Dispatches from Today’s Office Hours

Ah! Today’s Office Hours were gorgeous due in no small part to the generosity of all attendees. I am moved by how the reading of poems was just the beginning of our conversation. What then followed were the ways we interrogated the poems with such intention and curiosity and thought about them in the context of our own lives. It’s powerful to see how the wisdom sourced from our own memories, moments of joy, moments of defeat, moments of wonder provide some of the tools we use to read a poem. Such amazing stories and analysis spring forth from this. And then the exchange! We pooled our knowledge together to get through the reading of the poems—breaking apart words, digging into mythology and considering the writer’s “why.” Sitting with each other’s interpretations gave each poem even more dimension and weight. This was the case for Marilyn Nelson’s “How I Discovered Poetry” and Steven Cramer’s ‘For the Bullies of West Morris High.” Poetry is a group sport y’all! It was really a pleasure to hear the work of our attendees who shared works in various stages of progress, but none of them short of delivering very particular wonder.

Lastly, we wrote poems based on a prompt inspired by Marilyn Nelson’s “How I Discovered Poetry,”—prompt and poem included here. And WOW—each poem was such a distinct, poignant, and vulnerable meditation on the beginning of our relationships with words. Inspired by the robust and electrifying words. Humbled to witness our first time reading new poems. I don’t take the gift of this creative community lightly. I’ve been overjoyed all day. Thank you David, Elena, Julian, Devin, Alyssa, and Nola for such a sincere and rich fellowship. Cheers to more!

August 10-5 Years Later!

What a beautiful thing for social media to commemorate. Pictured here: August 10, 2017, my first chapbook launch in Oakland, California surrounded by so many people I love from every part of my life (even Bloomington and Paris!) and loved ones who are also no longer here. ✨🙏🏿✨We were all in that room. We laughed, cried, rejoiced and were together. We were together!!! I was held and lifted up. What a sacred moment. What perfect love. My people, my people. Thank you then. Thank you now. Thank you forever. 🙏🏿❤️❤️❤️🙏🏿

Dispatches from Today’s Office Hours

I love a lot of things about Office Hours, but among them are the ways our conversations course into and out of our lived experiences and the art that moves and challenges us. Discussing different types of labor that populated today’s was generative—so much to unpack in the seemingly mundane and so much to praise owed to those who carry out the acts that bring order to the world. How might our worlds look without dishwashing, ushering, farming, letter writing, imagining? Today’s prompt was inspired by Aracelis Girmay’s “Consider the Hands That Write This Letter,” which is always a prismatic experience! We marveled at the manifold ways that hands can affirm, create, transform, and the potentiality they carry.

I enjoyed hearing and writing poems about labors—playing the piano; a mother’s typewriting, and hairstyling. I created a prompt that I myself am still working through and invite you to join in! Thank you to David and Ben for your brilliant, honest, and engaging conversation and your willingness to dig in and create. See you all at the next office hours 8/20–10 AM-2 AM. Come for a little or stay for a while!

Dispatches from 7/23 Poet Laureate Office Hours (prompt included!):

It’s a really special thing to spend a Saturday morning talking poems! We had a really rich discussion on Limón’s “How to Triumph Like a Girl,” mostly in awe of the transformation that takes place in the span of the poem and how sequencing and imagery lead to what the poem uncovers. By the conversation’s end, the poem was referred to as a “revelation.”

We looked at some of our own poems and thought about how we can recreate the human body and its functions in the world of our own poems.

Finally, we sank into every word of "I Come From A Place So Deep Inside America It Can't Be Seen," by Kari Gunter-Seymour. The poem is doing SO MUCH, but we focused on just a few of its many fascinating themes: longing; the consequence and gifts of memory; how external forces affect our inner world; and the fullness through which losses can be represented, particularly when a poem is populated with elements of the natural world--the paradox blew our minds!

We came back to the final line “Everything alive aches for more” and this was a springboard for conversation (featured in the photos) and ultimately our prompt (also featured in the photos). Maybe you want to write your own poem? I did and it took me to a surprising and important place.

Grateful to talk about and engage with reading and writing poetry. It is a blessing. Thank you Jacob and David for the joy of this morning. Looking forward to sharing these moments with you in the future!

Get Ready for the next Poet Laureate Office Hours Session at The Mercantile Library! Saturdays 7/23, 8/6, 8/20, and 9/17!

Get ready for the next Office Hours session, which will take place Saturdays 7/23, 8/6, 8/20, and 9/17 from 10 AM-2 PM at the Mercantile Library! I’d love to see your poems (in any stage of development)/ talk through your poetry questions or poems that are on your mind! I’ll bring a few poems that I have been thinking about as well as have some writing exercises/activities on deck! Come for a little or stay for a while—looking forward to seeing you soon!

Get Ready for the next Poet Laureate Office Hours Session at The Mercantile Library! This Friday, 6/24 (10 AM-2 PM)

Get ready for the next Office Hours session, which will take place this Friday, June 24 from 10 AM-2 PM at the Mercantile Library! I’d love to see your poems (in any stage of development)/ talk through your poetry questions or poems that are on your mind! I’ll bring a few poems that I have been thinking about as well as have some writing exercises/activities on deck! Come for a little or stay for a while—looking forward to seeing you soon!

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ME, my first edited anthology is here!

Three years in the making, this anthology is a labor of love whose brilliance bursts from cover to cover. I am biased because I am the editor. I am honest because I edited this! I had the privilege of seeing every step of this rigorous production process and of reading every poem, essay, and visual art piece in this collection. Each is as remarkable and unforgettable as the young person who submitted it. Y'all. This book means so much to me! Humbled. Humbled.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who helped bring this book to light. Please grab a copy (www.youthwriting.org) and stay tuned for details for forthcoming celebrations!

Black History Month Reflections

Aside from sharing with y'all, the best thing about Black History Month was taking hours to search and hours to write about why these particular moments, places, songs, art, and other manifestations of Blackness mean the world to me and why I love my identity so fiercely. The social media posts were the longest sustained act of self care in writing I've had in literal years. I am not playing when I say this: the practice of that level of thinking and reveling in Black culture made me love myself a little more. I didn't expect that to happen and was surprised to feel the difference, which I felt by the middle of the month. All sorts of obligations will tell you that there is no time for research/contemplation/praise and then racism (being the gross, evil, and tricky thing it is) will tell you that it's needless. Not true! Make time for it. It will show on you and make you sharper.

Black History Month is over, but like don't let it be? There's so much to (respectfully and lovingly) excavate in the archive, and so much to explore in the Black present + Black future. So much to celebrate, dignify, and adulate.

Keep it going. I know I will. Thanks for joining me.

Happy Black History Month.

<3,

Yalie (pictured here with the Aunties)

French American International School's Day of Action

A few days ago, I had the immense privilege facilitating a workshop on poetry and social activism for the French American International School’s Day of Social Action. I shared some poems from my chapbooks regarding intersectional identity, lineage, and joy. We read others that discussed the Pulse shooting, Emmett Till, and Guantanamo Bay detention camp. We sat with grief, then thought about what it means to activate sadness and transform the feeling of being overwhelmed.

This led perfectly into our next poem: reading Emily Rose Cole's "Love Poem to Myself." I almost gave them the option of a free write, until I heard a voice whisper to me to ask them to write their own responses to it. Before we started, we acknowledged how hard it could be to take a little bit of time to celebrate ourselves, especially when thinking about how much time we spend in high stakes, academically charged environments, and how we're so often bombarded with of an ever-crumbling world. But we did it anyways. I played John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" in the background and we wrote. Short lines. Long lines. Single words. All in the direction of being enchanted with one’s self.

We wrote and talked about the difficulty of the task at hand, how we were a bit out of practice with the act of showing ourselves a little bit of love. A few students bravely shared their work. Here's one of my favorite lines from the day, from a fantastic student named Aaron:

"I already know everything, don't I? No you don't. So love your struggle."

And with that line, we journey on, assessing what we do know, and embracing the joyful mystery of who we are becoming.