“Sound Cannot Be Denied. The Music In Ourselves Cannot Be Denied,” A Conversation With Arisa White

The Museum of Natural Historicity and Phenomenal Nobodies celebrate award winning writer Arisa White and the release of her debut poetry collection, Hurrah’s Nest. White is a writer of rare courage, lyrical styling, and insight. What follows is an excerpt of the conversation PN had with White over the course of the last two weeks. As you’ll see White’s ability to think critically and deeply is buttressed by her unique sense of humor and perspective. We hope you enjoy reading her thoughts as much as we enjoyed hearing them.

Phenomenally,

Editor-in-Chief, Phenomenal Nobodies

Photo Credit: Samantha Florio

PN: Good Morning Arisa, I hope all is well in Oakland. I’d like to begin our conversation with a two part question: Why write; why read?

AW:    These questions are deceptively hard in their simplicity. Why write? It is a way to forge connection. I’m sitting here in the 16^th & Mission BART station, looking at all the lines around me: in the tiles, the rails, the lines of this notebook; the actual sentence. The shortest distance between A and B is the line. And since I’m A, I write to arrive. At Beyoncé, maybe. At the bee in flight. At being. At how to just be.

Why read? To meet other minds. Reading, I believe, is our teleportation—Star Trek just made it look more interesting with sparkles! If you think of each individual writer as his or her own universe, then reading is an opportunity for adventure. It is like someone pulls back the curtain, and says, Go, there is beauty to be discovered here.  It is an act of liberation, in the sense that it helps me to confront my truths about myself. And those truths can be in agreement or in disagreement with what I read. It is intimacy, and intimacy is about relationship. And as we all know, relationships are hard work. Within those dynamics with self and other, we learn our edges, where we have built our walls, we learn where we let unconditional love die away, we learn what was lost and what it is we wish to reclaim.

PN:      The idea of writing as a process of learning for the writer, and writer as universe is always a fascinating one for me, and it makes me think of Ginsberg’s poem “Cosmopolitan Greetings” in which Ginsberg writes “Universe is person.” If this is so, than how does a writer get over the idea that what they have said has already been said before? How do you continue to write, especially in a world which is so invested and overwhelmed with blinking and beeping machines, televisions, reality shows, etc… so much of which is not about learning?

AW:    A good friend of mine gave me a copy of James Baldwin’s short stories and essays from Vintage, and I read “Sonny’s Blues,” and this passage confirms my actions as an artist, as a poet, and drives me to keep writing: “[They] are up there keeping it new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness, and death, in order to find new ways to make us listen. For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard.”

This world is always going to be invested and overwhelmed by something. This is life, no? These challenges are what keep us balanced, what may even drive us toward wellness, to stillness, to finding the thing that speaks deeply to us. It is all about moderation and changing things up, so you’re not overusing the same muscle and numbing yourself out. Nothing’s fun when you’re numb!

I love reality shows, TV is a great invention, blinking and beeping machines can be cool and it’s all about learning, about the evolution of humanity. Learning doesn’t look one way and that is what we have to be open to. When I’m sitting and watching television, I am watching it critically. Paying attention to the tropes and stereotypes and clever ways they sell products to us and tell us we are in constant need, that we are in a perpetual state of lack. That is the sad part and the part that can keep you thirsty and unfulfilled if you measure your worth based on that shit.

All of this stuff, the distractions, the blinking and beeping enters the writing. I want it to because it is a part of my culture, a part of my times. Blinking and beeping offers new metaphors for me to play with, forces me to shift my perspective, see things differently. Thinking in that regard, I appreciate rappers for their ability to pull in so many cultural and popular references with excellent wordplay. When I need to feel hype—thank-god-for-art hype— I listen to Nikki Minaj or Lil Wayne on Pandora and read a few lines of Hart Crane and Medbh McGuckian, and I’m like, “How you like me now!?”

PN:      You mentioned Beyonce. Can you speak a little bit on the subject of the role and responsibility related to black womanhood an artist has? Are there aspects of the identity you try to challenge or subvert in your work? Or is social identity something a writer must ignore as they work?

AW:    The moment you say responsibility, I feel this weight and pressure and that is the thing I don’t want to feel when I am writing. Talk about a killjoy! Some people thrive with responsibility, but as the older daughter in a bunch of seven, I’m tired. As a woman, I have to battle with that role of being mother, nurturer, and selfless giver. I have a defiant streak, so whenever I’m told that I have to be something or be a certain way or act accordingly to these socially accepted notions of womanhood, I find other ways for expression. I don’t necessarily trust what everyone else agrees on, I need to question it, see it in operation before I consent to participation.

In Hurrah’s Nest, you can witness that wariness in approaching womanhood, black womanhood in particular—since that is what I knew. As I understood black womanhood then, from listening to my mother’s stories, it seemed fraught with violence and loss. I remembered being afraid to turn 14 because that was when my mother had my oldest brother. I was firmly cautioned to not do the same thing. I was going through puberty, my body was changing, and all of sudden I became sexually visible—something for the taking. And too, it become my responsibility to protect my body, to keep it from being violated and disrespected, to tame it so it didn’t court any kind of advances. Womanhood, felt like too much defensive work! I wanted to avoid that work of womanhood. It’s strange to have a relationship with your self where you feel like you have to be on constant guard—it reduced me to corporeal fragments, to object. I wanted and still want a way to be free in my own body, without contempt, fear, or shame. It is a journey, a journey where I am giving myself the permission to live wholly (holy) in myself.

I try to approach identity fluidly. To show its shapeless, shifting nature. How we name ourselves, label, and identify—these are false containers. It’s like money—not real! We agree that it is real, so it gets to have power over us. And it gets to limit our interactions and connections and therefore stunts what we can know and learn about each other and ourselves on a deeper, humanistic level. Fluidity allows for movement and we need it to grow and evolve. I’m a Pisces; I need movement otherwise my spirit dies.

I don’t ignore social identity; I recognize how it shapes our existence, however I approach it like it’s a part of my toolbox. It’s a mode of inquiry and a set of experiences that I can delve into and manipulate as needed. As a result of being black, woman, queer, and a whole other set of identities, I have information I can use, stories to tell, language I can switch in and out of. When I think about the way people speak and the idiomatic expressions and the arrangement of words, I get a sense of how folks position and have been positioned in society. I get a particular vantage point from syntax. In Hurrah’s Nest, I have a story in the middle of the collection called “You smellin ya’self, gal?” and what stands out for me is the sound: how my brothers spoke, how I spoke, how my stepfather’s sister who is Guyanese spoke. There is a meeting of island talk and city talk. Grown bodies, young bodies. These collisions that make us pay attention in surprising ways, because we show ourselves more honestly; we see the masks coming down, the slip-ups, the vulnerability. It is getting to that vulnerability that challenges me—how to use language to speak about and speak to the ways we keep ourselves from showing it.

PN:      Your mention of how we use language makes me want to understand two things about your work. First, can you talk about the relationship between message and musicality. How much is your work driven by the sound of language? How much of it is driven by the idea or feeling you’re investigating and working to communicate? In other words, does the sound of language, the pursuit of some inner cadence bring you towards discovery?

AW:    “Greatest Love Of All”

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be

Everybody’s searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone who fulfilled my needs
A lonely place to be
So I learned to depend on me

[Chorus:]
I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone’s shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I’ll live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can’t take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be

[Chorus]

And if, by chance, that special place
That you’ve been dreaming of
Leads you to a lonely place
Find your strength in love

This was the first song I had to memorize for a graduation ceremony. Whitney has a powerful voice and her ability to go deep and high makes me get goosebumps–gets me feeling. With writing, the majority of the time I start off with an emotion and then I find the language to match it. It is a matter of translation. I am an emotional being trying to communicate and I will use what is at my disposal to help you, the reader, the listener, the observer, feel it. Sound cannot be denied. The music in ourselves cannot be denied. With all our busyness and running, we have to be reminded that we feel.