How I became a poet

During workshops, travelling to various poetry events throughout the country, interviews and a few times at the bus stop the question has come up. "How did you become a poet?" It's phrased a few different ways. "Why would you become a poet?" "Seriously, a poet?" "That's cool. A poet? I write poetry too. Ever been on Def Poetry Jam?" My answer to why poetry usually begins the same, "the money of course." Then the laughter dies down and if they still wanna know I get serious.

Poetry is how I found my voice. It's how I knew what was garbled all in my head. Looking back I was like a free style rapper who could mellifluously flow all night but if you asked him a straight question sans mic and beat boxer you got bumpy three word answers. I used to keep a notebook with me all of the time and write whenever I could. I still do. Jotting down random stanzas on my phone, ipad, dollar store notebook, the leg of my jeans, whatever.

When I was in early elementary school I used to write stories. I called them "My famous stories." In those stories I would respond to bullies in the way I wish I had on the playground. I was the fastest runner in the whole wide world. I had the longest hair, was the prettiest and all the boys liked me. I could be who I wanted to be in my famous stories. Then in high school I became addicted to black poetry. Nikki Giovanni was my favorite. Loved me some Nikki ok! I started morphing my thoughts into stanzas, haikus, quatrains, prose. My poetry was the other world where I could write all of society’s wrongs. I healed sick. I educated children. I told stories. I changed myself from skinny legs press and curl shy afraid girl to woman. Woman with a voice that mattered. Woman who could point finger and say "Hey, don't you rape that girl again! I see you!" Woman who saw others mistreated and knew I could make a difference.

I don't know why. Somehow I knew that my heart beat through poetry and my beating heart would reach other hearts. Hearts around the world. Hearts that needed help beating. I knew that when I couldn't wouldn't talk to another human being the words would always be there for me when I wanted to communicate in poetry. And they always were.

I graduated from high school and kept reading and loving poetry. Not just Nikki, but Sonia Sanchez, Shakespeare. I listened to everything as poetry. Sermons, lectures, Martin Luther King, Jr. tapes, my grandmother and any southern woman I could find and all their "quieter than a rat peein' on cotton" analogies they came up with. Poetry was everywhere I turned. I wrote poetry in college, at work, in bed.

Then I started going to open mic nights where ever I could find them. I started at a bookstore in Long Beach, California where maybe ten or twelve of us would "spit" on Tuesdays (or whenever it was.) I was in heaven, yo! Flowin' with the other raised black fisted twenty somethingers in the group. Shortly after that I "discovered" The World Stage in Leimert Park. You know, discovered like Columbus discovered. The World Stage became church for me. I would race to get to the open mic list on Wednesday nights before the list got full. I would recite my pieces and listen with the widest ears ever to the other "performers" then count down the breaths until the next Wednesday. Yes, it was that serious for me.

I got heavily involved in the poetry scene in Los Angeles and was a regular at all the spots. I would get coffee shops to let me present my one woman shows and they agreed. My one woman shows were me on stage (or where ever was the farthest away from the cappuccino machine) and recite and perform my poetry. Back then I memorized all my work. I don't now. Whatever. Judge yourself. In about 2000 I met up with Ryan Cross, a superbaaad upright bass player and we created a show called "Journey." I was on poetry and he was on bass. We were everything I saw in my dreams. And more. Our show was once a month in coffee houses we could book in Los Angeles. We also travelled to Oakland and other areas in Northern California. Then we went to New York and also to Washington. Folks dug it. We "Journey"ed together for about two years then made an album called guess what...yeah, Journey.

I was getting invited to perform in colleges, at birthday parties, graduation parties, black history shows, churches, schools, hotels, parks, festivals. I mean, back then it didn't really matter. I loved performing like nobody’s business. I was selling my poetry chapbooks and cds everywhere I went. Everywhere. My son was born in 97 and was right there with me. Oh the teas and cookies and cheeses and juices he tasted in greenrooms throughout Los Angeles.

Time passed and I still loved poetry but was less willing to go ev e ry where. Mostly just churches, colleges and events like black history, woman’s month and things like that. The "donations" got bigger so while I still sold my chapbooks and cds I was also able to go home with a check. I was so proud. I was doing what I loved doing. Don't get me wrong. It wasn’t all lovely. Most of it wasn't but what didn't kill me was a lesson I learned and I took the good times with me. The way I figured, if I was working at a "regular" job then I would have had some hard times there too and not be as fulfilled at the end of the day. Hey, I was making a difference.

The stages got bigger and smaller and bigger and bigger and smaller...and the money vacillated the same. But my heart was still true to word. The spoken word. The written word. The prose was it. I could go on forever about the gigs but the meat of what I'm saying here is that the answer to how I became a poet is simply that I said yes to the call.