Danez Smith: She’s making her way downtown walking fast, faces pass. She’s Franny Choi!

Franny Choi: And they put the slut in slut, Danez Smith!

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

Franny Choi: Hiii, I’m doing okay, doing pretty good, trying my hardest.

Danez Smith: Trying…(LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: I’m just doing my best. I’m trying my best, which is all I can do.

Danez Smith: Oh, I wish I could pat you on your head and your nice haircut, Franny.

Franny Choi: Aw, that would be very nice. You know, I appreciate a pat on the head once in a while, honestly.

Danez Smith: Yeah?

Franny Choi: Quick story. One time, John Edgar Wideman, the very acclaimed writer, briefly taught at Brown, or maybe he still teaches at Brown, and I took a class of his, and I went to his office hours. And I was like, just a fucking mess at that point. I walked into his office hours eating a pizza cone, eating a piece of pizza shaped into a cone that they sold across the street for $1 for some reason. I walked in just eating a cheese pizza cone, and was obviously like, just a complete mess. And uhm, right before I left his office, he literally stood up, walked me to the door, and then he just pat me on the head.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: I was like, “Oh, okay, I’ve never had this experience before.”

Danez Smith: It was just like, take care yourself.

Franny Choi: Yeah, just a pat. I mean, this was like, my senior year. So I was like 21, 22. I’m like, “I’m being pat on the head by a man.”

Danez Smith: I don’t know if we should be laughing or drafting an essay, but okay. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Yeah. Honestly, I … I didn’t hate it. You know what I mean?

Danez Smith: You really have to be attuned with the situation to know when it’s a pattable moment.

Franny Choi: Yeah. Well… I…. don’t know if it was a pattable moment.

Danez Smith: I pat people. And I know it’s a problem.

Franny Choi: You pat people on the head?

Danez Smith: Yeah. And I know—I had to apologize to somebody the other day. They didn’t mind it. But I realized I did it because—I did it to a new friend, because I do do it to my friends.

Franny Choi: Oh.

Danez Smith: I think I’ve patted you before.

Franny Choi: I don’t know! Have you patted me on the head?

Danez Smith: Yeah, just a little pat pat, just like, “You did good.” (LAUGHS) It’s just like, “Oh, poor baby, I see you’re sad over there.” I’ve definitely—there’s a 75% chance I’ve patted you before.

Franny Choi: Interesting.

Danez Smith: But I did it to somebody. And I just had to remind myself that like, they’re like, a grown man. And I was just like, “Oh, Danez, you cannot pat this, like, 33 year old nigga.” And not like—just think that it’s cool. Like, he didn’t say no, but I could see like, in his left eye that he was thinking, “Did I just get patted?”

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Danez Smith: “On the fuckin’ head?” I was like, “Oh, no, I’m sorry.”

Franny Choi: Dang.

Danez Smith: And that was a case of me not listening to the situation.

Franny Choi: Oh yeah.

Danez Smith: Getting a little too ahead of myself.

Franny Choi: Speaking of listening, you know, we were talking recently about how this has been like, the number one skill that comes out of doing four and change years of recording these interviews, is that like, it turns out that the process of interviewing has more to do with like, actually listening to the things that they say, rather than, like, coming up with really amazing questions.

Danez Smith: And in fact, the act of questions is about listening, too.

Franny Choi: Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. For sure. You know, it reminds me of like, there was this time that Cameron and I were sitting in a CVS. I was waiting for like a prescription. And I was like saying something and we were just talking. And then this man, this like, very grown man came up to us and was like, “Hi, I’m sorry, like, I’m sorry to interrupt. But I just wanted to say,” and then looked at Cameron and said, “You are doing an amazing job of active listening right now. Like, it’s really impressive. So I just want to say that, like, great job.” And then walked away, and we were like, “What just happened? Why—why are people just handing out feedback about active listening skills in a CVS?”

Danez Smith: Was Cam doing a great job of active listening?

Franny Choi: I think he was literally just listening. (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi:  We were just talking. I think that probably he was like, I mean, the man nods. You know what I mean?

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) The man nods.

Franny Choi: You know? Like, I guess, sure, you know. But it wasn’t like an extraordinary situation. But maybe it was. Maybe like a, you know, the great majority of men out here do not actually nod. (LAUGHING) Or something.

Danez Smith: Well, I think the great majority of people don’t actually like, listen to each other, right? I think, if I can reveal a little bit of my family drama, and this is thankfully nothing that anybody should be suing me about, but like, my family’s fights are literally like, I didn’t want the blueberries this time, and so grandma got mad. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Oh! Oh!

Danez Smith: You know, (LAUGHING) that’s the level of drama we’re talking about, right? But there’s a lot of stuff where I think like, you know, even just amongst myself, 31, my mother, 59, and my grandmother, 80. And I look at them and I’m just like, these heifers still don’t know how to listen. (LAUGHS) Yeah! You know, it’s just like, we call each other and I forget part of it too, right, where I don’t listen, right? So we have all these little petty beefs about like, somebody cut me off, somebody didn’t want my blueberries, somebody got snippy with me about the lotto numbers.

Franny Choi: Ohh.

Danez Smith: And it’s like all these little dramas that I sit back sometimes and I realize how hard listening a skill is for each other, right? Even when we’re in deep relationship with each other, it’s hard. Especially, I think, when you’ve been listening to the same people for like, let’s say 50 years of your life. What is it like to still listen and to not assume the sound that one is going to make, right. I wonder about like, I’ve been thinking about the birds. I’m like, oh, these niggas, it sounds to me like they only have like the one song. Like, you know, same thing every morning. But they’re out there listening. If we could just like listen to each other with the same attention that that bird’s listening for that other bird for, man, all this little bullshit. I’m so sick of arguing about pork chops with my family.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) If we could just listen, man, we’d all be a little better. But, such an art. Such a skill.

Franny Choi: Yeah, it really is. And we have the honor today of talking to somebody who has, in many ways, mastered the art and the skill of listening. Not just, you know, literally hearing, but also what it means to listen for emotional information, to listen for histories, to listen for color. We are really excited to share this an interview with Taylor Johnson, who wrote one of our favorite books to come out last year, Inheritance. And yeah, we talk about the many shades and degrees of what it means for a poet to listen to the world around them, to listen to the histories that they come from, and uhm, to listen to what might be possible to come next.

Danez Smith: Taylor Johnson is from Washington, DC. They’re the author of Inheritance from Alice James Books in 2020. And their work appears in the Paris Review,TheBaffler,Scalawag, and elsewhere. Johnson is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and is the recipient of the 2017 Larry Neal Writers’ Award from the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities. They live in New Orleans, where they listen. Oh, that is my favorite line from a bio ever. You’ll probably hear me say it a couple more times in the interview. So excited to dive into this conversation with Taylor, who is going to start us off here with a poem.

(SOUND EFFECT)

Taylor Johnson:

(READS POEM)

8th & Ingraham

I forget about money watching the clouds over 8th and Ingraham.

The clouds a rhubarb-colored ship in the sky. To my right it all

grays out, the bats emerging now from the chimneys. The bats

listening for the cicadas’ echo. Echo is a way to create space, is a

metaphor for time. Time for the cop to move along I think

watching the cop watch me from my porch. Fuck 12. The robin on

the wirevine the wireeye competing with the bats for cicadas.

The robin competing reds with the sky. The sky a money for the

cicadas: a way to make space, time. The cicadas sounding out the

future through repetition. A friend says to spend nothing is to

keep flexibility in your hands, to keep your youth. Money the

sound of decay. Money the repetition of waste.

* * *

Franny Choi: Taylor.

Danez Smith: “The sky a money for the cicadas: a way to make space.” I threw the book when I first read it. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: And then you get to that fuckin’ end, “Money the sound of decay. Money the repetition of waste.” Taylor, could I ask, for you, what economies were you trying to pull from? Because it feels like it’s such a fierce…uhm… collection. And in this poem, I think exemplifies, too, of both the personal economy, the emotional economy, and money. How did you wrestle with that idea of economy and maybe currency when you were building this collection?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, yeah, that’s a beautiful question. I-I think that a lot of what I wanted to do, especially in that poem, is to refute the idea of money. I think I was in a moment of being so distracted by the idea of, like, what I don’t have to survive and to thrive in the world, you know what I mean, and, that the way that I was moving throughout the world, and still do, is through poems, which is, like, antithetical to the idea of money and the idea of the marketplace and consumption in general. And in that moment, I was thinking particularly about the economies of the natural world around me, which at that time was DC, and particularly Rock Creek Park that I lived down the street from. And just the way that, you know, the natural world there and animals and bugs and plants interact with each other and depend upon each other in a way that felt a bit more healthy than what it was that the humans were doing outside of that natural setting. And I think in this moment, it was really seeing a cop that used to just slow roll on my street once, twice a day, it felt like not only being surveilled, of course, but also, like someone was protecting this idea of the neighborhood becoming something else, like it was a certain kind of currency. And that really propelled me to write about what it meant to be surveilled, but also to know that, like, my presence wasn’t the right kind of currency, if that makes any kind of sense. Yeah.

Franny Choi: Well, I mean, I just want to make sure that we take a second to say, what a fucking book you’ve written. Inheritance is an achievement. It’s so full and so abundant, and so packed with mystery at the same time. And Danez and I were just, I mean, we kind of can’t stop raving about it, and haven’t been able to stop raving about it since it entered our lives. So like, just, congratulations. And thank you.

Taylor Johnson: Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah, that’s high praise. Thank you.

Franny Choi: But I guess, you know, this conversation about money also makes me think about the title, Inheritance, and the ways that you’re working, and kind of reworking the different shades of meaning in that word. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how inheritance shows up in the content of the book, in the ways that you’re teasing out meaning. But I’m also curious about how you think about inheritance in terms of form and craft, too.

Taylor Johnson: You know, the main inheritance that I think I was dealing with was… I guess two things: kind of an inherited way of being, through observation. And some of that is like, the ways in which I would engage with strangers, you know, in DC, and just like, the observation of being in the world, you know, among people who I don’t know who I could find some connection in, just in their way of being. And then the other inheritance is the inherited propensity that I got from my grandparents to tell beautiful stories, you know, that kind of inheritance that-that says that, yeah, shit’s difficult, you know what I mean, but we can still pull a lot of beauty from-from difficulty. And inside that inheritance, a particular kind of grammar, but also an emotional grammar, that can tend towards the mysterious as you said, Franny. And-and lends itself to multiple ways of meaning making, if that makes sense.

Franny Choi: Mm. Yeah. Can you say what you mean when you say “emotional grammar”?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, I think I say it to mean, what is behind any kind of speech act, you know what I mean, whether it’s like trying to move someone to feel a particular way, and then all the unintended things that come along with that feeling. And then also, like, the refutation of grammar as it is to mean a certain kind of limiting of a particular language and a particular wildness inside language. That’s what I take emotional grammar to mean.

Danez Smith: That makes so much sense that that’s a thing that’s on your mind, reading the poems, emotional grammar, cuz we were thinking about how the book feels so intelligent. If you read Inheritance, y’all, you’re gonna be like, “Damn, this nigga smart.” But at no point is that intelligence ever not generous, which I think is a thing that you sometimes encounter—sometimes in poetry, I think especially in like, more, like, academic prose, right, that there is a fierce intelligence, but it doesn’t always feel generous or made or reaching towards someone. Where this feels like, this nigga is smart, this is fiercely intelligent, but it’s an intelligence of giving or love and understanding. This intelligence has people, right? It’s not sort of solo or braggadocious, right? It is of community. And so it makes sense to me that emotional grammar is maybe something that’s moving behind.

Franny Choi: Yeah, yeah, I think that thinking about this question of intelligence and, you know, the fierceness in the poems made me wonder, sort of like, what parts of the poem do you most want to reach a reader on the other end. Reading this book, I felt so spoken to directly by this like, intensely private language. And even though as far as, like, kin of the book goes, the people of the book, I feel probably like, outside of maybe like the kinship that the book is creating, but uhm I still felt reached in this, like, really intense and beautiful way. And so, yeah, it made me wonder what part of the poem do you imagine or intend to, like, touch the person on the other end of it?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. I mean, well, first, I’ll say, I think that you are implied in the kinship, you know what I mean, as far as the kinship of voices of people who do write poems, which is, like, who I was also speaking with, you know what I mean? So the kinship is wide and, like, it is, you know, sometimes necessarily DC, it is sometimes necessarily, like, a particular social moment or, like, a party even. But I think my main thing is… I became a reader through listening. You know what I mean? For me it was, it was wild, it was The Holy Sonnets of John Donne when I first felt called into language or called into presence with someone who I don’t know. And maybe that’s like the invocative principle of a poem. You know what I mean? You can invoke not only your presence as a writer, but also the interiority and the world of another person is something that is done at the level of language and sound, but also, you know, I think if someone can connect directly to my reference, whether it’s like I’m referencing, I don’t know, a go-go song or a particular intersection, or just like a feeling of being lost and connected at once. Those are the levels.

Danez Smith: Taylor, you mentioned a word that I think is a favorite word or practice of yours, which is listening. It’s even in your bio, right, “Taylor Johnson lives in New Orleans, where they listen.” I kinda am obsessed with that-that line.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Danez Smith: You know, and listening is still a strong concept in the book. I was wondering if you could kind of take us through your relationship with listening a little bit. Who taught you how to listen? Are there any experiences in your life that really deepen your relationship to listening? And how does it figure into your daily in writing practice?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think my grandfather taught me how to listen in the woods. I used to go to—he’s from New Orleans, my grandparents are from here. But when I was growing up, they lived in this town in Virginia called Heathsville that’s in the Tidewater region. So it’s kind of far out, maybe like three hours outside of DC. And they live back by, you know, a forest of pine trees. And I remember walking with him in the woods, and I was probably single digit, maybe like five or six. And as a child, you know, you have a lot of questions. And he was very open to that. But also, he taught me how to listen for color, you know what I mean? Like, if I quieted my thinking mind, and also my voice at the same time, I could see, you know, maybe a cardinal deep in the pines, where I wouldn’t have been able to notice it, because I was questioning, “Oh, like, what’s this twig for?” Like, “Is there a stream back here?” You know what I mean? All these things. I don’t know, I’m someone who-who comes from a culture, you know, and comes from a particular sound of go-go music, where listening is so important, because the band had to listen to the audience in order for the song to change and the mood to change. And, you know, everyone to go together in a certain way. Uhm…To change it has to be a collective kind of listening, that we all engage.

Franny Choi: God, I love “listening for color.” What a beautiful way of thinking about observing, I guess. Because there’s something different between maybe like, looking versus listening, right? Like, I feel like there’s some, I don’t know, what is that thing.

Taylor Johnson: I think there’s a goal in mind. I think with searching, it’s like, I know I’m gonna come out, let’s say, onto the sidewalk or in the woods, and I’m gonna see a particular X, Y, and Z, you know what I mean? Whereas listening, it’s like, things kind of wash over you and happen with you, rather than you having something in your mind where it’s like, I need to see this particular thing, or I’m listening for this particular thing. It’s kind of a more open, open experience.

Danez Smith: Open is it, right? Because even looking, right, like, there’s a direction. You can’t-you can’t—the eyes can help, but it’s hard to listen at a point, right? (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. And Franny, I feel like that’s why I loved your question so much, because it makes me think of like, well, am I -am I asking for someone who reads a poem to listen for something in particular, or to see something in particular? And I think my younger self might be like, yeah, I have these particular thoughts and ideas that I want to express in poetry, you know what I mean? But I think now, I’m a little bit more here for the total experience, which is like, outside of my idea of like, aboutness of the poem, you know what I mean, and kind of just letting it happen to someone. And of course, I do have like, where I was when I wrote it, or what I was thinking about when I wrote it, but even reading the book now, four months after it was published, and then also, you know, throughout the process, the poems teach me things, too, you know. And they’re open to these other meanings that I wouldn’t have been able to get were it not for the time, you know, spent with it.

Danez Smith: Hmm. Could you take us into that? Is there any poem that maybe has surprised you with what it’s been saying to you post publication?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, man. There’s this poem that’s actually before “8th & Ingraham” that’s called “Black Existential Exegesis,” which is, I wrote it as within the constraint of using the letters in the phrase, “we charge genocide.” I remember, I think, I was in Paris, and I was just pissed off, generally. I was listening to this online radio station called the Pan African Space Station. They were playing John Coltrane, and it like made me emotional for some reason. And I was reading alongside that, you know, the UN document of-of genocide. And when I first read it, I think it was maybe December or January, to a group of students, and I like, I got choked up. You know, I was thinking about, you know, what I read when I read to people and how I hadn’t read that poem, and on that particular day, I decided to read it. And it made me really emotional because I was like, oh, yeah, there is, in this whole world of making this book, something available to people, there is this idea of like, consumption in the marketplace, you know what I mean? And I think the poem is so against that idea of being used as a Black person, especially in the American context. And I mean, globally, of course, too. So it just, it hit me in this other way that I was like, oh, man, like, I never want to sell anyone anything, but I do want to be present with people. So what is the happy medium? You know, that still allows me to continue my life, while still staying true to art making.

Danez Smith: Hm. Is that why there’s no notes section in the book? Is that an attempt to keep something private?

Taylor Johnson: I mean, it’s not necessarily about being private, but it is..uh… asking people to do work if they see that they need to, you know what I mean, if they need to look up something in particular, of course. But the other side of that is, like, I like to have conversations about this book. So if someone has a question, we can go into that conversation, you know. And I think there would be too many notes, honestly.

Danez Smith: There- I mean, it feels like a note heavy book. It’s actually surprising, kind of getting to the back of it, and you’re just like, “Oh, there’s not like 13 pages of notes.” (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. (LAUGHS) It could have been like that, man. I mean, there’s a lot there, but I chose not to do it. And then also, to save paper, too.

Danez Smith: Shout-out to trees.

Taylor Johnson: Shout-out to the trees forever. Yeah.

Franny Choi: Evergreen shout-out. If you will. (CHUCKLES)

Danez Smith: Oh, Franny.

Franny Choi: Sorry, I’m sorry!

Taylor Johnson: I’m sorry. It was good. It was good.

Franny Choi: Thank you. Thank you. I’m sorry, everybody. I think that that idea, Taylor, of kind of leaving that silence at the end of the book in order to open a space for people to A) do their own work, but also B) to be in conversation with you, is so fascinating. I don’t know, I think it makes me think about the ways that some silence is, like, necessary in conversation. You know, like, if you’re just speaking the whole time, it’s not a conversation. It’s just, it’s just talking, one person talking. I think that the easier, maybe gut reaction way to think about not providing notes is like a withholding, but it seems actually like it’s an opening of space for something else.

Taylor Johnson: And that was definitely my endeavor. I wanted to leave space to be open for people to make upon the poems their own interpretation, without me pointing them in the exact direction of, you know, what I was looking at it what I was trying to achieve in the poem. Yeah.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Can I pivot a little bit and ask about location?

Taylor Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Danez Smith: Cool. It’s so strong in the book, right? You feel yourself in DC, you’re suddenly in New York, you’re definitely in the South. You feel the humidity. And you’re also kind of an occasional poet in that way. You mentioned sort of like being at a party and sort of these social moment sparking the work. I wonder, do you feel yourself pulling on a different part of your poet self when you’re writing towards these different locations? Is DC Taylor different than, you know, New Orleans Taylor? Like, how do you walk differently through the poem when pulling on these locales, because it seems like the location is a rich muse for you.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the poems that are DC-based are very kinetic, because I literally, you know, walked the city in the process of writing these poems in my head, you know what I mean? So the city is in my movements, and so it was translated through my hand in that way. And those poems, you know, you can kind of see on the page that they are rather tight, because it is a city, you know what I mean. Whereas the poems that are, you know, based in Virginia, it’s a more rural and open space, so the poems have a bit more air in them. There’s two that are within a domestic location in Virginia that is tighter. And I think that “States of decline” and “Rigorous Practice of Listening,” because it was within a house and feeling the constraints of a house. But, as for New Orleans Taylor, I mean, it’s new to me, I’ve-I’ve, you know, visited here for a while, but I just started living here a few years ago. So I’m still getting to know what that’s about. And it’s interesting, because, coming down here, I’ve already had this book, you know, so I was already in the process of changing my language and beginning to think a little bit more expansively about how … you know, how the creative impulse finds me. Whether, like, I need to draw a blueprint or whether I need to, like, build a structure or whatever. So I’m just, I’m in that mindset right now. And I think New Orleans has helped me to open up some other possibilities for my language and for my art making.

Franny Choi: Well, you talked about drawing blueprints and making structures, and I know you mentioned architecture is something that you think about. I think we were both so curious about how you see architecture working as a concept for how you think about the work of crafting.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. Well, I mean, architecture, it solves the problem of space, you know what I mean? So it directs you to look a certain way, to move in your body a certain way through a building, or even, you know, on a street or whatever. And it can produce a certain kind of emotional resonance. Like if you were to walk into a building that was metallic and kind of like very 21st century, the vibe there is one thing, whereas like, you know, being in New Orleans, for example, walking into a shotgun that is old and has a particular kind of age of wood, the sound travels differently. You know what I mean? I used to live in a shotgun before I live in the spot that I live in right now. And I could, I could hear my neighbors at all hours of the day. And it wasn’t annoying. It felt really intimate, you know, and I think I got to know them better, because I could hear the rhythms of their day. I think in a similar sense, poetry kind of solves a problem with language. And the problem is the limitations of language, you know what I mean? I think that poetry is that intervention, you know what I mean, into language in a way that it might not otherwise see the possibility of creating something different.

Danez Smith: Are you saying, like, of all the genres, poetry is maybe most uninterested in the rules of language?

Taylor Johnson: I think absolutely. I think that there are people who are interested in like, deeply interested in the rules of poetry and like, as somebody who has studied poetry and knows the rules, you know what I mean, I think I’m more interested in the other side of, like, undoing those rules by living another way.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: I think that’s what I felt when Franny was saying, it feels like a private language in the book. This language is so unique, and it’s so yours. Like you’ll do something like “bodymind.” Or “in the windhouse,” or something like that, you know, and like, it’s even these small moments. There’s, like, longer moments, too, you do very, like Black, like, “who was I when I saw him acting like me,” you know.

Taylor Johnson: Mm-hmm. Compounding nouns. Yeah.

Danez Smith: Yeah. Are those things you come to in a first draft? Or are those moments where there’s a little more friction and surprise around language, is that something that comes to you in the further drafting and thinking about the poem.

Taylor Johnson: In the two you mentioned, I think I came to in the first draft. I think a lot of those, like, compound noun or just combining words in a new or weird way kind of comes from the poet Zbigniew Herbert. I don’t know if you know about this poet, Polish poet. And I think maybe 2015, I was reading his work. But he has a lot of those moments in his poetry, where it’s like a compound of two weird phrases. For me, I think the beginning, all my poems, unless they come to me directly lineated, I start as a block of text, like a paragraph. There is a lot of space to combine weird shit, because the poem is laid out in a way where everything is so close together. You know, that physical reality of the poem allows me to be a little bit more weird with the way words touch each other. And I’m always looking for that kind of weird touch, you know what I mean, within the space of the poem, because I think it, it teaches me different things about how different parts of speech can be used, and also opens up my spiritual imperative to question anything that I’m doing, you know, all the time. It opens up those things as well.

Danez Smith: So I guess at this point, VS listeners know we have a pre-interview where we like ask people to, like, say stuff to us. And one thing you had said that was so delicious to us was about trying to invite people into the emotional syntax of the poem without words, via structure. And I was just wondering if you could say more about that. Because I felt—and you mentioned that in the context of sort of new writing you’re doing. So, how is structure uhm tickling you these days? And how do you find—I’m so interested in that idea of the emotional syntax. What does syntax mean to you without language or without words?

Taylor Johnson: Well, I think I mean, syntax is-is the uh… the muscley of the thing, you know what I mean. And I think, for me, it’s been operating two different ways. So I’ve been thinking about the idea of a sentence. I’m someone who, you know, my work has not been in essays or anything like that. I really dig a run-on sentence. And I think there’s so much possibility for like, meandering, trouble, and-and deep confusion in a run-on sentence. And I think just the idea of a sentence, it has to mean something that gets from here to here. I’ve been, like, worrying those mines recently. And the other thing is, I’m working on, or I guess it’s kind of in the planning stages of trying to build structures that mimic the syntax of a poem. Uhm and that’s physical things, whether it’s like, placing someone inside like a set of concentric circles. I’ve been thinking about telephone booths recently and kind of public private emotional intimacy that those things hold. I hope that answers—does that answer what you were saying, Danez?

Danez Smith: Yeah, it does. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Cool, cool.

Franny Choi: Wait, are you making telephone booths? Like, are you creating things?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, man, it’s kind of been stalled because of this whole time of not being able to really touch people in a way. But yeah, I’m in the process of doing those things. Yeah. And I need to learn more to. I’m also in the process of learning a lot about that. Yeah.

Franny Choi: I feel like uhm, there’s so much connection between that and the way that I feel like, we’ve been talking about how your poems operate as, like, these little environments for the reader to kind of be housed in and explore and, like, get the things that might be along their path as they move through it. I don’t know, it’s really getting me thinking about a different way to think about poems and, like, how people might live in them, too.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of it, too, is just so influenced by how I lived my life in DC, which was through walking, you know what I mean. I walked everywhere, rode the bus, rode the train, but primarily was a walker. So that means that I could do, like, just to get, you know, A to B, five miles, you know, and explore, kind of like the run-on sentence of a street, you know what I mean? So you could go from, like, let’s say, the top of Georgia Avenue to the bottom, which is 7th. And it’s a whole different context, you know what I mean, the syntax is different. Cuz the buildings are laid out differently, the people you see change, and then change again. So I’m always trying to get that down. And I think it can come in different ways, and I think, in this book, it came through poems, but I’m open to how else that comes to me. Yeah.

Danez Smith: I feel like I might be putting on a lot in this, so I’ll be upfront about that. But from the outside looking in, it seems like you are so intentional about your life. It felt that way in the book. And I think just, like, observing you as a person, I’m like, “That’s a nigga who thinks about, like, how they’re living.” (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Danez Smith: And, you know, I mean, even like, in circumstance, it felt like you were thinking about, like, how do I live even in the midst of poverty, right? There’s that moment in the poem “Hunger,” where it’s like, “I’m hungry as fuck, I’m not doing that well,” and also a real moment of like, “I wish our intelligence manifested into wealth.”

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Right. “Friend, I want to reach this toward you.” It just feels like you’re thinking often about the living. (LAUGHS) Getting it done, and the ways in which to move through that, right. Even at the top of the interview saying, like, very intentionally I live outside of or antithetical to some of these dominant power structures.

Taylor Johnson: I hear you, man. It’s like, it’s yeah, it’s uh… I was, before coming on here and then last night, too, I was listening—do you all know that Amiri Baraka album called “It’s Nation Time”? It came out—

Danez Smith: Yes!

Taylor Johnson: Okay, so good, right?

Danez Smith: Yeah.

Taylor Johnson: And there’s that one track where uhm, the title track is “What’s Gonna Happen,” and the frame is, the land’s gonna change hands, you know what I’m talking about? When he’s like, “what’s gonna happen, the land’s gonna change hands.” I feel like, within the context of my living, I believe that the land will change hands, you know what I mean? So I kind of live like it’s already there. Or I set myself up to live in a way that it’s already there. We know that the land, and all the things on top of it, and our language interpersonally, will change hands, really, will change, like, the people who have essentially invested interest into it outside of the idea of money. I try to always live in that way. I’m not really trying to sell you anything in the poem, I’m not trying to really get you to see what I need you to see, you know what I mean? I’m just looking—

 Danez Smith: Oof!

Taylor Johnson: —you know what I mean, and if you’re looking, it could be something that, you know, you need to tell me, you know what I mean? And I think in reading these poems out loud to different people, I’ve been able to learn more about myself. It could just be how I grew up, you know what I mean? Like, that probably has a lot to do with it. I uhm… grew up just with my mom. And I think some of it is, like, you know, things have to have a particular use because, you know, being poor and not having too much, it’s like everything has-has a place and a particular kind of …expenditure, I guess. So everything has to be intentional in that way, in terms of money. And I think to extrapolate that into-into living, I guess maybe in a more spiritual sense, I believe that nothing is of waste, which means even my moments of contemplation and silence are not wasted, which is part of what I hope came into the book, too. And then like, my earliest education was like, primarily spiritual. That’s definitely part of it, as well.

Franny Choi: Taylor, I wonder if it would be too much to ask if you had anything to say to anybody who might be listening to this, you know, emerging artists who are kind of, like, struggling to live in integrity with themselves while navigating, like, the capitalist bullshit of what it means to try to make a life as an artist sometimes. Yeah, I wonder if there would be anything that you might say to kind of guide other people.

Taylor Johnson: I always tell people to read a lot. I mean, that’s-that’s like an obvious thing that everyone says. I do think that shit’s really important, though. I think the other thing too is like, I wrote a lot of poems, I didn’t know I was writing a book, you know what I mean? I wasn’t really concerned about the product. So maybe that’s, I don’t know, just a thing that I would say, too, if people are interested in writing poems, then write poems, you know what I mean? And I think kind of worry later about them all coming together. Because, you know, whether you know it or not, things are gonna sing together, because it comes from you. Yeah, I think too, like, being outside will teach you a lot. And working with the earth will teach you a lot, too. So I think putting yourself in a position to be uncomfortable with a certain kind of language. And that being the language of the growing of things can be really helpful. Outside of that, I think it’s really important to have friends who also can pull you back, because I feel like there’s so many times in-in writing these poems, the years that I spent really dedicating myself and learning about poetry that I went so far out in my mind that I needed some people who were still on earth in a certain way to be like, “Hey, you need to drink some water, like you want a meal?” That’s really helpful, too. Yeah.

Danez Smith: So we know that you’re also, Taylor, working on a couple of new projects, both bleeding into some essays, and also some epistolary work between yourself and another artist. I’m wondering for the essays, how is your mind working in essays, right? When there is maybe a little bit stricter adherence to the sentence, what else is your brain doing? And I would love to hear just about the epistolary project. It seems—I think “Hunger,” which feels like a letter, is one of my favorite poems in the book. And so I’m wondering, how is that process of bouncing your intelligence off of somebody else going for you?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, yeah. I mean, to start with the essays, right now, they’re mostly dealing with uhm, go-go music and gentrification in DC. Things that kind of rub up against each other and also kind of open into this, like, thinking about participating in the open secret of Blackness that has, you know, persisted in spite of gentrification in DC. And then some of that, too, is-is me thinking about just my relationship to gender and sound, which has led me to think about genre a little bit more widely and I think within the space of the essays I know that I’ll have to make them a little bit more readable than maybe a poem or like a little bit more together in some kind of way, but again, like, my shit is like, I love a run-on sentence, you know what I mean? I love a long Henry James sentence, you know. Or a long fucking Immanuel Kant sentence, you know. That shit is…that shit is erotic and it’s interesting to me. So with that said, that’s how I’m working, you know. My shit is, it’s long sentences.

Danez Smith: I feel you. I’m breaking into some prose, too, and I’m just like, look, I don’t know how to do this shit, so you gon’ have to deal with how this brain works. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Exactly. And I think the hope is that like people will, because, you know, more often than not, people are looking for something unexpected anyway, so.

Danez Smith: Yeah.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Did you say the relationship between gender and sound, by the way?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, yeah.

Danez Smith: Are you thinking about chopped and screwed there?

Taylor Johnson: Oh, I love chopped and—yo, OG Ron C? Okay.

Danez Smith: Yes, my nigga. Talk to me.

Taylor Johnson: OG Ron C, Fuck Action. I think it’s like 23 or 40? My shit. And also 12, take number 12, wow.

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

Taylor Johnson: But yeah, I think within chopped and screwed. I’m not writing about it right now, but that that is something that interests me, just because it is its own time you know what I mean? Similar to the go-go music, it exists within its own kind of pace and world almost, you know, because you get this recursive and like questioning refrain, you know what I mean? And also the layering and the… slowing of of certain words. Yeah, that shit is very interesting to me.

Danez Smith: And, to me, chopped and screwed, I love chopped and screwed music but particularly R&B that has been chopped and screwed, just because of how, to me it changes the gender especially of the female voice singer.

Taylor Johnson: Oh my god, yeah.

Danez Smith: Right? Like it’s such a queer experience to hear like—one of my favorites is like uhm…Slim K did Purple Yoncé which was the Beyoncé self-titled album, you know, all chopped and screwed. And like, it reminds me of being in drag bars, right, and seeing, like, you know, this gorgeous woman then with this deep bravado, it’s like what the fuck?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Danez Smith: And I was like, this is the gayest thing ever. I don’t know if anybody knows but like, to me, like you’re saying, the slowing, the way time plays in chopped and screwed is like a queer trans act to me. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Oh, 100 percent. I really dig—what’s the woman who sang, Deborah Cox, “How Did You Get Here”? Have you heard that chopped and screwed? Wow.

Danez Smith: No, but I’m bout to go find it.

Taylor Johnson: That’s-thats an incredible experience. Also, if you find “Foosteps in the Dark,” Isley Brothers chopped and screwed, wow.

Danez Smith: I’ve heard that. Yeah.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, that whole idea of slowing time. And like lingering within a moment is very queer. But also, it’s like a very Black aesthetic as well. It removes you from this idea of, you know, again, linear time, trying to get from here to here, which is why I dig the long sentence, because you can kind of meander and digress and run away from things and run toward things. Yeah. Word.

Danez Smith: Beautiful. And then, just so I wanna make sure we don’t miss it, could you also talk about the epistolary project that you’re doing.

Taylor Johnson: Oh, yeah, yeah. So, me and a creative collaborator named fahima ife, we’re working on this journal called Sent, which is essentially just compiling letters between artists over the course of a year. So it’s different artists just writing to each other. And then we’re compiling it in like a different order. Yeah.

Franny Choi: What led you to creating that project?

Taylor Johnson: I was in Vermont on a mountain and I thought about it, and then I called fahima and then we just started working on it.

Franny Choi: (GIGGLES)

Taylor Johnson: But like, I like letters between artists. I mean, I think about the letters between Pat Parker and Audre Lorde. Beautiful!

Danez Smith: One of my favorite books I read last year, yeah.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. Incredible. Or even like the letters between June Jordan and Buckminster Fuller, the architect and fiction writer. Beautiful.

Danez Smith: Oh, I didn’t know about that one.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, man. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look that up. Or I can try to find my book and—

Danez Smith: No, I got it. I got the link on the bookstore up here. They be rushing shit for me. (GIGGLES)

Taylor Johnson: Okay, that’s so important.

Danez Smith: Oh, yeah. You gotta get in good with the booksellers. (GIGGLES)

Taylor Johnson: Gotta know ’em. Yeah. Yeah. But I like the intimacy and just the things that can emerge from thinking about why someone is doing something or how their personal life is influencing what they’re working on, or what they’re running from in their work. All those things are beautiful. You know what’s interesting is like, some of the people who participated, they actually ended up romantically involved after the course of like writing letters to each other, which is—

Franny Choi: I mean, yeah…

Taylor Johnson: I mean, that’s wild, yeah.

Franny Choi: Yeah. But also, it makes total sense to me. I don’t know, I’m trying to think about what artist I would write back and forth with for a year and not fall in love with. Like, I’m not sure.

Danez Smith: Especially letter writing, like, you go off when you’re writing a letter. It’s different from an email or a text, you know. (GIGGLES)

Taylor Johnson: Right. And the constraint we have is with your hand, like no typing.

Danez Smith: Oh that definitely, yeah. Oh, you’re gonna fall in love.

Taylor Johnson: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Danez Smith: This is a wedding project. That’s what it is. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: (LAUGHS) Yeah.

Danez Smith: Alright, well that feels solid and set.

Franny Choi: That feels really good. Yeah.

Taylor Johnson: Thank you. Right on.

Danez Smith: Thank you. Alright, so we should pivot to games. After that, it’s one more poem, and then we’re out.

Taylor Johnson: I love winning. This is great.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Taylor Johnson: I’m so competitive, too. Like, I’m a quiet person, yeah, but I’m like, I played sports growing up. So, yeah. I really like wrestling. You know what I mean? So I’m—every—things that I bring to competition, it’s just like, I want to pin you right now. And I will.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: It’s like, that’s my shit.

Franny Choi: I feel like wrestling competitive is different from like, “I want to get an A” competitive.

Danez Smith: Well, that’s just, “I want to be the best at it.”

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Yeah, I don’t want to pin anyone necessarily. I just want to be the best. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Danez Smith: Yeah. And somebody else can also be the best in that scenario, right? Like other people can get As, you know, it’s just that you also want an A.

Franny Choi: Sure. I guess.

Danez Smith: You want the A+ then. Yeah, I’m competitive in that way, too. Like, I don’t feel like, I don’t seek out competitiveness, but once I’m in a competition or realize it’s a competition, I’m like, oh, okay, cool. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. That’s exactly it, yeah. A prize.

Danez Smith: Yeah. Oh, dates have learned that the hard way for me like, they’ll be like, “Let’s turn it into a game!” And I’m like, “Oh …”

Taylor Johnson: Don’t do that shit, yeah.

Danez Smith: I’m gonna win! And then there’s no third date.

Taylor Johnson: You’re not gonna like me at the end of this shit, yeah.

Franny Choi: A number of times I’ve cried at Bananagrams for this exact reason.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Like, it’s now a thing that my therapist and I talk about. Like, “Why did you cry at Bananagrams this time?” (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Have you played like categories of words for the game, you know what I mean? Like, you have to make words that are particularly about like, you know, shoes or whatever.

Franny Choi: Whoa. Like verbs?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Franny Choi: Oh my god.

Taylor Johnson: Or like only gerunds, or whatever. Which I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t think there are enough letters for that…

Franny Choi: Yeah. That’s an amazing idea. And it would take longer, which might be good for me.

Taylor Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Franny Choi: Ohh, okay. I love it, Taylor. I like it. Okay, I’ve still only thought of three, Danez.

Danez Smith: Okay. I have all of mine.

Franny Choi: Oh no, I’m so slow at this.

Danez Smith: The trick, Franny, is I just keep the same list every time and just like—

Franny Choi: I know.

Danez Smith: I ask every person their favorite stanza length. And also because I just want to know. I think it says a lot about a person, especially the people who choose like seven lines, or a sestet or whatever. Poems are confusing y’all. I don’t know why they make us learn all this shit just so we can ignore it. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: I know.

Danez Smith: It’s like, please learn why you use couplets so you can not care.

Taylor Johnson: Right. I’m just doing it!

Danez Smith: Them shits, they look pretty, nigga! (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: You know what I mean? this is what it needs to be.

Danez Smith: I looked at it, and said, that’s cool, why did you tab it like that? Because it felt right.

Taylor Johnson: Man, yeah.

Danez Smith: Sometimes because I was trying to do a thing, but sometimes, because it felt right.

Taylor Johnson: That’s the feeling, and you gonna take that feeling, yeah. I’m at Warren Wilson right now, and I’m not like a bad student, but I do find myself, in the beginning being like, “I just did this because,” you know what I mean, or “This poet”—you know what I mean? “It’s just there, and it’s just wonderful, you know what I mean, and we can celebrate that, you know.”

Franny Choi: (GIGGLES)

Danez Smith: I like that, though. Angel always calls—she, I love it, she calls it just like, adding your own stank to the poem, right.

Franny Choi: Oh yeah.

Danez Smith: It’s the unexplainable thing, you know. It’s just like, “I don’t know what the fuck I—”, you know? And I think it’s so hard to teach that. I mean, it’s wonderful when poets have it. I’m trying to like, confer with my students, you know like, don’t rub off your rawness, you know. I found—I think I’m finding ways to like, teach that wildness. It’s like with the structure, I do this thing now where I make them do a gallery of the same poem. So they each have to bring in the same poem shaped five different ways—

Taylor Johnson: Oh, I’d fuck with that, wow.

Danez Smith: And then we take some gallery walks and look at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Franny Choi: Ooo.

Danez Smith: And it makes them think, because then you have, by the third time, you’re like, okay what the fuck else do I do with this goddamn same-ass words. (GIGGLES)

Taylor Johnson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Danez Smith: Yeah, it’s a nice one. I like it. It’s a good way, especially if your students are struggling with structure or shape, it’s a nice one.

Taylor Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Franny Choi: I had my students, last year, also I just asked them to write the same poem differently, like with a different—on a different size of paper, or like, with a paintbrush versus like, typing.

Danez Smith: Ohh, I love that.

Taylor Johnson: I really dig that. That reminds me of—I think it was like the second poetry class I took, in undergrad, D.A. Powell came. And his prompt was for us to write a poem not on paper, so I wrote one on my arm.

Franny Choi: That’s really good.

Taylor Johnson: (LAUGHING) Like right before class.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: In the hallway, just—

Taylor Johnson: Mm-hmm. Alright.

Franny Choi: That’s really good.

(MUSIC PLAYS)

Franny Choi: Okay, so we’re gonna play now, some games. This first game that we’re going to play is called Fast Punch. And we’re going to give you a list of 10 categories, and depending on whether you want to choose the best of things or the worst of things, you’ll tell us either the best of that category or the worst of that category. Just whatever comes to your mind. Okay, are we ready?

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

Franny Choi: Do you want to say the best of stuff or the worst of stuff?

Taylor Johnson: I’ll be an optimist.

Franny Choi: Nice. Okay, great. Danez, you wanna start?

Danez Smith: Yeah. Sure. Best southern rap album.

Franny Choi: oof…

(TIMER TICKS)

Taylor Johnson: The Outkast one with “Elevators” on it. What’s that one, Southernplayalistic, whatever?

Franny Choi: Wow.

Danez Smith: It’s either that one or ATLiens.

Taylor Johnson: ATLiens, yeah. yeah, yeah. One of those. Whatever “Elevators” is on.

Danez Smith: Cool, cool.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Best sandwich.

Taylor Johnson: Uh…Man, I fuck with a lox bagel. I can get down with that.

Franny Choi: Yeah. Yes.

Danez Smith: Hm. Best thing in the dirt.

Taylor Johnson: Oh the fucking microbiome, you know what I mean. All the life that’s there. All the little critters that we can’t see.

Franny Choi: Yes, yes. Best season to be outside.

Taylor Johnson: Oh, fall.

Franny Choi: For sure.

Taylor Johnson: Definitely. And the jackets, you know, I got a lotta jackets I wanna wear.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) Yeah.

Danez Smith: It is jacket season, jackets go off! I love a light coat!

Taylor Johnson: Exactly.

Franny Choi: Love a light coat.

Danez Smith: Alright. Best place to meet a lover.

Taylor Johnson: Just randomly on the street.

Franny Choi: Best thing to burn.

Taylor Johnson: Oh, man. I guess the children listening to this, so I don’t know. I was gonna say a certain plant, but I like incense as well.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Best word you’ve used in a poem.

Taylor Johnson: That’s a hard question. I guess I’m gonna look at my book. Uh… let’s see, let’s see.

Danez Smith: It’s some good words.

Taylor Johnson: It’s a lot of good words in here, so maybe that’s my issue is the glut, you know what I mean? Got too many of them.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Taylor Johnson: I don’t know, I used ergo. And I think… that shits just funny to me

Danez Smith: Hey!

Franny Choi: That’s really good.

Danez Smith: Heyy.

Franny Choi: Best all-around hot sauce.

Taylor Johnson: There was a spot that I used to go to before the year of no restaurants. This spot that had these burritos that came with like a green hot sauce that was at once garlicky and also really fucking hot. And I dig that. I don’t know what it’s called, but it was excellent. And I could put it on anything, you know.

Franny Choi: Yes. Green garlicky hot sauce. Yes.

Taylor Johnson: Love that shit.

Danez Smith: Best genre to read in the morning.

Taylor Johnson: Oh, man. It’s definitely poems. It’s definitely poems, yeah.

Danez Smith: Is it different at night?

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. You know, I find myself reading some weird shit at night. Some architecture books or like, theory. Yeah.

Franny Choi: Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Taylor Johnson: Night gets weird.

Franny Choi: Best nonalcoholic beverage.

Taylor Johnson: Dandelion tea.

(TIMER DINGS)

Franny Choi: You won the game!

Danez Smith: You won!

(SOUND EFFECT)

Taylor Johnson: Oh, thank you. I’m so glad.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: I was really hoping I did.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) 10 out of 10. You win.

Taylor Johnson: Excellent.

Danez Smith: Cool. So Taylor, our next game is going to be This vs. That. I’ll give you two concepts. And you tell us who would win in a round a fisticuffs. So for today’s This vs. That, in this corner, we have, inheriting the land. And in that corner, we have, inheriting the library. Which one you takin’?

(BELL RINGS)

Taylor Johnson: This reminds me of this obituary I read years ago, which said that this guy who died was like, the burning of the Library of Alexandria. That’s a beautiful way to think about somebody’s life and their intellect. That’s a really hard question… I think the land, like inheriting the land. Definitely.

Franny Choi: Walk us through it. Why?

Taylor Johnson: Ultimately, the libraries are contained in the people, you know. And the land has so much to teach us that maybe a library just won’t, even though I love the library, man.

Danez Smith and Franny Choi: (CHUCKLE)

Taylor Johnson: It’s everything. And I guess there are books in the library about how to grow things, too. Yeah. I don’t know. But I’m gonna stick with the land. I’m gonna stick with the land. Yeah.

Danez Smith: You can build a library on the land.

Taylor Johnson: Cuz you can! because you have trees. Oh, yeah. You can make paper out of various substances.

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm. If you want a really good show about a book nerd who’s trying to make books out of the land, watch That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Bookworm. I think it’s the title. It’s a beautiful anime about this librarian who dies under a stack of books, and then gets reincarnated into another world where books and even literacy are only of like, the extremely elite. And so it’s her mission to make books happen, sort of selfishly for herself, but for everybody. And so, you follow her like, bringing literacy to the people, like, from teaching them to learning how to make paper. It’s great.

Taylor Johnson: I’d fuck with that. Is that is on Netflix?

Danez Smith: It’s on Crunchyroll.

Taylor Johnson: Okay.

Danez Smith: Yeah, that’s the anime joint.

Taylor Johnson: Right on.

Danez Smith: I’ll send it to you. I’ll definitely send it to you. It’s great.

Taylor Johnson: Thank you.

Franny Choi: Okay, shall we do This vs. Something Else?

Danez Smith: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Okay, cool. So now we’re going to play our third game, which we’ve introduced this season, which we are cheekily calling This vs. Something Else, where we’ll ask you whether you would rather live in this world, or an alternate world that we propose to you. And the ‘something else’ is the world of the poem, “The Quiet World” by Jeffrey McDaniel, in which the government has decided to allot each person exactly 167 words per day. Would you rather live in this world or one where you can only speak 167 words per day?

(SOUND EFFECT)

Taylor Johnson: That world is permanent? It’s not for a set period of time, it’s forever?

Franny Choi: Oh! That’s a good question. What do you think?

Danez Smith: Ooo.

Franny Choi: Like a full year.

Taylor Johnson: A full year. I could do a full year of the quiet world. I would do that. I don’t know, I think it could heighten a lot of different conversations, you know what I mean? You kind of get to the point quicker. And then, too, you’d have to find other ways of communicating that weren’t words. And that’s super interesting to think about.

Franny Choi: Do you think in this world that tweets count? Probably, yeah?

Danez Smith: (GASP) Wait, do your written words count?

Taylor Johnson: If that’s the other level then I don’t know. If you can’t write?

Danez Smith: Yeah, I’ve always assumed that in the quiet world you could write.

Taylor Johnson: Okay, if you can keep writing then I’m still gonna live in the quiet world for a year. Yeah, I would do that. I would do that.

Franny Choi: Wow, wow, wow.

Taylor Johnson: That’s an interesting restraint for humans, man. We like to talk. Yeah.

Franny Choi: We sure do. Yeah.

Danez Smith: I thought about doing a silent retreat only because of how hard it would be for me.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Danez Smith: I’m a noisy person. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is start making noise. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) It’s true. As somebody who’s shared an Airbnb with Danez Smith, over many a year, I can confirm. Can confirm that this bitch is loud in the morning. (LAUGHS)

Taylor Johnson: Like, you play music? Or you start, like, banging on things?

Danez Smith: Music, yeah, kind of like, what song am I waking up to, let’s go, let’s go.

Franny Choi: Fight videos on Twitter.

Danez Smith: I grew up in such a loud house, though, like, I’m used to waking up to the sound of other niggas having woke up. (LAUGHS) And so, like, it comforts me. But I also have been, surprisingly, I think to me and my homies, like, trying to have some longer stretches of time throughout the day where I’m like, you need to turn off the music. (LAUGHS) And like, just listen to, like, the sounds of your house for the next couple hours.

Franny Choi: Hm. Do you have sound on when you’re working, too?

Danez Smith: Oh, definitely. But that’s been changing, too. Like it’s less and less words.

Franny Choi: Taylor, do you keep noise or music on when you’re writing or working?

Taylor Johnson: I do, but it’s also without words. Yeah. Unless I’m listening to, like, I don’t know—I go into YouTube holes of singing- people singing hymns. Like, congregational hymns. And that’s probably the only words I’ll listen to. Yeah.

Danez Smith: Franny, what about you? You listen to music while you write, right?

Franny Choi: It depends. I only listened to stuff when I’m trying to kind of like get out of my own voice a little bit. Or like, if I’m trying to kind of get out of my own way, like, get that editing voice out of my head.

Danez Smith: Do you still do forced distraction stuff? Like, play something that you’re trying actively not to pay attention to while you write?

Franny Choi: Yeah, yeah. Like, something that’s, like, very distracting, so that I can kind of fight to concentrate. Yeah. But that is if I’m feeling too in my way to write. But for other just like working stuff, or like, I just, I have trouble with concentration, and attention and stuff. So I also, I do a lot of playing focus playlists on Spotify in order to, like, do anything. Anything else besides writing. Yeah.

Taylor Johnson: I like that idea of distracting yourself, like, trying to make yourself distracted by a particular thing to get to the voice or the sound in something else. I like that.

Franny Choi: Yeah, I think just like some kind of, like, clamor, because then it kind of like makes surprise happen better for me. Yeah. Alright. Well—

Danez Smith: We’re just chitchatting.

(ALL LAUGH)

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, no, that’s cool as shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like that’s, maybe in an analog way, I do that with books, you know what I mean? To read a bunch of books at the same time in order to really hear them, you know, as themselves and against others. Yeah.

Danez Smith: I feel like I do a multigenre way of that, like, I’m like, I’m reading this book while watching this movie while listening to this album. Like, that’s my thing. (CHUCKLES)

Taylor Johnson: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Even this morning, right? Like, I was like, okay, let me read this book, you know, for like, the third or fourth time before we go today. But, like, it had to be this new, like, orchestral album by Asia, this beautiful singer that I was listening to. And I was like, okay, and they had to match, you know? I feel like I curate.

Franny Choi: Oh you do, like, pairings.

Danez Smith: Yeah, it’s like, you know, if I’m gonna be doing this act of writing, I should have The Color Purple on in the background, right?

Taylor Johnson: Hm. Wow.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHING) It’s like that type of thing.

Franny Choi: I feel like that sometimes works for me. But then other times, I’m just like, I just spend too much time being like, “Look at the vibe I’ve created. Ooo. Look at it. Look at this great vibe I’ve made!” (LAUGHING) You know?

Danez Smith: But I really delight in that. I’ve really learned, like, especially in the quarantine, I’ve delighted in preparing my space for work. That ritual has like—I used to do it and felt like maybe I was detached from it for a little bit. But definitely, this year, I feel like I’ve been setting up my space to be creative more.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah. I think I’ve been more intentional about the amount of beverages I have. I really like having multiple beverages while I’m working, so.

Danez Smith: You gotta have a hot thing and a cold thing.

Taylor Johnson: A cold thing and then something else, you know what I mean?

Franny Choi: Hmm.

Taylor Johnson: Could be a sparkling thing like a kombucha.

Danez Smith: Ooo, a sparkling thing.

Franny Choi: Ooo.

Danez Smith: Alright, we’re just chitchatting.

Taylor Johnson: (LAUGHS) Cool, cool, cool.

Danez Smith: Taylor, thank you so much for coming on the show. (LAUGHING) You still gotta read us one more poem. Is there any place you would like to tell our readers to find more of you or anything you would like them to know before this poem?

Taylor Johnson: No, but you can buy this book at your local bookstore.

Danez Smith: You surely can.

Taylor Johnson: Or request it at your library. And also the Alice James website. Yeah.

Danez Smith: No, Amazon, y’all. No Amazon.

Taylor Johnson: No Amazon.

Danez Smith: Local bookstores, local bookstores, and directly from the press, directly from press, y’all.

Taylor Johnson: Yeah, yeah.

Danez Smith: Would you do us the honor of reading one final poem?

Taylor Johnson: Great. Thank you again for having me.

(READS POEM)

On My Way to You

Everyday is an invitation into intimacy, I decide, leaving my house.

That I will cross it, given the distance. Being money myself

and having none in the form of new shoes and all these holes in my jacket.

I inherited this privacy, given what it’s like to be an instrument—

Given each plant singing in its season. Given the trees between.

How can I tell you, given that you abide, I zeroed out in the field.

Given the no place of the soul. Given the so ringing in the forest’s

hollows. Given to ringing, being money myself given away.

Given the language this image system produces. Given that distance.

Given how maroon the morning war sky I wake up in,

owning nothing being money myself. Given that the block is mine

sayeth the red-eyed gods slouched over, standing up in exquisite coats.

Given trouble and home in the city that slipped out one night.

Given Uptown, Trinidad, KDY, wolves in Rock Creek. Given to corn-syrup spilling

out the cornerstore. Given the technicolor hole of the cornerstore. Given 7th & Florida,

that chromophonic praise break at the intersection. Given that happenstance touch.

Given the distance of money. I’m from nowhere where I’m from.

Being not monied myself and given to language. Given and being let go.

That distance. That I could cross it, given that you can hear me.

* * *

(MUSIC PLAYS)

Danez Smith: Taylor mother, frickin’ Johnson, everybody.

Franny Choi: Taylor Johnson, wow. Such brilliance in the poems, and then such brilliance in the talking about the poems.

Danez Smith: It’s almost like they’re brilliant.

Franny Choi: Yeah, it’s almost like, correct me if I’m wrong, they are a genius, actually.

Danez Smith: I might say, you know. (LAUGHS) Bring on one of them-them-thm MacArtDonald’s. I tried to make a joke out of that. Bring on one of them MacArthur’s, you know.

Franny Choi: Did you say McArtDonald’s?

Danez Smith: I was trying to make a McDonald’s joke out of MacArthur, but it just didn’t work, you know.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) Yeah, it really didn’t work. But, it worked in some ways, right?

Danez Smith: Well, hopefully the incantation worked.

Franny Choi: (GIGGLES) Well, I mean, you know, speaking of things working in some ways, and not working in others, not to make a metaphor out of your joke, but there’s this conversation that we had with Taylor about what we want a reader to get out of our poems, or like, what part of a poem we want to reach someone, even if like, not all of it is going to reach them. When you’re writing, like, what part of a poem do you most care about reaching somebody on the other end of it?

Danez Smith: Ooo, can you call the feeling a part of a poem? I’m like—(LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Of course! Yeah, but what do you mean by that?

Danez Smith: It’s hard for me, I think, once the poem is complete, to break it down again. I feel like even if I put one line in the poem that’s like, this is sort of the most true thing that I want, you know, I don’t want to obscure it—and I do feel like for a while, I operated like that. Like, what is sort of the most important line or secret or saying of this poem, right? Like that if everything else falls away, this is the utterance. But now, it’s kind of like, once I put the brick in the building, it’s part of the building now, right? I can no longer think about the brick. So that’s actually a really hard question for me to think about. And that’s why I say, is the feeling a part of it, right? Because I think once I’ve built the ship, then what I’m hoping to get is the mood, right? And I think I build that upon rhythm and all these other things. But I’m like, I don’t think I’m a poet whose emotions get confused. (LAUGHS) You know?

Franny Choi: Oh, for sure.

Danez Smith: You know, like, and maybe that is why it’s important to me, right, because I think there are certain poets when you read, you’re like, I don’t know what that feeling was. Some people read it happy. Some people read it sad. I think my emotional resonance is clear. And that’s why I’m saying the feeling.

Franny Choi: Yeah! I think that makes total—

Danez Smith: Does that make sense?

Franny Choi: Of course, I think that makes total sense. Because it’s not that your poems are not complex in their feelings. Like your work as a whole, is, I think, operating at like, what happens when, like, two or three sort of, like, contradictory feelings are happening at once, you know?

Danez Smith: For sure. That is, yeah, that’s the Nezzy project.

Franny Choi: Yeah. Right!

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Like, you know, it’s ambivalent, but not obscure, you know?

Danez Smith: Ooo.

Franny Choi: It’s like, multi-directional without being simple. You are the bisexual lighting of contemporary American poetry.

Danez Smith: Don’t say it! (SHRIEKS) Wow! I would like to thank my mother. I would like, I’d like to thank my bisexual history, you know. All those-thank you all those cis women who took a chance on a little gay boy.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Danez Smith: You know, thank you to everybody along the way who made this moment possible. Wow, Franny, thank you so much. This is a gift. (LAUGHS) But what about you, though? Like, I do kind of see your poems—like sometimes I read your work, and I feel like, especially in the last book, or maybe some of the poems reaching after that, I can kind of see, like, both the mechanic and the human fleshy parts of the poem. And so I’m interested, what, for you, is reaching towards the reader, right? Or are there, like, things in your poems—I’m wondering if there’s, like, different things reaching towards different readers within a singular hope for the work?

Franny Choi: Yeahhh. I think it depends on the project, actually. You know, when Taylor talks about emotional grammar, I think that I-I-I really relate to that. That like, an emotional grammar to kind of meet the complexity of feeling that you might have experienced, you know? As sometimes just happens through imagery and sound and stuff, as you say. I think that with the newer work … I think that I’m a little bit less interested in, like, just translating a feeling. I think that I want the reader to be met with some kind of charge, actually—

Danez Smith: Mmm….

Franny Choi: —To like, at the end of the poem be, like, “Wow, I”—well certain poems at least, to be like, “I have a direction to run in,” you know? Even if I don’t know what I’m doing there, like, this is— yeah, I don’t know, I think I just I want a little bit more charge is the only way I can think of really putting it.

Danez Smith: You know, that makes sense, because I feel like when you started talking, you know, even just in our private spaces, years ago about what you wanted the book after Soft Science to do, I think you talked about, like, the utility of work in such a way that that makes sense.

Franny Choi: Yeah. I think in Soft Science I was actually trying to reach, like, make the feelings as complex and like kind of sophisticatedly intricate as possible. And I think with this new stuff, I’m just trying to, like, talk to people. I don’t know.

Danez Smith: Yeah. Really asking for the conversation to happen.

Franny Choi: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Danez Smith: Wow. That excited me Franny, I’m sorry, oof!

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (GIGGLE)

Franny Choi: Aw. Thanks, Nezzy.

Danez Smith: Making readers say shit, yes! Make them niggas do shit, yes!

Franny Choi: (GIGGLES)

Danez Smith: Active reading, yes!

Franny Choi: Active reading, active listening.

Danez Smith: Make-make you get off your ass and do something, goddammit!

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Yes, yes. I feel it.

Franny Choi: We’ll see.

Danez Smith: I feel my copy of Black Marxism getting closer to my door.

Franny Choi: (GIGGLES)

Danez Smith: The universe is aligning. The people are getting action.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Well, with that, shall we do our shout-outs and thanks to people and move on out into the world? And by ‘the world’, I mean my living room.

Danez Smith: Turn from the computer to the pile of laundry sitting on the side—(LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHING) Right, right.

Danez Smith: Slight shift.

Franny Choi: Get out there and do something! Like, get out into the living room and sit on your couch!

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Danez Smith: I would like to thank anybody who has to go to work every day and see people who work from home, and who have the strength to have been doing that and like still, like, even feigning niceness. You know, like, anybody who has to work in customer service, shout-out to you, because I’ve seen people be so ignorant. And I’ve seen people be so stupid. And I’ve also seen people be so nice, too, but I know that, like, I just feel the privilege of having been able to, like, work from home all this time. And like, you know, especially as certain things have been opening back up, you know and not, right, like a lot of us still working from home, the people at my gym, very much back there. Right? People at the grocery store, never fucking left. Bus drivers never got a fucking day off, right? And so, like, just shout-out to you for getting all of us along. And you deserve all the things that, you know, that this country or whatever the country that you live in and listen to this in probably don’t give you. You deserve it. Fuck this shit. Let’s revolution. (SINGS) We need a revolution, we need a revolution. And yeah, that’s all I’ve got. (LAUGHING) We have so much confusion.

Franny Choi: We’re recording this a week after the shootings in Atlanta. At massage parlors in Atlanta. And so my thank you is just to Asian American and AAPI activists and movement builders who are making a way forward and helping us dream of a world where we are loved and have the care and dignity that we deserve. (MUSIC PLAYS) We also want to thank our producer, Daniel Kisslinger. Thank you to Ydalmi Noriega and Itzel Blancas at the Poetry Foundation. Thank you to Postloudness. Thank you to all of you who have continued to listen to us all the way into Season 5.

Danez Smith: Please make sure you like, rate, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on Twitter @Vsthepodcast. With that y’all, we are out of here. We will see you in another two weeks with another episode with your new, old, or current in the moment favorite poet. Y’all be safe. Have a good day. Love you.

Franny Choi: Love you, bye!