Speaker 1: Coming to you from the dining room table at East
Speaker 1: Barbary Lane. Welcome to another episode of Full Circle the podcast.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Charles Tyson Jr. And today I
Speaker 1: am delighted to be sitting with our guest, Tony Keith Jr.
Speaker 1: Tony is a wonderful poet, spoken word artist, hip hop
Speaker 1: educational leader from Washington, d C. So you know we're
Speaker 1: going to have an interesting conversation today. We're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about Tony's collection of poems called Knucklehead, and
Speaker 1: I would really love to get into this. Tony Keith Junior,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Full Circle Table.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thank you so much, y'all.
Speaker 1: Glad to be here, Glad to have you here. First
Speaker 1: of all, I love I love your writing style.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: Like I can hear I couldn't hear your voice because
Speaker 1: I ain't at you yet, but I could definitely hear
Speaker 1: the warmth of the author's voice in the poems.
Speaker 2: I'm so curious, did you find yourself speaking some of
Speaker 2: the poems.
Speaker 1: Out loud a little bit, or if not speaking like
Speaker 1: kind of moving with it?
Speaker 2: Ah, you were moving with it. Okay. I love getting
Speaker 2: this reaction because even my mom called me yesterday. She's
Speaker 2: a son. You know, I'm reading through your book and
Speaker 2: I just came across one of my favorite poems that
Speaker 2: I've heard you, you know, perform in public. And she goes,
Speaker 2: this is what you say, and she goes, you know,
Speaker 2: I was saying it out loud. I had to keep
Speaker 2: myself quiet because she was like in an office environment
Speaker 2: or something. And so just the fact that the collection
Speaker 2: is sort of evoking these like reactions from people to
Speaker 2: either say them out loud or to move their body
Speaker 2: to me like that just brings me a lot of
Speaker 2: joy because there's a hip hop connection there.
Speaker 1: So oh, okay, which makes complete sense.
Speaker 2: If it ain't if it ain't something, ain'tap your foot,
Speaker 2: ain't tapping your head, not bobbing, it's not hippie.
Speaker 1: I know that's right, So talk to me a little bit.
Speaker 1: First of all, the title knucklehead, Where does that come from?
Speaker 2: Title knucklehead comes from? I believe two places. One is
Speaker 2: just I really am just sort of attached to kind
Speaker 2: of really cool book titles, and I thought knucklehead just
Speaker 2: kind of sounds great, But then also realized that subconsciously
Speaker 2: that was just sort of me advancing language that I
Speaker 2: had heard since I was a little kid. I was
Speaker 2: always known as a little knucklehead. Which the way that
Speaker 2: I understood that, I mean, it was a couple of ways.
Speaker 2: In my community. It meant a very It was like
Speaker 2: a term of endearment. It was affectionate, it was a
Speaker 2: joyful thing, like your a little knucklehead. Yeah, you might
Speaker 2: have a little bit of an attitude problem, but you are sweet.
Speaker 2: You know, you're unlovable as opposed to the traditional you
Speaker 2: know narrative that you know knuckleheads or black boys, even
Speaker 2: girls who are like misunderstood or unheard, or they're stereotyped
Speaker 2: or they're judge. I was like, we gotta have another
Speaker 2: way of thinking of us, and then knucklehead actually write
Speaker 2: you know, I say something about you know, their knucklehead.
Speaker 2: We don't all call ourselves we know that we're not blasphemous, ignorant,
Speaker 2: or dangerous, although we don't call ourselves intelligent, ambitious, or courageous. Right,
Speaker 2: just sort of this idea, like I wanted us knuckleheads
Speaker 2: to just think about ourselves in loving ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that it definitely comes as a term of endearment. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: like came here a little knucklehead, let me tell you
Speaker 1: about yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, And again I thank you for that,
Speaker 2: because I think that what I'm realizing is I'm feeling
Speaker 2: a lot more affirmed lately because I was so concerned
Speaker 2: that the term knucklehead might be completely misinterpreted. And so
Speaker 2: a lot of readers, and you can just people in general,
Speaker 2: especially black and brown folks, are like, I know what
Speaker 2: a knucklehead is. I'm gonna get this book to a
Speaker 2: couple of knuckleheads that I know, and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this language makes sense. These are the communities that I
Speaker 2: care about.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is what I wanted right right, right, So
Speaker 1: it comes to me like you talk to different kinds
Speaker 1: of knuckleheads in these poems, like talk to me about
Speaker 1: that a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I started, well, I mean, there's so much
Speaker 2: more to the story. But the first nucklehead that I'm
Speaker 2: writing to is myself, And so the world just probably
Speaker 2: needs to know that Knucklehead is a collection of poems
Speaker 2: where most of them are poems that I've been writing
Speaker 2: to myself over the last thirty years, right, and just
Speaker 2: dealing with my world as a black gay man in
Speaker 2: America and in my very first book, How the Boogeyman
Speaker 2: Became a Poet, I sort of tell this story about
Speaker 2: how I discovered writing poetry as a way to just
Speaker 2: kind of protect and preserve myself and my sanity touring
Speaker 2: times of stress and anger and confusion, and you know,
Speaker 2: and I still practice that. And so the poems in
Speaker 2: that book are essentially poems that I was writing to myself,
Speaker 2: just dealing with my world, but also reflecting on the
Speaker 2: different contexts in which I've seen black masculinity show up.
Speaker 2: And so I write about jails and prisons. I write
Speaker 2: about playgrounds. I write about what it's like to sort
Speaker 2: of play sports. I write about what it's like to
Speaker 2: fall in love. I write about education, I write about
Speaker 2: police brutality, but all these different sort of places in
Speaker 2: which I've experienced myself in my world as a black
Speaker 2: gay man in America. And then add the additional layer
Speaker 2: that I'm also gay, right, So like there's this an
Speaker 2: additional thing to it, and so that collection is me
Speaker 2: really just kind of how I wrestle with it. And
Speaker 2: then the very last part is just their you know poems,
Speaker 2: you know, about being in pursuit of your passion, you
Speaker 2: know about you know, I talked in the book, I
Speaker 2: use this metaphor of the very first letter is, you know,
Speaker 2: Darren Knucklehead, you know, have you ever had a planet
Speaker 2: lodged in your belly? And for me, the planet represents purpose, right,
Speaker 2: And so part of it is just sort of like
Speaker 2: that book is also like have you ever just felt like,
Speaker 2: you know, the world is misunderstanding you, but you know
Speaker 2: you got a purpose and you might be gay? You know,
Speaker 2: It's sort of like what it was like those things.
Speaker 2: So that's what I was aiming for with this collection,
Speaker 2: which I think I probably answered way too many questions.
Speaker 2: I mean things in that answer, but anyway, there.
Speaker 1: Is no such thing as too many. I want it all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, Yeah, I love I love your use of language.
Speaker 1: And you know, I felt like this was coming from
Speaker 1: someone I knew, you know, because you know, hopefully when
Speaker 1: we are young, coming up, gay people, gay black people,
Speaker 1: hopefully we have a few figures in our life that
Speaker 1: are there to like help bring us up and show
Speaker 1: us the way. And and your voice called to that.
Speaker 2: Oh, I really appreciate that, because Charles, something that I
Speaker 2: think so much about is if only I had a
Speaker 2: book like this when I was a kid, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: how seen? You know, I would have like felt and
Speaker 2: although I was reading this is what's interesting is you know,
Speaker 2: I was reading Lens and Hughes as a kid, but
Speaker 2: nobody was talking to me about Lens and Hughes and
Speaker 2: his sexuality or his masculine like I was. No one
Speaker 2: was saying to me that, Tony, you're reading the works
Speaker 2: of queer writers gay like I didn't know then, right,
Speaker 2: And then of course, you know, I grew up in
Speaker 2: the era where I was reading, at least in college
Speaker 2: literary works by Elan Harris, you know, and so right,
Speaker 2: so I remember, like literature got me through you. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I'm thinking about like I remember sort of discovering
Speaker 2: black gay court authors, I guess sort of in my twenties,
Speaker 2: but like what about my like teens in middle school years?
Speaker 2: Like where were they? And all I keep thinking about
Speaker 2: is like right now, in this moment, I'm like, I
Speaker 2: really want these young black boys, whether they're queer, gay
Speaker 2: or not, are questioning or whoever, to like to know
Speaker 2: that they exist, like right now, like here's a book
Speaker 2: for young adults, Like here's something written for you specifically
Speaker 2: for you. Yeah, I really, yeah, I really wanted that.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the book that I needed.
Speaker 2: The poems that would have been like, oh, this makes.
Speaker 1: Sense, right, yeah, because you know, there's so many stereotypes
Speaker 1: that are put on us as when we're young, when
Speaker 1: we're black, when we're queer, not to mention putting all
Speaker 1: that together, and you know we also grow up with
Speaker 1: again hopefully our family telling us you can do and
Speaker 1: be whatever you want to be if you put your
Speaker 1: mind to it. But at the same time, the world
Speaker 1: is telling you the opposite, yes, if you make it, Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is the thing. I love that you said that,
Speaker 2: because this is what I continue to get more clarity about.
Speaker 2: I go to poetry for clarity. You know, someone said
Speaker 2: the other day Tony, a lot of your poems about
Speaker 2: you know, being between things, like you know, between this
Speaker 2: thing and that thing, darkness and light and sadness and
Speaker 2: joy and all this other kind of stuff. And I
Speaker 2: think so much about like how for me, like poetry
Speaker 2: is trying to kind of feel that space in between.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yo, I'm hearing all of these narratives
Speaker 2: in the mainstream world that I am not lovable, right,
Speaker 2: legislation is thank you and I'm not lovable. Policy is
Speaker 2: saying I'm not lovable. There's certain you know, I'm just
Speaker 2: like that. There's narratives that exist within religious places that
Speaker 2: say that I'm not lovable. And then there are the
Speaker 2: people in the world who I don't know, who do
Speaker 2: love me, who are like, nah, you are lovable, you
Speaker 2: are a wonderful person, you do have a person. And
Speaker 2: so I'm thinking about, like, how do we filter out
Speaker 2: that noise? Like how do we completely turn off the
Speaker 2: mess that we've been hearing? And so I think so
Speaker 2: much about like I'll be forty four years old this year,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I've got forty four years old noise
Speaker 2: that I'm still filtering through. And I'm like, oh, if
Speaker 2: I can create better noise for a kid who's fourteen
Speaker 2: right now or thirteen, or maybe the questioning adult whatever,
Speaker 2: But I think like now is the time to insert
Speaker 2: more positive affirmations, like now's the time. And so I
Speaker 2: appreciate what you to say, because I'm like, yeah, we
Speaker 2: keep hearing all this stuff about us that we're unlovable,
Speaker 2: and yet we know that we really are because people.
Speaker 1: Tell us exactly it's like, And how do we find
Speaker 1: joy and optimism when essentially the world is basically saying,
Speaker 1: why are you still here?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, and you probably see I wrestle with that
Speaker 2: even and knucklehead, because you know, in this book also
Speaker 2: write about poem, I mean their poem. There's a poem
Speaker 2: in there that I wrote when I was fifteen years
Speaker 2: old that I slightly edited a little bit. And then
Speaker 2: there are poems that I wrote, like when I was forty, right,
Speaker 2: and being married to my husband and writing about love
Speaker 2: and conflict and you know, all this stuff because I
Speaker 2: just think there's I was going somewhere with some point.
Speaker 2: What was it? I get so lost in my thoughts.
Speaker 2: Oh got it? Yeah. But the idea that you know,
Speaker 2: when we are absorbing this as gay queer men, we
Speaker 2: are absorbing these negative narratives, and then we meet love.
Speaker 2: We fall in love, romantic love, and you're in romantic
Speaker 2: love with someone who's also been hearing the same mess
Speaker 2: right that they're unlovable, and then the two of you
Speaker 2: get together and y'all trying to figure out what love like,
Speaker 2: what really loving each other looks like when the world
Speaker 2: was telling you that you can't right, so like even
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what love looks like between two
Speaker 2: gay married men is something that I also wrestled within
Speaker 2: this book because I'm like, I want I didn't. I
Speaker 2: was like, I didn't have any books like this. I
Speaker 2: had no All I had was my imagination, and honestly,
Speaker 2: it wasn't until Robert Jones Junior wrote the Prophets. It's
Speaker 2: an incredible novel. If people don't know essentially it's it's fiction,
Speaker 2: of course, but it's about essentially gay enslaved men. And
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, like, what a wonderful story to
Speaker 2: tell because we only can rely on our imagination because
Speaker 2: there were no documented stories of this at least that
Speaker 2: you know, written like what that experience was like, but
Speaker 2: of course that were gay and queer enslaved Africa, like
Speaker 2: of course. And so for me when I write, when
Speaker 2: I'm writing my books, I'm like, if anything, I want
Speaker 2: to awaken the imagination of the questioning of the little
Speaker 2: black boys who might be like, yah, I wonder what
Speaker 2: it's like to be in love with another man. I
Speaker 2: wonder what it's like to get married. I wonder just
Speaker 2: so they can wonder, you know, mm hmmmm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fascinating because yeah, there's examples of drag and
Speaker 1: elements of ball culture in enslaved times. So yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: they try to act like, you know, this shit just
Speaker 1: came out fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Ago, yes, but now we have literally been around forever.
Speaker 1: Since, been since been, yeah, forever.
Speaker 2: And actually, you know, relatedly, I even write about in
Speaker 2: my first book, how the Boogeyman Become a poet I
Speaker 2: reflect on.
Speaker 1: I love that title, by the way.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks, Oh I could even probably talk about that
Speaker 2: too if there's time. But because, yeah, because how the
Speaker 2: Boogeyman Became a poet. So, first of all, to listeners
Speaker 2: and readers, it is a young adult memoir and it's
Speaker 2: all written in verse, so every page is sort of
Speaker 2: structured like poems and formatted with stanzas and a literation
Speaker 2: and rhyme and fun stuff. Anyway, but it's about three things.
Speaker 2: It's how did I become the first person in my
Speaker 2: family to go to college, how did I start coming
Speaker 2: out the closet is gay? And how I discovered poetry
Speaker 2: sort of is this thing that I continue doing well
Speaker 2: into my adulthood, right, And so inside this book, it's
Speaker 2: really cool because there are hand copies of I mean
Speaker 2: copies of the actual handwritten poems I wrote as a kid.
Speaker 2: I kept them, and so some of them are in
Speaker 2: that book. But anyway, but I tell this story about
Speaker 2: how I remember growing up as a kid in the
Speaker 2: you know, late eighties and early nineties, hearing about an uncle.
Speaker 2: I have an uncle. He passed away. In the book,
Speaker 2: I call him ut he passed away in the early nineties.
Speaker 2: And I just remember, I say in the book, how
Speaker 2: I remember him being, you know, soft, I just remember
Speaker 2: him being a little soft, a little just a little
Speaker 2: I don't know, light on his feet. I don't know
Speaker 2: how to describe it other than that. And then little sweet,
Speaker 2: a little sweet. And then you know, he dies of
Speaker 2: complications of AIDS and like the mid nineties, and that
Speaker 2: is it probably is, you know, at the time, well
Speaker 2: the height of the narrative and the epidemic that this
Speaker 2: is a gay disease. And I'm processing his death in
Speaker 2: an interesting way because I'm like, well, I don't understand
Speaker 2: how he got this thing, because he wasn't gay. He's
Speaker 2: got a son, you know, and I know that he
Speaker 2: had a girlfriend. It's like, I know, look, there was
Speaker 2: sort of this confusing anyway, So my point is later
Speaker 2: on many many years, many many many years later, you know,
Speaker 2: the family begins to start discussing, and then later comes
Speaker 2: out them uncle was indeed gay, or at least by
Speaker 2: but certainly he was not straight. And I have a
Speaker 2: there's a picture that I reflect on in the book
Speaker 2: where it's in my grandmother's photo album, and it's a
Speaker 2: picture of my uncle and he's literally kind of like
Speaker 2: hugged up with like another man in this picture. And
Speaker 2: I remember as a kid asking my family, I was like,
Speaker 2: who is that man? And all they would say, and
Speaker 2: this is gay queer people. Oh, that's your uncle's friend.
Speaker 2: And I'm doing hair quotes for people, that's your uncle's friend,
Speaker 2: and you know what I mean. So I think so
Speaker 2: much about, like how even the concept all we had
Speaker 2: in our imagination was a friend, you know. And I'm like, nah,
Speaker 2: we need something more concrete for people nowadays. But I'm like,
Speaker 2: that way, we don't. I'm not hiding, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not my uncle, you know, But I'm like, oh, what
Speaker 2: story he probably could have told me about what was
Speaker 2: going on with me because I was so confused. Nobody
Speaker 2: I knew was openly gay, Nobody in the nineties that
Speaker 2: I knew was openly nobody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we hadn't met yet.
Speaker 2: Right, right, Literally, I knew at least that was at
Speaker 2: least my age that was like a teenager.
Speaker 1: Or yeah, because you said you're forty four. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so I got just five years on you.
Speaker 2: But oh right now, hey look but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that's when I came out the nineties. Oh wowee,
Speaker 1: so I was.
Speaker 2: While you were in college. Yeah, I had the same thing.
Speaker 2: I waited until college. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, there is that whole we're in
Speaker 1: the height of. You know, AIDS is a very prevalent topic,
Speaker 1: and it permeates everything you know, you have to It's
Speaker 1: there when you're going out, it's there when you're meeting someone,
Speaker 1: it's there when you you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: that's why I was grateful to have older people that
Speaker 1: had been around that could tell me stories. Yes, and
Speaker 1: you know, think about yeah, so many people with so
Speaker 1: many stories that never really got told because we the
Speaker 1: people around them, didn't have the wherewithal or the courage
Speaker 1: or the knowledge that they could have questions answered.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Something that I've been really I've been
Speaker 2: reflecting on a lot lately, is I get invited to
Speaker 2: do a lot of like youth book events and author
Speaker 2: talks and really cool places. And I was just at
Speaker 2: the North Texas Teen Book Conference and it's thirteen or
Speaker 2: twelve thousand young people all from the state of Texas. Right,
Speaker 2: it was a wild was wild. And what I started
Speaker 2: noticing was that even a lot of most like a
Speaker 2: lot of the white students is I'm going to say
Speaker 2: this for a very particular reason, would come up to
Speaker 2: me and show so much love, and I'd be confused
Speaker 2: by sort of their reactions, right because and my point
Speaker 2: is read I'm saying this is what I realized is
Speaker 2: I'm so openly gay and free with who I am
Speaker 2: that white kids come to me and tell me they're gay,
Speaker 2: like they're coming out to this white kids and then
Speaker 2: black kids too. I mean that's also it's sort of
Speaker 2: like there's this reaction from people and I'm trying to
Speaker 2: sort this out. In what I realized is like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, none of these kids have ever met and
Speaker 2: openly gave black man before, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: they've let alone a poet, alone an author, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. Like they've never and so they come
Speaker 2: up to me with sort of this like, wonder this
Speaker 2: not fascination because I don't think it's like you know,
Speaker 2: in the book, I write about romanticized voyeurism, like when
Speaker 2: white people look at me, that's racial microaggressions. What we
Speaker 2: could talk about later. But I think there's something we
Speaker 2: said about, like you've just shown me something about yourself,
Speaker 2: you know, And I even think about. Last thing I'll
Speaker 2: say is because these thoughts will connect is last year,
Speaker 2: my husband and I we had a kid, a little
Speaker 2: black boy come to stay with us from the Child
Speaker 2: Family Services, right who's placed with us? He needed to be.
Speaker 2: That's I don't know. I can't get in too much
Speaker 2: of the details, but we are sincely a kid from
Speaker 2: foster care, six years old, and it's crystal clear that
Speaker 2: he had never he didn't underst and that two black
Speaker 2: gay men were sort of taking care of him. And
Speaker 2: so the short story is one evening he goes, hey,
Speaker 2: mister Tony, you know, where do you live? And I said,
Speaker 2: do I live in this house?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And he goes, oh, where do you sleep? And I say, why,
Speaker 2: I sleep in the room with mister Harry. He goes, huh.
Speaker 2: I said, well, yeah, He says why do you do that?
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, we're married. He goes, you're married.
Speaker 2: You married to him? That's not right, and he's six,
Speaker 2: and I said, yes it is. He says, oh okay,
Speaker 2: and had no questions about that other than the next
Speaker 2: day he said, mister Tony, you kissed mister Harry before
Speaker 2: and I said yeah. He goes, oh okay. But you
Speaker 2: saw the way his little mind was sort of figuring
Speaker 2: something out. And I think so much about these kids
Speaker 2: who I'm meeting at these conferences again, who they've just
Speaker 2: said have never seen or understood a different narrative, so,
Speaker 2: you know, and so I don't know. I sort of
Speaker 2: see myself in my book doing those kinds of things.
Speaker 2: It's like awakening a little bit of a possibility in someone,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that is so necessary. It's always been necessary
Speaker 1: to have examples of you know, different lives, different occupations,
Speaker 1: different ways of being, especially now, like thank goodness you
Speaker 1: are in the literary field because you know, yes, providing
Speaker 1: anything in the written word is so vital now, Yes,
Speaker 1: and kids don't know what they don't know because so
Speaker 1: much is being taken from them and hidden from them.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and you know what relatedly too, is and
Speaker 2: I write about this in Knucklehead, is you know, my
Speaker 2: enslaved African ancestors weren't given access to the rich and
Speaker 2: word when you know, they needed this spoken word, Like
Speaker 2: that was literally how they figured out how to communicate
Speaker 2: with each other across languages on a slave, you know,
Speaker 2: like that's how they figured out how to decipher American
Speaker 2: Standard English. They needed the oral tradition. And so what
Speaker 2: I want to offer to you know listeners also is
Speaker 2: that yo, I self narrated both audiobooks, the audiobook for
Speaker 2: How the Boogeyman Became a Poet and Knucklehead, so you
Speaker 2: can also listen to this book so you get it
Speaker 2: in the traditional oral tradition style because I speak it
Speaker 2: exactly how I speak. So for those of you who
Speaker 2: are interested in what my performances are, like, listen to
Speaker 2: these audio books and I just do a quick little
Speaker 2: flex is How the Boogeyman Became a Poet recently won
Speaker 2: an Odyssey Award from the American Library Association, which essentially
Speaker 2: means I have one of the top audiobooks for young
Speaker 2: adults in the country right now. And so these audiobooks
Speaker 2: get busy, so you know. So we've got the written
Speaker 2: and the spoken. So yeah, you're right. I'm like for me,
Speaker 2: I'm like, now it's preserved. Now this is preserved. It's
Speaker 2: curated in the memory of the world. At this point,
Speaker 2: there's nothing no one can do. It's it's written and
Speaker 2: it's spoken. Done.
Speaker 1: Come on, grio. Okay, Well, since we're in that vein,
Speaker 1: would you be so kind as to read a book
Speaker 1: of what is one of my favorite poems and poetry,
Speaker 1: Coming to the Rescue.
Speaker 2: I love poetry Coming to the Rescue.
Speaker 1: It spoke to me, as you know, for a couple
Speaker 1: decades and some change, I was a professional performer, choreographer
Speaker 1: and you know, essentially Hasla and this poem spoke to
Speaker 1: the soul of that.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, oh thank you. This is one of my
Speaker 2: favorite poems. And the listeners should know that typically when
Speaker 2: I do have like a spoken or poetry feature, I
Speaker 2: usually open with this. It's usually like my opening poem.
Speaker 2: I wrote this though in two thousand and five or
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, And listeners should also know that
Speaker 2: in this book are also illustrations. The illustrations were created
Speaker 2: by an artist, Julian Aiden Alexander, who read the book
Speaker 2: and created his illustrations on his own. So there's a
Speaker 2: picture in this book of a little poet superhero with
Speaker 2: a cape.
Speaker 1: You got that love?
Speaker 2: I read some It says poetry comeing to the rescue.
Speaker 2: You can save someone from drowning. And my daddy, who
Speaker 2: is a minister, says, son, if your sermon is good,
Speaker 2: you can save someone's soul. Well, I've never really been
Speaker 2: the kind of person to ask for help, but if
Speaker 2: I needed some saving, trust me, you would know. But
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be sending out an SOS message or interrupting
Speaker 2: your regularly scheduled programs. I wouldn't be sending it in
Speaker 2: an email, a text, a DM, or posting anything on Facebook, TikTok,
Speaker 2: Snapchat or Instagram. Instead, you'd find me on the stage,
Speaker 2: usually with a piece of paper in my left and
Speaker 2: a pin in my right. My mouth would be wide
Speaker 2: open and a vein poking out of my neck. My
Speaker 2: eyes would be shut tight as I focus on every
Speaker 2: single breath, just to make sure that my lungs have
Speaker 2: enough capacity to create words that defy the laws of
Speaker 2: gravity and that swirl up into a vortex of knowledge,
Speaker 2: causing supernatural catastrophes. And why my poem ain't no tragedy there.
Speaker 2: This might be some casualties. If you're not prepared to
Speaker 2: battle me. You want me to keep going, oh I,
Speaker 2: But if you're feeling froggy, then jump. Because my poems
Speaker 2: are not for tricks, and they certainly aren't for chumps.
Speaker 2: I do this for a reason. I write this for
Speaker 2: those of you with terminal diseases. I write this for
Speaker 2: those of you who want to have sex, but your
Speaker 2: parents are preachers. I write this for those of you
Speaker 2: who want to learn, but you lack of loving mentors
Speaker 2: and teachers. I write this for those of you who
Speaker 2: love your mama, but all she does is scream at you.
Speaker 2: I write this for those of you who love your daddy,
Speaker 2: although his eyes have never seen you. I write this
Speaker 2: for those of you who miss getting a good night's sleep.
Speaker 2: I have to hear in your grandma sing the sweet
Speaker 2: song to you. I write this for those of you
Speaker 2: with negative energy and so like a magnet, bullshit just
Speaker 2: clings to you. I write this for you. I write
Speaker 2: this for those of you whose sexuality is unacceptable until
Speaker 2: it's received some societal stamp of approval. I write this
Speaker 2: for those of you who work so hard to create change.
Speaker 2: You get frustrated, but you still may. I write this
Speaker 2: for those of you who don't have answers, yet one
Speaker 2: is always being forced from you. I've learned that sometimes
Speaker 2: saying I don't know is a lie, and that's sometimes
Speaker 2: saying I don't know is the truth. I write this
Speaker 2: for those of you who want to earn love but
Speaker 2: don't know that it's already been given to you. I
Speaker 2: write this for you've been battling poetry into my ink
Speaker 2: bleeds black and blue. I'm just a superhero with a
Speaker 2: cape made of metaphors, trying to use my words to
Speaker 2: simply save you. And yes, some of the words and
Speaker 2: my poems do rhyme, but I've been doing it for
Speaker 2: a while, so it just happened sometimes. And yes, memorizing
Speaker 2: a poem would make any performance good. But if I could,
Speaker 2: I would pick up this book and read my words,
Speaker 2: just to make sure that my messages are never misunderstood.
Speaker 2: I do this for a reason, and this gift is
Speaker 2: not temporary. It's not changed with the seasons, which means
Speaker 2: I can spit fire while the sky is hot, or
Speaker 2: I can cool it down while the water is freezing.
Speaker 2: And if words having power isn't something that you believe in.
Speaker 2: Then I can spit on my fingertips, reach my poems
Speaker 2: and turn these written words on pages into a spoken
Speaker 2: altar call, and I can start saving all of you
Speaker 2: heathens because I care about your futures. I care about
Speaker 2: your destinies, I care about your legacies. And I want
Speaker 2: y'all to know my name. I want y'all to look
Speaker 2: up in the sky and scream out. And if this
Speaker 2: was an open mic, I say, is that a bird?
Speaker 2: And they would say, is that a bird? And I say,
Speaker 2: is that a plane? Is that a plane? And I'll
Speaker 2: be flying by shouting No. It is poetry. And I'm
Speaker 2: a poet, a social agent of change, piecing letters to words,
Speaker 2: and words to sentences, and sentences to sounds. I can
Speaker 2: leap over metaphors with a single bound. I am powerful
Speaker 2: enough to spark protests for equality, and ghetto communities talk
Speaker 2: slicker than silly politicians, creating policies that grant rich folks immunities. See,
Speaker 2: I didn't choose to be saved by poetry. Poetry chose me.
Speaker 2: Poetry crept up inside my mama's wounb and poetry started
Speaker 2: tickling me, I've been speaking in rhythmic pattern since I
Speaker 2: was in grade three. I'll just continue till I'm through.
Speaker 2: So who am I? Well, I'm just a simple souper
Speaker 2: with a kate native metaphors, trying to use my words
Speaker 2: to save you. Oh yeah, thank you, thank you. Also
Speaker 2: a quick thing for listeners, y'all should also know I
Speaker 2: mentioned you know, I've been speaking in rhythm patters since
Speaker 2: I was in grade three. And how the Boogeyman became
Speaker 2: a poet? I write the story about how I wrote
Speaker 2: my first poem in third grade and emceeded at a
Speaker 2: school event. So since grade three. The two books are
Speaker 2: in conversation, the little nuggets that kind of go on both.
Speaker 1: But yeah, which answers my question. I was going to ask,
Speaker 1: how did you approach writing and being a writer since
Speaker 1: grade three?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Since grade three? And I can and I don't
Speaker 2: know how much time we have, but I'd be happy
Speaker 2: to even sort of way that these books came about.
Speaker 2: It's a I'm trying to make it really really short,
Speaker 2: but I'm good, Okay, cool. So what happened was this
Speaker 2: is the truth? Spring twenty nineteen, I get laid off
Speaker 2: from my full time You've developed a nonprofit job in Washington, DC,
Speaker 2: doing work in DC High scho while also working on
Speaker 2: my dissertation. And my husband, who I had just gotten
Speaker 2: married to a year before, he had just got laid
Speaker 2: off from his job too, and this was like We're
Speaker 2: living in this tiny, little two bedroom apartment in northeast
Speaker 2: washingt DC. And the only way that I knew how
Speaker 2: to make money was on the side. I was always
Speaker 2: performing poems or featuring someway or getting I was gigging,
Speaker 2: if that makes sense, and gigging and also doing some
Speaker 2: kind of consulting I do working. Like it's funny because
Speaker 2: I have to now say, well, I can't say DEI anymore.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of the world that I was in,
Speaker 2: and that anyway, it was in that world you can
Speaker 2: say whenever you want you right, Dan, Right, I was
Speaker 2: in that world. I was in that belonging equity and
Speaker 2: shit in education, right, And so I'm in that space,
Speaker 2: and so like, I just kind of go heavy on
Speaker 2: doing that, and I start writing grants and fellowships and like,
Speaker 2: I just figured out a way to survive twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: on just the poems, and thankfully my husband found a
Speaker 2: job later that fall, and I defended my dissertation successfully
Speaker 2: that fall. But I entered a job market in Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. And no one wants wanted to hire someone
Speaker 2: like me. My PhD is in education leadership, and I
Speaker 2: focus on hip hop and spoken word and poets who
Speaker 2: do work in education and anyway, there was just no
Speaker 2: place that was looking for someone with my particular kind
Speaker 2: of skill set. And so then so I'm like, well, whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm are you saying positive black people aren't marketable?
Speaker 2: Is that okay? You know? I'm just like academia is
Speaker 2: just like dude, like you move in a weird way.
Speaker 2: Because although my PhDs in education, the world should know,
Speaker 2: I've never been a traditional classroom teacher ever. I've never
Speaker 2: been taught in K through twelve. I've done college courses,
Speaker 2: but I've always been like nonprofit community spaces, after school programs.
Speaker 2: I always moved in that space as an educational leader,
Speaker 2: and so I knew that I wasn't the only one.
Speaker 2: So that's what my dissertation is all about. So I
Speaker 2: entered this world with this PhD, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to be a principal. I don't want to be a superintendent.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be a chancellor of schools, like
Speaker 2: I want to run a bureaucrat, and like I don't
Speaker 2: want to do that, and so, and I also am
Speaker 2: not fully sure I want to be like a full
Speaker 2: time assistant professor. So anyway, so I go heavy with
Speaker 2: applying for jobs, and right now poetry is paying the way.
Speaker 2: And so in February of twenty twenty, I'm at the
Speaker 2: University of South Carolina, Charlotte. I mean, I keep saying
Speaker 2: that I'm at the University of South Carolina in Columbia,
Speaker 2: South Carolina, Okay, And I'm there for a writer's retreat
Speaker 2: for some young people with my friend and fellow author,
Speaker 2: Jason Reynolds. So the world would certainly know the name
Speaker 2: Jason Reynolds if you're into young adult literature. He is
Speaker 2: a beast to be working with, but also one of
Speaker 2: my very dear friends. Love him very much. Anyway, twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: and he's talking about his life as a young adult writer.
Speaker 2: So being someone who writes on the page, he's also
Speaker 2: a poet on the page, but I am a poet
Speaker 2: on the stage. I'm performing. So we're talking about our
Speaker 2: careers in that regard. And after every event, there was
Speaker 2: always a book signing for Jason and because he's got
Speaker 2: tons of books, and I'm used to sitting at this
Speaker 2: table with Jay because and he's my friend. So it's nothing.
Speaker 2: And I'm in my phone just doing nothing, typing something,
Speaker 2: and this little black boy gets out of one of
Speaker 2: Jason's get out of the Jason's line with this black
Speaker 2: woman and they walk right up to me. And this
Speaker 2: little boy says, mister Tony, where's your book? And I
Speaker 2: was like, book, I don't. I don't have a I
Speaker 2: don't have a book. And it is twenty nineteen. I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't have a twenty twenty. I mean like, I
Speaker 2: don't have a book. I don't write. I don't write books,
Speaker 2: you know, I write academic papers I published on the page.
Speaker 2: I say something silly, and he sort of looked a
Speaker 2: little disappointed and was like okay. And I think that
Speaker 2: his mom or the lady he was with might have
Speaker 2: said something like, well, let us know when you write one.
Speaker 2: And I remember going back to my hotel room that night,
Speaker 2: like what up, you know, Like, what in the world
Speaker 2: are they talking about? And I decided in that moment,
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going to write a young adult
Speaker 2: version of my dissertation. That's word. That's I was like that.
Speaker 2: I was, I'm gonna translate this big old academic thing,
Speaker 2: and I'm boom, I'm gonna write this thing. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I get so excited about this, right. I put five
Speaker 2: hundred words down on the page that night, and I
Speaker 2: go tell Jason the next morning, I'm, yo, Jay, I
Speaker 2: think I'm gonna write a book, bruh. And He's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: Tony sure, and I'm not serious. I think I'm write
Speaker 2: a book. So we fly back to Washington, DC, and
Speaker 2: then March twenty twenty hits and COVID boom. So education
Speaker 2: landscape changes, the art spaces changed, like everything changed. My
Speaker 2: economic reality changed significantly, right, I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: And so that's when I was like, Yo, the only
Speaker 2: thing that I know I might be able to do
Speaker 2: to get some money down the line is I gotta
Speaker 2: probably work on seriously publishing this book. So I'm writing
Speaker 2: for more grants and I decide to write this book.
Speaker 2: So I write this manuscript that I think is a
Speaker 2: young adult version of my dissertation. And I learned that
Speaker 2: what I got to do is get a literary agent,
Speaker 2: and I learned how to query a literary agent, and
Speaker 2: I got an agent within like two months, which apparently
Speaker 2: is unheard of in the industry. I got a literary
Speaker 2: agent very very fast, and so I got someone willing
Speaker 2: to represent me. But she said, this is how I'm
Speaker 2: going to connect the dots, Tony. The thing that you
Speaker 2: are writing is not a young adult version of your dissertation.
Speaker 2: The thing that you are writing is there's something you
Speaker 2: want to tell, a story about yourself, about you being
Speaker 2: this little gay black boy. Because apparently I didn't realize,
Speaker 2: but I had woven that narrative into what I thought
Speaker 2: was my young adult book, like I was somehow embedding
Speaker 2: the story about me in the story about my dissertation.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but my brain was doing that.
Speaker 2: So she helped me tease all that stuff out. And
Speaker 2: what came out, of course, was how the Boogeyman became
Speaker 2: a poet. And so what happened was so anyway, So
Speaker 2: while I'm trying to figure out how to write how
Speaker 2: the Boogeyman became a poet, I'm also still writing poetry.
Speaker 2: And so my agent, after about a year and a
Speaker 2: half of working with her, She was like, Tony, look,
Speaker 2: it's been a while. It seems like you're still trying
Speaker 2: to figure out this memoir thing you want to write.
Speaker 2: Why don't we just go with the poetry collection. Publishers
Speaker 2: in a young adult space don't really you know, buy
Speaker 2: poetry collections, but you know, we can just get your
Speaker 2: feet wet. We'll see. I say, okay, So I put
Speaker 2: together the collection Knucklehead. I was like, I got these
Speaker 2: poems that I've been writing to myself for the last
Speaker 2: couple of years. We can go with this. She goes, okay,
Speaker 2: But in my book proposal, I say, I'm also working
Speaker 2: on this memoir and I think it's going to be
Speaker 2: a memoir written in verse called How the Boogeyman Became
Speaker 2: a Poet and I'll tell you by that title in
Speaker 2: a second. And so we send this out to publishers.
Speaker 2: Publishers then right back sort of quickly, and they're like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, this Knucklehead collection is interesting, but what
Speaker 2: is this memoir thing? What is that? Right? And so
Speaker 2: my agent was like, Tony, yo, how fast can you
Speaker 2: try to put something together? And I think I locked
Speaker 2: myself in my office for three days straight and just
Speaker 2: wrote as much as I possibly could, and I think
Speaker 2: I got like the first thirty or forty pages or
Speaker 2: something out of something that I thought would be the
Speaker 2: memoir How the Boogeyman Became a Poet, and HarperCollins bought
Speaker 2: both and they said, but Tony, the publishing world does
Speaker 2: not know you. Your memoir needs to come first first, yeah,
Speaker 2: and then your poetry collection. And I'm so glad it
Speaker 2: worked out that way, because after I wrote How the
Speaker 2: Boogeyman Became a Poet, I didn't realize how I wanted
Speaker 2: to format a Knucklehead. So listeners should know that Knucklehead
Speaker 2: is not a traditional poetry collection in the sense that
Speaker 2: there's not a table of contents, and it's not like
Speaker 2: there's like a themed section. It's not like, oh, I
Speaker 2: want to read the love poems, let me go to
Speaker 2: I mean, it kind of is that way, but not really.
Speaker 2: It's something that you are. It's not design for you
Speaker 2: to recover the cover. So the titles of the poems
Speaker 2: sort of are like transitions in the story of the poems,
Speaker 2: if that makes sense, and How the Boogeyman Became a
Speaker 2: Poet flows the same exact way the titles in the
Speaker 2: book flow as transitions throughout the entire book. And so
Speaker 2: that's sort of like my writing style and the last
Speaker 2: thing I want to share because I think this is
Speaker 2: all important in this story, because this is how I
Speaker 2: knew I was gonna be a writer and how it's
Speaker 2: gonna be connected with the poem. It's also in twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen or twenty twenty, when all this turbulence is going on.
Speaker 2: I'm enrolled in therapy. Okay, here we go. I'm enrolled
Speaker 2: in therapy, and I am because I'm going through all
Speaker 2: kinds of things and I don't and I write about
Speaker 2: this and knucklehead, I'm fussing at my husband about stuff
Speaker 2: that I got none to do with him, and he's
Speaker 2: telling me like, look, I don't know what's going on
Speaker 2: with you, but you need to figure this figure this
Speaker 2: shit out, like you know what I mean. And this
Speaker 2: is okay because I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 2: it's not me that you whatever. And so I'm in
Speaker 2: therapy and my therapist is like, yo, Tony, and this
Speaker 2: is talk space, so I'm typing to someone right and
Speaker 2: my therapist is like, yo, Tony, it sounds to me
Speaker 2: like you have a lot of repressed anger and sadness
Speaker 2: and confused like it, and you're projecting this. It seems
Speaker 2: to be probably on your partner, and so you need
Speaker 2: to figure out where this comes from. He says, didn't
Speaker 2: you tell me you were a poet? I say yeah.
Speaker 2: He said, how long you've been writing poetry? I was like,
Speaker 2: since I was a kid. He's like, you got any
Speaker 2: kid poems? I'm like, yeah, I got tons of them.
Speaker 2: I kept them. And so what readers need to know
Speaker 2: and listeners need to know is I had a box
Speaker 2: of poems that I've been hoarding around since I was
Speaker 2: a kid, and I write about this and how the
Speaker 2: Boogeyman became a poet. It was blue and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But I took the lid off and I spent a
Speaker 2: weekend reading through those poems I wrote myself as a kid.
Speaker 2: Some of them made me cry, some of them made
Speaker 2: me very angry. A couple of them I set on fire.
Speaker 2: But it became this spiritual practice because I realized that
Speaker 2: as a kid, I was using poetry to filter out
Speaker 2: the noise. I was writing stuff about what the world
Speaker 2: was telling me about myself. But then I was also
Speaker 2: writing positive things, and so what the world needs to
Speaker 2: know is that I those are the hand copies poems
Speaker 2: that are in how the Bookman became a poet, And
Speaker 2: so that same process that I was using as a
Speaker 2: kid is the same process that I use now as
Speaker 2: an adult, which is how the poems and Knucklehead came
Speaker 2: to be. So that's how these things sort of flow together.
Speaker 2: And that's how I knew I was gonna be a writer.
Speaker 2: Was when I realized, like I was meant to be
Speaker 2: a poet. My planet in my belly is to be
Speaker 2: a poet. This is the thing, and I'm gonna keep
Speaker 2: pushing with it, and readers should know. The last poem
Speaker 2: in Knucklehead is about what it's like being someone who's
Speaker 2: sole living is on his poems. That's the only thing
Speaker 2: I've been doing for the last six years. I never
Speaker 2: got another full time job except for the one I've
Speaker 2: created for myself.
Speaker 1: Work. You were just you had no choice but to
Speaker 1: be an artist.
Speaker 2: I had no choice, and like, literally, I feel like
Speaker 2: the God or the universe squeeze it, like squeeze it
Speaker 2: out of me. It was like, look, here's your moment
Speaker 2: and matter. And the last thing I'll say is I'm
Speaker 2: even thinking about this right now because the company I
Speaker 2: wound up creating a company off of my dissertation, which
Speaker 2: wound up winning a lot of awards. It's called EDMC Academy,
Speaker 2: and we do education, tsulting, and a lot of us
Speaker 2: are poets, spoken word artists, rappers and MC's ed MC's
Speaker 2: educational MC's we move crowds and education YadA YadA, YadA, right,
Speaker 2: or as we say, master conditions for student Learning and Engagement. Well,
Speaker 2: a lot of our work was around DEI and so
Speaker 2: what's happening now is a lot of our contracts that
Speaker 2: I'm used to us getting have now been canceled right right,
Speaker 2: And so I'm sort of back in this position. Back
Speaker 2: in like twenty nineteen, it was like, well, brouh, what
Speaker 2: else you're gonna do? You know what I mean? And
Speaker 2: I'm like, I got these books and so the world
Speaker 2: should know. Yeah, I'm thinking about writing another book.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm like, because I'm like, the universe is letting me know.
Speaker 2: Now is the time you got to squeeze another one
Speaker 2: out of you?
Speaker 1: Bro?
Speaker 2: This is one of those moments where you gotta there's
Speaker 2: something you gotta now is the is your window? And
Speaker 2: you know these conditions because I write a nup overhead
Speaker 2: about how difficult it could be sometimes it be in
Speaker 2: heavy pursuit of your purpose, and like there will be
Speaker 2: all these distractions to try to convince you otherwise, and
Speaker 2: it's like, nah, you, I'm like, I know this territory.
Speaker 2: I'd have been here before child Trump child okay, lost
Speaker 2: the contract child Like. I'm like, you know, someone called
Speaker 2: my husband a faggot not too long a child Like.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking to myself, like get out the way,
Speaker 2: you know, just moves to me.
Speaker 1: Because I'm right, and a phrase that I have taken
Speaker 1: the heart, especially now that I work in the field
Speaker 1: of recovery. Obstacles are just there to weed out the
Speaker 1: people who really mean it, who really want it, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you don't really want it, Oh, that's an obstacle,
Speaker 1: all right, I guess I have to stop now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love them because I also write about in
Speaker 2: How the Boogeyman Become a Poet and in Knucklehead. My
Speaker 2: father dealt with addictions when I was a kid, and
Speaker 2: so he was absent for the most part. He's fine now.
Speaker 2: My father's been sober for I think thirty years. I
Speaker 2: don't even know how long at this point. An amazing
Speaker 2: man always gives me lots of positive affirmations. But I
Speaker 2: think so much about even how I had to write
Speaker 2: poetry to sort of be even understand his relationship with
Speaker 2: his addiction and his relationship with me. And so in Knucklehead,
Speaker 2: you know their poems and I write about my dad
Speaker 2: and you know all that kind of stuff. But I
Speaker 2: think so much about your point about just even like
Speaker 2: connecting health, mental health, your physical health, your spiritual health
Speaker 2: sort of with these positive nerrors that we need. And
Speaker 2: so yeah, but you mentioned, you know, sobriety addiction. I
Speaker 2: meanly thought about, like y'all write about that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you are what I like to refer
Speaker 1: to as an artivist. Oh wow, I received that, like
Speaker 1: just we we need what you're doing. And hearing you,
Speaker 1: hearing you read the one work, like you lapsed into
Speaker 1: this cadence that was giving me, like, if not specifically MLK, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're on a podium in front of a crowd.
Speaker 2: I really really dig this because even within Knucklehead, there's
Speaker 2: an illustration that is a picture of doctor King's head,
Speaker 2: and there's a poement that I talk about you know,
Speaker 2: being at a microphone sort of like screaming out poems,
Speaker 2: just trying to you know, awaken people, just to the
Speaker 2: idea that we've always been liberated, like we need to
Speaker 2: just literally wake up around how great and amazing we are.
Speaker 2: But I am a performer all day. And the other
Speaker 2: thing is, you know, because you mentioned like sort of
Speaker 2: being high up in Doctor King another doc that I
Speaker 2: want to connect this and I've said this in several interviews,
Speaker 2: but poetry I understand this, I really really do now,
Speaker 2: Like it is a it's a spiritual exercise. It really
Speaker 2: is like sometimes a download from ancestor sometimes it's a
Speaker 2: real thing that sort of happens, and with that download
Speaker 2: comes a rhythm sometimes. And this is why I tell
Speaker 2: people that I'm a poet, but I'm not a rapper.
Speaker 2: And don't be wrong, most rappers are poets, or at
Speaker 2: least should be, because rap ain't nothing but poetry spoken
Speaker 2: over time beat that must rhyme, and a lot of
Speaker 2: rap know about poet anyway. But I'm like, yo, because
Speaker 2: for me, what comes first, Like if I'm feeling heavy
Speaker 2: about a thing that I just need to write something,
Speaker 2: what comes first for me of the words right, I'll
Speaker 2: just like write words down and then I'll read. I'll
Speaker 2: read what I've been writing, and then there's like a
Speaker 2: natural rhythm that just kind of happens. And so each
Speaker 2: poem and Knucklehead kind of has its own rhythm and cadence.
Speaker 2: There's a someone was telling me the other day there's
Speaker 2: a musicality in my poems, almost like Langton Hughes and
Speaker 2: you know, and I think so much about like yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know where it comes from, but
Speaker 2: there is a rhythm. And so when you said that,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, when I read my work, this is
Speaker 2: this is what's new for me is so many poems
Speaker 2: in Knucklehead are ones that turned into spoken word poems.
Speaker 2: So I'm used to performing them and so holding the
Speaker 2: book while reading them, and even in the book they've
Speaker 2: been edited just for more clarity for the reader, you know.
Speaker 2: So even having to like read my book is now
Speaker 2: become a different kind of performance for me, you know.
Speaker 2: And so to hear that, you know, it's still resonating.
Speaker 2: That's kind of a cool experience for me because I'm
Speaker 2: used to this no book on a mic, just going
Speaker 2: and so now to have something and then to read it.
Speaker 2: It's just a different way of experiencing the work.
Speaker 1: When you perform your work, do you ever, is there
Speaker 1: ever a musical component to it?
Speaker 2: Never a musical component. And it's actually a funny running
Speaker 2: joke in my close friends. So I have a lot
Speaker 2: of close friends who are singers here in the Washington,
Speaker 2: DC area, like fire singers, and I'm whenever there's like
Speaker 2: an event, I'm always like the one featured poet and
Speaker 2: sometimes well you know, we'll get on stage together or whatever.
Speaker 2: And so sometimes I've tried to perform with like a
Speaker 2: piano behind me or of like drums behind me, and
Speaker 2: it always throws me off. And so there was one
Speaker 2: time my friends made a joke where I'd like literally
Speaker 2: turned around and told the band. I was like, can
Speaker 2: y'all just stop playing?
Speaker 1: Like this is cute and all?
Speaker 2: But yeah, because you know, because for me again, because
Speaker 2: it's so much about transcendence for me, I'm like, yo, y'all,
Speaker 2: reckon my flow. Let me let me do my thing. Now.
Speaker 2: What I will say is cool is when you I've
Speaker 2: not fully listened to it all the way yet. But
Speaker 2: because I sell narrated this audiobook and HarperCollins audio. They
Speaker 2: especially with How the Boogeyman became a poet. They add
Speaker 2: in production and stuff, and so how the Boogeyman became
Speaker 2: a poet by the way turned out, and I was
Speaker 2: so surprised by all the things that they did. And
Speaker 2: I've now been listening to Knucklehead and the way that
Speaker 2: they've incorporated music in the background, the way that they've
Speaker 2: incorporated almost like typewriter sounds. They have somehow connected musicality
Speaker 2: and I think in a really really cool way, something
Speaker 2: that I would not have known that I would have
Speaker 2: been able to do. But yeah, yeah, yeah, you got
Speaker 2: to check out the audiobook.
Speaker 1: It's like it's already on my list. I still have
Speaker 1: a credit and audible, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And I got to say, you know, one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why I'm so slow to listen to it,
Speaker 2: and I was the same way with How the Boogeyman
Speaker 2: Became a poet is because it's just interesting to hear
Speaker 2: myself read out loud to myself stuff about myself. Like
Speaker 2: it's like a such a multi layered experience, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh wow, like this is okay, Tony.
Speaker 1: Like how hard is it to not judge yourself?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because I definitely am like, oh I didn't
Speaker 2: say that part right, or that didn't go so well,
Speaker 2: Like I find my and sometimes I find myself like
Speaker 2: cringing it, like I can't believe I read this poem
Speaker 2: out loud, Like I can't believe myself, you know. So
Speaker 2: there's this, and so I'm experiencing Knucklehead in a really
Speaker 2: interesting way where I'm like, ah, I'm too scared to
Speaker 2: finish listening to it.
Speaker 1: Right, But yeah, and it takes a while to learn
Speaker 1: to tolerate the sound of your own voice. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I'm so grateful to have a podcast with almost
Speaker 1: two hundred well not quite quite, but knocking on two
Speaker 1: hundred episodes, like okay, knocking on one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it takes a while to like get
Speaker 1: past oh my god, that's mean to being able to
Speaker 1: hear yourself. And if you're like me, which I think
Speaker 1: you are, when you perform, you say and do things
Speaker 1: on stage that you.
Speaker 2: Would never do. Yes, yes, for sure. And there's because
Speaker 2: it's a performance for me. And so I'm like standing microphone.
Speaker 2: I'm not a I'm not the kind of poet that
Speaker 2: once like a stool it's a sit and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I am like high energy crazy and sometimes
Speaker 2: there's even an improvisation. And so that's the other thing
Speaker 2: that's really interesting with Knucklehead is, you know, I'm so
Speaker 2: used to us spoken like a live audience where there's
Speaker 2: call and response, right, And so for me, it was
Speaker 2: so cool listening to you just do it. M h
Speaker 2: m hmm, right, because I'm like, that's what I you know,
Speaker 2: I'm used to hearing that. But when this book gets
Speaker 2: in the hands of readers, I may never hear their response, right,
Speaker 2: you know. And so for me it's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: And I'm just like, oh, I hope, if anything, I
Speaker 2: hope they hear my call, you know. I hope they
Speaker 2: hear my call, you know. And if anything, and hope
Speaker 2: they hope they know. I want to hear your response
Speaker 2: right right, right right, you know, or I hope you're
Speaker 2: responding whatever that might mean, you know, writing in the
Speaker 2: margin or doing something you.
Speaker 1: Know, which I mean I did. So you have this
Speaker 1: passion for hip hop, Yeah, that filters through your work.
Speaker 1: Do you ever listen to music while you're writing?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, great, way to discuss this. So for me,
Speaker 2: whenever I think about hip hop. And I say this
Speaker 2: a lot to young people and learners and listeners in
Speaker 2: particular readers, is that I understand I only understand hip
Speaker 2: hop to be culture culture meaning attitudes, philosophies, beliefs, music, food, dance,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. When I was a kid,
Speaker 2: I was wearing my hat to the back and rocking
Speaker 2: baggy jeans and same words like dope, fresh and fly.
Speaker 2: I was absorbing culture. Hip hop. Culture's music is rap music, right,
Speaker 2: And so I like to make that distinction because I'm like, yo,
Speaker 2: Whenever I think about hip hop, I think about the
Speaker 2: culture of hip hop, and it's about peace, love, unity,
Speaker 2: having fun and joy. And when I was coming up,
Speaker 2: it was about socially conscious music and knowing who you
Speaker 2: are and the fifth and the hip hop is knowledge
Speaker 2: of self and all the way. So I do consider
Speaker 2: myself an MC meaning I can move a crowd, don't sleep.
Speaker 2: I'm just not a rapper. So for me, like when
Speaker 2: I think about hip hop, and I just want to
Speaker 2: say so to people, just to know that when I'm
Speaker 2: writing about hip hop and I'm talking about hip hop,
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the philosophy of it, you know, beyond
Speaker 2: the music. But yes, but what I listened to is
Speaker 2: a hip hop instrumentals because I'm listening to other words,
Speaker 2: it'll throw me off, but I do. I bob my
Speaker 2: head while I'm writing. Yeah. Matter of fact, before I
Speaker 2: hopped his interview, I was working on something and I
Speaker 2: got my hip hop beats music instrumentals playing. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I listened to a lot of non mainstream artists
Speaker 2: people probably wouldn't well, people do know about. But I
Speaker 2: listened to a lot of j I d or Jed.
Speaker 2: I listened to of course Doci. I listened to Lula Fiasco,
Speaker 2: Tyler the Creator, you know. I listened to sometimes Rico Nasty,
Speaker 2: I like Rhapsody. But a lot of artists I listened
Speaker 2: to most people probably wouldn't here on mainstream radio, and
Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. But I like, I'm into lyricists.
Speaker 2: I like good lyrics. I still listen to Lauren Hill
Speaker 2: and Missy Elliott mc queen Latifah. I'm still very much
Speaker 2: into nineties hip hop.
Speaker 1: Sweet quests, yeah, trual and my soul. Oh that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Like in the nineties with hip hop, like it was
Speaker 1: cool to be black and intelligent. Yes, and that's what
Speaker 1: I was steeped in.
Speaker 2: I missed that shit, yes, And and then because of
Speaker 2: hip hop philosopher me, I can't help it, I'm like.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, mainstream broadcast channels and such media
Speaker 2: entertainment industry realizes how much money could be made when
Speaker 2: people are promoting misogyny and violence and materialism, and so
Speaker 2: let's just go ahead and sell that. And now we're
Speaker 2: going to sell this mainstream narrative that hip hop is
Speaker 2: about that, and it's not. Hip hop is not about that.
Speaker 2: Hip hop is all about community and coming together. Hip
Speaker 2: Hop culture was created because black and brown kids needed
Speaker 2: an outlet to deal with racism and oppression and poverty,
Speaker 2: and you know, gay people needed to deal with you know, homophobia,
Speaker 2: and trans folks deal with like these things were happening.
Speaker 2: So they created poems and they performed those poems as
Speaker 2: rap music. You know what I mean. I'm like, people
Speaker 2: understand where it came from. My enslaved African ancest has
Speaker 2: already had rhythm and drum right where they were a slave.
Speaker 2: Let's be clear, hip hop has always been about freedom
Speaker 2: and black people's joy. It's never been about shoot them up.
Speaker 2: It's never been about.
Speaker 1: That, right you know. And and that's the thing because
Speaker 1: like you know, that genre started off as you know,
Speaker 1: we are trapped in this environment and no one is
Speaker 1: listening to us. So I'm going to put my story
Speaker 1: to music. Yes, but all that was heard was gun
Speaker 1: should kill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that became let's that's the thing, let's do it,
Speaker 2: let's grab it. You know. It's funny when I, you know,
Speaker 2: listen to you you know, I go to schools and
Speaker 2: I talk to young people. Now I have to explain
Speaker 2: to them that I'm like, you know, about my consumption
Speaker 2: of hip hop, because they always like, who's your favorite artist?
Speaker 2: Or they want to, you know, want me to get
Speaker 2: into the debates about Kendrick and Drake, which I will engage.
Speaker 2: I love a good debate, right you know. But then
Speaker 2: when and they ask me who's some my favorite artists
Speaker 2: are the only ones that I know they recognize is
Speaker 2: Laurence Hill. And sometimes I'm always wondering, you know, what
Speaker 2: it is, but they specifically always know when I say
Speaker 2: Lauren Hill. When I mentioned others, they don't, And I
Speaker 2: tell them, I'm like, y'all gotta understand that doctor Keith
Speaker 2: is about to be forty four years old and I
Speaker 2: just don't listen to the same music y'all are listening
Speaker 2: to right now. And I was like, I'm officially at
Speaker 2: that age where I get to say, yeah, I say
Speaker 2: things like I don't know what these little kids listen
Speaker 2: to it to, you know, but I don't judge you,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I'm like, but I'm not
Speaker 2: judging y'all. Hip hop is always going to be a
Speaker 2: youth created culture, and so y'all are the ones moving
Speaker 2: it forward. I just want to remind you. I'll let
Speaker 2: you know the history of the culture so that you
Speaker 2: also can filter out some of the noise and maybe
Speaker 2: create something that's counter you know what I mean. Just
Speaker 2: know that, you know. So I'm like, I'll never judge you,
Speaker 2: but I don't know little YACHTI I don't know a
Speaker 2: little baby. I don't know.
Speaker 1: All the babies and the young and can't.
Speaker 2: Help them, like and I don't even feel bad about it.
Speaker 2: I own it. I'm like, oh, no, I don't know, y'all,
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're listening to.
Speaker 1: I got nothing out't the number of if I had
Speaker 1: a nickel for every time I said it's just not
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: It's just not like I got nothing.
Speaker 1: And you know, I love me a good ratchet anthem
Speaker 1: every now and again.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I just listen to Ranchet anthem if I
Speaker 2: need to hear something. He is definitely into, like he
Speaker 2: definitely went the whole like city girls phase, and my
Speaker 2: Harry is very much into all the hood rat ratchets,
Speaker 2: you know what, Live your life baby Like.
Speaker 1: When we do a quote unquote regular episode of the podcast,
Speaker 1: we have a segment called the fifteen minute Fave, and
Speaker 1: the fifteen minute Fave is something I started years ago.
Speaker 1: It's like, this song was my favorite song on the
Speaker 1: planet for the fifteen minutes I was paying attention and
Speaker 1: sometimes I preface it with now, this one's a low ratchet,
Speaker 1: but it's so good.
Speaker 2: We need you know what. But I think the beauty
Speaker 2: about that though, is I think about this too, especially
Speaker 2: within the context of hip hop culture and the music
Speaker 2: that we had and we were coming up, is there
Speaker 2: was just more balance, right, And I'm there was just
Speaker 2: slooping more balance because I was like, yo, don't sleep
Speaker 2: when I heard don't you know pop that Doodle Brown? What?
Speaker 2: But I'm like, yeah, like you know, I'm getting it. Popping.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm also listening to you know, Tupac was also,
Speaker 2: you know, someone who wrote from sort of multiple sides
Speaker 2: of himself. So I'm thinking to myself, like, there was
Speaker 2: at least some balance. You know, we could still party
Speaker 2: and maybe shoot them up a little bit, be ratchet,
Speaker 2: but there was also social consciousness. And I think that
Speaker 2: for me, I'm like, I just missed the balance. I
Speaker 2: just missed the balance. And I also I'm so curious
Speaker 2: about the spaces in which black gay men find themselves
Speaker 2: within the context of hip hop. I think about this
Speaker 2: quite a bit. Within hip hop, I wouldn't be loved musically,
Speaker 2: but within the hip hop context of education, I'm loved greatly.
Speaker 1: That's why I love like every now and again when
Speaker 1: Bob and Drag Queen decides that she's a rapper and
Speaker 1: that's not shade, like, well, we'll give a platform to
Speaker 1: a handful of the queer rappers that out there, and
Speaker 1: like the song I'm thinking about in particularly gay bars
Speaker 1: like and that's how I discovered, you know, like all
Speaker 1: the like Ocean Kelly, you know, and these folks that
Speaker 1: are like, oh damn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and who have bars, and that's the thing
Speaker 2: who And that's the thing because I'm like, it's I
Speaker 2: always well, I don't want to like separate mcs from
Speaker 2: rappers because I don't want to be one of those
Speaker 2: people who like draws lines and saying about hip hop.
Speaker 2: But I do believe there's people who can absolutely like
Speaker 2: write raps and can probably wrap in a studio. And
Speaker 2: then there are people who can you know, write raps
Speaker 2: if they are writing their raps, who can like perform
Speaker 2: live and like move a crowd, who can MC like
Speaker 2: I think I think about I sort of always make
Speaker 2: a bit of these distinctions, and so for me, I
Speaker 2: would love to like be because I'm like, yo, gay people,
Speaker 2: we some of the best mcs when you think about
Speaker 2: ballroom culture is the one who's literally moving that entire crowd,
Speaker 2: right but with the rhythm and you know, I'm just
Speaker 2: have so many something.
Speaker 1: He was a young black man I follow on social
Speaker 1: media whose name is escaping right now, and I hate it,
Speaker 1: but he's a ballroom commentator. But and he does videos
Speaker 1: where like he'll take mainstream songs like Broadway songs or whatever,
Speaker 1: and he'll like give it the ballroom chance, yes, and
Speaker 1: it's so feared. Yeah, yeah, and he did this like
Speaker 1: flow chart that took the elements of hip hop and
Speaker 1: the elements of ballroom and talked about how it's the
Speaker 1: same shit what I'm talking about. I'm gonna find it
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna send it to you.
Speaker 2: Please do, please do, because I'm like, I want to
Speaker 2: start consuming that kind of work because I'm just, I
Speaker 2: just I have so many questions. I'm just And also
Speaker 2: I've actually never been to a ball I would love
Speaker 2: to go to a ball It's so funny to think
Speaker 2: that I'm a gay black man America has never ever
Speaker 2: ever been to a ball.
Speaker 1: There was like five seconds like they were trying to
Speaker 1: get me to to to walk for the House of Ebony,
Speaker 1: and I got scared. But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: then became obsessed with ballroom. So it's like I know
Speaker 1: it from peripherally, but never from the inside. It's it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's this whole culture and everything magical in the world
Speaker 1: just comes from ballroom. Yes, and everyone will like try
Speaker 1: and fight tooth and nail and say that's not true.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. And relatedly, because I don't know how we
Speaker 2: got into this wonderful well, no that you brought it
Speaker 2: up but I'm thinking about hip hop culture because I'm like,
Speaker 2: with a hip hop culture, we have ciphers. Right, you
Speaker 2: get in you know, you get in a circle when
Speaker 2: you battle, and the best one wins. Right. This is
Speaker 2: like that idea that we know what it's like to
Speaker 2: be in a battle. We know what it's like to battle.
Speaker 2: You know. There's somebody's said about that that is triumphant
Speaker 2: about us.
Speaker 1: And one thing I love about gay rappers, gay male
Speaker 1: rappers in particular, is when they rap about men the
Speaker 1: way their straight counterparts rap about women.
Speaker 2: The world uncomfortable. It makes the world. That's why it
Speaker 2: makes the world so uncomfortable. You know. There's a poem
Speaker 2: and Knucklehead where I tried to It's funny because I
Speaker 2: do remember writing this poem. But I but once I
Speaker 2: started writing Knucklehead, I knew that I wanted to play
Speaker 2: on the imagery a little bit and the metaphor. But
Speaker 2: one of the last poems and Knucklehead is called we
Speaker 2: made It colon Love so right, so it could be
Speaker 2: read as we made love. It could also be read
Speaker 2: as well, we made it love. Like there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of different things, and so within the imagery is you know,
Speaker 2: two black men, Me and my husband were floating in
Speaker 2: the skies, and then all of a sudden there's you know,
Speaker 2: things blowing in the breeze, and then there's a lifting
Speaker 2: of public and private parts. And then I'll give you
Speaker 2: this nugget because I think this is a wonderful Easter egg.
Speaker 2: Because I'm a lyricist, I believe in embedding things and poems,
Speaker 2: and so there's a stanza in that poem that's called
Speaker 2: we Made It Love, and I know his thing. I
Speaker 2: know that honestly, like very few people will get this
Speaker 2: unless I start saying this exists, or they might. But
Speaker 2: in the one two I guess it'd be the third stanza.
Speaker 2: And we made Love, I say, where our breath became
Speaker 2: versus written into the breeze, and so we hang glided
Speaker 2: across the tops of tall trees, suspending ourselves high above
Speaker 2: the bottom of sturdy bridges that were built on nothing
Speaker 2: but trust alone. In that stanza, I use verse top bottom.
Speaker 1: I can't with you. Oh my god, I love that.
Speaker 2: I was like, I just want to know who might
Speaker 2: catch this. I'm just so kind of curious. And also
Speaker 2: in how the Bully Man became a poet, a lot
Speaker 2: of the white teachers, the white women teachers. They're named
Speaker 2: after the Golden Girls, So it's like miss Born.
Speaker 1: And you're Golden Girls fan to see.
Speaker 2: That's what I mean. Like that, I just wanted to
Speaker 2: make sure that, like, in addition to writing this, but
Speaker 2: I'm like, yo, there are these little things and i
Speaker 2: just want to assert so that certain kind of readers
Speaker 2: might be.
Speaker 1: Like, I love that. So you clever them.
Speaker 2: Trying to make an engaging for the readers.
Speaker 1: You know, well, doctor Tony, Yes, great, I could sit
Speaker 1: and talk to you forever.
Speaker 2: That means we have the more to converse about this.
Speaker 1: Got exactly. Oh, I've already decided this is not the
Speaker 1: last time we're gonna sit and have a chitch.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So where is the best place? What's your favorite place
Speaker 1: for people to go and purchase your work?
Speaker 2: Oh that's a really great question. I am a huge
Speaker 2: fan of indie bookstores. This is the truth. I love them,
Speaker 2: and so I would highly recommend that if you have
Speaker 2: access to a local bookstore, feel free to stop. Buy
Speaker 2: yours go to ww dot bookshop dot org. But if
Speaker 2: you're just looking for general ways to buy my book,
Speaker 2: go to my website. Go to Tony Keith Junior dot com.
Speaker 2: You click on the link for my books and it
Speaker 2: will take you to all your options for online retailers.
Speaker 2: We can do Barns and Nobles of course as Amazon,
Speaker 2: and you can also get it at your a lot
Speaker 2: of local public local like neighborhood public libraries. You can
Speaker 2: get it Enkindle. It's available in audiobook and yeah, so
Speaker 2: those are love it?
Speaker 1: I love it? And where can we follow you?
Speaker 2: You can follow me at Tony Keith Junior on all things. Actually,
Speaker 2: I'm really only on Instagram my Twitter, I don wanna
Speaker 2: use that. It's not even Twitter. Facebook is really only
Speaker 2: for like my older family members. But anyway, but I'm
Speaker 2: Instagram for sure.
Speaker 1: Definitely. We're gonna put all of that into the notes
Speaker 1: of this episode. Tony Keith Jr. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for sitting and sharing.
Speaker 2: I've had such a blast hanging out with you today.
Speaker 2: I got nothing of you up next.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, all right, all right, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Please take care. Full Circle is a Never
Speaker 1: Skurreed Productions podcast hosted by Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal,
Speaker 1: produced and edited by Never Scured Executive Produced by Charles
Speaker 1: Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal. Our theme in music is
Speaker 1: by the jingle Berries. All names, pictures, music, audio, and
Speaker 1: video clips are registered trademarks and or copyrights of their
Speaker 1: respective copyright holders.