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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

VS: francine j. harris vs. Being a Hater

 

Danez Smith: She stopped dating white men and her skin cleared up, it’s Franny Choi! 

 

Franny Choi: And they’re competing for America’s Next Top Bottom, Danez Smith!

 

Danez Smith: And you’re listening to VS, the podcast where poets confront the ideas that move them.

 

Franny Choi: Unfortunately, the problem is that the opposite is true. I started breaking out a lot.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: I don’t know what it was.

 

Danez Smith: You look very luminous from the Zoom. 

 

Franny Choi: Oh, thank you. I’ve got the, like, fix your skin feature on. (LAUGHS) You know what I mean? The, like, touch up your image?

 

Danez Smith: Yeah.

 

Franny Choi: I’ve had that on all semester. And some of my students were, like, “Yeah, let’s meet in person in the fall.” And I was like, damn, now you’re gonna know what my skin actually looks like.

 

Danez Smith: Oh, it’ll be fine. Maybe you just need to, you know, like, rub a white man against your face.

 

Franny Choi: Nooo.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) Maybe they had some secret. You know, maybe their lack of lotion was like an exfoliant or something like that, you know? 

 

Franny Choi: Wow, that’s actually an amazing point.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Because they don’t use lotion. 

 

Danez Smith: They don’t use lotion. They don’t really wash their legs. They’re like a natural mushroom loofah you know?

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: Just rub a Cody against your face and you know, exfoliants, all types of animals.

 

Franny Choi: Oh my god. Exfoliate on a white person’s face.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Okay, well, you know, I have to say, like, to the white people who are listening to us right now, thanks for doing it. Cuz we have not necessarily always made it easier. 

 

Danez Smith: Oh, y’all will be all right. Y’all literally ruined the world. Y’all can handle some jokes on a goddamn podcast. Okay? Like, which y’all also run. Y’all run podcasts. Y’all run colonialism. Try as China might, they just can’t catch up to your cruelties in the world, okay. So y’all can handle it. 

 

Franny Choi: They are trying.

 

Danez Smith: They try. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: They’ve been trying hard. But, you know, some big violent shoes to fill. 

 

Danez Smith: Or you know what, or maybe, you know, if you hate this, you can just call us haters and just keep on going.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, exactly.

 

Danez Smith: Franny, we’re all haters, right? 

 

Franny Choi: Well, yeah, I mean, certainly. We are all haters, but I feel like, well, I guess maybe like, I feel like a very compassionate person in some situations. But am I in certain situations very likely to default to hateration? Yes. Like, absolutely. Like, I live in Northampton, Massachusetts, which is a town that is full of good white women. You know what I mean? Speaking of white slander this morning on this podcast. There’s a particular kind of good white woman that proliferates in this area, where the politics are, like, all there in theory, but she’ll still, like, cut in front of you in line, you know what I mean?

 

Danez Smith: Ohh! Yes. 

 

Franny Choi: You see it at the coop grocery store. And like, because I know that this kind of white woman is common to the area, I’m like, on the lookout for her constantly. And that I think, it’s like self-protective, but it also means that I end up being a hater a lot in these Northampton, Massachusetts streets.

 

Danez Smith: Because you see the real, that’s the problem. It’s like, you can be a good white woman all you want. But, you know, my Asian life don’t matter in this grocery store now that you cut in front of me. And don’t say “excuse me” in the tiny aisle.

 

Franny Choi: Right. Like I was looking at the carrots. Yeah! 

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHING) Yeah, I was looking at the carrots, yes!

 

Franny Choi: And it was, like, real bad when—I mean, now they’ve loosened up certain things in the grocery store. But when it was like, you’re only supposed to go in one direction down these aisles, blah, blah, blah, I got very ready to fight. Except that I don’t know how to fight. And so, it put me in some sticky mental situations.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) You was about that action.

 

Franny Choi: I was about the action, but I didn’t know how to follow up. You know what I mean? Like I didn’t know how to follow through. 

 

Danez Smith: Oh, you wonderful, frustrated second grader about to get into their first fight. I love it.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, exactly.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: That’s exactly who I am. That’s exactly why I’m on the inside when it comes to white women cutting me in line.

 

Danez Smith: Word. You know who’s my white women in the grocery store?

 

Franny Choi:  (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: Is other inebriated people when I’m at the place where people are inebriated, right? 

 

Franny Choi: Oh, like you’re very likely to judge them for being drunk. 

 

Danez Smith: And I don’t judge like anybody who’s like—I’m like, oh, you look like you’re having a hard time, maybe it went a little bit past the limit. Right? Or like, oh, you look freshly 21, you know, like, been there, girl, can’t wait for you to grow up. But when I see somebody like eye to eye and I’m like, bitch, you’re in your 30s like me, you just know that yo’ ass is a three-drink girl and yet here you are on number six.

 

Franny Choi:  Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: And then I just start judging. And that’s when I just become the fullest hater, like, why can’t we all control our drunkenness? 

 

Franny Choi: Wait, wait, wait, but are you—in this situation, are you also drunk? 

 

Danez Smith: Yes! I am also drunk and I’m saying, “I’m drunk and standing. How did you, 35-year-old, get here?” And this is when I do turn into the woman at the gay club (LAUGHING) who’s here to be a fag hag and controlling things. I’m just like, “Oh my god, look at your friend, it’s time y’all take her home.”

 

Franny Choi: Well, you literally go up and say—

 

Danez Smith: This is three weeks ago, Franny Choi, I kid you not.

 

Franny Choi: Oh my god.

 

Danez Smith: It took me a while to deduce. But I figured out the three bitches that she came there with, and I said, “Y’all need to take her home. She is ruining this for everyone. And she looks like she needs help. Go put her in a bed.”

 

Franny Choi: See something, say something, you know? 

 

Danez Smith: Because there was a 37-year-old man rolling around the party like he didn’t have no goddamn sense. And somebody had to be Black and go over there and control the situation. All these mother—and like, see I’m mad again. And I’m not even being a hater. But I’m just like, “Look, y’all you know who you are. You’re 37. You’ve taken drugs before. And y’all have hung out with this drunk-ass bitch before. And y’all knew this was gonna happen. And yet you still brought her here. And you’re letting her happen to us. Take her home.”

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, well, I think what you’re really getting at here is like, the way that what we might call being a hater can also be called like critique from another angle, right? And it just so happens that our guest today, francine j. harris, first of all, is a brilliant motherfucker. And we have been huge fans of her work forever, for a really long time. And she brilliantly talked about being a hater as a sort of like position through which to like critique and imagine alternatives to everything from structures of power to syntax. So, we’re really excited to share this conversation with one of the most innovative, mind-blowingly good people that we have had the pleasure of talking to in our time at VS. 

 

Danez Smith: francine j. harris is the author of Here Is the Sweet Hand, out from those three white names that I can’t say that are also known as FSG—

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: —which was recently named the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her second collection, play dead, was the winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the Audre Lorde Awards and a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her first collection, allegiance, was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Awards. Originally from Detroit, she has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She is an associate professor of English at the University of Houston. Y’all, it was such a pleasure, such an experience, such a joy to talk to francine, who is so brilliant, so funny, so smart. We can’t wait to bring you this episode. So let’s wait no longer. Here’s francine, who’s going to start us off with the poem.

 

Franny Choi: Yay.

 

(SOUND EFFECT)

 

francine j. harris: Right now, this is called “The Primitive Streak.”

 

(READS POEM)

 

* * *

 

Franny Choi: That ending just like lit something inside me, francine. I feel like there’s so much of this poem where I was just like, in it and experiencing it and not exactly sure how to read it in some ways. And then something in that last line just like clicked, clicked into place. 

 

francine j. harris: Thank you. 

 

Danez Smith: I feel like that’s part of the experience of being a francine j. harris reader. 

 

Franny Choi: 100 percent. Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: Is like, let me ride these sentences. And these, you know, this music, and like, I know, I’ll get it if I stay, you know? (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Right. Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: Which allows you to really like abandon.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, I think it takes a lot of trust. But there are certain poems where like, I’m not exactly understanding with like, my top most brain what it is, and so therefore, I’m like, I don’t know what this is, like, I’m scared I’m just gonna, like, I can click out of it. But like, because of your many talents, francine, I feel like I—there’s a kind of trust that I think is offered to the reader. I just always, as a reader, feel like I’m okay with going along for the ride.

 

francine j. harris: That’s really interesting, too, because I feel like that’s something I try to talk to students about. Sometimes when I don’t know what to say to the student’s poem, that’s usually what I say. Something along the lines of, “I trust what you’re doing. It’s hard for me to, you know, say go this direction or that, because it’s, you know, it’s a little bit new territory.” (LAUGHS) So I take that as a compliment. And I think, it’s weird in a way, like, I almost feel like that’s the thing you want, maybe more so than the thing that I think we tend to privilege about voice. We have this idea, I think with the lyric poem, that it’s the poet’s voice that’s most important. And that’s true, too. But there’s something else about getting readers to trust your direction that kind of just lets you do whatever the fuck you want to do. You know, as long as they trust you to kind of go along with it.

 

Danez Smith: Because then it changes, I think, the relationship of like, singing to the reader and then just like, I’m gonna let you peep in on my singing, you know? Like, I don’t know, I was rereading Here is the Sweet Hand preparing for this interview. Well, one, yeah, I was just like, fuck! (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, yeah.

 

Danez Smith: It’s still so good! You know? I was like, you know, it’s just like, oh, the first few times I read it, I was right. This is the one. (LAUGHS) You know, but I also felt like—and I say this as a compliment—I was like, oh, I feel like I’m just starting to like, catch up. And, you know, francine’s been walking in francine’s lane for a while. And that doesn’t mean that there’s not homage, that doesn’t mean that we don’t see you thinking and responding to and loving other writers and thinkers. But there is a francine j. harris sentence at this point, right? You know, or a way of being in a poem that I think of you as a poet, or as a reader and a poet, right, you want to respond to that with like, what the fuck do I have to say that only I could say, you know? And that, of course, makes sense, but also allows the possibility of getting lost in it. I don’t know you freak a sentence so many fucking ways. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: I think it’s because I’m a hater, though.

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) What do you mean?

 

francine j. harris: Well, my friends know this. That I can be very grumpy about things. And I distrust a lot of things. And I have talked to a couple friends about the difference between like a visionary, and a administrator. (LAUGHS) Difference between a visionary and an administrator is that visionaries tend to dream up things. And depending on the visionary, sometimes they dream up shit and then they send out their workers and they’re like, “Okay, go build that.” They’re like, “Whoa, that’s exciting.” I’m not a visionary. Administrators, which I consider myself an administrator, they look at the thing that’s got dreamed up, and they’re like, “You know …”

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: “But how are those windows gonna work? Come on, dude.” But the thing is, I couldn’t have thought the windows until somebody else did it. In a way, I’m a little bit of a worker and. So when I say I’m a hater, I mean I’m an administrator. I see the thing that’s been dreamed up, and I think, “That’s beautiful, but.” And language gives you all the opportunity to do that, you know, like, sentence structure is functional and beautiful, but there’s just so many issues with it. So many issues with the way that syntax is created. It doesn’t allow for so many things, you know?

 

Danez Smith: Hmm.

 

francine j. harris: There’s no part of me that thinks I could have dreamed up the syntax. But then when I see the syntax, I’m like, “But, wait! Why can’t I put a period there? I don’t understand!” You know? And in my mind, I really see it as an alternative that makes total and complete sense to me. So it’s not like I’m trying to do anything new. I just, I’m trying to make it make sense to me, because it doesn’t quite click in my head. Does that make sense?

 

Danez Smith: It does. I would say you’re visionary, but I think it’s because I see you seeing—I love that you said alternative, right? Because it’s like you see another way through. Through the thought, through the sentence, through the sound.

 

Franny Choi: What I’m hearing you saying is that, like, I’ve always seen you as innovative as a writer, but that you see yourself as basically like innovating on, rather than just being in this like, like, “Let me just dream up the new way of doing it,” right?

 

francine j. harris: No, I definitely rely on other people and other systems. And, you know, I’m the kind of writer that, you know, people always ask this question, like, “What inspires you?” Very often, it’s just like, thinking, “I’m going to read this book,” and then getting to the first page and being like, “Okay, I’m gonna write my own poem.”

 

(ALL LAUGH)

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) Yeah, yeah.

 

francine j. harris: Sometimes that’s in a loving way. Sometimes it’s like, I already have something to say. And then sometimes it’s like, man, I want a different poem. You know what I mean? Like, I’m not always a hater, but I am—my first notion is to deconstruct and critique, and I see the problems and things. But you know, is a good and a bad, right? Oh, just got personal real quick. (LAUGHS) I think it can be a problem in relationships, for sure. You know, because you see, I see all the stuffing first before I see the beauty of the thing.

 

Danez Smith: Hmm.

 

francine j. harris: And to me, that is the beauty. But I guess it doesn’t translate that way.

 

Danez Smith: How does that work francine, because I hear you saying like, you’re a hater, which I can relate, is like a type of position as a critic. But you also, I think, are a sampler, right? And so it’s not always “but”, it’s also like, here’s something else. Like, I’m thinking about the milkman poem, right? Where you’re taking Song of Solomon, and sort of writing us past the end of that book a little bit, right, which is very different than first page, write your own poem. It’s like, you know, that’s a book that’s probably, I would assume is close to your heart.

 

Franny Choi: Not like a Toni Morrison takedown poem.

 

Danez Smith: Right, it’s not like a takedown. But you know, I see it, because there’s so much hip hop in your work, too, right?

 

francine j. harris: Mm-hmm.

 

Danez Smith: And so like, you’re not just a hater, you’re almost like a DJ in that way. You know, where it’s kind of like, where DJs sometimes are haters, too, right? They’re saying, “This is how that song should have sounded.” You know? (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Yes, that’s it! That’s what I’m saying. To me, that’s the beauty of it. I will admit that it’s very difficult, I think, to find something wrong with Song of Solomon. That book is so gorgeous, and so complex and scaffolded and epic. You know, there’s, there’s, there’s one small, tiny Toni Morrison novel I can be a hater about. (LAUGHS) But there’s not a whole lot, you know? God Help the Child, I’m not a fan.

 

Danez Smith: Yeah, that’s, uh, yeah.

 

francine j. harris: But, you know, you mentioned Ty Dolla Sign. And like that song, for me, is weird, because I hate it as much as I love it.

 

(ALL LAUGH)

 

Franny Choi: Totally. 100 percent.

 

francine j. harris: You know? It’s just so wrong! (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: It’s so wrong and yet, so right.

 

francine j. harris: Right. I wanted to be able to have an alternative, you know? That goes along with the beat. And then I wrote the poem and I was like, well, this doesn’t work. So actually, I’ve been trying for like the last year to try to read it in a way that makes sense.

 

Danez Smith: Wait, hold on, what does “make sense” mean for you there?

 

francine j. harris: To read it in a way that I enjoy the cadence of or the movement of.

 

Danez Smith: Hmm.

 

francine j. harris: I mean, if we’re going to get prosodic about it, I know that I depend on a lot of anapests and stops and reversals, you know? And this poem isn’t written in that way. So like, I have to make it make sense, which requires the body. It’s written in a different kind of cadence, so.

 

Franny Choi: Mm. I wonder if we could turn back to the poem that you started us off with?

 

francine j. harris: Sure.

 

Franny Choi: We were talking earlier about this concept of the primitive streak, which shows up in this poem. So yeah, I wondered if you would just talk about like, where this poem came from, and also like, what is the primitive streak?

 

francine j. harris: So, okay. So I will say that the reason I know the term “the primitive streak” is because it showed up in a Radiolab episode about embryonic testing in laboratories. There’s scientists that can grow embryos in the lab, and they can test on them, but they can’t do anything past 14 days, or they’re violating government rules. So, the poem doesn’t have anything to do with that. In that episode, one of the hosts asks, “Is there a way to know that it gets to that point, like, what does it look like at that point?” And the producer said, “Oh, well, that’s the point that it takes on the primitive streak.” And when she said that, I was like, “Oh, shit, this is it! This is the thing!” For a lot of years, I have had this, you know this feeling you get, it’s sort of an awareness of your body that, I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to put a finger on. But for a while, I felt myself trying to understand the first point of organization of my body. And I can’t explain it past that, except it led me to the question of “I wonder”—so, your DNA has a way, has a thought about your form, right? Like we typically all kind of, we have a head in a certain place, and our arms go here, and our legs. And I found myself wondering well, like, how does the body know where to put everything? (LAUGHS) You know what I mean? There has to be a central point of location or order. When that term came up, I thought, “Oh, I think that’s it. It’s like the first place that the body knows how to start organizing things.” And oddly enough, or maybe, ironically enough, we start at our ass. (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: We start at our ass, and we reach for brain. That’s where that last line comes from. There is a version of this poem where I get very specific about the scientific aspect that I’m talking about. One of the things I struggle with in writing is like, which version do I put into the world, the one that feels the most linear and progressive, or the one that feels kind of like, I don’t know, like a little bit of a mess (LAUGHS) on the table. You know what I mean? This poem feels like a little bit of a mess on the table. But I kind of like it for that. I don’t know.

 

Danez Smith: What makes that decision, because I feel like there’s always a different answer to those poems, right? Like, what is your sense of your compass of when you decide to make it orderly and hold the reins a little bit harder, make it do what you want to do, or to let it be its own thing and be the mess?

 

francine j. harris: I think it’s whether I like reading it or not, which is why I like reading things aloud. Because if I don’t like reading it, then usually I’ll go back and think, “Well, maybe it needs some more order.” The book that I’m working on right now has a long poem at the middle of it. And I’m kind of scared of the poem, because, on the page, it feels kind of basic. (LAUGHS) Like, it just has some basic elements. But when I read it, I love reading it so much that I think it must be right.

 

Franny Choi: Hmm, that’s such a great compass. It sounds like both so reliable, and also like, spooky, at the same time. I love that.

 

Danez Smith: francine, do you consider yourself, or have you ever considered yourself to be like a spoken word artist? I mean, because I feel like that answer like reading it out loud, right? I don’t know if you were slammer, but open micer most definitely right?

 

francine j. harris: Mm-hmm.

 

Danez Smith: Like existed in those spaces. I would love to see you fuck up a slam if that ever happened. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Oh, man.

 

Danez Smith: Oh, shit. (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Here’s the thing, like I—oh, I’m so scared to say this! When you say slam, it reminds me of being on the schoolyard in school and not quite knowing how to double dutch. (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: Mm. (LAUGHS) Like, “I do want to hang out with them—”

 

francine j. harris: Yeah, but like, I don’t think I know, I don’t think I can do it as good as everybody else. And so, feeling like, when I—okay, I tried to do slam, when I was younger. And a couple things happened. One, I was starting to act out poems. You know, I see other slam artists and I feel like something natural happens for them when they get on that stage. But that stage is terrifying to me. Terrifying. I prefer a podium, actually, so that you can’t see my stomach, which, you know, by the way, is the center of mass. I hate people looking at my center of mass. (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Which actually has a little bit of extra mass at this point. And I feel like spoken word, much like acting, right, it demands that you have a lot of comfort in that and I don’t have much comfort in that. Like, that’s the one area that I feel like I want obstructed for me and an audience. (LAUGHS) 

 

Franny Choi: Mm.

 

francine j. harris: It’s hard for me to do slam. So I found myself acting and memorizing in a way where I was just reciting lines. I didn’t have any presence in it. The other thing that happened is, the poem that I just read is like a page long! (LAUGHS) And I kept getting time penalties. 

 

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

 

francine j. harris: I listen to the recording, and it’s like, maybe the beginning of all circles. You know what I mean? Like I can’t, I can’t get the timing right. So, that’s basically what happened. But, that to say, I loved open mics. And to be honest, I kind of miss that, because I feel like I’ve lost a kind of anonymity, you know, where you could just go to the open mic and just be there in the back of the room and like, now I go and feel like I think younger people feel like they have to acknowledge that I’m there. 

 

Danez Smith: Yeah.

 

francine j. harris: You know what I mean? It’s like, it happens all the time. Now, I feel like if I go, I’m sort of stepping on somebody’s toes. You know what I mean? Like, I just, one of these days, I’m just gonna get me a wig. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

 

francine j. harris: And some glasses. And just go incognito to the open mic, and they’re just not going to know it’s me.

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: I feel that so much, francine. I’ve literally been in an open mic and somebody—and I’m literally just there to like, drink my coffee, scribble, and like, both enjoy and hate poems, you know?

 

francine j. harris: Right! Yes!

 

Danez Smith: Because that is part of the joy of the open mic, right?

 

francine j. harris: Totally.

 

Danez Smith: You have to love the bad poems too, right? You just have to come and know like, “Ima hate four of these and Ima love eight.”

 

francine j. harris: Exactly.

 

Danez Smith: But then some guest, you know, the host is like, “We’ve got Danez Smith—” and I’m like, and, “Will you come up, and—”. And, “No, no nigga.”

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: You know?

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, and then you have to clap for everything.

 

francine j. harris: Everything.

 

Danez Smith:  You have to clap for everything. Yeah, you’re not allowed to be an asshole, because then Danez Smith didn’t clap. Or francine j. harris or Franny Choi didn’t clap, right?

 

francine j. harris: And you can’t really leave on somebody’s poem. You just, like, all that shit goes away. Catherine Barnett gave this really beautiful talk recently. You know, I just tried to slip in, like, watch the talk. (LAUGHS) And somehow, I can’t quite remember how this happened. I think she was doing the talk for Bennington College. It was in Michael Dumanis’s class. And I made the mistake of saying something. (LAUGHS) And the next thing I know, I’m on a screen in the middle of Michael Dumanis’s class, like, you don’t even realize that you’re walking into spaces where somebody will want to acknowledge your presence, which is a really beautiful thing to do. And of course, I mean, I do it, too,  you know. Like, I see, if I’m on a call, I’m like, “Oh, shit. C.S. Giscombe is here. Oh my god, hello.” You know? But maybe this is to say like, you know, to young poets, to just kind of like appreciate just kind of being able to kind of stroll in and stroll out at will. And not having to know anything. I feel like we’ve gotten to a point where we’re supposed to know something.

 

Franny Choi: Can you say more about that?

 

francine j. harris: I feel an unanticipated pressure to be, I guess you could say to come correct. To know what I’m talking about. Actually, to speak to Catherine’s talk, she was talking about writing from a place of not knowing. That’s what I’m struggling with. You know, and maybe this is just like my own internalized pressure. I feel like I have to be right. And I don’t know what right means. Just like, be on the right side of things. Or be right in my factual information, which is a different kind of pressure. Or to come at shit from the right perspective. I know that I’m on the right side of history. But I think that, you know, there’s a very healthy conversation about what that looks like, what responsibility means for artists, that maybe is separate from the creative process. I’l’ say it that way.

 

Danez Smith: And it’s less kindness to the process, right? Like, because it’s the exact opposite of the open mic, right? Where, on a good night, 20 people might hear your poem, right?

 

francine j. harris: Right!

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Totally!

 

Danez Smith: On a good night. And that’s the only way that poem ever got published, right. And there’s a trial and error, you know, and just like, an intimacy there, too, right. But it’s just like, a beautiful low stakes way to learn poetry. And then you’re like, “Well, maybe I should be a poet.” And then you march your way down, and you start publishing your little poems, you know, and then somebody says, “We should publish a lot of these at one time.” (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Right?

 

Danez Smith: And then you do that a couple of times, and then now you’re at the other place where you’re no longer fighting to get to the open mic by 6:30 so you can put your name on the list. And you have an editor at X and X magazine asking you for poems. You know? And I too feel that pressure, I guess I’m saying, right. That as opposed to like, praying that I got on the list, and maybe somebody will connect with my poem at the open mic, there is such a pressure of like, I know if I put this poem into the world it will be read.

 

francine j. harris: Yes.

 

Danez Smith: Even if it’s not a hit, and that’s the worst fear, right? Like I could be like putting bad into the world, right? Or just fluff, which is also like, fuck. I wasn’t even bad, I was just a waste of, you know, data. And now everybody, I know everybody saw that. Or enough people saw that, just because it had my name attached to it. (LAUGHS) You know? I literally wrote the other day, I just had to, like, say the simple sentences just like, I miss when nobody knew my poems. (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Really? That’s so funny.

 

Danez Smith: Yeah.

 

francine j. harris: Or like you could have, you could just have that space where you could sort of like, vanish. And again, I also realize that some of this is just internalized. I mean, “famous poet” is an oxymoron. We know this. (LAUGHS) You know what I mean?

 

Danez Smith: I love telling hookups that I’m low key famous. (LAUGHS) Like, after the do, and they’re like, “You got a lot of books.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m a writer.” And they’ll be like, “Really?”And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m low key famous.” (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) But to nobody.

 

Franny Choi: I love to be in a position where you have to explain to most people that you are kind of famous. Like, that’s, (LAUGHING) like, you’re not that famous in that case, you know?

 

Danez Smith: But then like, we have a conversation about how like being a writer is like—because I’m like, “Yeah, like I’m low key a famous poet, and like, would you have ever known? No!” (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) 

 

Danez Smith: “You just here to get your dick sucked!” You know? (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

 

francine j. harris: But you’re like, cross sectional famous now. Didn’t you get into an argument with—

 

Danez Smith: LL Cool J?

 

francine j. harris: Yeah. LL Cool J! Right, that’s right.

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) You did.

 

Danez Smith: But to be fair, he got in a fight with everybody that night. (LAUGHS) My nigga was just boxing—

 

(CROSSTALK)

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: It’s just that when I started fighting in poetry, Twitter also came and was like, “Oh, no, not Danez’s poems.” (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS) People like to write about your family. It’s so odd. (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: Oh, god, that white lady!

 

francine j. harris: The grandma.

 

Danez Smith: I always try to—yes. It’s the season of that. I think we’re almost at like the year anniversary of that. It’s June when we’re recording this.

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: That was when white people were aware of race again last year. 

 

francine j. harris: That’s right, that’s right!

 

francine j. harris and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

 

Danez Smith: So we’re like in the season of that poem. It’s probably the anniversary today. I bet.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: A year ago that poem was deleted from the internet.

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS) Yes.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: She wrote about my grandma walking on dead bodies. Okay, anyway, francine j. harris, what do you think about my grandma walking on dead bodies? (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Oh my god. I just, I can’t. That’s a whole other—you know, people who want to do good and do worse. (LAUGHS) It’s just a whole other conversation.

 

Danez Smith: I know—so, and you don’t have to go into the class too much, but knowing you just did a class that was a survey of Black women writers, and in your work, right, I think you’re always like, you know, we talked about this Toni Morrison poem, but I love that final poem in the book. And how big the heart toward Zora Neale Hurston is in that poem, right? Do you receive any guidance about what to do with that lack of anonymity from the Black women writers that you study?

 

francine j. harris: That’s a really good question. Honestly, that perspective, probably something that I haven’t thought about, but I think it’s … well, so the reason that I wanted to teach the class, actually, is because, I feel like the way that we handle that is by honoring each other. (LAUGHS) Like, I feel like that’s the way that we continue to handle it. I don’t know if it’s the only way, but it’s maybe the most productive way. You know? Like, one of the books that we read in that class was Honorée Jeffers’s The Age of Phillis, which is all about her research into the life of Phillis Wheatley. It’s not to say that Phillis Wheatley was uncelebrated. But it does seem to be the case that with writers of color, Black writers, Black women writers, that the story starts to get shifted, you know, away from what actually happened to these folks, you know? And so, Jeffers, writing back and saying, you know, let’s not forget that Phillis Wheatley was enslaved and taken from Senegal and brought here against her will. Like, picked up this language in a matter of months, and was brilliant, but also was dealing with a lot of bullshit. Like one of the things that we read was Henry Gates’s, Trials of Phillis. Because, I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but Phyllis Wheatley’s first book, a group of white men had to get together and decide—not to publish her book, but decide whether she was capable of being a poet in order to publish her book. And she was in the room.

 

Danez Smith: They talked about that in front of her face?

 

francine j. harris: Yes!

 

Danez Smith: Like, “Is she smart?” (LAUGHS) Wow.

 

francine j. harris: And also, you know, I think a lot about the fact that she was alone in that room. But anyway, you know, it’s to say that part of my thought about this class, one of the things that I asked my students to do was to connect 21st-century authors to Black women of our lineage, of our tradition. In a way that is a critical treatment. You know, maybe that’s the best way to handle that anonymity. I realized in the process of all of it somebody I kind of want to reprint if I can figure out how to do it. 

 

Franny Choi: Hmm.

 

francine j. harris: So I want to reprint Margaret Danner, or at least I want to try to figure out how to gather her work. But Margaret Danner was—she was born in Kentucky, but she was really kind of a Chicago poet. In fact, she was the first, maybe only, as far as I know, Black woman assistant editor at Poetry. A contemporary of Langston’s. Her poems are just gorgeous. And so I’m trying to figure out, I don’t know, this little project that I’m undertaking. Can I read you one?

 

Danez Smith: Yeah, please.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: So do you feel a particular kinship with her? I mean, I feel like we’ll hear it, maybe. 

 

francine j. harris: I think what it is, is like, I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but, it’s always kind of interesting when people like connect your work back to things and you’re like, “Huh, I never thought about that.” Like Craig Teicher wrote an essay about my work and connection to Lucille Clifton’s work, and I thought, “Huh, that’s interesting.” It took me a long time to understand the beauty of Lucille Clifton. I told you, I’m a hater, right? 

 

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

 

francine j. harris: So like, the kind of simple sentence structure, when I was younger, I was kind of like, I want to do something different than that. And as I get older, I realized like, wait, Clifton’s a genius. It was just me being like, whatever kind of way. But it got me thinking about unrealized lineages, the things that you look at now and you’re like, “Oh my god, of course that was an influence.” Or at least, you know, I’m in that line. And I see myself in the line of Danner, even if I never read her before. It’s so clear to me that her interest in imagery, her interest in the natural landscape, her kind of like, places where she gets sarcastic in her work. (LAUGHS) The places where she’s willing to just strip bare and let something be utterly unbeautiful is amazing to me. And to me, I’m in that lineage. Even if I didn’t read her when I was younger. Maybe I did. You know, I think she might be in Randall’s Black Poets, maybe.

 

Franny Choi: But certainly like her influence and voice, like, was in the water, like must have been?

 

francine j. harris: Yeah, exactly. Right?

 

Danez Smith: I’d love to hear some. Please read it.

 

francine j. harris: Okay.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, I would love to.

 

francine j. harris: I’ll read you this one. So this is called “Best Loved of Africa.”

 

(READS POEM)

 

It is New Year’s Day.

The blasé people rise.

They face a sleet-like ray

Of light. The low slung skies

Send shadows down. It’s dark.

 

The earth is treacherous to the tread.

And deep in the upstairs bedroom

Of his terraced suite in Lincoln Park

Lies Bushman, best loved of Africa, huge

And beautifully black as he ever was, but dead.

 

* * *

 

Danez Smith: Whew!

 

francine j. harris: Right?

 

Franny Choi: Wow!

 

francine j. harris: It’s so amazing! And here’s the thing. So this is, there’s no epigraph in this poem, but I was listening to a recording that she did with Langston Hughes where she talks about this poem, and apparently, Bushman was the first gorilla that Lincoln Park acquired in that zoo.

 

Franny Choi: That poem is brutal and spooky and weird.

 

francine j. harris: Mm-hmm.

 

Franny Choi: And gorgeous.

 

francine j. harris: Gorgeous.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah.

 

francine j. harris: You know, sometimes I hear people say that vocabulary is something they’re suspicious of in poems. That like, if you have to look up vocabulary, apparently, that’s a bad thing. And so I’m starting to realize, to me, I think this is an aesthetic choice, you know, or maybe an artistic choice or whatever, like, I love language that you have to look up. And, you know, that’s why I love people like D.A. Powell. I love that I read one of his poems, and I’m like, “Ooo, (LAUGHS) what does this mean?” Then I go get my—you know, it lends a whole other thing to the poem. But she’s, you know, I think one of those people that, not so much in this poem, but there are other poems where I’ve had to, I had to kind of dig a little bit to know. She uses fresh vocab, like really uncommon vocabulary that lends to the imagery. And I think that’s amazing.

 

Franny Choi: I think it would be amazing to have this person’s work reprinted.

 

Danez Smith: If this is somebody that, like, Langston was like, “Let me call this girl up so we can chat,” you know, like—

 

francine j. harris: Oh my god, they have a little thing. It’s basically like Langston Hughes versus Margaret Danner. For whatever reason it’s called something like “The Revolution Rises.” It’s just a recording of them reading poems back and forth to each other.

 

Danez Smith: Oh, they had literally a VS! (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: That’s so great!

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS) It’s so beautiful. Of course Langston reads more, but whatever.

 

Danez Smith: Of course he would, of course he would.

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: Of course he would, because he’s a queen. And he was like, “Little girl, you may be the little editor over that little magazine, girl, but I wrote ‘Negro Speaks of Rivers’, and the girls are still talking about it, so.” (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS) Yes! Oh, god.

 

Danez Smith: Oh I know he was a cut. I love him.

 

Franny Choi: These recovery projects are so important, you know? Like, my partner, Cameron, has been working on this essay about Pauli Murray. And there have been, I feel like there’s been like, over the last few years, like a kind of like, Pauli Murray recovery project happening.

 

francine j. harris: Yeah.

 

Franny Choi: For those who might not know who that is, Pauli Murray was like, a civil rights leader and poet—

 

francine j. harris: Priest.

 

Franny Choi: Priest, and was also—

 

Danez Smith: Fine.

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) And trans. And was sort of, like, out of time, and in a lot of ways, like showing up too early to things. Was like, trying to organize a sit-in like 10 years before the sit-ins were being organized. And was trying to, like, inquire about getting hormone therapy before it was really like a thing, etcetera. I’m not doing a great job explaining this. Cameron would do a much better job. But anyway, it’s like because of like, Elizabeth Alexander’s reprinting recovery work of their poetry and because of like, all these other people doing recovery work of Pauli Murray that many people get to look back and say, like, “Here’s a person who came before me that like, now I get to be in lineage with, that I wasn’t able to be in lineage with before.” So all I’m saying is, I think you should it!

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS) Thank you.

 

Danez Smith: You must! You must. Like, it’s for that same thing, right? It’s like, there’s somebody out there that’s got an ancestor waiting for them, right? And they need to know that, like, they are not the anomaly wanting to write like this in this day, right? Like, it’s so, it’s such a reprieve, when you’re like, “Oh, someone was doing this shit 100 years ago, thank god.” (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Yeah.

 

francine j. harris: But you know, someone like this, it’s just crazy to me, because she has, I think, three books, and none of them are in print or even really findable. Like, I can’t even get them on Amazon if I spend a bunch of money. (LAUGHS) You know what I mean? Like, it’s just kind of dissipated.

 

Franny Choi: You talked earlier about being an administrator, rather than a visionary. Can I ask how that brain relates to, like, when you’re looking at lineages? What role does the administrator brain play? I mean, you called yourself a hater. It’s not like hateration that you’re bringing to the, like, newly discovered lineage. So like, what is it?

 

francine j. harris: Maybe it’s a good place for me to say that I don’t think that criticism is bad. It’s sort of like—I feel like Gloria Hull said this, maybe, that the test for Black poetry will be when we can fairly critique it and not be nervous about that. Because right now, like, our reviews tend to be pretty celebratory. And unfortunately, I think what happens is like, when the reviews get to a place of critique, they wind up being personal attack and therefore wack, right? Like, there’s not a ton of fair criticism. I think there’s a tendency to just kind of like, promote and celebrate and propagate poems in order to kind of encourage people to read more, right? But the downside of that is that we don’t get to have fair response to poems. And so, being a hater, (LAUGHS) you know, the real truth is, the tea is, none of us talk about poetry like this! And we know this. Like, we get together in our little huddles, and we talk about poems the way we really talk about poems, which is like—

 

Danez Smith: Yeah.

 

francine j. harris: “Overall, it’s great. That line fucking sucked.” (LAUGHS) “But whatever, like, they could add a different close, or, that was a little tone deaf.” But like, were we to say that publicly, it still carries the burden of feeling like, you know, like, we’re somehow not celebrating what our contemporaries are doing.

 

Franny Choi: It’s like airing the family’s dirty laundry kind of thing?

 

francine j. harris: Yeah, but like about the language. (LAUGHS) Yes! Right?

 

Danez Smith: I do feel like there was just more room back in the day, where you could just say in an interview or like if somebody asked you, be like, “I don’t like that person’s work,” you know? (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Can you imagine? Like, we can’t say that now.

 

Danez Smith: You could just maybe say a little frankly, you know, over your cigarette while you’re being interviewed, say like, “That book wasn’t the favorite of mine, I really enjoyed the previous one more. This one I thought their attempt at this was blah, blah, blah.” I love good critique. And like, I feel like, in my entire career with, like, reviews online, there’s one review I can think of where I’m just like, he said nice things, but I was like, the points he made about the book, I was like, that’s fair! (LAUGHING) You know? There were things he was like, “This is where I like, zoned out. This is what I didn’t think was as good. I thought this poem sucked.” And I was like, “I, too, thought that poem sucked.” You know? 

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: And it was one of those things where after it was on shelves, I was like, “You knew that poem was bad, Danez. Like, why is it in there? And now everybody’s sharing it on the internet.”

 

francine j. harris: So now we’re all gonna get—

 

Danez Smith: Our next books are gonna get slammed. (LAUGHS)

 

(ALL LAUGH)

(CROSSTALK)

 

Danez Smith: RIP to our fourth collections, francine. Goddamn. (LAUGHS) It was nice while it lasted. But you know, like, I’m just saying for myself, like with Homie, like, you know, glad y’all niggas like it but like, you know, I had problems with it. And I was like, waiting. I was like, I want to write the slander review of Homie, goddamn it. I want to be like, you know what, these parts were too good. But honestly, X, X, and X, like, could go. And I was just like, you know, I think, as the artist, it’s almost like, you know, when people don’t take the gloves off for you in the workshop, right.

 

francine j. harris:  Yes.

 

Danez Smith: And I think, as writers that are now, like, at a particular stage, walking in their career, I know I can call my homies for help. But actually, it would be helpful sometimes, you know, if, reviewers felt the space to be a little bit more like a—you know who’s got some nerve? Niggas on Goodreads. You know? They don’t care. They will tell you what the fuck they think.

 

francine j. harris: And they also know how to connect things, too. Like, none of this is about aesthetic choice. Like, I don’t give a shit whether you liked it or not. But if you have something to say about like, what it’s doing or not doing in the lineage, or if you have something to say about how it connects or doesn’t connect to something that it’s responding to, like, that’s all interesting to me. But the problem, of course, with this is that it requires some understanding of the craft to make a fair critique. The people—it’s kind of like the dudes that hit on you. It’s the dudes that have the most gall (LAUGHS) are the ones that are most unqualified. (LAUGHS) 

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: Yes.

 

francine j. harris: Like, I love that you have all this gall, dude, like, but no.

 

Danez Smith: Or you have to know the frickin’ lineage, right? Like, some of us don’t come directly from Whitman or Frost or Dickinson, right? I feel like I’ve heard other poets of color struggle with that, right? It’s like, when they talk about me, they don’t talk about me with my correct ancestor.

 

francine j. harris: That’s right.

 

Danez Smith: They’re seeing Sexton when they should be seeing somebody else, you know? You know, like you said, we can sometimes appreciate people drawing those lines for us, right? I mean, like, “Oh, shit, I actually never thought about my work in that way.” But the American Academy is just not up to speed on what we’ve been reading.

 

francine j. harris: That’s right.

 

Franny Choi:  Hmm.

 

Danez Smith: Until those reviewers come from our same communities, right, because we do need people to think about books as much as we need people to write the books. I would love to see more people that are just from our community, right, that can say, like, “I hear what the last poets were doing in this work. I hear Amiri Baraka in this work. I hear that.”

 

francine j. harris: Right.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah. And then like, based on that, here’s something that you, Danez, didn’t know about your book. I feel like that seems like, you have to be very knowledgeable and really understand things about the craft in order to say to francine j. harris, “Hey, here’s something that you didn’t know about francine j. harris’s book,” like, in a real way, like to really give new information. But like, of course, why wouldn’t we as artists want to learn about the things that we’re doing? It’s just the negative criticism that does exist about poetry is—it’s not saying anything new about a book. It’s, like, reiterating, often like a lazy complaint that doesn’t actually have much to do with the book. But like, yeah, the alternative, really interesting actual new information—very hard. And like, of course, it would be valued, I think.

 

Danez Smith: Yeah, be a smart hater.

 

Franny Choi: Be a smart hater, yeah.

 

francine j. harris: Be a smart hater. But like, what some of the most interesting conversations have come out of, what we do feel safe critiquing right now or feel empowered to critique, which is about white supremacy and laziness and racism in poems that we recognize and sort of call out on social media. And then really interesting conversations happen after that. Like, you know, this has nothing to do with whether or not the poem was good or not. That’s a whole other decision to make that I don’t even know is really the point. But I think what happens is that, it’s in those conversations that you wind up being able to talk about what things mean, and how people interpret things. Which is different than saying, “Yeah, here’s another smash hit.” (LAUGHS) You know? “Go get it from not Barnes & Noble, go support your local indie bookstore.”

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Right?

 

Danez Smith: francine! Oh my god.

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: The accuracy of this book made me feel everything, this is the best book ever.

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHING) That’s right.

 

Danez Smith: Just like the last eight best books ever.

 

francine j. harris: I love those, too. Don’t get me wrong. I love it all.

 

(MUSIC PLAYS)

 

Franny Choi: So, now, we’re in game time. We’re in game land. And we’re going to play three games, first of which is one that we call Fast Punch. In this game, we will give you 10 categories and then, depending on what you said, you’ll tell us either the best of that category or the worst.

 

francine j. harris: Oh, god.

 

Franny Choi: So, francine, do you want to say the best of things or the worst of things? 

 

francine j. harris: Well, I feel like most people usually say the best, but in keeping with everything that we’ve done, probably the worst. Although I will say I’m a very slow thinker, so I’m nervous about this already.

 

Franny Choi: It can be like a medium Speed Punch.

 

francine j. harris: Okay. (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Fair. Fair.

 

Franny Choi: Leisure Punch.

 

francine j. harris: Great.

 

Danez Smith: Tentative Punch.

 

francine j. harris: Ambivalent Punch. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, Ambivalent Punch. (LAUGHS) Alright, great.

 

francine j. harris: Here we go.

 

Franny Choi: So, we’re going to say the worst of things. Danez, do you want to start?

 

Danez Smith: Okay, yes. Worst rapper you love.

 

(TIMER TICKS)

 

francine j. harris: Drake.

 

Franny Choi: Worst sandwich.

 

francine j. harris: A wrap. Hands down. Just a terrible—

 

Franny Choi: Just any wrap?

 

francine j. harris: —obscene notion is putting something raw around some food and then giving it to your stomach. I’m already sick thinking about it.

 

Franny Choi: (GIGGLES)

 

francine j. harris: Sorry.

 

Franny Choi: Amazing.

 

francine j. harris: I kind of want to rethink the Drake thing.

 

Danez Smith: No, Drake was correct.

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: That was a great answer.

 

francine j. harris: I know that some people would say Kanye, and I can’t stand Kanye. I can’t stand him, and he’s terrible.

 

Danez Smith: Oh, now I’m going to ask a Kanye question. This wasn’t even on my list. Worst thing Kanye’s ever said. 

 

francine j. harris: Well I can tell you the worst song I think he’s ever done, which is “Blood on the Leaves.”

 

Danez Smith: Oh, “Blood on the Leaves.” Oh shit.

 

francine j. harris: Yeah. He remade “Strange Fruit” to talk about Kardashian ass. Like—(LAUGHS) just—

 

Franny Choi: No, no.

 

francine j. harris: Awful, awful. Anyway.

 

Danez Smith: I agree.

 

francine j. harris: Okay, sorry.

 

Franny Choi: Worst thing about Houston.

 

francine j. harris: Oh, the flying roaches. Easy. Hands down.

 

Franny Choi: (GASPS) Oh, yeah.

 

Danez Smith: Oh my god.

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS) 

 

Danez Smith: I’m ready to ask a question. Okay. Because I’m done with roaches. (LAUGHS) Worst person at the open mic.

 

francine j. harris: Sexy man. With the biceps and the—

 

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

 

francine j. harris: And the slow voice. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: No. Slow voice.

 

francine j. harris: And the one staring at a very particular woman in the audience. (LAUGHS) That he will call a female. That dude. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Yeah.

 

francine j. harris: Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: Sadly, 18-year-old me is still in the audience like, “I wonder if he’s bi.”

 

(ALL LAUGH)

 

Franny Choi: Okay, worst Zodiac sign to date.

 

francine j. harris: Gemini.

 

Danez Smith: Worst title you’ve ever given a poem.

 

francine j. harris: Oh, god, that’s so embarrassing. I have a poem called “Baptismal Pool.” It’ll probably never see the light of day, because it’s all about, you guessed it, baptismal pools.

 

Danez Smith: Honestly, I’m down, though.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, I mean, just saying. Worst kind of pen.

 

francine j. harris: The shit you get at the bank that, like, is actually, like, it looks really nice. And it’s all fancy and fat. And then like two months later, it’s all, it’s completely dried up and you can’t open it. And it’s got a logo on it. And so you just have to throw it away. Terrible.

 

Danez Smith: Worst stanza length.

 

francine j. harris: I mean, what comes to mind is just like, you know, the poem that’s all one stanza. It does kind of drive me crazy. Because worst stanza length is really just the one that people didn’t think about a stanza. (LAUGHS) That’s it. You know?

 

Franny Choi: Yeah. I do have a lot of those, but I also agree. It sucks. Oh, worst piece of lesbian culture.

 

Danez Smith: Oh, yes.

 

francine j. harris: Oh my God. Give me another one. I don’t think I have an answer for this.

 

Franny Choi:  What if I say worst lesbian? Is that better?

 

Danez Smith: Yes.

 

francine j. harris: Oh, my god.

 

Danez Smith: There has to be one.

 

francine j. harris: I mean, I guess in a way I kind of want to say Gertrude Stein, just because—but I don’t know if I really mean that. (LAUGHS)

 

(TIMER DINGS)

 

Franny Choi: I think that’s a great answer.

 

francine j. harris: Okay.

 

Franny Choi: I think it’s a perfect—it’s a fine answer. Congratulations, francine j. harris, you’ve won the game.

 

(SOUND EFFECT)

 

Danez Smith: Don’t be too excited, because we have two more games to force you to play.

 

francine j. harris: Can’t wait.

 

Danez Smith: We’re adults doing this.

 

francine j. harris: That’s right.

 

Danez Smith: Alright, our next game is called This vs. That. We’re going to put two things in a round of fisticuffs, and you tell us who would win in a fight. Okay? 

 

francine j. harris: Okay.

 

Danez Smith: So we are going to the primitive streak right here. Who wins in a fight, the brain or the butthole?

 

(BELL RINGS)

 

francine j. harris: Clearly the butthole, because … because they’re first, they’re always first. But you know what? Maybe it’s the brain. Okay, following this line of logic, if it’s just the butthole, then it’s not a whole organism. (LAUGHS) You need the brain to actually realize the human form. You know, if you carry this forward, then I think that this is always true, because the butthole is the id. It’s the shit that we’re just like most likely to settle for being and doing and saying and thinking. But it’s the brain that requires us to revise and polish and refine and come correct and do better, and be better. It’s the brain. And I just proved my own point, because my first thought was butthole. (LAUGHS) But having to think through it, I’m like, no, it’s the brain. 

 

Danez Smith: Hmm.

 

Franny Choi: Okay.

 

Danez Smith: Buttholes have more fun, though.

 

francine j. harris: Definitely.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: I’ve seen a fart sometimes get touched, kinda. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: Yes! (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Okay, cool. So, for our final game, our finale in this trio, is a game that we like to call This vs. Something Else, where we will give you the choice of either living in this world or leaving it to join an alternate world that we will propose to you. So, in this corner, we have this, or would you choose a world in which you can walk into the open mic and be anonymous for that night and have all that anonymity of your youth, but each time you choose to activate this, you lose one line of your CV?

 

(SOUND EFFECT)

 

francine j. harris: Do I get to pick which line? Is it at the end of the CV or the beginning of the CV? 

 

francine j. harris and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

 

Franny Choi: That’s a really good, that’s a really good question.

 

francine j. harris: When you start at the beginning, yo, I gotta stay put, but if you go towards the end, eh, you know, there are some things I could kick off of there.

 

Franny Choi: (GIGGLES) Yeah, maybe it’s just like a random line. Like a random—

 

Danez Smith: No, I don’t like random. 

 

francine j. harris: But random ups the stake, though.

 

Franny Choi: Random is hard.

 

francine j. harris: Oh, god, if it’s random, I gotta stay put. Because there’s wigs.

 

Franny Choi and francine j. harris: (LAUGH)

 

francine j. harris: We’re gonna stay put, Franny. You know, actually, I’m a stay put kind of person anyway. I don’t like taking a whole lot of risk. You know, I had this thought recently. It triggered a whole day of writing, actually, where I thought, if I could really go back, say to high school, like maybe right at the end of high school and take everything I know now with me, would I do anything different? And it was this moment where I was like, holy shit, I don’t think I would. Like, even for all the bullshit, even for all the pain, even for all the stuff that will be in the memoirs one day—(LAUGHS)—like, god damn, even for all of that, I don’t think I would do anything different. And part of the reason was because, it’s exactly what you just said, like I realized if I changed one thing, I wouldn’t know what else was in the wing. You’ve already lived this life. I know that. (LAUGHS) I know what happened, but you change anything and it means a whole other set of possibility and that scared the shit out of me. So, I’ll take this life. And overall, it’s pretty good life.

 

Franny Choi: And there’s wigs.

 

francine j. harris: And there’s wigs!

 

Danez Smith: And there’s wigs. God bless a wig. I might go get a little open mic wig. I like that.

 

francine j. harris: We should all do it and report back. (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: francine, thank you for playing our silly games.

 

francine j. harris: I loved this. This was so much less stressful than I thought it would be.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: That’s great.

 

Danez Smith: Great! That’s the number one review.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, that’s exactly what I like hearing.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHING) Less stressful. 

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Danez Smith: francine, would you tell people where they can find you at if you want to be found, anyway? And would you do us the favor of reading us one last poem?

 

francine j. harris: Sure. You know, I’m on the things. It’s basically just me, like, @francinejharris. I’m on Twitter. I have a blog. I’ve been thinking about going back to it. Actually, my blog is routyweed.blogspot.com, but I haven’t updated it, so it’s like, right at the pandemic. But yeah, I’m out there, you know, no pseudonyms or anything, pretty easy to find. You know, this last poem, I realized, I think I picked a bad poem to read, but I’m telling you why I picked it. I realize it’s a bad poem, because, it’s literally I think, the title of a poem in your book, Danez. (LAUGHS) I was like, oh shit, I just basically picked a poem in Danez’s book to read and called it mine.

 

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) I love this.

 

francine j. harris: I’m sorry about that, but—

 

Danez Smith:  It’s all good, I’ll tell you, that I was not the first nigga. (LAUGHS)

 

francine j. harris: (LAUGHS) Right. But I’ll tell you why I chose this poem. Because it’s a poem that I wanted to read with you guys. And it’s also a poem that I’m pretty sure I won’t publish. But it’s very much a pandemic poem. And that’s all I’ll say about it.

 

(READS POEM)

 

* * * 

 

(MUSIC PLAYS)

 

Danez Smith: That was francine j. harris, everybody.

 

Franny Choi: Yes, it was.

 

Danez Smith: I can’t believe we make the most brilliant people in the world come on and play stupid games. Wow, living the life.

 

Franny Choi: The dumbest games.

 

Danez Smith: One thing I really vibed with, in the interview, though, that I’ve still been thinking about I think for a while has been the anonymity that you sort of lose as you become a public writer. I think I’m maybe putting some of that aside, because I am such, in such a hunger for live poetry. Are you planning on going to some stuff?

 

Franny Choi: Oh, man, it’s always been so important to me. Ever since I knew to think of myself, or felt like I could call myself a poet, I was a poet in spaces with people who are reading their poems out loud to each other. You know, whether that was an open mic or a slam or, you know, a group of students sitting in a circle or, or like Dark Noise or what have you, you know, as a teacher. And so, I’ve been so craving it and so missing it in a way that I didn’t really expect. I think also, like, I just so miss being a patron of an open mic space, and like not being a focus of attention, but just like, going and listening. I just miss it so much.

 

Danez Smith: You’re right, at a certain point my attention started to become, “Oh, I gotta read these poems in a second, like, let me start to get my mind there. I didn’t recognize it when I thought, when I was having it, but right, like, I miss sneaking into the back of the poetry slam. Like, I used to do that all the time here in Minneapolis, right, like, there’s a bunch of college slams. And like, sometimes I’d go just to go and, you know, often when, like, the feature was somebody that I wanted to see, I’d get to see all these kids slam, right, and then I’d get to see a really great feature. And I’d just be in the back, and not really thinking about how precious that was gonna be. But I’m just so excited to, one day, hopefully soon, get back into an open mic community. Even as, like, not as a participant, but like what you were saying, when you come as a patron of the space. I think what I really loved about many of the open mics and slams that I came up in was not just the spaces themselves, but the fact that you got to see people develop over time, right? Maybe I have like a little bit more of a auntie perspective on that. Like, I just want to go to an open mic and see, like, after a year, that person’s writing better, you know? (LAUGHS) You know, or, like, they’re getting weird and I like that. (LAUGHS)

 

Franny Choi: Yeah! I also, what I miss, I’m just going to be so excited to see again, is like, the young person who’s reading a poem for maybe like the first or like the third time, and they’re like, really nervous. And then they do a really, really good job. And everybody claps for them and is really supportive.

 

Danez Smith: Yeah!

 

Franny Choi: And you see on their face, like, oh, like, I am loved a little bit here. Shoot that shit directly into my veins right now. (GIGGLES)

 

Danez Smith: Yeah, it’s so beautiful. Like, you know, all of us become poets by building up the courage to write our names on a list, you know?

 

Franny Choi: Right! And then seeing, like, another youth poet then go up to them and be like, “That was really great.” You know?

 

Danez Smith: Yeah. (LAUGHS) “I’ve been doing this for like, a couple years, and—” I miss it so much! 

 

Franny Choi: It’s so cute, it’s so good!

 

Danez Smith: I can’t wait to smell all those musty poets.

 

Franny Choi: Oh my god.

 

Danez Smith: Poets, if you’re listening, I hope you’re bathing and ready to get back into that world.

 

Franny Choi: May you all be bathing.

 

Danez Smith: Yes. Well, thank you, francine, for such a great conversation today. And thank you all for listening. Franny, why don’t we thank some folks and get the hell out of here?

 

Franny Choi: Mm. Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: I would like to thank, in the spirit of open mics, I would like to thank—I feel like I’ve thanked them before, but, The Blue Nile, here in Minneapolis. They are gone now. And now there’s a karaoke bar. But The Blue Nile was the first open mic that I was ever, like, at at, and it was 18 plus. And I would show up an hour early, or maybe sometimes two hours early before they started to card. I want to thank the two women who ran that space, Desdemona and then later, The Black Pearl. Thank you all for, like, never asking too many questions about the young kids who were obviously there. For never carding us and, you know, also for making sure we were safe in the space. Y’all looked out for us, too. I know I can speak for myself. You gave me so much inspiration. You know, y’all even let us do dumb shit like try to rap. Why did y’all let me rap? But you know, I love that space. And without it I wouldn’t be an artist. I wouldn’t be doing what I am today without being able to sneak into that space and watch everybody and sometimes participate, too. So thank you to The Blue Nile, thank you, Desdemona. Love y’all.

 

Franny Choi: Aw. I just want to thank everybody who is running writing spaces, open mic, and reading spaces in, like, not major cities, you know? In small cities, small towns, kind of like suburban areas, rural areas where maybe sometimes, like, your open mic, or your poetry space or whatever is like, kind of sparsely attended. Or maybe like there’s like a slow month or—but you know that there’s like a, at least a good handful of people who really need that. And so you are working to keep it going. Thank you. Absolutely, thank you.

 

Danez Smith: Shout-out to you for making the Facebook event, for setting up the mic, for sacrificing a piece of your notebook paper for the signup list.

 

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) Yeah, yeah. It’s true, nobody ever has loose leaf paper in these spaces.

 

Danez Smith: Thank you for figuring out what to do about the misogynistic dude who just went up. 

 

Franny Choi: Oof, yeah.

 

Danez Smith: Thank you for all that little space. Shout-out to the people running the open mics and the slams out here. Y’all make the poetry go round.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, hell yeah. We also want to thank our producer, Daniel Kisslinger, always and forever. Thank you to Ydalmi Noriega and Itzel Blancas at the Poetry Foundation. Thank you to Postloudness. And thank you to all of you for continuing to listen to us here in Season 5.

 

Danez Smith: Make sure you like, rate, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @VSthepodcast. And make sure that you stay safe, make sure that you do some good in the world, and make sure you love yourself. I don’t know, I’m just saying bullshit at the end of these episodes. Why are you still listening to this? We’re just talking. 

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, but it’s cute, though. Or maybe you’re cooking and it’s just like in the background and you can’t get to it because your hands are covered in flour to turn it off.

 

Danez Smith: Or maybe you’re like, “I wish they would shut up so it can just roll over into DemocracyNow!,” which you actually need to listen to.

 

Franny Choi: Yeah, you probably do. You should probably donate, too.

 

Danez Smith: Yeah. Oh, damn. Are they taking money again? 

 

Franny Choi: They’re always taking money. Yeah.

 

Danez Smith: Alright. Everybody, let’s stop listening to VS and go donate to DemocracyNow!.

 

Franny Choi: (GIGGLES)

 

Danez Smith: On three.

 

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (IN UNISON) One, two, three.

 

Franny Choi: Amy Goodman.

 

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)