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All right, I say, had
Arrow, Hey, how are you doing

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today, Tony? Ah, there
we go. There's a person's voice.

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I'm joyful this morning. That's what
I am, dude. I love that

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kind of energy. That's that's the
kind of stuff that you believe in the

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power of choice. And your choice
today is to be in a great mood.

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Absolutely absolutely, And I've been choosing
the word joyful on a purpose lately

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because that's the only way to describe
how I'm feeling. I got to tell

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you, Tony, I'm very proud
of you with this book. And the

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reason being is because I've been a
daily writer for thirty years. I've done

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everything humanly possible to try to get
people to write themselves. And then here

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comes your book and it is an
expression. It is emotion, it is

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your journey, it is it is
so much and this is the kind of

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stuff that people need to read so
they can do it themselves. Wow.

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Thank you for that affirmation. Wow
Wow, thank you. Thank you to

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put it out on paper, though, because it's one thing to live it

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and you know the emotional changes that
we go through when we're living in But

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now when you relinquish it to the
readers, what are you going through?

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Yeah, that's a rule. There's
a good question, you know. Ah,

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there is a there's a there's a
sense of release, and then there's

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this like a bit of vulnerability.
I still feel right because the stories,

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at least the memories and that I've
crapped, the stories around and the poetry

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that's included are poems and memories that
nobody knows that I've had, parents,

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family members, friends, And so
there is something to be said about like,

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not only is the world getting it, but even people who are in

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my world, like in fact,
they're getting it too. And so there's

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something to be said about big breath. I'm so glad I got it out,

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but also I hope this's not only
them understand me, but help them

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them understand themselves so much better too. And so there's a sense of like,

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gosh, like now there's a book
out in the world that I could

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have used as a kid that helped
me realize how humor I was, you

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know, yep. Yeah, And
that that goes all the way back to

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when I said that this is what
I've been doing for the past thirty year.

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My wife goes, Okay, all
your journals when when you transition.

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We're we're going to get rid of
the journals, okay, And I go,

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no, you're not, because these
books are for somebody that's well beyond

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me. Yes, yes, that's
it. And and what you know with

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this thing part about the part about
this is too because really I wrote this

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book as an adult. But the
poems that I've included the story is this,

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I was actually in therapy. This
is a real thing, like actually

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like the cognitive behavior therapy, right, dealing with some stuff and the suppressed

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anger and sadness and uh, there's
sort of like the suppressed joy that I've

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had, like that were still in
those poems because I've been carrying those poems

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around with me forever. My therapist
this book I wrote. The book was

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like, Tony, you know that
box of poems you said you've been carrying

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around since you were a kid.
May the time you went back and revisited

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those poems and I spent a week
in reading and crying and ripping some of

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them up. But it was almost
like ritualistic. But I was like,

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oh, all of the fears that
I've had about myself, everything that I've

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sort of been whole being on to
hoarding around emotionally as an adult. They

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they've been here the whole time,
and so it was a matter of like

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figuring out which one of the these
ones though, led to my freedom.

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You know, those are ones that
I made. I went included. Man,

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I'll tell you what the now,
Now you've just explained the title to

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me. From from my point of
direction, the boogeyman becomes the poet.

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I mean you you had some boogieman
moments, and then when you found your

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poetry, all of a sudden you
found an expression of freedom. Yeah,

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that's exactly it. That boogeyman for
sure. You know, for readers,

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it's absolutely metaphor for a fear right
of internalized racism, internalized homophobia. We

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grew up for not in poverty.
I want to make that distinsion you distinguished

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single mom. My father was adictions
of the drugs and it was a messy

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time. He was a wonderful,
amazing sober man. Now, but you

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know, writing about that stuff during
that time. But like I had internalized

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this belief that I was not great, that I was you know, not

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a good person that you know I
needed to always be. I need to

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always perform, right, I need
to perform in a safe blackness. I

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need to perform straight. I needed
to know there was a performance that I

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had to just keep putting off.
Ess. Mark Twain in his autobiography talked

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about how writers need to keep their
accent, and in reading your book,

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I see your accent clearly, because
there are some sentences here that don't start

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with a capital letter, and your
commas and your posities, and I'm going,

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my god, I love this man. I love the way that he

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convinced his editor let me do my
thing. Oh wow, thank you er.

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That's exactly how it went down to
write. And so you know,

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the readers need to know. I
am not a like academically trained writer.

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This is the truth. I've been
writing poetry as a kids, just to

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write poems as a kid. I
do enjoy reading and stuff like that,

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but I don't have an MSA.
And so form is what you're referring to.

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And this memoir and verse developed into
a form because I naturally think and

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write poetically. Even in my academic
writing sometimes I try to slot a little

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rhythm, illiterate and so you're right, this is a memoir written in verse.

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And I broke the text up on
the page with the line breaks and

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so that people can catch the occasional
rhyme to you know, to catch the

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moments and I might take my breath, or to catch the really extended message

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forward. I wanted people to engage, you know, with the book,

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you know, beyond just reading,
you know, a memoir like oh this

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is this is actually fun and engaging
to read, especially for young readers right

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who may not get anything written like
this. Although shout out to Mahogany Brown

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and Candice Elo and Elizabeth Glasklez and
Elizabeth Oceabato who also have written memoirs and

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verse Dean Ada. Anyway, I
just had to throw that out there.

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But there's a form that exists,
and I'm so happy to have that language.

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Now. Now, as a poet, and you speak the language of

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the poet, how do you get
people to understand what you're saying? Because

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there are many times people will look
at me and say, come back down

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to where I am, man,
you're talking way over my head. Yeah,

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translation is the word that pops in
my head because I am a PhDe

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the person who I published in you
know, peer reviewed academic journals, and

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words are always thirteen letters long,
you know, When I was writing this

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book and when I was engaging in
this reflection, I treated it almost like

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an academic essay because the title of
the book actually comes from a poem that

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I wrote, maybe over a decade
ago, and the last line is and

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so the Boogeyman became a poet?
Actually, that poem is in the epilogue

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of this book. And I wrote
it, you know, over a decade

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ago. And what I realized is
everything that I write is always for me

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first, right, and then there's
a moment when I want to share it

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with the world. And so I
wrote this book with that title in mind,

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and I wrote it, how did
the Boogeyman become a poet? Tell

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me? How did you become so
unafraid to unapologetically be who you are?

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Right? And so that required a
translation because it was like, oh,

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we don't need to write this in
this academic context with all this fancy words.

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Write this for younger you. How
would you want to read how would

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you want to understand how complicated the
world is? Without explicitly saying how can

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you write about racism without really like
writing the words? Right? So I

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think I might have written that word
once, like how I don't even think

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I use the word homophobia in the
book at all. Right, but like,

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how can you write about this in
a way where the language accessible.

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Yeah. The only time that you
bring anything like that up is when you

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when you go in at ten fifty
six pm at night to go on AOL.

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And it was like, man,
he's brave and very honest in this.

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But the thing about it is,
though, that you show the text

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messages or the IM messages and I'm
going, my god, this guy knows

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exactly what he's doing in this story. Yeah, yeah, I'm so glad

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you mentioned that. And this is
the important thing about memoir, right,

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So this again, this takes place, you know, spring nineteen ninety nine

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to fall two thousand, so it's
a short time period in my life,

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seventeen year old Tony. And you
know, when I had to think about

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like what kind of memories and things
include, I had to be very sort

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of strategic about that, and so
you know, oh, I'm off my

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point. What was I going to
say? I was very excited about that

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question. What's he saying? I
was talking about when you went in and

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you hooked up to AOL. And
I think one of the funniest lines was

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that you looked over your shoulder and
You're wondering God, God was going to

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be the only one that was going
to see your witness, but it was

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okay. You were one year away
from turning eighteen eighteen. Yeah, now,

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I really yeah. I got lost
in the story because I was like,

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wait a minute, because in terms
of what's include, So here's the

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thing. You know, I do
not remember exactly every single conversation I had

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with someone in nineteen ninety nine and
so, but I have very strong fond

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memories of finding chat rooms and visiting
websites. Right around the time the Internet

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was sort of like becoming more accessible
to just people just in their homes.

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And I had a computer in college, and I'm you know, Google wasn't

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out. I think it was Yahoo
at the time. But that was the

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first time I was able to research
information and find a community. I even

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think in the book I mentioned like
how you know the internet was the safest

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place for a lot of us,
and wild it is. You know,

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I've been married to my husband now
for five years. We met, you

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know, almost eight or nine years
ago, and we met online. Like

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the fact that the internet still continues
to serve. It's sort of this space

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where there's a safe I don't know
a way to be. This is it.

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Yeah, Now what's the next book? You've got to be working on

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another one, because now that you've
been published, man, you're you're part

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of the group. Now. Oh, it's happening. It's happening. So

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I'm happy to share that I was
actually offered a tuber deal from Harper Collins,

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Captain Ticket Books and Harpercollums. And
so the next book because coming winter

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twenty twenty five. It is called
Knuckleheads, and it's a collection of Yeah,

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it's a collection of poems two black
boys and men, especially the gay

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ones, and the people who love
us. So I tell the word of

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you love me and I love you. This book is for you too.

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And the cool part about it is
I originally wrote Knucklehead first, and when

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my wonderful agent, Annie Lang I
should Pandy literary love ay so much.

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When she was pitching me the publishers, we included in the proposals that I

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was also working on a memoir and
verse. But how the boogeyman became a

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poet and it wasn't tell my editor
who I wound up connecting with Ben Rosenthal

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at Harper Collins was like Tony the
memoir, I've got to come first,

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man, like the world needs to
know who you are. And so the

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cool thing is I embedded Nuggets in
how the Boogeyman became a poet that directly

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00:10:01,799 --> 00:10:07,440
connects the Knucklehead, and nuggets and
Knucklehead that directly keets out a boogeyman became

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a poet. So these two are
huge. They compliment each other very very

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well. As my agent says,
Tony, it's like it's like the book.

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It's like the flesh, but the
poetr're collecting. It's a bone and

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they stick together. I'm really excited
about that. But it's called Knucklehead.

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Yes, well, I expect to
talk to you next year then in twenty

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twenty five about Knucklehead. Let's do
it. Let's do it, dude.

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Please come back to this show anytime
in the future. The door is always

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going to be open for you.
Thank you so much. I've had a

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wonderful time, man, take care. Will you be brilliant today okay or

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what wait? Wait? Wait?
You be joyful all day today and forward

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there we go. I shall be
joyful. Thank you, Thank you,

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thank you, thank you God,