VS Season 6 Episode 3

Wes Matthews vs. Wonder

Transcription by: Akilah Muhammad

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

Hi, my name is Ajanaé Dawkins, and I am currently obsessed with the wardrobes of the bougie Black girls on TV from like the 90s.

Brittany Rogers

I'm Brittany Rogers, and I thought it was a scam, but the girlies were not lying when they said that the knotless box braids were a game changer because I got my first set y’all and they're so light. They're light and perfect. So, that’s what I'm obsessed with today.

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

Brittany Rogers

We are the host of VS the podcast where poets confront the ideas that moves them. Today, we're interviewing Wes Matthews, a phenomenal poet who we had the honor of meeting in his days as a youth poet.

Ajanaé Dawkins

And the pleasure was ours. 

Brittany Rogers

It was! 

Ajanaé Dawkins

It was ours (laughing).

Brittany Rogers

Hands down okay. Hands down. And it really has me meditating on our days as youth poets. It was a wild time (laughing). 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Wheeeew.

Brittany Rogers

Looking back, best, what was that time for you like?

Ajanaé Dawkins

Wow, my time as a youth poet. It was strange. It was strange for a lot of reasons. It was strange because I think I missed out on a lot of some of the like, traditional youth poet things, even though I was very like, in the youth poet culture. So like, I never went to DMV because I always had another commitment in the summertime. But I did go to LTAB, but I wasn't competing like in traditional LTAB. I was just there for the festival. So I really, depending on who and how you came in so much of youth poetry culture is like embedded in slam, and this like really deep competition, sense of competition. But I never experienced that in the traditional way. Because my first real slam was Rust Belt, and Rust Belt, the vibes

Brittany Rogers

They’re different. 

Ajanaé Rogers

They're very different. It's very communal. So my time as a youth poet was fraught with teenage angst, with a lot of dramatics. A lot of hunger, though, for the craft and the community. Like I was like, I was like 16 like “I'm writing sestinas!” I was so excited.

Brittany Rogers

You made us drive around to everything. I will never forget that night. We got caught in a snowstorm because Ajanaé had to just had to go down to see, who was it (inaudible)? 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah. 

Brittany Rogers

They were performing at a school two or three hours away from Detroit. We wasn't being stingy. But we knew that if Ajanaé wanted to go that meant that we would all have to go (laughing). And we definitely got caught in a snowstorm and had to stay overnight because Ajanaé just had to go that night! It was fun times. When I think back on my time as a youth poet, it also was interesting. My first year or two in Citywide Poets I actually, don't fight me Mom, I actually was like sneaking to Citywide Poets, because I just wasn't quite sure that I would be allowed to go, which maybe in hindsight doesn't make any sense. But you know, older kid responsibilities. So I didn't want to run the risk of being told no. So I just didn't ask. And if I didn't ask, nobody could tell me no (laughing). So every other day of the week, I would purposefully like catch the bus that I knew was going to take me the longest to get home. And because transportation is so, whew, raggedy in Detroit, shout out our city government, that the likelihood of it taking me two, three hours to get home is well within reason depending on what bus you catch. So I would purposefully catch the buses that I knew would get me home the latest every other day of the week so that on Wednesdays, I could go to Citywide Poets and then catch the quickest bus to get home and it be about the same time (laughing).

Ajanaé Dawkins

Shoutout to folks who had to lie to go to poetry slams. Because that was that was real.

Brittany Rogers

Listen, because I just didn't want to miss it. I love the I love the community space. Thinking back on my poems I'm like, Oh, I was writing like three or four page long poems about who knows what. I remember the first poem that I wrote that was like, shorter, and it was like persona, it was about Detroit. And I remember my mentor at the time being like this! Okay, I'm proud of you. This is a poem, this is growth. And I was like, Ooh, and I think after that, I was like, oh, I want that, I want that feeling. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

So thinking about that and thinking about watching folks who I knew as youth, just like shine and blossom and be brilliant, and quite literally blow me away with the work that they're doing. Wes Matthews…

Brittany Rogers

Listen.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Because I want to be clear. I was not thinking, writing nothing like that.

Brittany Rogers

You heard me. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Whaaat!

Brittany Rogers

I will come to the poem like oh, these grown up poems! Wait a minute!

Ajanaé Dawkins

Like no edits. 

Brittany Rogers

How you know how to do that!

Ajanaé Dawkins

No edits. Okay, can you teach me, actually? So we have the honor of interviewing him today.

Brittany Rogers

We're gonna kick off the bio so you can hear the brilliance that is Wes Matthews. Wes Matthews is a Detroit-born, Philadelphia-based poet and essayist. Wes served as the 2018-19 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate and received the Congressional Award for “outstanding and invaluable service to the community.” He is the recipient of the 2020 College Alumni Society Prize for his poetry and the 2020 Lillian and Benjamin Levy Award for his music criticism. Without further ado, let's get into it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

We are so excited to have you here today, and get to pick your brain and all of the good things. We were wondering if you could start us off with a poem?

Wes Matthews

Absolutely. Thank you. This poem is called “Black Narcissus” [recites poem]. 

Brittany Rogers

Wes, why would you say that? 

Wes Matthews

(Laughs)

[OVERLAPPING VOICES]

Ajanaé Dawkins

“Like water, the intimacy of being alive.” What?!

Wes Matthews

Thank you. Yes. Thank you. 

Brittany Rogers

You know it’s wild because that's where we both stuck at (laughing)

Ajanaé Dawkins 

We both looked at each other, “the intimacy of being alive”, what because now I got to rethink about what being alive means. 

Wes Matthews

(Laughs)

Ajanaé Dawkins

Now I gotta re-situate the whole situation.

Brittany Rogers

Also put me very much in conversation with Toni Morrison’s, “water has perfect memory.” Like the combination of the two was like okay, start us off, start us off (laughing). And what's moving you these days, Wes?

Wes Matthews

I've really been moved recently with the concept, the art, the creation of ecstatic poetry. It is the word ecstatic, coming from the Greek word, ectasis, which means to basically to stand or step outside of oneself. And so ecstatic poetry often is associated with this word, self transcendence. I think that hits on a lot of its points, but it's kind of an incomplete picture. When I think of ecstatic poetry, I think of an engagement with the human capacity for wonder and revelation, it's looking into the world, looking at all the beauty, and the triumphs, and also the tragedy, and the failures and being like and learning to love it, learning to embrace it, learning to appreciate it, seeking to encounter the beauty and the essence of all things. It sounds like really lofty and it is a little too lofty for me, which is why I like to break it down in my poetry in like bite sized pieces and images that I can resonate with, and that I can actually communicate with some semblance of clarity. But yeah, it's really mystical, very spiritual for me. Greek mythology has been like a big avenue for me to getting there. I have a lot of these like Greek mythology, poems. So “Black Narcissus” being one of them. Those were my kind of like bedtime stories as a kid. And what I want to communicate is I think we're missing a piece of the puzzle when we talk about Greek mythology today, because we present these stories and these tales and these myths as cautionary tales. So for instance, in The Story of Narcissus, you have this handsome man who falls in love with his reflection in water and becomes depressed that the reflection can’t love him back and it's unrequited love and then he commits suicide or dies a tragic death wherever in whatever version, and so people will single that out as like okay that's a singular person, that's narcissist; don't be like narcissist, don't be that way. I feel like these stories and their original purpose or their their original intent or goal was to illuminate a human fallibility, human failures, human foible, or like you know kind of like be like okay Narcissus is all of us. The reason this story is intriguing to me because at our core, what are humans and what do we want or desire? And one of the things that we have a natural desire for is to be loved, and not only to be loved, but to be seen as beautiful. And I think both of those things are incorporated in The Story of Narcissus. And so when I think about “Black Narcissus”, I think about the uphill climb that Black people have trekked to claim their beauty and assert beauty in the face of a society that either won't acknowledge their beauty, or only acknowledges the superficial aspects of that beauty. And so I was thinking about my question was okay, so how are narcissist, like how does “Black Narcissus” see this world that that treats them terribly? See this world that doesn't really love them? See this world that pines after him and longs for him, but doesn't really long for the person he is and his inner person? And then how does he learn to love it? And how does he learn to navigate? And how does he learn to admire himself and love and teach himself that he is lovable? And so that's what that poem kind of is. I feel like it's one of the poems that I'm most proud of, in the sense that it’s precisely almost what I want it to be, or what I wanted it to be when I started writing. So that's where that came from.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Whew! Lord, Wes, we five minutes in, and I think it brings up the idea of like, what does it mean for us to be humanized as well?

Brittany Rogers

I think I appreciate the fact that you use mythology to trouble that, because I feel like the mythology is something that's often ascribed to like whiteness, and I love you using it to explore that specificity of Blackness.

Wes Matthews

Yeah, I was just like, these stories are too human to just be whites or Greek or European. What I want to do I have, you know, a poem “Black Icarus” and “Black Prometheus” and all this stuff. I'm just like obsessed with this idea that you can claim this thing and it's still be kind of universal, or it's still it's still make sense in the human picture like we are, we are a part of that.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Can I ask a follow up question just because one of the things you mentioned when talking about the ecstatic poetry was this like mystical spiritual element, and then you move from that into mythology. And I'm wondering if you could talk more about how mythology, mythmaking, mysticism, etcetera, etcetera are embedded in your process? Like when you say it's spiritual, when you say it's that can you, can you maybe just explain that a little more?

Wes Matthews

Maybe in another life, or maybe even in this life, I would have been or will be somebody who like really studies and gets into myths and stuff like that, because I think it uproots the deepest part of the human consciousness like, and so, I think what intrigues me about poetry and mystical poetry is that okay, so I think humans have a desire to feel like or to encounter truth, truth about this universe, truth about this world, it's gonna, this is gonna get like really cosmological for no reason. At least what I’ve ssen in my life, like deep, a deep yearning to counter truth, and then there being a tension because we'll never fully know or comprehend that truth. There are things you just can't know even about ourselves, and our own bodies and our own lives, you know, and stuff like that. There's just things you can't know even about your own memories, about the things that you care about the most. And that's kind of tragic. And so I feel like a part of our resolution to that is, we have this dilemma, we want truth, but we there are obstacles that keep us from getting to full truth. So what do we do? We make sense of it, and we make sense of it through myth, we make sense of it through story, we make sense of it by through escapism, fantasy, stuff like that. And not to say that the mythology is the same or on par with fantasy and escapism, because it's much obviously it's much deeper than that, I think. But that's why I think a lot of these like myths that we have are so similar across cultures and across peoples and across time. We just, humans love the same things and we desire the same things. You know, that is what inspires me and that's what keeps me writing and so that's why I like to pull out these like ancient myths and stuff like that and find either put a modern twist on it, put my own twist on it, or just keep it as it is, and just truly bask in the beauty of it. Because those things don't really age. Those things don't outgrow those things.

Brittany Rogers

I heard you say that like trying to unravel that truth is what keeps you writing, which I think is such like a dope concept, right that I have this forever question or this forever pondering that I'm going to be wondering about and reconciling with for the rest of forever, but so be the person who missed you like really early in the youth poet game, and then watching you transition out, and then watching you transition, you know, into like a more professional sphere, I'm wondering, you know, I'm wondering kind of how you have handled exiting that space? I know, at least for myself, as a person who entered through slam and entered the youth poetry scene, there was such a long while where there was a gap between people recognizing that I was an adult, right, and doing completely different things than what I was doing previously. So I'm wondering what that space has been like for you?

Wes Matthews

So I think there were kind of discrete phases of my life and poetry because mostly because I moved when I was 16. And I moved to a different part of the country. And I still wanted to pursue poetry, and they didn't necessarily have the same opportunities and resources. So I went to try something different. And I spent a lot of time writing and when beforehand I had been writing, with friends, I had been writing in groups, I had been writing in workshops and stuff like that. Really, for the first time in my life, I started writing in my bedroom, just by myself or at my desk or in you know, in school, I had to sit with the fact that, okay, I have yet to really encounter who I am, as a poet in my poetry, I have yet to find that. And there's a sizable incubation period for any, I feel like for any youth poet to actually find their voice. Because you're young, you're so impressionable, and you have these other youth poets that you admire, and you have these adult poets that you admire. And so at least for me, it started in a lot of imitation. And my mom obviously, is a poet too. So I started imitating her and stuff like that. First of all, I'm all for finding your voice through imitation, I think innovation comes when it's supposed to. And so obviously, it's not like plagiarize somebody's work, or plagiarize somebody's style. But I think especially when you're young, you don't have a reference point for yet for what you want to say or, or how you want to say it, or you know, what form it should take. For the first time, I started reading poems on my own. And that was mostly because, you know, I felt I was alone for the first time and I felt kind of lonely. And so it was really hard for me socially to adjust to being in that space, and then kind of moving being taken out of it so abruptly. Don't feel like I made a great transition when I moved because I was a little bit sad, I probably didn't reach out to people, probably didn't reach out to poets and stuff like that. You know, I take everything, every moment, every phase of life for the good and the bad. And I think the good that came out of that situation was okay. I finally said to myself, well, I have all the foundation, I need to feel confident in writing poems. And now I want to be confident in writing my poems, and writing what I want to say, you know.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I love the way you worded that, this idea that you were, you learned to write a poem, and then you learned how to write your poems. And I think there's something really beautiful that happens when you really settle into your voice, and not just the craft concept of voice. So with that, I want to ask you, you have this essay on fireworks and the human call for wonder which banger. Okay, just want to put that in the atmosphere. And Brittany and I were talking about it, and we were talking about the things that happen as we age, and how that aging shifts us as writers. when I was younger, like you write a poem, and immediately like you get your homies on the phone, y’all meeting before the meeting so you could hear this new (inaudible) like there was just so much excitement around the work and not that there's not now but it's just different. And so after reading your essay, I was wondering, what are you doing to preserve your wonder of the world and of craft? And how has maybe that wonder shifted? Because you know, there are different types of wonder as you age, but what are you doing to preserve it?

Wes Matthews

Oh, absolutely. As I get older, I feel smaller and not that's not a bad thing, though. I feel like the world is so big and I am such a small speck of life that on this planet is moving rock, and I used to be terrified about that. I used to be terrified because I thought that that meant that either my life didn't matter, or what I do doesn't matter, or who I loved they don't matter and stuff like that. So, but that's not true. In fact, I think it's the opposite. When I started getting into nature and going on these nature hikes, I learned what an arboretum is. 

Brittany Rogers

Wait like can you pause for a second? Because I don't know what that is (laughing). Can you (laughing) what is that?

Wes Matthews

Yes (laughing), arboretum is the really fancy word for like tree garden, or something like a like a tree park.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Wes, you better educate us on this podcast!

Wes Matthews

(Laughing) So when I got into nature, and I got into photography, just because I wanted to capture the natural world, and these ceaseless endless cycles of beauty and flowers, and trees, and water, and animals and stuff like that, I'm like, we are living inside of a moving miracle. It's like, it's it's almost it's, it's, it's almost like we take for granted all of this stuff like this stuff doesn't have to be here, this stuff. I'm just sometimes I get emotional thinking about it because just like, I think about all the things in a single day that I take for granted, that is literally a miracle, or literally like something that elevates the beauty of this world and does not die, only changes and evolves and, or goes through the cycles and transformations. For example, so I wanted to write recently, I wanted to write a poem about a sequoia tree. I've never seen a sequoia tree, but I know that they live 3000 years and that they are hundreds of feet tall. And I just imagined myself standing at the base of one and being like, I can never be that, I just can't be that endless. I can't be that sturdy, and solidified, and sure of myself. But it's here for a reason, I can admire that. That was one of the hardest poems I ever had to write because I just didn't know how to capture it. I felt like I couldn't, I didn't have the words, or images to capture what I wanted to. And to this day, I still feel like it's a poem I'm going to return to and try to edit what I actually see as a sequoia tree. Because I was thinking I was basically writing hypothetically, I was like if I were to see as a sequoia tree, and the challenge of trying to capture that is really what reinvigorates me to, to consider the beauty of the world, and consider how massive it is, and how expansive our ecosystems are, and stuff like that. And just realizing that I am a cog in the machine, I'm gladly a cog in the machine, I will serve my purpose, I will be of service to the world just like that sequoia tree is of service to the world.

Brittany Rogers

I mean, I think it does, because I think wonder, especially when you juxtapose it with, like the cynicism that typically comes as we age, right? The older I got, the more I was like God this world, it's not what I thought it was, or how you said, now I feel like a spec or as when I was younger, I felt so invincible. I felt like the whole world was like, you know, they say main character syndrome, like surely all of this revolves around me. And the older I got, the more I was like, oh, this has nothing to do with me (laughing). I think that's a really gorgeous way to think about wonder is reminding ourselves like how small we are in the grand scheme of things. I feel really similarly when I think about the ocean, like I'm not a big nature person. But when you start thinking about the ocean and how vast it is, I’'m like, wow, that's crazy.

Wes Matthews

I've always had a deep fear of water and large bodies of water. I think a lot of that comes from like a deep respect and admiration for what it is and its power, kind of like how some people will say like God fearing and stuff like that, like water fearing in that sense, like fear in the sense of all like just complete, utter, total absolute awe for this thing and its power and its beauty.

Ajanaé Dawkins

That is so beautiful water fearing, if you don't title a poem “Water Fearing”, okay. And write that whole devotional. I'm also so struck, by the way you talk about this concept of getting older, making you realize how small you are. And I think part of that being able to see the things around you more clearly. But being able to see the magnitude of the spaces around you and how it almost centers you and a kind of gratitude because it's very difficult to be grateful for what's around you when like you see yourself as too large in comparison.

Brittany Rogers

I’m thinking about the way that you are talking about nature and how it informs your work, and how it informs your practice specifically. And then also thinking about that as its own sort of ecosystem, like the the world that you're building around us using myth, and mysticism, and wonder, and place, and Earth, and time. And I'm also wondering if that, I know how it informs your poetics or you spoke a bit of how it informs your poetics. I'm wondering how it informs your understanding of community, or your role in community, especially, since we're talking about like shifting out of spaces, and now making new discoveries. How does that concept of ecosystem take place when we're thinking about community?

Wes Matthews

I think a good way to enter into answering that question is by talking about the poem, I plan on reading at the end, it's, it's a poem, kind of, in the voice of John Coltrane. John Coltrane has a first of all, one of my favorite musicians. Second of all, he has an interview towards the end of his life, where he's talking about, you know, why he makes music and what he imagines to be his future. And, you know, what, what he thinks his place in the world and stuff like that. He says, I want to be a force for real good. And he goes on to say something to be effect of I know that there are forces for good, that kind of just truly in the simple in simple terms really just embodies what I what I want, why I make art, or why would I want my art to be whether I'm making poetry or music or whatever, I just want to be a force for good. I think all humans somewhere deep down in their soul have have this desire for for goodness, this desire to be a good person. 

Brittany Rogers

Mhm (laughing).

Wes Matthews

I was gonna say all people, and then I was like, oh, maybe deep down in their soul somewhere (laughing). 

Brittany Rogers

Some of these folks (laughing)

Ajanaé Dawkins

I’m the optimist, I be trying (laughing)

Wes Matthews

So yeah, that tension is always present in my life. But I want to be a force for good inside the poem and outside the poem within and without, I want to be in community with people. I want to love people, restlessly and ceaselessly. I want to be radically loving when I can, generous, and give gratitude to people, be humble in the space of other people and stuff like that. I think that is what that desire really drives my poetry because I started to think over this past year, I was just like, wait, I'm not the only person. I feel (inaudible). The pandemic made me feel really bad. But I'm not the only person feeling bad right now. And I think what would make me feel better is somehow being out there trying to make other people feel better, too. I want my poetry to bear witness to the beauty of a good deed. I like to think of the term of vocation, which is something that I've gotten into recently. I recently wrote a poem about feeling like having a vocation called a calling, and it's inspired by this like Caravaggio painting of The Calling of St. Matthew. And it's just I really felt like I want to be called towards something. I want to know what that calling is. I want to hear it when it comes and respond to it when it comes. And so when I was younger, I was called, I knew I was called to write or if not to write then to be around writers or make some sort of art, right. And now I'm older, I feel a call for kind of teaching or giving, giving back is one of my favorite things to do. I like workshopping, especially with young young people. That's kind of like one of my favorite areas of service in my life is kind of it's just giving people what I was given as what I was lucky enough to have, fortunate enough to have. I want to look to others and take inspiration from others and hopefully provide inspiration in the ways that I can. So yeah, still working through the idea of what it means to be a poet in a community. But also, I feel like just being a human in a community is more than enough.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I know this is like a question from before, when we asked about your preservation of wonder, but I just want to like articulate that I feel like in the way that you're talking about thinking about the work, I feel like I can see so much evidence of the wonder you've preserved and it's really beautiful. And it makes me want to go back and be like what have I lost that I need to return to so I'm just I'm super grateful. I do want to go a little bit back to something and shift gears, so you've talked a little bit about music and we know that you out here winning awards for music criticism and like we know that this influences your work right? 

Wes Matthews

Yeah. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Who is your problematic fave in the music world?

Wes Matthews

Oh man. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

We are dying to know. 

[ALL LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

Cause we heard about yo favorite favorites but I'm like, I wonder.

Ajanaé Dawkins

We are dying to know. 

Wes Matthews

I definitely have a lot of guilty pleasures like people who I'm like, man, I wish I didn't like this right now (laughing). 

Brittany Rogers

But it’s so good. What’s that lil “Wrecking Ball” song by Miley Cyrus? 

Wes Matthews

[Sings Chorus of “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus].

Brittany Rogers

I’m not gone lie, it goes (laughing)

[OVERLAPPING VOICES]

Wes Matthews

As far as like a problematic fave slash guilty pleasure artist, I've been like, really obsessed with Taylor Swift for the past four months or not four months, four weeks. And it's so bad. I've gotten so much grief from it from my friends. And I can and cannot explain. But I've gotten a lot more into like, country music and stuff like that. And like, you know, like, I don't know, it's kind of a guilty pleasure. But also it's like country music is Black music slash (inaudible). Country music is poor folks, music, it's southern music. It's all those things. So I don't like that it's become so one dimensionalize, so to speak. But at the same time

Brittany Rogers

Let’s take it back to that reclaiming. Reclaiming myths, reclaiming country music.

Wes Matthews

I just did not like her for a long time. And I think part of it is because I just thought there was no possible way that that music could resonate with somebody with my identity, or like, I don't know how exactly to word it. But I didn't think that there was a way in for me, for me to listen like somebody like Taylor Swift. So I was actually kind of a Taylor Swift hater for a long time. And then my friend sent me this song, like, oh, I think you'll really liked this song, because it's really beautiful. It's like your type of writing style. I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever. I listened to it. And I was like, oh, man, this song is so well written. And I guess it provided me a lesson on a like, you may think that you were too dissimilar to relate to somebody or too dissimilar to bask in somebody's art or somebody's passions. But until you actually give that person the chance and hear them out, it's experienced differently. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely experienced differently. Like Taylor Swift is pretty much a rich white girl from Pennsylvania whose has been famous since she was 16. And I won't ever try to try to be that person that's like her experience the same as mine. No, you know, but at the same time, it I guess it was a lesson in listening, truly listening to people and in that sense I, the fact that I can empathize with Taylor Swift and the stuff that she was saying in her song was like mind boggling to me at first, but it makes sense now.

Brittany Rogers

I was just gonna say I think that points back to what you were saying earlier about myth, right? And how myths continue to survive and continue to be you know, repeated because, because of our common shared experiences, and we're over our common shared fears in grief.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Also, not you ‘bout to have me go listen to a Taylor Swift album, just to check out the vibes. Just to check out the vibes!

Wes Matthews

I'm not a strong enough fan to be like a proponent of Taylor Swift like go listen to Taylor Swift. But I will say that there are some bangers there.

Brittany Rogers

And even thinking about what you said about COVID. Right, and how we were also lonely. And I think it took me grief can be so (inaudible) that it took me a while to be like, Oh, other people are also experiencing this horrific grief. Like, you know how there's a way where you sad that you feel like the world is supposed to stop and then you look around and it hasn't stopped. So then you're like, is anybody else sad? I think it took a while to realize that no, we're all sad as hell, right? So thinking about that listening in that universality, and in small things, right, like pop and love and romance and heartbreak, I think is important. 

Wes Matthews

I had a goodconversation with somebody the other day about loneliness, and the fact that, especially for somebody like me who’s a little more introverted and quiet and a little shy, and likes to keep a lot of stuff in the mind and you know, very cerebral and stuff like that. I think it's hard for you while you're in a state of loneliness, to realize that everybody is lonely. Everybody has experienced loneliness. It's so hard because like, that's, that's the tent. That's the actual conflict of loneliness is that you feel like people can't understand it. They don’t relate to you and you feel kind of sheepish and bears to bring it up. But like, everybody has experienced it, even the people who you envy for being for being so well connected, and having all these people there for them. They are lonely, too. It gives some meaning to the experience because it means that okay, this is something that not only I struggle with, or I have to go through, but everybody has to go through.

Brittany Rogers

Listen, you are giving a craft talk on interconnectedness. The ecosystems there of (laughing).

Ajanaé Dawkins

Listen, Wes is an elder I don't care. Okay, that we brought you on and wanted you to talk about your transition to moving out of the scene. Wes is an elder.

Brittany Rogers

So speaking of your eldership, right (laughing), in this wonderful transition, I'm not going to be that weirdo who's like, oh, what's coming next right and put the pressure on you like, tell me what you're doing right now. Because who knows what any of us are doing right now, but I am interested in where your projects have been leaning towards. Right. Because I know you said your writing is looking a lot like ecosystem, and home, and wonder, but wondering about the collective of what you're working on. Like what’s good with it, what’s happening?

Wes Matthews 

Yeah. Oh man, I've been trying to start to like, kind of less material, like less material markers of progress or you know, stuff like little stuff like so when I think of a project now I think of something I'm doing to cultivate, cultivate some skill, or some virtue, or cultivate my mindfulness rather. So I've started to water plants, for instance. So that's, that's something that I'm doing. I consider that a project now because it's I'm trying to something I'm doing to cultivate my lab to increase my mindfulness, to increase my, the fact that to really reassert that love for nature and stuff like that. Also, learning guitar has been a big thing for me recently, like stuff like that. But besides that type of stuff, which I find I'm trying to consider equal of equal importance to like the more literary things and artful things that I've been doing. Been writing a lot of essays recently, I've started writing a memoir the other day, a small memoir, like memoir, essay, slash memoir, whatever you want to call it, I guess. I'm still writing poems. Hopefully, one day I'll have a collection, or a book or something, if I can get them all on the same page with each other. I'm just like, these are like the poems I was reading a year ago, are like, oh, man, that's not the same poetry I write right now. I'm trying to keep myself always writing and dedicate myself to that craft. And also, I've gotten into the last thing I'll say is I've gotten into a lot of visual stuff in the past year or so. First of all, if there's anybody out there who wants to teach me how to produce music, or how to play guitar, or how to do something like that, yeah. I’m definitely open to that process and I love taking pictures of people capturing pictures, capturing people's beauty. I love it. So that’s something I'm looking forward to in the near future, if I can rally up my spirits to do it.

Brittany Rogers

I think that’s so cool and such a, like, a smart way to look at it, right. Just go with the flow of your interests or passions. I love the shooting your shot and being like, look, if you know holla at the kid because that's the way to do it. Because somebody knows and they're gonna follow up. It's gonna be a thing you spoke up.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I want to ask you our signature question, which is, and we'll ask this and then got a break. But if you could choose three people whose work we need to study, engage with in order to understand your work, who would they be?

Wes Matthews

Oh, wow, three people. Okay, so I'm going to say, Stevie Wonder. I'm going to say, Rita Dove. And okay, here's one I’m gonna falter. I don't know. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

The third one’s always the hardest. 

Wes Matthews 

Yeah. Third one is always the hardest because I could go like a totally different direction and genre right now. 

Brittany Rogers

Hit the spicy take (laughs). 

Ajanaé Dawkins

We're here for it. 

Wes Matthews

Okay. I'm just gonna say what I want to say. I am a big fan of and these aren't to say that these are my favorite like artists or anything like that, but that they are essential to who I feel like I am, just to preface that so people are like, wow, but I'm really into radio and stuff like that. Specifically sports broadcasting radio. I think especially baseball. I'm a huge baseball fan. And I think listening to there's there's a poetic quality about radio broadcasts in baseball, particularly because it's, it's it's a slow sport. It leaves a lot of room and area for storytelling, and creative interpretation. And my favorite sports broadcaster is the broadcaster of the Detroit Tigers and his name is Dan Dickerson. And I listened to him proudly. I probably consume like his words and voice more than I consume like anybody else's like other than people I interact with on a day to day basis. So I think I think he's essential to my work, I would say and he, I don't know if he's essential, like, I draw direct stylistic inspiration from him. But I think he's essential in the fact that he inspires me. So he inspires he makes me feel like it's it's worth it or it's something you know. 

[BACKGROUND MUSIC CUES]

Ajanaé Dawkins

I love that. Okay we can go break. 

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

Ajanaé Dawkins

So this versus that is really simple. We will give you two choices, and you're going to tell us who you think would win in a fight, and why. 

Wes Matthews

I like that explanation part, okay. Yes, yes.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes, yes. It's very, it's very critical. 

Wes Matthews

Yeah. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Okay. So this versus that, your choices are the sequoia tree versus Narcissus.

Wes Matthews

See the sequoia tree if it used its full power, it would win. But it's so tender and gentle. And it's like a gentle giant, I imagine. So I don't think it would lose. I think Narcissus would win because of that fighting spirit. So I think it comes down to demeanor in that case and not capability.

Brittany Rogers

So are you saying that the sequoia tree could win but would choose not?

Wes Matthews

It could win, yeah. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

It would sacrifice itself? 

Wes Matthews

Yeah, exactly. It would surrender. It would, exactly, it would sacrifice itself. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Oooh, no surrender. Surrender, I like the word you use.

Wes Matthews

(Laughing). 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Sequoia tree would would rather surrender than violate someone.

Wes Matthews

Yeah something like that, something along those lines.

Ajanaé Dawkins

How you got me torn up in this versus that, Wes?

Wes Matthews

(Laughing) I don't know. I was like, for a second, I was like, oh, sequoia, but then I thought about it and was like, no. 

Brittany Rogers

I love that (laughs). I'm really gone be ponderin’. You make me want to choose the most tender thoughtful answer every time, Wes, and I think that that's a gift, like 

Ajanaé Dawkins

It is.

Brittany Rogers

I’m really processing the way that you consider things, and I like it. 

Wes Matthews

Thank you. 

Brittany Rogers

You're welcome. Would you do us the honor of closing us out with one last poem?

Wes Matthews

Absolutely. This is the poem that I mentioned earlier. It’s about John Coltrane. It's called “John Coltrane Plays Giant Steps with No One Else in the Room”. [Recites poem].

Brittany Rogers

Oooh, if we was at the slam I’d throw something at you, okay (laughs). If we was back in slam days just know.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes. Thank you so much, Wes. Like I literally cannot articulate how much of a gift this conversation was like.

Brittany Rogers

Thank you so much for being our guest today, Wes. We loved, loved, loved talking to you and can't wait for the world to hear this conversation.

Wes Matthews

Thank you, it means a lot to me.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

Wes is so wildly brilliant. Like that was stunning.

Brittany Rogers

A damn good episode okay. Taught me some thangs! Taught me some thangs! 

Ajanaé Dawkins

I think one of the things, Wes is so brilliant, and so interior in their evaluation of their obsessions, the things they're thinking about in their work, and not just in their work, in their processing that it's convicting for me. Also am super grateful for the way Wes talked, the way Wes sees the poetic in everything and not just like, oh, the way we leisurely talk about, you know, this thing is a poem, but to see craft, visible craft, musicality, all of these things visible is something that I would have never been able to imagine makes me, also convicts me it's like you need to be looking harder! Okay, because obviously, you are not observing the way you need to be observing. So it just it just not not in a it just makes me want to be a better observer of the world around me. It makes me want to be more seeking, more questioning, more curious, and it makes me want to interrogate where I've abandoned curiosity. And wonder, yes, because because wow, to to approach the mundane things in my life, with the kind of wonder that Wes is approaching. The mundane things in his life with like, who might I be? What might happen to my craft? Right? 

Brittany Rogers

I definitely am going to be trying to bring that more into practice, because I am certainly I'm not quite a pessimist, but I'm very close (laughs) it is what happens 

Ajanaé Dawkins

You practical. 

Brittany Rogers

Very practical (laughing) very, very realistic. But even thinking about how realistic I am, there are the number of things that have happened to me in the last few years that had you asked me before, I would have bet money, like I would never do that, or this thing would never happen, or that's not a possibility for me right now. And watching those things become possibilities, I think has opened me up a bit. And I think listening to Wes is opening me up even more, because I'm like, what if I approach this thing with that same sense of like, wonder and excitement about it, versus oh, I already know what's happening with that thing, because I'm approaching it with this practicality. So that's something I'm gonna be thinking about for a long time. It was really, really cool.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah, no, same. So, thinking about that, thinking about the things we maybe want to retain from our time as youth poets, this sense of wonder, all of these things, what's something that you would tell your youth poet self, like, knowing where you are now, as a writer, as somebody who like, like, man, she got a career? You know what I mean (laughing)? You got a career girl!

Brittany Rogers

That's wild.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

I think what I would tell myself, both out of a combination for what I feel like I could have done better, and what I feel like I did very well, is to take the relationships that I make in poetry very seriously. Especially the mentorship. Like, I often tell people that I kick myself when I think about the people who are like my first teachers in InsideOut, Matthew Olzmann, was like my literal first instructor with InsideOut, francine j. harris was there, Aricka Foreman was there. Bobby Francis was in Detroit, and because I was so young, I really didn't conceptualize who, who they were were. Like, not in terms of who you are in the poetry business, but just in terms of like, how valuable my relationship was with them, and how much I was learning from them. Because I was taking myself as a poet completely for granted. I was like oh I’ll just show up, and I write poems with these folks every week. But now I'm like, oh, my God, why didn't you ever ask Matthew this? Or why didn't you ask francine this? But on the flip side, I do think that what I did a solid job at and what I would encourage people to do is that those relationships grew with me. So even though I don't think I realized what I had at the time, I think that the bond that was formed, right, and the trust that was formed means that I can still at anytime call Aricka Foreman and be like, hey, I was wondering about this thing, or, hey, I'm gonna be in your city, like, can we go out for coffee or something of the sort, and even all of my, some of my most consistent friendships are people who I've met in Citywide Poets. I am married to one of them (laughing). Ajanaé Dawkins is sitting across from me, right. Joseph Verge, (inaudible), these are the homies. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Ariana!

Brittany Rogers

Ariana, like, these are still my loves. So I think if I was talking to youth poet, me, I would just remind myself not to take this as like a fleeting phase in my life. But to consider that this could be my life's work like this could be my lifetime. And so then to think carefully about how to transition those relationships, like for a lifetime versus for just that short season.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Ooh, best, that's so good. I also think that's such a strange thing to think about the folks even we were reading week to week and I'm like, like, I remember them bringing in poems from Nate Marshall, from all of these folks with me being 16, 17 being like, who are these people?

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

(Inaudible) I got careless with my notes, and I'm like, bitch, I wish I had those notes. (Inaudible) What was that? 

Ajanaé Dawkins

I don't remember a doggone thing. Wish I had, wish I had those notes and like having to be eased into the understanding of reading. So, shoot.

Brittany Rogers

What would you tell your young youth poet self, best?

Ajanaé Dawkins

I think I would tell my youth poet self, that all my gifts, all my obsessions, all of those things would make room for me, which is like a very cliche, like, you know, your gifts will make room for you. But like that there would be a way for all of the things that I was concerned with, to come together in that they didn't have to be in conflict with one another. Like me writing poems about my mother didn't have to be in conflict with my mother, it could be in collaboration with her. And it could be a thing that grew us in our relationship and awareness of ourselves as opposed to a thing that I had to do in rebellion, to stand in my truth. And I would tell myself to always value the community over the work. Because I think being a good community member, a good larger community member, is something that I had to learn to do. And I don't think it was something that was inherent. And I think in a lot of ways, one of the things that sometimes youth poet culture teaches that we break out of, or hopefully we break out of as adults

Brittany Rogers

Hopefully. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Hopefully (laughs) we break out of as adults is a kind of tribalism because you learn to love your team. 

Brittany Rogers

Yeah. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

You learn to love deeply your team, like if somebody, I will go hard for my team, and then we go, and everybody is in these team pockets, or everybody is in the small group pocket. But we don't learn what it means to bridge across these myriad of spaces because it is always our team in competition with these other teams. Again, if you're coming from the slam space, which, you know, is is our experience. And so, I would, I would want to teach myself that. Alright, I would want to tell myself that. I was asking him to say something about peer mentorship, but I feel like we did that I felt like we were constantly like, look, I was like, can you teach me this and I’ll teach you this. We really wasn’t playin’ with that.

Brittany Rogers

We was on it. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

We was not playing with that. 

Brittany Rogers

To this day. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes. 

Brittany Rogers

Alright, so let’s do some thank yous and and get out of here. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes. 

Brittany Rogers

Who do you wanna thank this week, best?

Ajanaé Dawkins

InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit. 

Brittany Rogers

Listen, founded by Terry Blackhawk currently under the direction of the amazing Suma Rosen.

Ajanaé Dawkins 

Shout out to all of y'all. Thank you.

Brittany Rogers

For decades of dedication to youth in Detroit, and surrounding cities, for helping me believe that I could be a professional writer, for teaching me things like how to do a CV when I'm in high school, (inaudible) but teaching me to 

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

I forgot about our CVs! We were so cute (laughing).

Brittany Rogers

Listen (laughing), but for really this continued dedication to cultivating youth voice for everybody who works at IO. The thing I love most about IO is that so many of the people who work there, Shawntai Brown, Justin Rogers, Pete Markus, Lucy, these are people who have been with InsideOut for decades. People who came up through the program. And for me, that's always the mark of knowing that the org is doing the work that it’s hoping to do or pushing towards the work that he's hoping to do because we know you know, no organization is perfect. However, it says something when you're a youth in a program and you want to come back and work for the program and then you look up years later and you're still 

Ajanaé Dawkins

You’re still connected because we all did.

Brittany Rogers

Yes. 

Ajanaé Dawkins

We literally all came back and worked for InsideOut. InsideOut could call me right now and I'll be like, I'll be there!

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

Shout out to y’all. Y’all are our thank you this week, so much again for everything. And then we also must thank Wes Matthews of course for his brilliance, his rigor, his intellect, his seeing and wondering [background music ques]. We want to say thank you to The Poetry Foundation, to Itzel Blancas, to Ydalmi Noriega, to Elon Sloan, to our wonderful producer Cin Pim, and Ombie Productions. And we also want to ask you to like, rate, and subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts at because we are on all of those platforms. Until next time, loves.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Bye y’all. 

[MUSIC CONTINUES]