Poetry – Snopes

The Political in Poetry: Some Thoughts on White Privilege

Kiki Martire

These days it can be hard to tell the difference between what I am thankful for and simply privileges. I become more grateful each year for the opportunity to attend a top-notch liberal arts university, and to have the good fortune of family, education, home, food, and friends. Yet amid all I have to be thankful for this holiday season, it is my white A baseball cap and a portrait of Michael Brown is shown alongside his casket inside Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church before the start of funeral services in St. Louis privilege that hangs heaviest in my heart this week. Although Shenandoah is a place of literary rather than political debate, I would feel remiss to not mention Monday night’s announcement that the officer responsible for the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, will not be indicted. I think for most of the country grappling with this news a grim cloud looms over our Thanksgiving festivities. I know that personally my sense of American patriotism feels acutely heightened during this season of gratitude. But this year, it is hard for me to consider the United States a nation of prosperity and freedom, when so many of my opportunities are made possible by the chance color of my skin. In contrast, people of color are still denied full protection under the law and deprived of equal access to justice and dignity in their everyday lives.

In the wake of confusion or tragedy I often turn to poetry for wisdom and comfort. A brief Google search for “Ferguson poetry” led me to a blog posted on Tuesday by the Paris Review that featured Frederick Seidel’s brazenly entitled poem, “The Ballad of Ferguson, Missouri” that will appear in their winter issue next month. I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the poetic voice of “The Ballad of Ferguson” was a 78 year old white male, Harvard graduate, and the privileged son of a wealthy St. Louis family. Seidel has written about race complicatedly for decades, including horrifying descriptions of his father’s mistreatment of black servants growing up. His poetry is characterized by gaudy excesses of wealth and an unsettling engagement with social issues. Part of the “Ballad” reads:

Skin color is the name.
Skin color is the game.
Skin color is to blame for Ferguson, Missouri.

The body of the man you were
Has disappeared inside the one you wear.

I wouldn’t want to be a black man in St. Louis County.

While Seidel’s poem is certainly disturbing and thought provoking, it is also problematic in its approach. While some stanzas seem entrenched with complex meaning, other sections are concerningly oversimplified and steeped in emotional conflation. More to the point, the author is a white privileged male speaking as an outsider to Ferguson and the black community.

I much p images referred the poetic response of Danez Smith, a black-queer author and poet, with his debut collection [insert] Boy coming out this December. His poem, “not an elegy for Mike Brown” was featured in August by Split This Rock and later was performed as a slam poem in the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam this October in Phoenix, AZ where Smith placed second. A particularly moving segment of the poem compares the violence of the Trojan war to reactions following Mike Brown’s death.

are we not worthy

of a city of ash? of 1000 ships
launched because we are missed?

always, something deserves to be burned.
it’s never the right thing now a days.

I demand a war to bring the dead boy back
no matter what his name is this time.

Not everyone will agree with Smith’s passionate and political response, but I respect his perspective and the quality of his poetry. Furthermore, I believe his approach is validated rather than biased because of his personal position within the conversation.

wild Recently I have been studying the work of Adrienne Rich, a prolific voice on social issues of gender and race. Her poem “Frame” (1980) took me by surprise with its power of sheer emotional provocation surrounding racial injustice. In the poem Rich omnisciently narrates the story of a female college student (presumably a woman of color) and the white male police officer who harasses and abuses her, wrongfully arresting her simply for waiting for a bus. Rich reminds the reader throughout the poem that she is not present in the scene but stands, “all this time just beyond the frame, trying to see.” Use of the anaphora, “in silence” towards the end of the poem emphasizes the complete lack of voice the female student has throughout her experience. The poem comes to a gripping end with the lines:

What I am telling you
is told by a white woman who they will say
was never there. I say I am there.

Here Rich confronts head on a dilemma I, and I suspect many more individuals, struggle with: as a white woman in America who can bear witness to everyday institutionalized racism, how do I speak on behalf of these atrocities? What role do I play? When I hear about incidents of racial injustice in America, and there are many, I feel the need to demonstrate in some way that, although I am white, I care about these massive abuses of power and support people of color trying to live their lives free from persecution. But I will never understand the experience of being black, cannot speak with authority on these issues, and do not wish to replace another’s voice with my own.

In “Frame” Rich acknowledg adrienne-rich es her station of privilege in the scene, being just outside the frame as a white woman. Yet she refuses to be squeezed out of the narrative completely and places herself in a position to care and report. She is not self-aggrandizing, but in her commentary Rich is removed from the shadows and reveals herself as an ally, claims her voice to speak with the oppressed and against the oppressors: “I say I am there.”

Over the last few days I have been disappointed by the silence of my white undergraduate peers whose voices are not speaking out about the Michael Brown case and the social issues that surround it. Perhaps, many are not affected and choose to not care, but I think another scenario is more likely. Many white people, especially young fellow students, seem to be afraid to speak up because they do not think it is their place and do not know how to approach the conversation. And I am not sure I do either, but I do know that writing can make a difference, and voices of support can be heard. I hope we can all consider the impact our voices and written word can have on the issues that matter most. I know I am thankful to have this platform to voice my opinion with dignity, and I wish for others to have the same.

Rediscovering “Ars Poetica” -Annie Persons

Ann Persons

On Wednesday, I led my first creative writing workshop with sixth graders at the local middle school. As I signed in, nerves that had nothing to do with the school’s stringent security system quickened my pulse. I experienced an alarming flashback to my own pre-adolescent days, which was followed by a wave of nausea. I walked through the halls, trotting at the heels of the kindly but over-worked coordinator, clutching my hand-written lesson plan and feeling smaller by the minute.

Entering Mrs. Johnson’s fifth-period English class, I felt a room full of 12-year-old eyes drill into me, sizing me up. So it was to my surprise that, when she inquired, a handful of the girls and one boy stood up to accompany “Miss Persons” to the other classroom. Miss Persons. My first order of business, after arranging the desks into an intimate circle, was granting them permission to call me Miss Annie.

As soon as we started talking about poetry, my nerves disappeared; it was like another self took over. I didn’t realize until halfway through the session that I had abandoned my lesson plan. Their innocent excitement reminded me of one of poetry’s vital elements: communication. Poetry isn’t just about reading and writing. One of the best things about poetry is its ability to foster discussion and even excitement.

Poet Steve Scafidi affirmed this notion during his reading at Washington and Lee on Tuesday. He said that writing a good poem involves evoking this sense of communication between author and reader, finding that intimate connection that comes from allowing your own mind to venture into the author’s world on the page. He referenced Horace’s “Ars Poetica,” where the speaker describes the process of writing a poem, and how a poem should be a unified and controlled entity:

“…painters and poets
Have always shared the right to dare anything.’
I know it: I claim that licence, and grant it in turn:
But not so the wild and tame should ever mate,
Or snakes couple with birds, or lambs with tigers”

Scafidi proceeded to read a poem of his own that responds to “Ars Poetica.” His poem illustrates dolphins diving through a forest and other disjointed but beautiful images. While he read, I saw those dolphins. Scafidi evoked poetry’s ability to illuminate the odd and unexpected—even within the author. I discovered this creativity and unexpected excitement in my sixth graders. I am looking forward to learning more about them through their poems and joining with them in that artistic communion. With these children guiding me, I want reignite my own sixth grade creativity and excitement. I want to channel this energy into my own writing and let it expand into all areas of my life.

– Annie Persons

Annie Persons is currently the managing editor for Shenandoah. She is a junior English major and Creative Writing minor at Washington and Lee University. Her favorite pastimes are reading and writing, and she hopes to continue engaging with literature for the rest of her life.

Poetry’s Possible Worlds -Annie Persons

Ann Persons

This summer, I worked as a research assistant for Professor Lesley Wheeler, helping her compile sources for her scholarly book about speculative poetry titled Poetry’s Possible Worlds. “Speculative” poetry is a genre encompassing science fiction, fantasy, horror, and related “weird” subgenres. My research this summer taught me that speculative elements hide where you would least expect them.

In my twentieth-century American poetry class, we recently read a selection of Robert Frost poems. Frost maintains a reputation as of the most well known American poets of the past century. His poems abound with natural and bucolic imagery; his work seems to deal exclusively with the fundamental themes of marital love, manual labor, and home. However, this summer taught me to see Frost in a new light. Rather, my new speculative lenses illuminate Frost’s darkness. “Mending Wall,” one of his most famous poems, concerns an ambiguity about walls and boundaries. The speaker associates tradition with darkness, and even a weird sense of magic:

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. (35-38)

If elves aren’t speculative, I don’t know what is. Here, Frost utilizes magic’s weird sense of possibility to highlight his uncertainty. The speaker wants his neighbor to recognize the magic force that seeks to destroy the boundary between them, but he can’t pinpoint a name for this magic either.

Frost isn’t the only traditional poet I have noticed employing speculative elements. It seems as though the more I think about it, the more I notice authors toying with notions of uncertainty and possibility that come with magic. It makes sense—a poem is a perfect environment for magic, as part of the poem’s job is to lure the reader into its structural and semantic world. One vein of Poetry’s Possible Worlds discusses how speculative poems demonstrate a marked ability to ensnare readers; poetic rhythm works together with imagery to draw us into the poem’s world through a process called entrainment. I researched the cognitive side of this process, but also dwelled on the concept of how creating an alternate space in a literary work provides the reader not just with a sense of escape, but also with a heightened sense of communion with the author-creator of the alternative world.

This communion has power. By engaging in the immersive process of reading speculative poetry, the reader engages with the mind of the poet, often reemerging changed in some way. Poetry’s ability to change the way I see things and provide momentary escape from the chaos of reality is why I love it. Poetry, especially speculative poetry, changes the way I see my own world. Even if you are skeptical of speculative genres, I encourage you to look for the magic hiding in unexpected places, not just in poetry, but also in your own life. Look for walls. Notice elves.

– Annie Persons

Possibilities in Poetry -Katie Toomb

Ann Persons

And my junior year begins. While I will admit that I was anxiously awaiting summer vacation by the time May rolled around last year, I have to say that I have never been more excited for a school year to start up again than I am this year. Along with having the opportunity to participate in creating the upcoming issue of Shenandoah, I am also taking classes for my English major that I have absolutely loved so far. One of these classes focuses on twentieth-century American poetry.

This poetry class was the course I was both excited for yet nervous about in equal measure. Poetry can be intimidating, and after a four-year break during which I took solely literature based courses, I found myself feeling extremely anxious as school crept closer about the prospect of re-immersing myself in the vastly different world of poetry. After taking so many literature classes, I am now comfortable with its format and the various ways in which one can seek to interpret meaning from a novel. Poetry, however, is a whole new ballgame, full of new terms and aspects to be analyzed. The scariest of these new realms that I have been attempting to familiarize myself with has been meter. After taking a Shakespeare course last winter, I have found myself unconsciously attempting to force all the poetry I have read thus far to fit the only meter I am currently comfortable with: iambic pentameter. Obviously, this method isn’t working out too well for me so far. After only two days of this poetry class, the sheer expanse of poetic knowledge that I have yet to comprehend is somewhat daunting. However, I find myself looking forward to expanding my limited knowledge despite my nerves.

Even though my knowledge of the technical side of poetry is limited, I have always loved reading it. I am fascinated by its ability to mean something different to every person who reads it. With literature, there is a basic message built into the plot that the author lays out for the reader to find and relate to. With poetry, finding a message is much more personal. While literature is based upon an idea created in an author’s mind, poetry seems to be the product of a poet’s soul. Reading poetry feels a lot like I imagine reading a person’s diary would feel like. The characters and events don’t seem make-believe, but feel very grounded in reality. This intimate aspect of poetry is what I love most about it, as I find myself emotionally engaged in the words I am reading in a way that the distant, “movie-like” view present in literature prevents. With poetry, I am living the words rather than viewing them as an outsider. While being so emotionally engaged in the thoughts of someone else can be overwhelming, the contemplative nature of poetry is also what makes it so exciting.

I cannot wait for a term full of introspection.

– Katie Toomb

Poetry in the Wake of Tragedy -Sam O’Dell

Ann Persons

Yesterday marked the twelfth anniversary of 9/11, a day when most Americans take at least a few moments out of their hectic lives to reflect on the horrific events of that day. More than anything, I think 9/11 reminds people that you cannot predict what will happen tomorrow. Cherishing every moment we have with the people who are important in our lives and seizing every opportunity we are presented with is one of the best ways to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. I believe that another component of a meaningful life is the literature we read. This literature has a way of making us feel so deeply about things we might not have experienced directly. It can also help those who directly experienced such events come to terms with what they have lived through. Finding literature that speaks directly to such a situation can be incredibly tricky, however.

One of my favorite authors, John Green, posted a poem by Czeslaw Milosz to his Tumblr blog yesterday. Although the poem, “Were I Not Frail and Half Broken Inside,” was written before 9/11, it does an excellent job of conveying the randomness of death on such a large scale and the sometimes overwhelming despair that comes with the knowledge that we are all “frail and half broken,” all one swift blow away from death. Not all poems about tragedies are as elegantly done, whether written for a specific event or not. It makes me wonder what makes a poem about such a difficult subject good.

It helps, I think, to start with a poet that is already a good writer. I think many people are often inspired to write in the wake of such tragedies because they are trying to come to terms with what has happened. Writing poetry definitely forces you to work through your emotions about whatever you’re writing about. However, amateur poets with little or no prior work often end up producing poetry that is, at its best, badly written, and that at its worst, exacerbates the negative feelings surrounding the situation. Philip Metres wrote an article for the Huffington Post about exactly this situation in the wake of 9/11. He also wrote about the popularity of another poem that was written prior to 9/11 and passed around on and after that date: W. H. Auden’s “September 1st, 1939.”

It is interesting to think that the best works to consider in response to a particular tragedy may in fact have been written years before. Which poems written today will be shared in the wake of some future disaster? What is it about responding directly to such polarizing events that can make even the best poets stumble? These questions are not the kind with easy answers, of course.

Metres goes on to challenge the negative assumption that the contemporary poetic response to 9/11 was lackluster. To demonstrate his point, he shares several moving 9/11 pieces, my favorite of which was Wisława Szymborska’s “Photograph from September 11.” I love the repetition and the poet’s choice to leave her work unfinished, allowing the victims to have the last word in some small way.

Although it can be difficult to find works that meaningfully address such tragedies, many poets have succeeded in doing so. Whether or not you find yourself drawn to works specifically about 9/11, or to works that were written for another occasion entirely, there are several poems that are well worth pondering on a day like yesterday. I hope you will spend some time with the poems mentioned above and walk away better for it. Do you have any poems that come to mind in response to 9/11? Feel free to link to them in the comments section below.

– Sam O’Dell

My Favorite Word

R.T. Smith

Why isn’t contemporary English good enough for me? As I run through the glossary of terms which crop up often in my writing, no particular word gives off a luster that sparks my heart more than my mind, though owl and the old Appalachian term ruddock come close. Something birdy in all that, but the word that does summon me back again and again, I can seldom get away with using. It’s an Old English word we can’t even spell — matholode — but the “th” is more accurately represented by an obsolete letter called thorn. Maybe my computer can make it, but not with me at the controls. Imagine a backwards “6” with the loop smaller and a horizontal slash about where a “t” would have one. It’s a voiced dental fricative approximating the “th” sound in “thief.”

I love the four-syllable sound of it. I believe I was taught that the stronger stress is on the initial syllable, the secondary accent on the third — ma‘ tho lo da, the “a”s and first “o” short, the other “o” long. [Somebody correct me if I’ve misremembered.]

So what? The word occurs in the opening line of the anonymously-authored OE poem “Widsith,” which recounts the professional life of a gleeman (or scop or bard), tells what stories he sang and to whom and to what affect. It’s a beautiful piece, 142 lines ending in the claim that fame and glory don’t fade. (OK, so it’s a bit over the top.)

What has possessed me for four decades, however, is the problem translating that “matholode.” Most people just write “sang” and move on, but Tom McGowen suggested to me those eons back that the word implied “sang,” “chanted,” “breathed” all together, and it has since seemed to me the ideal mode that poets should aim for, especially when they perform a poem they’ve toiled over. Frost could do it, Heaney, Roethke, Carolyn Kizer, Merwin, Ann Deagon. So many can’t, straining for it and overshooting or not even trying, too cool to care. When I read a poem in the arena of my imagination, I want to make that chant-song sound, but nothing falsely portentous, more a homespun ceremony. And it has something of “told” in it too, of story. “Matholode” — maybe an owl’s call, maybe a ghost or the core of the self.

Why not raise the bar, knock yourself ou? I ask, fail better each time? I do love that word.

Here’s a girl with the kind of harp Widsith would likely have strummed. I hope she knows the poem.

R. T. Smith has edited Shenandoah since 1995 and serves as Writer-in-Residence at Washington & Lee. His forthcoming books are Doves in Flight: 13 Fictions and Summoning Shades: New Poems, both due in 2017.

Adrienne Rich 1929-2012

R.T. Smith

Adrienne Rich’s work so often demonstrates that poetry and politics are as close in nature as currents in a river. She began as a poet of strict measures and understatement (though already unwilling to be “mastered by” the ordeals inflicted upon women) and moved to an expansive vision of language as a “common dream” necessary but not sufficient in the quest to eradicate sexism and other bigotries. Her ingenuity, gravity and integrity has been the gold standard for more than one generation of poets. The following is a poignant statement about Rich from Washington and Lee poet and professor Deborah Miranda:

Adrienne Rich is one of those Ancestors who found me by accident, when I didn’t know I needed to be found. Another way to put this: she was one of those guides I was looking for (desperately) when I didn’t know I was looking. Either way, she caught me unawares and off-guard when I came upon her poetry in my mid-thirties, just as my life as a wife was ending and my official journey as a scholar and poet began. Rich was more than a role model for me (an intellectual who wrote poetry! a poet who was a mother! a feminist who was a lesbian!) – she was a rock on which I could set my feet and push outward, a validation of my dreams, a comfort, a holy terror to live up to. Indeed, she was a rock for many women in many ways. How were we so lucky to have her for so long? “No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone,” she wrote in Love Poem XVII, “The accidents happen, we’re not heroines, / they happen in our lives like car crashes/ books that change us, neighborhoods / we move into and come to love.” Yes, accidents happen – like the gift of coming to full womanhood with Adrienne Rich in the world. I believe in accidents.

Late Ghazal

Footsole to scalp alive facing the window’s black mirror.
First rains of the winter morning’s smallest hour.

Go back to the ghazal then what will you do there?
Life always pulsed harder than the lines.

Do you remember the strands that ran from eye to eye?
The tongue that reached everywhere, speaking all the parts?

Everything there was cast in an image of desire.
The imagination’s cry is a sexual cry.

I took my body anyplace with me.
In the thickets of abstraction my skin ran with blood.

Life was always stronger . . . the critics couldn’t get it.
Memory says the music always ran ahead of the words.

Reprinted from Dark Fields of the Republic (1995). Permission granted by the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Granting Legitimacy To Poetry Written Under…Unique Circumstances

Timothy McAleenan

So today I did a class presentation in my modern poetry class with Professor Wheeler on a poem titled “Spring” by Anna Jackson. The poet, Anna Jackson, tells the story of how she wrote the poem in under three minutes as a result of e-mail correspondence with a friend, and the poem made it into the anthologized collections produced by Bill Manhire.

For me, this raises the question as to whether a poem’s background story can subtract from the poem’s legitimacy. If we know that a poem was written in a hurry, is it fair to discount the substance and craftsmanship if we have an admission from the author that the poem did not receive much disciplined effort? The history of poetry is filled with variations of this story—whether it be writing a poem about a cat from an insane asylum or writing “Kubla Khan” in the aftermath of an opium-inspired vision—we regularly encounter anecdotes that suggest that a poem was not written under the influence of sedulous thought.

Obviously, some poets put on an act and lie to their readership to bolster their own ego—William F. Buckley often bragged that he wrote most of his New York Times editorials in ten minutes (as opposed to his National Review editorials that he claimed to spend forty-five minutes working on), and this was all a part of his “Look at how brilliant I am, I can do this without effort” schtick. Most likely, WFB spent more than ten minutes writing his editorial columns, but he liked to create the myth to enhance his own reputation for erudite brilliance.

Should we assume that these anecdotes about poetry written in sub-optimal conditions are true? If so, does this add or take away anything from our interpretation of the poem? Or should we let the content stand for itself? If Bill Manhire was sitting next to Anna Jackson and saw her write “Spring” in under three minutes, would he then include it in his anthology? We like to think of poetry as something that can’t be bogged down by context like that—once it’s written, it ceases to be the author’s—but I wonder if it is foolish to discuss literary devices as if the author deliberately crafted them when they happen to be a happy coincidence of quick or impaired thinking.

Follow the link so you can read Anna Jackson’s poem and make your own call

http://www.nzetc.org/iiml/bestnzpoems/BNZP10/t1-g1-t14-body-d1.html

Political Agendas & Poetry

Timothy McAleenan

In class, Professor Smith briefly commented on the passing of the poet Adrienne Rich, noting how she was particularly adept at blending poetic discourse with political dialogue. Rich seems to be a straightforward example of how a poet incorporating politics into her poetry. But it seems that there is another trend that is often at play that affects whether or not a poet or poem becomes mainstream—the politics that the readership impute into the poem.

For instance, for a good portion of the 1800s and 1900s, Alexander Pope was the gold standard of poetry who occupied a central role in the discourse of any budding English scholar. An analysis of “The Rape of the Lock” was a basic “Introduction to English Poetry 101” element of any university curriculum for a large portion of the past three hundred years. However, that has slowly started to change over the past five to six decades, as many English scholars began to accuse Pope’s works of promoting sexism, as well as the inferior intelligence of women in comparison to men. Since most feminist interpretations of Pope’s work endorse the viewpoint of his sexism, Pope has gradually begun to recede from English curricula across the country due to his perceived sexism.

Of course, this plays out in the other direction as well. When William Wordsworth put out Lyrical Ballads, he chose to place Samuel Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” first in the original edition. Because most readers at the time were looking for straightforward language that depicted “emotion recollected in tranquility”, they were generally turned off by Wordsworth’s decision to include the clunky, archaic and oftentimes bizarre Mariner poem at the beginning. The contemporary politics at the turn of the century largely rejected Coleridge’s poem as an “injury to the volume”, but when we press the fast-forward button to 2012, we can see that Coleridge’s poem is the most enduring part of Lyrical Ballads, save for Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey.

Personally, I think it’s a shame that Alexander Pope will most likely have less notoriety in the year 2030 than he has today. My general approach to the politicization of authors (in identity politics) would be this—include the historically significant poems, and then have a conversation on their virtues and their failings. Instead of slowly removing The Rape of the Lock from the debate, I think we should continue to include it, and the detractors can use that opportunity to explain their objections to his work. If they are truly right, they ought to be able to make their arguments convincingly enough to persuade others.

Interview With Reginald Stinson (AKA Prince Hollywood)

Timothy McAleenan

Listen To Song: Get Her First

Earlier this afternoon, I had the fortune of conducting an interview with Reginald Stinson, an up-and-coming rapper in Queens, New York better known as “Prince Hollywood”. Hollywood has a budding reputation for well-written lyrics backed up by strong beats that reflect the intensity of his personal feelings on the subject matter at hand. Hollywood was born in Butler, Georgia, but moved to the South Side of Queens when he was five years old. He started writing music when he was eleven, and started focusing on the relationship between conveying authentic emotion within the confines of well-written lyrics while serving a short prison sentence around 1995. His career took off in 2009-2010 with the release of his album “Hollywood Star”, which is a tribute and successful collaboration with Warren “Dirty War” Davis and another popular Manhattan rapper, Red Viper. Currently, Hollywood is working on the album “Under Dog’s Volume 1” which features the mix tape “Project G.E.D.” Hollywood regularly performs at night clubs and concerts in Georgia and New York, and will be making a live performance at Washington & Lee University in May 2012.

*You can access Young Hollywood’s music by visiting the website www.soundcloud.com/younghollywood

Mr. Hollywood. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to conduct this interview. I really appreciate that. My first question for you is this: What made you decide to abandon the name Reginald in favor of your stage name, Young Hollywood?

It all has to do with how I live my life. Obviously, everyone wants to go to Hollywood and live a Hollywood lifestyle, but we can’t all go to California. So I try to live a Hollywood kind of life. Every day, I live the glamour, I got the “here and there” mindset, while not forgetting about tomorrow. Everything I do is energy, that’s why I’m Hollywood.

Very nice. I was hoping to talk to you for a minute about your debut album, “Hollywood Star,” that sort of put you on the map in the Queens scene. What do you think it was about the album that has made it such a big success?

Well, the album is all about real feeling, and laying down rhymes that it tell it like it is. People can relate to that. When they know you’re being real with them, and spitting out truth, you get a response. I worked with my longtime partners “Dirty War” and “Red Viper”, and they both bring the killer stage presence. They were there for me at “Fourth Ward” and “P.A.N.I.C”, and I’m grateful for their supportive collaboration. It’s hard not to make it big when you’ve got that kind of energy on stage.

Fourth Ward and Panic. Any chance you could elaborate on that for us?

Absolutely. Me and Dirty War came from the Fourth Ward of Butler, Georgia, and we make sure that no matter how big we get, we never forget where we come from. It’s about being true to ourselves, and making sure that we don’t ever lose sight of ourselves. Panic is actually an acronym, P.A.N.I.C.,that Dirty War came up with to fight the discrimination we had to deal with growing up. It stands for “Put All N-words in Check”. That was the mentality of a lot of people who hated us, fronted us, and weren’t real with us while we were growing up, and we tried to flip that negative and turn it into a positive. Every song, we say “Fourth Ward! Panic!” to remind ourselves of who we are, where we came from, and that we’re never going to let that go.

I just finished listening to your track “My Letter to God.” It sounds very inspirational, and rejects valuing the opinions of those who judge you in favor of seeking refuge in God. If I can say so myself, I thought it was a very bold track. What’s the story behind that sound?

Listen To Song: My Letter To God

You know, when I wrote that, I just got jumped in Queens, and the guy took me for what I had. It was hard for me to write about faith in God at that time, but I knew that I had to do it. Because having faith isn’t just about God in the good times, but finding him in the bad times as well. Especially then. So I changed up the vocals, and wrote a dialogue where I spoke to God, and then responded based on how I thought God would talk to me. It was definitely my most daring song, and I’ve been lucky that most of my fans such as yourself have overwhelmingly responded positive to it. If people look to my work ten years from now, I hope “Letter To God” is the song that they remember.

Oh wow. So are most of your songs autobiographical?

Absolutely. Some of it is fictional, but I always talk about what I’m feeling at a given time. If you want to know me, the real me, who I am, just listen to my songs.

So what’s your process for writing songs like?

I just sit on my front porch, take out a notebook and pen, and write how I feel it. Even if it didn’t happen to me, I’m talking about an emotion that did. That’s what it’s all about it. Conveying to my audience what I feel. The truth is what I tell my audience, and I make sure to get that through in my work. When I’m up front and honest with you, and you know I’m not fronting you, then we’re there.

What has been your best performance lately?

I recently peformed at a couple of night clubs in Queens with Dirty War, and that was a killer success. I’m from Georgia, so I’ve played there as well, but there’s nothing quite like putting on a show in New York.

If you were from Butler, GA, how’d you work your way to New York?

My mom and my brothers moved out of Georgia and went to New York where she was originally from, when I was five. My dad’s family is from Georgia, and I still go there from time to time.

What do your parents think of your rap career?

They’ve never seen me live before, but they’ve both listened to my songs on my album. They might like it if I was still working other jobs, but I do what I can do. They support what makes me happy, and I’m thankful for that.

What other kinds of jobs have you worked on, or do you focus on rap exclusively?

You know, I’m in vocational school, becoming a medical office assistant. I wish I could spend all day writing, but for now, it’s just a weekend gig. I’m putting out music that’s true to myself, and that’s where I’m at right now. I want to reach the point where I can rap exclusively, but I got to provide for my little shorty, Murda, and our kids. They’re the center of my life, and if you listen to my music, you’ll get that.

Thank you so much for you time today, Young Hollywood. I really appreciate that. Do you have any parting words for those of us reading at home?

Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. Never lose sight of yourself, stay true to who you are, and if you want it, go get it. Life’s too short to worry about other people judging you. Doing your own thing everday is what makes you happy. I do what I want, where I want, with who I want, and that’s all you can ever ask of yourself. That’s where it’s at.

Thank you, Hollywood. We look forward to seeing you on campus in May.