VS Season 6 Episode 14

Jacqui Germain vs. Specificity 

Transcription by: Akilah Muhammad

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

Hi, my name is Ajanaé Dawkins and I am a new Dominique Fishback stan.

Brittany Rogers

Oh, I love that for her, best. Hey, my name is Brittany Rogers, and Detroit is starting it's like second spring. So I'm hoping that it sticks around this time.

Ajanaé Dawkins 

And we are your co-hosts of VS, the podcast where poets confront the ideas that move them. Hey, co-host.

Brittany Rogers 

Hey, co-host! 

Ajanaé Dawkins

I’m excited for today.

Brittany Rogers

Me too, best. Listener, you're in for a treat. Today we got to speak with the incredible Jacqui Germain about the role that surveillance plays in her work, and how St. Louis functions as its own character.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Oh, it's good stuff.

Brittany Rogers 

It's very good. I love place as character, it’s my jam. But before we get into that, best, I want to talk about the characters that we've hated as opposed to St. Louis, which is a character that we love, right? 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Brittany Rogers

So what are characters from books that you were just like, I absolutely cannot stand this character?

Ajanaé Dawkins 

Midnight. 

Brittany Rogers

Your arch nemesis?

Ajanaé Dawkins

My arch nemesis, Midnight from The Coldest Winter and the then trilogy that came afterwards. That man can count his days. That man will answer for his crimes. Rock nation will crumble.

Brittany Rogers

Not rock nation will crumble. I didn't

Ajanaé Dawkins

Oh, I didn’t read Midnight. Oh my god, I read The Coldest Winter, obviously, read all of the Midnight series. And this man despises Black woman and I don't know why this man is like, uplifted as this ethical protagonist, this man hates me. And I just cannot be convinced that I was not reading this story from the purview of a man who despises me and my mama. 

Brittany Rogers

That’s real.Whew, best. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

So he is at the top of the list. It’s a long list, but I'ma rest my case right there. What about you? Who's your most hated?

Brittany Rogers

Hmm, also male, but Kevin from Kindred by Octavia Butler. That's a character who I read and was like, why are you here? Why are you here? I don't want my girl Dana to go back and save you not nary ‘nother time. I don't want you to come back with her; I don't want her to go looking for you. That is just a character who I felt like contributed nothing positive to the text.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Nothing to give. 

Brittany Rogers

And I really, you know, if I could just sit down and talk with, you know, I have questions. I’ma just say that I have questions. They may be offline questions, but I need some answers.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I respect it. A character who gives us nothing.

Brittany Rogers

Oh my goodness! 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Unuseful. Dude does nothing.

Brittany Rogers

And you get accusations. Like, what is this?

Ajanaé Dawkins

Hard to love, hard to love. Can’t do it. 

Brittany Rogers

Oh, okay. Solet's let's pivot to talking to Jacqui about characters who we do love. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes!

Ajanaé Dawkins

Jacqui Germain is a poet, journalist and former community organizer, living and working in St. Louis, Missouri. She is author of Bittering the Wound, her debut full length collection of poetry selected by Douglas Kearney for the 2021 Cap Poetry Prize and published by Autumn House Press in 2022, and When the Ghosts Come Ashore, her poetry chapbook published in 2016 by Button Poetry. She has received fellowships from the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission, Jack Jones Literary Arts and Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. As a journalist, her reported articles, profiles and political commentary have been published in The Nation, The Guardian, Vice, Artsy and elsewhere. Most recently, Germain served as Teen Vogue's 2021 to 2022 Economic Security Project Fellow.

Brittany Rogers

Hey, let's get into it.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Let’s get into it. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Jacqui, we would love if you would do us the honor of opening.

Jacqui Germain

I would love to! This poem is from my book Bittering The Wound. It's called 

“Pick One, It Says”. 

Jacqui Germain

[Recites poem]. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Jesus. Listener and reader, hopefully, this is why you need to get this book because the line break between “Don't be mad”, and then, “at me”, from the body. 

Brittany Rogers

Listen. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

You have to be able to see that. You can't just listen, you got to be able to see that, which is why you need to order Bittering the Wound. 

Brittany Rogers

We’ve having a very serious contemplation over here. I was just about to leap into craft and emjambment, but I was like, okay Brittany, back it up. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Let’s open with a classic.

Brittany Rogers

Can I ask first, what’s moving you these days?

Jacqui Germain

Seeing people like grow in real time, and like take risks to grow in real time has been moving me lately. I have like a lot of faith in people's capacity, like humans capacity to do better. But very little faith in like our willingness, right? Like I very much believe we have the capacity. But I'm very skeptical of our willingness, of our discipline, like all sorts of things. But every time I get like proven wrong, and like seeing those sorts of things in real time, seeing people step into their power, seeing people ask questions, seeing people push themselves, seeing themselves, seeing people take risks to like. That's the whole thing that like will move me to tears is like seeing people see their own power, and like move in it. It's like in their eyes, like when it clicks like, oh, I, me. Me with my own body, with my own voice can do the thing with other people. Now you messed up because now we know how to start, you know what I mean? Like seeing that like. Especially when it's like when it's like an adult, right? Like grown people with families and stuff, seeing that, like click for the first time for them in different spaces. Like, that makes you feel like you can take on the world, you know, I find that really moving.

Brittany Rogers

I think that is so beautiful. Oh my god.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah, I love that answer. I love that so much and very much so feel always believing in capacity, and being skeptical of willingness.

Jacqui Germain

Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see how things shake out.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

Listen, we together because I be like, people are no good (laughs). I think I'm thinking especially about teaching. One of my favorite things about teaching is watching kids, and youth, and young folks have epiphanies like that. And I don't think I'm as mindful of it in adults. So, thank you. I think that has given me a new thing to look for.

Jacqui Germain

For sure. One of my really close friends, Ariana Brown, incredible poet, incredible poet base in Texas. But I remember, like several years ago, we were talking to each other over Facebook actually. This was back when I had Facebook. So you know, the annals of history.

Brittany Rogers

You said it’s been a minute (laughs).

Jacqui Germain

I remember she said, I think I'm kind of paraphrasing, but she essentially said to remember that like, everything we need we already have. Right, and seeing the moment people realize they have the thing they need is like, I don't know, it's just such a, it's such a like such a moment of it can be such a moment of like rupture, right? Of like transformative in so many respects, like in big and small ways. But like witnessing that moment for other people I think is just such a cool thing to be a part of.

Brittany Rogers

Yeah, because now that you know it could just be me, but I'm like, oh no, when I know things. Now I have to do something about it. So when you say, rupture, I'm like whew, that's a big thing. That's a big thing. That's a big move. Okay, so speaking of new things, I'm wondering about, I know that you are a staff writer at Teen Vogue, and you just put this bomb ass book out into the world. So I'm wondering if the culmination of those projects has opened up anything new for you?

Jacqui Germain

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, I think, I think after just like putting out so much, like, just like externalizing so much, over the last two years, I'm really looking forward to, which is funny, because I think probably people in real life would, would probably just describe me as having been like really introverted the last few years, just because I've been so busy and but I think it's because all of the energy was put into like producing things, and like putting things out in the world and work and all these kinds of things. So I'm really looking forward, this year, to kind of pour back into myself and like, get back to a bit of a balance that I think works better for me, and I think through that will then be able to, like, produce differently, but I think also at a pace that feels more natural to me, and is a little bit less chaotic. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I, I'm, I'm excited to like, listen more this year and take more time, and be more creative, take more risks. I feel very, I think the thing that's very different about this year is that I feel a lot more confident in like the journalism work in like that part of my life. And I'm really looking forward to kind of reinvesting in the poetry side of my writing. In my head, those things live together, but I've struggled a lot in the last couple of years, or just in general, I think I've struggled figuring out how to balance the two properly. Like I said, like in my head, those things, they like, make sense together. Like, my organizing background, makes sense with it, like all of it, like is in the same pot in my head, but like I think externally, figuring out how to juggle those things has been, has been a lot harder. And so I think this year, by like, feeling more comfortable, I think confident in my journalism and kind of like, being able to do that a little bit more easily. And then also being able to kind of reinvest more time in poetry. Because that was kind of my first, I mean, very much my first writing glove. So focusing around that, focusing on my book and sort of like, congealing a lot of those things together I think I feel much more capable, but also feel like I have a much better handle on like, what kind of a pace I want to create. And I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward, I've taken a lot of naps the last two months since leaving the fellowship and it's been a game changer. Listen, I did not know; if you told me, kindergarten me, preschool me, that I would nap today as hard when I got older. I used to, I was that kid that like cry, you know what I mean? I wasn't trying to take naps when I was little. I wanted to dance and run and like do stuff, but like now, what a gift!

Ajanaé Dawkins

Naps go crazy. So when you use the language of pouring into yourself, is that the kind of thing you're referring to is like focusing on poems, napping, that kind of thing? Or were you saying these are things you're working on and then pouring into yourself was like, it's own category?

Jacqui Germain

One of the things that I figured out is that pouring into myself is just doing things that feel meaningful to me. So it includes just anything that, yeah. Anything that feels meaningful. So spending time on my poetry is like pouring into me, like it just feeds me to like do that kind of work. So does like going to like exhibition openings. Like we have such a great, we have a begging art scene here in St. Louis. And like it's all free. And I have missed very much going to shows in like the last couple of years of the pandemic. And getting that kind of like creative stimulus. I've always really, really enjoyed reading a lot more too is something that feeds me so much, reading. I was talking about this on Twitter not too long ago about how much I've enjoyed the last couple of years inserting like young adult and children's books back into like my reading circle. I think I was on like a, I was doing a lot of like academic and nonfiction, because that's kind of where my brain lives. But it also like really enjoys like adventure and playful and like all these other sorts of things. And so like inserting those books back into my reading routine. First of all, those books hold like so many of them hold up. Like they're so good. They're such great stories. And it also just like, I think it contributes to a kind of like elasticity for me that I really, I really enjoy. I'm very much somebody who still loves like cartoons and like, like I'm very much like that person who like, loves Bob's Burgers, loves a Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Like I love, you know what I mean? Like, that's still very much part of. Yeah, but it's like, for some reason, at some point I, like did not make a point of enjoying those things anymore. And so part of part of like, pouring back into me is like doing the things that I genuinely enjoy that feel meaningful, even when they're hard, you know what I mean, but just like, the things that make me feel satisfied and make me feel grounded, and like, in my bones, you know? And I think that kind of thing, at least for me, requires slowing down. Which is, I think, part of the reason why it feels like this is like the first time I'm able to like really spend time doing those things. This is the first time I've really been able to slow down and a little bit.

Brittany Rogers

I don't know where to start. So listener, again, we're gonna assume that we are all on the same page, and that we have Bittering the Wound, but if we don't, we gone all get it so that we can be havin’ the same convo. But something that I love very much about this book is like a super lifelong (inaudible) was the very intimate way that (laughs) you approach St. Louis. Listen, I feel like Chicago folks, Detroit folks, you as a St. Louis person, New York folks are very consistent, very diehard. And I love the way that that showed up in your work so much that I felt almost like there were times where St. Louis was a persona, I felt like there were times where St. Louis was the speaker. And it was a blending that was happening that I felt like was very, very beautiful to me. Like, I'm like, oh, everything is living here. Everything is alive. Everything has a voice and has autonomy, which I think is so important. For me as a reader, especially thinking about a city that has been so publicized and been in the news so much to all of those things, being able to give that place back it's voice. And I'm wondering, so if I'm reading St. Louis as a persona, as a character, I'm wondering what things you have in common with St. Louis and where you and St. Louis diverge?

Jacqui Germain

First of all, thank you so much for that. I mean, on a on an unserious note, people from St. Louis love Imo’s Pizza, and I think it tastes like trash. It's basically cardboard with like, a substance that's like, inspired by cheese on top. Like, it's I don't, oooh, yeah. Come from, I mean, like, I stand by it. I've lived in the city for so long and I've stood by it. So we can have a conversation offline, but on a more serious, you know, we're very similar in that we aspire to be a big city, but it's just not, it's not in the cards. And I don't think we actually really want it, you know? I thought for a long time, for example, that I was going to move to Chicago, and I spent time in Chicago, I love Chicago. Chicago is too big for me. Like I am a small town Midwesterner. I got to just sit with it. I'm not I'm not the girl that dreams of going to New York City; it’s too much. It's too loud. It's too dirty. It's beautiful, but it's, I can't do it. St. Louis is an amazing city. But the best parts of St. Louis, are all the things around downtown, not downtown. Because it's not that kind of, like, it's just not the kind of a city, all of like, the gems and all that stuff or like the neighborhoods around the people that like the thing out, you know what I mean? Like the neighborhood, the family, the restaurant that's on the corner of the corner, if you know, right Street, like those kinds of things and stuff like that. And it's still relatively like residential, right? It's still very much a driving city, there's public transportation, but not big city public transportation, um, the ways that we're different? I think, I think St. Louis is incredibly confident and sure of itself for all the things that it's been through. And I understand why when you like, know that people here, but that is a kind of confidence and self assurance that I still aspire to, for sure. People here know themselves in a way that I think is like super beautiful. And I just like, like it just like, the first thing that the first thing that I fell in love with was about St. Louis was the people to here. It was I can still remember at one summer, I was walking on the loop, which is like several blocks in St. Louis that have a whole bunch of storefronts and restaurants and like everyone goes and kind of hangs out there. And it was very early on when I came to walk when I came to St. Louis to go to undergrad. And it's not like this anymore. But that summer, there were so many Black people hanging out there. And there were so many people that it was faster to park your car than to try to drive down because there were just people in the street, people hanging out, people on the stoop. Just people laughing in the sunshine, enjoying each other, enjoying, you know, and I just like fell in love with the city. And that is that is like self assurance that I'm still working.

Brittany Rogers

Such a real answer. I'm just like, wow.

Ajanaé Dawkins

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the answer. So I have a question. Can you talk about your relationship to the reader when you write, edit and publish? Because there were moments in this book where I felt like the person, as the reader, I felt like the person who was interrogating the speaker.

Jacqui Germain

I really appreciate you picking up on that and actually kind of touches on or at least makes me think about something that Brittany said earlier, which I also really appreciated that the book felt like you mentioned that you could, it felt very St. Louis, right? There was a kind of specificity there that you recognized. And that was that was really, really important to me for this book was making sure that people from St. Louis can see themselves but like, specifically as opposed to like, as, as opposed to kind of a general, like description of St. Louis, I guess. I wanted to have things that other people might not recognize, and like be aware that they did not recognize them. Because I wanted, I wanted the distance to be apparent, which I'm so glad it came through, because it's not something that I, it was something that I wanted to come through. But it's one of those things where it’s just like you never know until someone tells you who was successful, right? I think that tension was like, so palpable during the uprising, right? Was like for people, for those of us in St. Louis, the distance between our experience and people watching from the news or watching via live stream where like the journalists were there. I think the space between us or just like the I felt, I think a lot of us felt like we wanted people to understand that people were were missing things, that things were falling through the cracks that like there was a way that the specificity of that experience is just not going to be fully legible to everyone else. And it's not like a value judgment. It's just like, it's just like, it's just different, right? Like you can't, I don't think it's useful for us to collapse the experiences. I think specificity is is really important and really powerful. I think sometimes specificity can like, be used in unhelpful ways. But I think that specificity on its own, I think is something that we should not be afraid of, even if it's alienating, because I think it also on the other side of that is really humanizing to other folks. We all want our stories to be told with the specificity that we experienced it, right? And the only person who's able to like really do that is like you or like people who might have experienced a thing with you, etc. And all of those stories are powerful. All the stories are important. The specificity of what it meant to witness that, the specificity of what it meant to see that on a live stream, the specificity of like, seeing a theme that you can't physically experience, but having all these emotions while you're watching what happens when the live stream cuts out in the middle of something happening, that you're, you know what I mean? Like there’s specificity there too. And I think I wanted to kind of draw out that tension a little bit in the book and like, wanted the reader to be a little bit uncomfortable and the reader to be aware of like, just that there's just that there's like distance there. That that distance is okay. Another thing that I had to work through for a very long time was was not to make like moral judgments about that distance, right? To just say that, like, all of us at that time, were doing the best that we could. Things were chaotic, things are crazy, things were very new for a lot of us, hindsight is 2020 for a lot of those experiences, but like, so many of us, were just doing the best that we could for each other and for ourselves, and like trying to take care of ourselves at the same time. And so I think, I guess I want people, I'm fine with people feeling implicated, I think, I think I do want the reader to feel implicated, but I want the implication to be just that we all, we all deserve specificity. And like, if we aren't capable, if we don't have the capacity, or the ability, or the access to necessarily relate firsthand to that specificity that we should all acknowledge that like there are things that we probably don't know about this experience, right? There's no universal. This is the story of the Ferguson uprising, there are so many people there, they all have their different experiences, they all came from this is my this is my story about my experiences, you know what I mean? And I think hopefully, with the book too, the idea that the reader will then take that implication in the way that they look at other moments of political rupture, or crisis, or protest, or uprisings, or movement periods, right, that you look at those and say like, there are things that are for sure missing from this story. That this isn't like the totality of it. There's little things to learn from this. There are still people that will never be in any of these books who were fundamental to XYZ happening the way that it happened. Like, I guess that's the thing that I want people to remember is that like, hopefully, hopefully the thing that sort of carries from this book, in terms of how the reader relates to the poem. I think that we should all be sort of humble enough to remember that these moments are like messy, and that there are always gonna be things that we don't know.

Brittany Rogers

Thank you so much. It was a generous answer. It was a very generous gift. Because I think I'm reflecting on like, I think the first time I read it, I felt like it was a lot of indictment of like surveillance, and voyeurism and things like that. And then I also felt like the book as a, as a whole was so much of an anthem, but very much an anthem for in from St. Louis folks, right? And I think that there is a way sometimes as writers where we feel like we have to make something appeal to the universal. So I appreciate you just, you know what I’m saying, laying that on the table that every experience is not universal, every experience is not ours to claim when it's not ours to claim, right?

Jacqui Germain

I love that. Thank you, that means a lot. That means a lot. Because I mean, when I when I think of like even poems, I think poems about Chicago were kind of the first that modeled that for me, and like reading poems about Chicago with specific things in it that I didn't recognize, I thought were so like, there's, it's so beautiful, to see that belonging on someone else, to see that intimacy on something. I don't have to own it, I don't need to know it, you know what I mean? It doesn't need to be mine for me to appreciate it. But seeing what that looks like on someone else is so beautiful.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I second that, and I think everything doesn't belong to us, even when there were things like I'm thinking about when everything with Ferguson happened. And for, I think, especially if you were Black, it was like this is all of ours. A lot of movements have a lot of visibility. And that visibility makes something feel closer than it is. And aspects of like, shared identity make us feel more involved than we are in the way a space is evolving.

Brittany Rogers

Even thinking there was a poem about somebody who came down to like, be like, okay, I'm gonna, like help Ferguson and in that poem, I immediately got it because I'm like, wait out, I think the because then it puts the implication that like the city beat saving, and that they're not people on the ground who are working to save themselves. Echoing some of what Ajanaé said in that we felt. There's the shared grief of being Black in America. But then there's the specificity of being in St. Louis, while these things are happening, and then the specificity of organizing in St. Louis, while these things are happening, um, but I feel like people, there was a while where people were tweeting stuff, like, you know, they took out everybody in Ferguson. So like, you don't I mean? Don't say that, because you know, what happened back and I feel like I remember you saying something like, that is so wild, because we are not, there are people here, We live here, and we're still organizing here. And our movement is not gone. And I think that that's something that's important too. I think it's very important that you wrote this book. 

Jacqui Germain

I really appreciate that. Thank you. No, yeah, I mean, I will say something that I'm, something that's sort of a silver line for me in this conversation, too, is that like, the idea that multiple things can be true at once, right? And so there are ways that we, in doing the best that we could, and doing the best that we can, often contradict ourselves and often have to figure out how to navigate wanting multiple things or asking for certain things or losing nuance here, or what have you. Especially in moments like this when things are so chaotic and moving so quickly. Even in talking about like kind of, to go back to Ajanaé’s point for a brief second, the idea that both of you sort of reading it sort of felt implicated or alienated that sort of like recognize that you weren't in that experience of the actual uprising. But like, part of the reason I have the the poem in there about Canfield for example was to implicate the protest movement itself for treating Canfield that way, right? So I mean Canfield was its own, its own neighborhood had its families, its neighbors, you know what I mean? And like we very much with the best of intentions, some of which was like very much under the blessing of people from Canfield, but some of it wasn't, right? It's not like we knocked on every single door and asked if we were cool, if we come and post up here every night for them to get tear gassed. People up and down that street with tear gas. I mean, they were just they were shooting that stuff, right? For weeks! And we were out there for months. Not necessarily in Canfield, but like in that area and stuff too. Right. And so the question is like, yes, we, yes, there are poems and like the book itself is like, implicating the reader and sort of the broader public as like, in its role of like witness in some ways. Um, and there's also a way that like we as a protest movement, in the same way that like you could make the argument that like, the public, sort of flattened Ferguson on the way. I think there's an argument to be made that the protest movement flattened Canfield, in a way as well. Right. And then in the same way, with what Brittany is bringing up, even in that poem, right, that we're implicating the person who's sort of calling Ferguson a warzone, etc. We also at the same time, were asking for help, right? Ferguson October was about this, like, big national call for folks to come to the city. And so what does it mean to both say that, like, there was a way that people came and sort of like, as I say, in the book, were trying to play out their anarchist dreams, right. But also, we needed, we asked folks, we need folks to come, it made a difference, that crowd that came, that made a difference, you know what I mean? Both of those things can be true, you know, and I'm hoping that those things that like, I think contradictions are like, very human. And I think the more we do this kind of stuff, the messier it is, and the more those contradictions are going to be present. And so I think, I didn't offer really any answers in the book, but just like offers of uncomfortable feeling if you would like to hold them (laughs).

Brittany Rogers

A little discomfort never hurt nobody.

Jacqui Germain

Thank you! I agree.

Brittany Rogers

I think for me, though, my overwhelming feeling reading it wasn't discomfort, or even uncomfortability. I don't think the distance made me feel uncomfortable. I think that, if anything, the speaker, to me, felt protective. And I think that's something that I have a lot of endearment for. I mean, it could be like we said, you know, I'm saying just that background of coming from cities that people are talking about, like all the time, that they're not in, but for me, it was like more of a protective reminder that like, hey, we can but not all like that. Or even the way I'm thinking about my aunties, because you can sit at the table, but you can't talk about all the business that we talking about. You can hear some of the business, but you can’t talk about none of the business. It very much gave me that vibe. And for me, that is a very familiar, very endearing, and loving act to draw that boundary and to draw that line. Um, so it wasn't something that gave me a feeling of like discomfort reading it. It didn't turn me away. It just was like, look at this, look at these layers of boundaries. I love a good boundary.

Jacqui Germain

I love that. Let me see. I love thinking about like that. I do. I guess I yeah, I do feel I do feel very protective. I do feel very protective. Because people, people here went through so much. People here went through so much. And the bulk of it was just us alone. You know what I mean? Like us and us and each other and the police or whatever else was like going on outside? Yeah, people went through a lot and people lost a lot. And I think that's, that's the other thing that like people sometimes forget about these moments is that like people lose things, lose people, lose jobs, lose houses. I mean, I dropped out of college that semester, I lost my degree, like people lose things. I know, like a degree is not like, you know what I mean? But like.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I'm wondering if there's anything you wish you were asked in interviews, or when talking about your work? Whether it's this particular book or other things related to you, and your your life.

Jacqui Germain

I guess my for some reason, my first thought is going towards like, not necessarily me, but like the question I wish more poets got asked in general, which is I think I'm always curious about people's lives outside of poetry, like what is the stuff that's happening around poetry for you, because I'm always, I don't know, I'm always curious. I feel like I have so much. And I think it is also the result of not having focused on poetry, or not having sort of a singular focus of poetry as kind of the work that I do, and way that I see my writing and in work kind of broadly, but I think it's really interesting and sort of fascinating to know the other, the other things that create, like the universe for a poet, like within which their poetry lives, if that makes sense. And again, because those things for me again, like they're all in the same pot in my, in my head, and so like, I can certainly, like pull out poetry, like, talk about that specific seasoning, but like, in my head, like, it's all like, ask me about the dish, you might even ask me about how I see those, those like flavors working together, like why I cook, you know what I mean? Like, I'm very interested in that. But I think also just because like I, like I said before, like maybe I didn't say it, but I feel relatively insecure for my poetry. I think because I'm sort of like trying to get trying to like reground myself in it. And so it's a lot easier for me to talk about it as it relates to the other things that I, that I think make up my life and my work and the things that I care about. And I wonder what, what that looks like for other poets? 

Ajanaé Dawkins

So, the wider dish for you is that the other work you're involved in, are you saying that's like, the things that you have your hands and that have nothing to do with the process of writing?

Jacqui Germain

Um, some I mean, some of it is also part of the process of writing, but it's like I, I just, I find so many things besides poetry that drive my poems. I mean, the bulk of it is sort of like my political commitments, right. And the political project that I'm personally invested in, is sort of at the forefront of my poetry, my journalism, like, all of that stuff. Like that sort of the thing that sits at the core of, of that, of all of those things, and is kind of the connective tissue of a lot of the principles that I believe in and organizing. Most of them bleed into journalism, which I think some, like, probably traditional journalists would say, make, like, makes me a bad journalist, right? And a lot of those things bleed into poetry, which I think plenty of established poets might say makes me that poet, but like, those things aren't important to me. They're valuable to me. And so I remain committed to them. Yeah, I mean, a lot of my, a lot of the things that I study, and for my writing, and for my perspective on my writing, inform what I think my writing is, or is not capable of. The strategy behind it, I think all of that kind of goes into inspiring what and how I write, I think, aside from from that, though, that, like I get into, I'm a very visual person. So I get inspired by architecture, I get inspired by fashion, I get inspired by design in general. I think I get really inspired, inspired by things that take, like a specificity of craft, like that's the thing that fascinates me about design, or architecture, that someone can be like, I use this material for this specific reason. Or I put this window here because of the light that comes in at two o'clock, so that it can shine on the floor in this way, which is why we like used the screen, so that it would show up. Like that kind of like this is the shadow of this time of day, like sets this, this is why we picked the lighting for this area specific to like how we use the room. I love that kind of I love that kind of specificity. And all of that to me is really inspiring when it comes to when it comes to poetry because I think that specificity in poetry was really powerful.

Brittany Rogers 

I mess with that. It also leads us into our last question for you, before we play our game, and that question is one that we ask all of our guests on the show, if you could pick three people across any genre living or nonliving, doesn't have to be any artistic genre, can literally be the girl behind the counter at your favorite beauty supply store, the person up the street at the corner store who you know gone look out for you every Saturday. Whoever it is for you, right? Three people who readers would need to engage with deeply in order to understand your work. Who would those three people be?

Jacqui Germain

I'm gonna say, maybe will say Joy James. I think that her, I really appreciate how kind of how how politically principled and intellectually consistent she is. And the way that she doesn't shy away from contradictions and sort of like can see those contradictions as generative. And I think just in general, the way that she is kind of consistently critical of her relationship to the academy, and aware of her relationship to the academy, while also trying to subvert the academy in producing sort of conversations that are deliberately in service of undermining the police state, the surveillance state, empire, sort of all of those things, right. And but like, is still asking questions. I really appreciate that. I mean, I think Toni Morrison is another one for me, she was sort of the first, Beloved was the first book that sort of broke open language, and its possibilities or it's really, I think it's a really, really clear evidence of like, of skill and talent to me that like Toni Morrison's genius is in that she knew the rules well enough to break them on purpose, right? She had the tools in her toolbox in order to be able to like, move the way that she wanted to move deliberately. You can do an incredible thing once, but to be able to know what you did so that you could do it again, or something different on purpose, I think is really is a level of skill that I have, I'll probably be aspiring to the kind of the rest of my life. But I think her her her reach dude like the kind, her references like in her books like her, like the weight, the command of language and the breadth of literature. And her references, the audacity, right to like make some of the decisions that she makes in her books. But like particularly Beloved for me, because that was the first of her books that I read and also read the passage where that everyone remembers where like, you couldn't tell who the speaker was, right? At points, not using punctuation, all these sorts of things. I remember being the only one in my class that was like moved by it. Everyone else was like, I don't understand this. So why are we reading it? And I was sort of like, can you believe? I didn't know you could do this book. Like, I was like, what? That totally broke things open for me. I was gonna say, Jean from Bob's Burgers. And that feels, it feels, it feels it feels true, but it also feels like a deeply unserious answer. But Jean is playful in a way. He's like playful and chaotic, in a way that I feel like is true to myself at my core. And I do think that that informs my work. I don't know you, I don't know if you can like engage in Jean rigorously, you feel me but like, there's a there's a way, that is there's a way that he is sort of like, and you see the moment that it happens in the show. But there are ways there are ways in which Jean is like, just before the point at which we become ashamed at all of all the things we’re supposed to be ashamed of. Right? That like, like Tina is past that point. You know what I mean? Tina is like drenched in shame all the time. But like, Jean is like, on the precipice. He's like experiencing those things. Every once in a while something will happen. And like someone at school will, like, make fun of him for singing and whatever else, right? But he's just at a point where he's, like, still doing ridiculous things purely because he wants to do them. And like the logic with which he sometimes makes decisions, it's like, I have to like, I have to, like, make a bunch of caveats and qualifications to like, trust that logic. Like I talked myself out of making decisions that would make me happy for like, whatever reason, and it feels like Jean is still very much in that place. Yeah, I think that's probably a good a good answer for now. For today.

Brittany Rogers

Okay, Jackie, so today, we're going to play a game called Fast (punching sound effects). And before I explain the rules, I have to ask if you want to be an optimist, or a pessimist.

Jacqui Germain

I would like to be a pessimist, please.

Brittany Rogers

I like it! So what we're going to do is we're going to ask you for the worst thing in a category, like kind of rapidfire and I want you to say the first thing that you think of. Hold to it, it’s our true answer for today. So we gone call out a category and you're gonna give us the worst thing in that category. Okay, you ready?

Jacqui Germain

Oh, my God. Okay, let’s hear it.

Brittany Rogers

It's okay. It's not a lot of questions. I promise. Worst kind of pizza.

Jacqui Germain

Oh, Imo’s. Sorry. I mean, yeah, but yeah. Imo’s Pizza in St. Louis.

Ajanaé Dawkins 

Worst children's cartoon.

Jacqui Germain

I was gonna say Ed, Edd n Eddy which I feel like, people love, but sorry, I wasn't allowed to watch it. Because the kids thought my parents were like, we don't want y'all fighting. So you can't watch them fight. I don't know, girl I don’t know.

Brittany Rogers 

Worst music to dance to?

Jacqui Germain

I was gonna say country, but that's probably not fair. I think it's just because I don't listen to country but you can bop to country, I think. I just don't listen to country. So I don't really know what to do with it when it comes on. That's not true! I can dance to anything. That's not true. I wouldn't enjoy it, but that I could dance to it.

Brittany Rogers

Okay, I'll take it. Worst book or movie trope.

Jacqui Germain

Okay, for movies there is nothing that will ruin a movie faster for me when there's a female character you love, and you know, they're not going to let her stay single. You know the one other dude in the show is going to be the person she, you can't end the movie until they kiss. They gotta get together. Just let them be people! That storyline, the unnecessary romantic storyline, has ruined so many movies. Every action. Why? Y'all are busy. Y'all fell in love? I don't believe you. 

Brittany Rogers

Worst dessert? 

Jacqui Germain

Anything that is unnecessarily like salty, spicy. If I want a dessert, I want it sweet. I want it sweet. I don't want a creative addition to my sweet. I'm the kind of person who for dessert will get a chocolate cake with chocolate layers of chocolate icing between the chocolate icing on top. Like I don't need some salt. 

Those are my least favorite desserts. The desserts that are confused about themselves.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Okay, Jacqui, would you do us the honor of closing us out with a poem?

Jacqui Germain

I would love to. This poem is called “On This Day”. It's for Antonio Martin. 

Jacqui Germain

[Recites poem].

[BACKGROUND MUSIC PLAYS]

Ajanaé Dawkins

That was a good interview. I'm thinking, I'm gonna be thinking a lot about the consequence of my own gaze, I think, and what access I feel entitled to, or have felt entitled to.

Brittany Rogers

When you say the consequences of your own gaze, what do you mean by that?

Ajanaé Dawkins 

I think when we talk about things like the white gaze, right, or the male gaze, we're talking about the harm of what it means to have something curated for that looking, or that on-looking. And as somebody who for a number of social movements, has been present as a watcher. But because I'm not in location, I'm not in place then I think about my gaze is something that contributes to the demand for public curation. And so what does it mean that I am/was somebody looking toward people who were and have been in place, in movements to report timely, quickly information so that I can feel up to date and feel like I'm doing my quote unquote, civic duty, you know what I mean? Or whatever that participation is and then, how does that gaze shape or impact people who are actually getting, are actually, like, physically involved in the space frequently hundreds of miles away from me?

Brittany Rogers

Yeah. Yeah, this talk definitely made me think a lot about not just the implications of gaze, but about the millions of ways of surveillance that I don't think I think about regularly, or am not as conscious or as mindful and what those things do to us, not just as writers, but like as people. Like what it does to know that somebody is, you know, constantly watching you like I joke about my FBI agent and my laptop. But like you said, even just like the the gaze of the news, or the pressure to report or be the information bearer, like, what weight that holds.

Ajanaé Dawkins

The pressure to correct when the news isn’t trustworthy. To be like, no, this, this is the narrative.

Brittany Rogers

I think that that’s speaking to the pressure, like clean up somebody else's mess. And I know, like firsthand, you can't, you can't process and clean up. Or at least I can't, I can't sit down and be like, okay, whew, now I can sit in this feeling or sit in what or try to sit and sift through an experience that I've gone through, particularly when I started traumatic, like, I can't process the trauma there of as long as I'm having to, like, put on a face and like, respond to interview questions about it, you know? Walk family through it. Okay, this is what happened to document it. Like, I can't document that process at the same time.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah. Okay, then. Well, best, I have one more question for you. Thinking about all of these ideas of what it means for us to be surveyors and watchers, and part of the gaze for the work that other folks produce and the labor that other folks put out into this world. What is something you keep private from your reader in your own work?

Brittany Rogers

Oh, I mean, part of it is, you know, I love a boundary. I mean, I think there are things that I hold more tightly than others, probably the biggest thing is, my children, whom I adore, but I don't know, I feel like one of my goals is to really my, my poetry, my lands, my voice where ever is mine, and my experiences are mine. And of course, like my daily life is interwoven with theirs, but I'm also mindful that their life is theirs. And I think that there's like a closeness and an openness and a trust that I've been really, that I feel really fortunate to have with my kids. And I feel like I might reference them in a poem or two, but I also feel like just going any deeper than that is kind of opening, is inviting others into that relationship or into that process in a way that I'm not comfortable with. I think that's one of the, I think my relationship with them is one of the relationship that I'm most protective over maybe that. And also largely because you know what I mean? They're minors, have their own voices. Micah probably is gonna write her own poems, you know, angsty and whatever, and I want her to have that space to tell the stories from her point of view and that for my point.

Ajanaé Dawkins

That's fair, and I think that makes a lot of sense thinking about your work because you do talk a lot about motherhood and you talk about it all from your interior. So you talk a lot about the interiority of motherhood and what it opens up in you but not the like the what you are witnessing in your own children. And I think that's beautiful to protect that especially, whew, especially in a world where children as they're living, growing, etc. are finding their childhoods online for public consumption.

Brittany Rogers

Listen, it's so strange to me. What about you, best?

Ajanaé Dawkins

This is not a hard rule this is like a 90% rule where I feel very much so in my in the almost churchy bag with this and that I protect or keep private what is current in my processing. I think I do write a lot from a confessional lens and, and by the time it hits any kind of public sphere, that's old news. Okay, that's we done worked through it, me and my therapist done talked about it me, and you then talked about it. Me and the person I was beefing with done reconciled. We at the movies and getting drinks afterwards. After that poem, after it goes public to the wider space I will always write through anything I'm processing, but as far as hitting a hitting a public audience in real time, that's not a thing for me. And I think that is for a lot of reasons. I think in some ways that's also how I navigate friendships. I'm the queen of calling you three days after the break down. Back and better girl. Three days ago, it was crazy to break down with you, best. 

Brittany Rogers

And I want you to know that as a narrator I'm like, it was not fine, Ajanaé, it wasn't fine. I know you well enough to know that when you get to being like, everything's fine. I'm just tired. I just got a lot going on that everything is not fine.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Drag me! These are all facts and I think the more distance somebody has for me the longer until they are entered in or allowed to see part of that progress. And so I think I'm, I'm fine with the idea of writing confessional work, or even writing through something, but it's not even that I think I owe anybody answers for the work that I produce. So if I'm somewhere and somebody asked me a question, um, I've, like, received like wildly invasive questions before somebody asked me a question. I don't think I'm required or beholden to it. But I'd never want the reason to be because it's too vulnerable of a place for me. I want it to be because maybe this is just something I choose not to talk about beyond the stage or beyond the page. But not because there's something that could happen in engaging with my work publicly that might retrigger something in me. And that might be from like, coming from slam. Coming from a space of like, being like, oh, trauma will get you scores. Trauma will get you all this and I'm like, I think I'm I think I'm good. And I'm think I'm good on the the function of my work being something that can trigger me or retrigger me.

Brittany Rogers

That makes all the sense. Like thinking about somebody asked me a question after reading them, I'm crying because you've asked me about something.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Because my plans have to, I'm trying to, I'm trying to shake this thing I'm trying to you know, I'm trying to eat a good meal, have a good drink. Nobody's trying to go home and be deep, dark and depressed. Because I read some poems that are still, gme tore up that me and my therapist, we still talking about line three, like, you know what I mean?

Brittany Rogers

For sure, for sure. It makes a lot of sense. I liked how you said, I like your articulation of the things that we are expected or required to give a reader and being able to draw a boundary and saying okay, but these are things that I don't want you to have access to, regardless to whether my poetry is confessional or not. Oh, and on that note, yikes. Let me go and think about that in the car. Can’t nobody else see me. Best, who do we want to thank before we get out of here?

Ajanaé Dawkins

I want to thank my papa who I might have thanked on the show before, but it's for a different reason.

Brittany Rogers

But another Thank you.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Listen, the reason today is because I did family interviews a little while ago and I went and asked him questions and he essentially refused to tell me anything because it's not going to end up and he would not share a thing, and I do mean I left with no stories, no explanation.

Brittany Rogers

Thinking about the difference in our folks, I want you to know (inaudible) immortalize me (laughs). 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Best, I love that for you. Absolutely love that for you. Naw he, when I tell you I was like I had to he would cut the cameras. That was him, cut the cameras.

Brittany Rogers

He was like, if you love me enough to write about me, girl, I'ma live forever. Yes, ma'am. That you are.

Ajanaé Dawkins

And she is. Who you want to thank, best.

Brittany Rogers 

I’ma thank my three little (inaudible) since they got mentioned in the show today. My little Pisces, Micah, my Gemini, middle babies, Eli. My Virgo toddler is genome. And I am endlessly grateful for what they teach me about autonomy, for what they teach me about, about staying true to the things that you want, the things that you need, even if those needs seem so whimsical in the moment. I'm in (inaudible) for the way that they have made me a much better communicator, um, and the way that they really made me unlearn so much of what I knew, frankly, about surveillance and parenting, and the idea that you have to like, monitor everything that your kids do, and everything that they say. And I don't think in society we think about all the ways in which that’s intrusive for people who are developing their own selves and personalities and identities, and who wants to just be able to hold something sacred. So I’m grateful to them for that.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Best, that’s beautiful. Okay, we’d like to thank the Poetry Foundation, Itzel Blancas, Ydalmi Noriega, Elon Sloan, Cin Pim and Ombie Productions. 

Brittany Rogers

Until next time.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Until next time!

Brittany Rogers

Bye!