12 or 20 (second series) questions with Latorial Faison

Latorial Faison  is an award-winningpoet, author, and Assistant Professor of English at Virginia State University,a Historically Black College & University (HBCU). A native of ruralSouthampton County, Virginia, Faison earned a BA in English with a minor inReligious Studies at the University of Virginia, an MA in English at VirginiaTech, and a doctoral degree in Education at Virginia State University. Herwriting boldly explores Black Southern traditions, race, and African Americanculture and identity. Faison’s most recent poetry collection,  Nursery Rhymes in Black , received the 2023 Permafrost Poetry Prize and waspublished by the University of Alaska Press, an imprint of the University Pressof Colorado. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a recipient of fellowshipsfrom the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), VirginiaHumanities, and the Furious Flower Poetry Center.

Faison’spoetry and prose have appeared in acclaimed literary publications, such as Callaloo,  Obsidian, PrairieSchooner, West Trestle Review, Artemis, RHINO, AuntChloe, About Place Journal, SouthernPoetry Anthology, Stonecoast Review, SolsticeLiterary Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, and Virginia’sBest Emerging Poets. Her work is also featured in notable volumessuch as Three Minus One and the NAACP Image Award-winning Keepingthe Faith. Faison is the author of numerous poetry collectionsincluding Mother to Son, LOVE POEMS, and the Amazon Kindle best-selling trilogy 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History. She is also the author ofthe historical study The Missed Education of the Negro: AnExamination of the Black Segregated Experience in Southampton County, VA,and children’s books Kendall’s Golf Lesson and 100 Poems You Can Write.Faison has received multiple honors, including the Tom Howard Poetry Prize. Shehas been a finalist for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, Louise Bogan Poetry Award,North Street Book Prize, Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, and others. A VeteranMilitary Spouse and proud mother of three sons, Faison has served on thefaculty of various colleges and universities throughout the US as well asabroad—wherever military duty called. She holds Life Membership in The PoetrySociety of Virginia, College Language Association, and the historic WintergreenWomen Writers Collective.

1 - How did your first book change your life? Howdoes your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feeldifferent?

My first book was a small chapbook collection of poems, entitled PoeticallySpeaking. It allowed me to see what was possible. Holding a book in yourhand with your name on it is powerful, inspiring. I sold over 250 copies ofthat chapbook, which helped to finance the self-publication of my first bookcollection, Secrets of My Soul. That book changed my life in that theworld around me recognized me as an author, a poet. I was invited to myhometown to do a reading and book signing the local community college. Thepeople showed up in support of it, and they enjoyed the poems. That wasassuring, life changing. The people at home, my family, friends, teachers, andcommunity had always had faith in me, supported me. They showed up, purchasedbooks, told their friends and family about it, and the rest was history. Booknumber one made book number two a reality. You can write books. You can sellbooks. But neither are worthwhile without readers. That first book establishedmy audience—the fact that I could even have an audience—and in essence, itchanged my life.

I don’t think my initial work, my first book, quite compares to mymost recent work or this last book collection. The passion for the poetry wasthere in the beginning and the dedication to learning the craft, but my worldhas changed so much then. The world we know has changed in so many ways, forbetter and for worse. How could I ignore it? So much has changed since thatfirst book. In the first book, I was writing out of adolescence and girlhood, asort of early becoming, seemingly with a little naivete and a lot lessexperience. I was a new, young wife, living on love, a new mother, a newmilitary spouse, a college graduate. In my most recent book, I’m writing out ofthe old-fashioned wisdom not only passed down but called on in times oftrouble. I’m writing out of two decades of coming to full grip and reality withsystemic racism, racial inequality, gender inequality, societal capitalism, religioushypocrisy, and having raised our own young Black sons through two eras just asterrorizing to Black males as Jim Crow. My latter work has been a labor of loveand war, joy and pain, awareness, and necessary family, community, nation-building.If we don’t teach and pass down our own history, who will do it for us. Thechildren must know the ways of the elders, how they made it over. My latterwork speaks to the woman I have become; it is a credit to the strong women whohave defined me. It tells a story. Nursery Rhymes in Black is an act ofamplifying Black voices—the elders, the mama’s, the fathers, the sons, and thedaughters. It’s historic, cultural, identifying, and shifting.

I don’t like to compare thework because the one exists because of the other; they each have theirplaces and purpose. But it does indeed feel different because it is different.My first book felt nice, easy, inviting, calm, but strong, assuring,accommodating and bold even. My latter work feels more prolific yet inspiring,intentional, radical yet creative, aggressive yet inviting, demanding yetcollaborative, lyrical, telling, epic, and historic. There’s somethingancestral, mature, and grown-up about the poems I’ve been writing. NurseryRhymes in Black is a collection that marks time, documents history, callsreaders to lean in, listen, to give history and my people attention. I wasn’tnecessarily commanding these kinds of things in my first book, Secrets of MySoul. I was finding my way, sharing my soul intimately, introducing myvoice to the world in a shy kind of way. In these recent works, I have lost allshyness. I am grabbing the mic, owning my feelings, thoughts, and ideas. I’mstanding center stage on the page and confronting so much, everything, usingthe everyday lives of people I knew and loved. Their stories mattered; theirlives mattered. That’s it. I’m telling stories, documenting history in myrecent work. There’s an homage to my upbringing and those who brought me up—allthose experiences culminating in the sum total of me. I was likely paintingpictures and finding myself, my voice in my first collection. In fact, thetitle poem read “Dare me to pursue this / to pen the secrets of my soul / infather time’s precious ink royal black and memory gold.” There’s a difference;there’s an innocence. I was born in that first book. I have come of age in thislast one with lines that must be reckoned with, “Likethree blind mice, three white churches stand watch covering blood shed by whitehoods: one for their fathers, one for their sons, one for their holy ghosts.” Idon’t mince words or hide behind facades in the latter work. I bring it,without hesitation. What I may not have said over twenty-five years ago, I haveto say it now. So much has happened in the in between years. Life demandsthe poetry that I now write.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fictionor non-fiction?

Nothing has had more influence on mylife than the historical literary and musical tradition that is rooted andgrounded in the Church, the Black church, the Black Baptist church—it’s music,its liturgical, ecclesiastical, oratorical, and theological ways, means, vibes,logos, love ballads, shouts, hollers, and spirituals.

I came to poetry by way of the Blackchurch. I remember holding the Bible and The Baptist Hymnal in my hands asearly as I can remember and following along in Sunday School, Sunday morning worshipservices, Bible studies, and vacation Bible schools in summer with the words ofscriptures, prayers, praise songs, hymns, chants, Negro spirituals.

Scriptures and songs were myintroduction to poetry and old deacons and church mothers’ well-rehearsed andmemorized prayers. I memorized so many. I fell in love with the ebb and flow ofthe words, with the rhythms, the rhyme, with the spirituality of it all, it wasamazing, the most amazing thing I’d ever read or heard or learned or fathomedat those very young tender, teachable moments in my life. I mastered them.

This is how I came to poetry. It drewme—the voice of god, a savior—the lyrics of so many songs inspired by god orwritten to and about god; it was hypnotic for sure, healing, comforting,hopeful, believable—the absolute best therapy and coping mechanism ever for mylittle young, Black self, the best EVER. So, it was poetry from day one, andlater the poetry became nonfiction. I don’t play around much with fiction. Ilove truth. It saves. It heals. It delivers. It liberates. It’s not easy, butit’s freedom.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project?Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do firstdrafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out ofcopious notes?

It can take anywhere from a minute to years. My writing projectsare not usually things that I’ve started, not my poetic ones anyway. Mydissertation, of course, was a project that I had to plan, start, finish, anddeliver. The poetry doesn’t must happen in that way, whether it’s a single poemor an entire collection. I’d much rather write poems that come to me than tohave a poem commissioned. I like to write what I feel, and you have to feelthings and then be free enough to write about them. Over the years, when Iworked less, writing was easier; there was more time. As my children becameolder and life became busier, more demanding, I have found it harder to findtime to write, to finish projects. My best poems have come when there has beentime—time to feel all the things that I want to capture and deliver in a poem,time to travel back in time or think far into my future about what is, whatwas, and what could be. My grandmother passed in 2008; the poem I wanted towrite for her didn’t come until about three to four years later. I didn’t wanther poem to be something I wrote in a few minutes, day, or a month even. “Mamawas a Negro Spiritual” was a poem I pieced together just like a quilt. It camein patches, in pieces, in figments of my memory and imaginings. For mygrandmother, a poem had to be grand. In the end, it was. It was award-winning.So, it’s a slow process because I like it to be. But sometimes words, phrases,they come quickly, and I jot them down, save them up—they are the patches, thepieces, that ultimately come together in the end. First drafts, second drafts,and sometimes un-trackable numbers of drafts appear. I often know how I want apoem to look but most importantly how I want it to feel, and that’s what I longto master in the final shape and draft of many of my poems, all of my work. Theend is important. Through notes on napkins, notepads, in my phone texts, ordigital notepads and messages, they are worked out and pieced together in myhead and on paper and via computer. It’s a magic that happens, a poem comingtogether.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author ofshort pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working ona "book" from the very beginning?

Poems, for me, can begin with a single word or a phrase that Ilove. They can also begin with a moment, a line from a book or movie or even aconversation. I write short pieces and long pieces. I think my best fallssomewhere in between. In my early writing, I wrote many pieces that cametogether without really thinking of themed collections; they were generalcollections. Today, I write on various themes and subjects (as PhillisWheatley’s first collection), but with more of a theme in mind when writing forcollections or calls for submissions and prizes. I don’t necessarily think of abook from the beginning of a poem. But I do have book ideas. There are kinds ofpoetry books that I’d love to write, various kinds. I must find the time, takethe time, make the time.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creativeprocess? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I have been a public speaker since I was a child. My love forreading in public, like my love for poetry, was also formed in the Blackchurch. I was tasked with reading scriptures and leading songs, publicly, as akid. I don’t mind it at all. I like it even. It comes easy for me. Some havesaid I’m a natural.  So, to read my workis natural, to read or recite my poems and talk about them, that’s notnecessarily a part of it, and it’s certainly not counter to the creativeprocess. I don’t write a poem or a book with the intent to publicly read it(thought I now know that comes with the territory), but I mostly write for mefirst. There’s some freedom and deliverance in writing and publishing for me.Secondly, it’s to be read and to inspire or help heal or educate others, toenlighten. I am a storyteller at heart, and even my poems tell stories. So,they don’t have to be read by me. If they are read, that’s enough. But I don’tmind public readings. There’s a dance that can happen between reader or authorand audience, poet, and people. The interaction usually always leads to someamazing, wonderfully engaging, or powerful experience in itself.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? Whatkinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you eventhink the current questions are?

I don’t set out to have theoretical concerns behind my writing,but I know they are there. I’m a Black woman writing. Race in America ispolitical. Gender in America is political. If it’s political, it’s theoretical.I am concerned about Black life, womanhood, the underprivileged, the voiceless,hypocrisy, the evil men do in society—those are my concerns. I am not so muchtrying to answer questions as I am telling a story, testifying, documentinglife, history, and times of people, places, and ideas. I think that we shouldall be asking the questions that will cause us to work harder to make lifebetter. Questions engage. Questions inspire critical thought. We need morequestions, more critical thinking, more engagement, more change, moresolutions, more kindness, compassion, more understanding. I’m interested in whywe do what we do and to whom we do it, and why. It’s circular. It’s systemic.It’s layered. Everybody has a story; everybody’s story is important. I tellmine and many of the stories I know, via poetry, nonfiction, narrative.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in largerculture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer shouldbe?

The writer has always had a responsibility to take readers, thepublic, on a journey, down a road, for a ride—the responsibility of giving onea glimpse into a life and/or time they’ve never known or may not be fully awareof. Writers have the role of teaching, providing escape, enlightenment,entertainment, simulation, rhetorical analysis, theorizing. Writers wake us,take us, and catapult us into other worlds where we can be better. The writingmust be, should be, an experience, that changes one for the better. That’s therole of the writer in larger cultural. As an African American woman writer, Icarry the responsibility of cultural analysis and critic, ethnographer, truthteller, revealer.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editordifficult or essential (or both)?

I think it’s both difficult and essential, working with outsideeditors, depending on the editor(s). I enjoy working alone, writing alone,going it alone and having it edited in the end. I don’t think I’d like writingin tandem with an editor. Editors are very necessary for the professionalreputation and readability of the work. I don’t write novels. I gather thateditors could be crucial in the various stages of novel writing. I’veself-published for nearly three decades for a reason. I don’t like the idea ofhaving one’s work validated by others, and sometimes that is what happens inrelationships with some editors. Editors have control, and I believe writersshould be in control of their material. Advice is great, but I think a goodeditor knows that and knows there should be a line drawn.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarilygiven to you directly)?

It hasn’t been one single piece of advice but a compilation of somany pieces of advice:  Don’t try towrite like anyone else. Write what you know Write what you imagine. Write thekind of books you want to read. Write the books you have not read. Write foryour own self first. Tell your truth. Tell your story. If you want to be awriter, be a reader. “To thine own self be true.” Never give up. You can do it.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetryto creative non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

It has gotten easier over the years to move between the genres ofpoetry and nonfiction. My prose often becomes poetic or lyrical, and my poetryoften becomes narrative. It’s certainly becoming easier with time.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do youeven have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don’t have a writing routine. I write when I one. I mostly doit, “when the spirit hits me.” I don’t write at certain times of the day or anyparticular way. I am a night owl, always have been. I will steal a momentanywhere to write words, phrases, lines . . . that later become poems. I amalways open to and looking for reasons to write, people, places, and things orideas about which to write. I love to document what I see and feel and hear.That’s the only routine I have, paying attention to life and feeling all of thefeelings it brings—capturing those feelings in poems, essays, or whatever.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or returnfor (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

When my writing gets stalled or when I feel there’s a block, Ikeep living. I read, watch tv, pay attention to what’s going on in my home, mycommunity, my state, organizations, globally. Things are happening to people,good and bad, every moment. Every moment there is something terrible or amazinghappening, things that bring joy and pain. That always pulls me back into thegame; it brings me back to poetry, writing. I am called to respond. So, I justkeep living, and eventually, something draws me to the page, summons me to getin the game and get busy writing.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

The scent watermelon, the smell of freshly cut grass, and thearoma of soul foods, especially sweets—reminds me of home, family, mygrandparents who raised me. I grew up in the country. My grandma was an amazingcook. My grandfather was an outdoorsman with a beautiful garden. My othergrandmother lived just down the road—her sweet potato pies where out of thisworld.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, butare there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science,or visual art?

Everything I see and hear, taste, smell, or feel influences mywork. McFadden is probably right. But books also come from experience. Poetryis experience. Music is an experience. It influences my work. Trauma isexperience; it influences my work. People influence my work. Places influencemy work. Circumstances, things . . . everything influences my work. And yes,books have influenced my works and so have movies, tv shows, documentaries,entertainers, historical figures, people long gone have influenced my work. Ihave written poems in response to nature, music, science, art, you name it.Poetry is an experience, a response.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work,or simply your life outside of your work?

There are absolutely too many writers or writings to name that areimportant for my work. I am in awe of historical poets and writers andlyricists. I have long been a fan of Langston Hughes' poetry, Phillis Wheatley,Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, DuBois’ Souls of BlackFolk, Woodson’s The Miseducation of the Negro, Hurston’s TheirEyes Were Watching God, Angelou’s poetry and iconic Caged Bird, JamesBaldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, Amiri Baraka, Toni Morrison’spoetry and cadre of works from The Bluest Eye to Song of Solomonand SULA, Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls, August Wilson’splaces, especially Fences, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun,Alice Walker, Margaret Walker’s For My People, Mari Evans, NikkiGiovanni’s poetry, Sonia Sanchez, the late Val Gray Ward, voice of the Blackwriter and founder of Chicago’s Kuumba Theater.

In the last six years, I’ve come to know and love so manycontemporary African American scholars, poets, and writers. I am completely inawe of the work of poets Patricia Smith, Jericho Brown, Danez Smith, Rita Dove,Natasha Trethewey, Tracy K. Smith, Sharan Strange, poets who formed The Dark Room Collective.  I have found so manynew friends and sisters in this work as well through Furious Flower PoetryCenter: Joanne Gabbin, Lauren Alleyne, the Wintergreen Women, Nikki Giovanni,Trudier Harris, Daryl Cumber Dance, Maryemma Graham, Meta DuEwa Jones, DaMaris Hill, Desiree Cooper, Opal Moore, Ethel Morgan Smith, Hermine Pinson, Renee Watson. 

Oh, and I LOVE Ariana Benson, Cedric Tillman, and Remica Bingham-Risher. The work of Joan Kwon Glass, Jamaica Baldwin, Kendra Bryant,Adrienne Christian, Adrienne Oliver, Glenis Redmond, JeMayne King, DarleneAnita Smith, and Judy Juanita. Gabrielle Pina wrote two amazing books that Icame across when she joined the faculty at my University. Dr. Ayo Morton, anamazing poet, spoken word artist, writer, and scholar is also a new colleagueand sister writer friend. The sisters are writing, and the work is liberating.Then there’s the talented Carmin Wong and gifted Angel Dye, young women, poets,playwrights, spoken word artists, and scholars on fire and on the rise. Avery Young, Chicago’s poet laureate. Jessica Care Moore, Detroit’s poet laureate. Theprolific Dominique Christina who is absolute FIRE!! Tony Medina at HowardUniversity. Amazing!

I am surrounded by beautiful people, by women, by beautiful Blackwriters, artists of all colors and creeds who write powerfully, who arechanging worlds like Liseli Fitzpatrick, Alysia Dempsey, and Leah Glenn founder of the Leah Glenn Dance Theater and Dance professor at The College of William& Mary with whom I’ve had the opportunity to perform and collaborate. Icould literally go on . . . I have not scratched the surface of all the artistswho have engaged me in powerful ways. Durie Harris, Ebony Lumumba, Roxane Gay,and Nikole Hannah-Jones, I love what they are doing in the literary world. Infact, I’ve left somebody out of this group of amazing writers who inspire me,and I’m sorry. But I am blessed to be in the company of some of the greatestwriters who have ever lived. I just met Imani Perry for the first time at aretreat. She is doing phenomenal work. Oh, and my goodness . . . poets Anastacia Renee, JP Howard, Cynthia Manick, Regina YC Garcia. The future is in goodhands.

Some great poets and writers have graced the Earth, left theEarth, but they have left us with their words, and I am daily inspired by poetsand writers who are both ancestors and contemporaries. We have inherited anAfrican American literary tradition and legacy that has kept us, sustained us,and these people are doing the work good, one poem, one play, one article, onenovel, one book at a time. I am happy to be a benefactor, happy to be a part ofit all, happy to continue such a great literary tradition.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Write a play. Write a novel. Write memoir. Edit a new anthology. Writemy life story, or some of my mom’s. Hers is an episodic thriller—s.h.i.t. thatsells, for sure (smile). See some of my work on the big screen someday, that’sa dream!

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what wouldit be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had younot been a writer?

I’d like to have my own talk show, perhaps radio or podcasting.Had I not been an academic, a poet, a writer, I’d likely have been a goodengineer, pastor, psychiatrist/therapist, or motivational speaker.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Life made me write. Trauma, tragedy, emotions, people,circumstances . . . life made me write; there was nothing else that held orkept or stayed with me like writing. It didn’t cost much to grow as a writer,just time and witness.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the lastgreat film?

The last great book(s) I have read have included Black Pastoralby Ariana Benson, My Mouth a Constant Prayer by Angel Dye, Lot’sDaughters by Opal Moore, Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renee Watson, Blissby Gabrielle Pina, WORN by Adrienne Christian, What My Hand Sayby Glenis Redmond, The Fire Talker’s Daughter by Regina YC Garcia, and ThoseWho Ride the Night Winds by Nikki Giovanni (for the umpteenth time). I amcurrently reading What We’ve Become by darlene anita smith, We BeTheorizin by Kendra Bryant Aya, and Side Notes form the Archivist byAnastacia-Renee, and other collections. I read fiction and nonfiction, novelsand plays, but I am always reading a poet.

20 – What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on ways topromote my new book, Nursery Rhymes in Black, winner of the 2023 PermafrostBook Prize for poetry published by University of Alaska Press an imprint ofUniversity Press of Colorado. I am working on this in addition to stepping intothe brand-new role of Dept. Chair of The Languages & Literature Departmentat Virginia State University. I hope that readers will get the book. It’savailable via the publisher as well as online at Amazon and Barnes n’ Noble. Ihope that colleges and universities and organizations will invite me to doreadings and participate in festivals and conferences or deliver guestlectures. I have other collections in the works. I have more oral historyresearch on Black segregated education in Virginia that I’m hoping to publishas well as collect more stories and oral history. So, there’s more poetry andprose, more writing, in my future for sure; there’s work to do. All I need istime. Keep up with my new work and happenings online via social media like Facebook,LinkedIn, and Instagram. I serve on the Board of the Wintergreen Women Writers Collective. I am looking forward to all of the new work that will be inspiredby and spring forth from the Collective in poetry, novels, essays, research,scholarship, documentary, anthologies, and digital works individual andcollaborative. It’s a great time to be alive and writing! There’s a lot towrite about and so many good reasons to be a writer in this moment.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;