
it's not the piece maybe for anywhere. But I nailed it,
emailed it to my friend and we're like, oh, this
is dope. I talked to the guy who I know
at the wine bar around the corner from my house
or I go all the time, and I was like, yo,
I want to shoot this video here, He'd be like,
eh Man, just let me know. So you know, like
whatever you do can have a home somewhere. It may

(55:23):
not be what gets you paid, but like you can
have the satisfaction of doing.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah. I love that because I think that's so important
for people to understand. And really, the idea of the
sacredness of you is so like underrated. I feel we
do feel like everything has to be for profit. If
I make music, I need to make every song needs
to be a hit because I need to make money.
But again, poetry, everything I write needs to be in

(55:52):
a chat book. This needs to be published, et cetera,
et cetera. You know, and that can relate to anything,
any part of your life. Every thing is not for everyone.
It's okay to just it's okay to just keep some
of that just for you. That doesn't mean it's any
less of a success. If you're writing for you, you're
successful because you're fulfilling your spirit, you're fulfilling your art,

(56:14):
your artistic path, right, And it's that sacredness is people
don't I think, revere or respect that unless it's given
to a billion and one people. And I kind of
I really did like a liken to what you're saying,
where it's just like, yes, like, look, there are poems
I write straight up crazy as hell, I'm cocking crazy,

(56:35):
but it's it's this is for me, this is what,
this is my pleasure, this is what brings me joy,
and this is just for me. It's okay if it
doesn't go sell, right. Yes, a lot of a lot
of writers there is that kind of I want to say,
imposter syndrome that we have with capitalism. It just gives
us this feeling everything not even just we have to

(56:57):
create for money, but it's just we have to create
for Concer twenty four to seven. And I think that's
so that's so big, and you hit such a great
point that I think it's like not enough of us
can articulate to ourselves yet, you.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Know word And then also on the back of that,
like when you're just writing in the way that is
nourishing to you. I can't tell you how many times
I've done that and end up with some off the wall, weird,
weird thing that like I don't know who wrote the

(57:30):
first part of it or the last part of it,
like reading it back, but there's a line or like
a couplet in there where I'm like, I like that,
and then that finds its way into a poem that
all right next week, or maybe it'll just sit in
my iPhone notes for six months until I sit down
and then like that, I've like, you can Frankenstein your

(57:52):
poems together using like bits and pieces of things. I
so many, so many poems have come up out like that,
or like the dopest part of the poem was actually
just grafted out of another poem, and then I wrote
a whole poem trying to just lead up to that point,
like yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
Yeah, no, And that's I think that's part of too,
how you find your authentic voice, you know, being able
to reserve what's for you for you, but also having
the foresight and knowledge to know, you know, how to,
like you said, Frankenstein, how to piece things together. No,
that's huge, that's huge, all right, Mason man, Okay, like

(58:30):
I said, let's say everyone, after we listen to this
amazing interview, just let's go all play lotto numbers. Let's
all get like Mason and kind of just try our luck.
We could get a I mean at any things are
very possible in this world. But Nason, we really appreciate
you being a guest on the posts Weeek's podcast. Now,
I do have one final question for you. We asked
every poet on the Poltsweek's podcast, Mason, why do you

(58:51):
need to get your words out?

Speaker 3 (58:55):
I need to get my words out because it is
it's the most tangible way for me to feel like
I'm connecting with the people around me, which is then
connecting to human beings by extension in general. It's like
when I take the time and craft out the thing,

(59:18):
do the thing that I do in the way that
I enjoy doing it, and then share that and to
see it and kind of like feel it be received
in the way that's enriching to myself and to them,
Like I like having that moment over and over again
in as many different rooms with as many different people

(59:39):
as possible.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Absolutely beautiful. All right, thank you so much, Mason. Every
when you heard it, hear from him. That's why he
needs to get his words out. All right? Missed out
last last last question? What's next for you in twenty
twenty four and what's up for you in twenty twenty five?
And tell us where can we find all of your
amazing works. Please do drop any social media or website
link for.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Us, no doubt. So rest of twenty twenty four, I'm
going to really be just taking some meetings with the
Schwarzenegger Institute people seeing where I can get in, and
we're like laying plans out and also trying to put
together a tour of colleges and universities. I have a
kind of the big the big project that's attached to
the Institute is tentatively titled Looking at Air, and I

(01:00:25):
want to write a suite of poems that's based on
air and getting people to see air. And so I
want to from a bunch of different perspectives, So interviewing
a promonologist, doctor of the lungs, I want to interview
a professional beatboxer, I want to interview a meteorologist, all
these interview like someone who does meditative breath work, all

(01:00:48):
these people who like their life work is about air,
but from all these different angles. Ultimately hoping to get
people to think about the air that comes into our
bodies and with the same sort of like importance that
we think about the food that we put into our bodies.
Both things go in, both things get exhaled out and

(01:01:10):
both things make us run. We see our organic foods everywhere.
I don't see nearly as much thought going into like
keeping the air around us clean on a day to
day basis, and kind of want to put that thought
in people's heads.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Nice, nice, Please do tell us do you have any
websites social media's links do like to drop for all
the amazing folks to check out your work?

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
I do, indeed, So you can go to Mason Granger
dot com and that's the best way to get and
either get in touch with me reaching out to holler
about something or about nothing. Also, there's videos on there.
I'm also just often the Internet ethos of YouTube. If
you just YouTube my name, a bunch of videos from
different poetry places up in my Instagram is at Mason Granger,

(01:01:56):
and I only have the bandwidth to support one means
of social media, so it's just Instagram. That's where I'm
at at Mason Granger. I'm aware of others. I'm aware
that there's more reach out there. I personally can do
that and I can answer my emails. So do what
you do and do it well if that's what I do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
So that's what's up.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
So yeah, y'all, just everything under just my name Mason Granger,
so I hope to hear from you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
Perfect, perfect, all right everyone. Mason's links will be down
below in the description box. No matter what platform you're
listening to this podcast on, Mason's links will be down below.
All right. Mason, thanks so much for being a guest
on the Poet Speaks podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
No doubt, Thank you so much. This is quite fun.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Absolutely, and again everyone check out all Mason's amazing work.
Details will be down below for all of this links.
All everyone, this is Post Speaks podcast. We'll talk to
you people,

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