Inside the mind of a poet

SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY —

Paula: I have Maxwell Ayiko Edmonds Drati here with me today and he is here to talk about poetry. How you doin’ today?

Maxwell: I’m doin’ pretty good, can’t complain.

Paula: Good! Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Maxwell: Yeah a little bit about me… I’m from Richmond, California. Born in San Francisco, been in the bay about my whole life, lived in Antioch for last three years of high school and now im going back to school in San Franscico so kind of a full rounded moment.

Paula: Cool!

Maxwell: Yeah!

Paula: I know one of your hobbies is writing poetry, how’d you get into that?

Maxwell: Yeah, how did I get into poetry… I think the first time I had ever written a poem, I was a freshman in college and it was for my Writing for Human Rights Seminar and I wrote this piece about incarceration, Black men, I remember just performing it for honestly my non Black class and just seeing the impact that it had on people and having people come to me later and say how amazing it was and how interested they were in learning more about the different subjects and things like that was really inspiring so I think really in just in that moment understanding that words actually do have power was really what kind of jumpstarted me getting more into it.

Paula: Would you say that you have a specific audience, like people with similar experience to you, or it can be for a general audience and people can interpret in any way?

Maxwell: I say it really depends on the poem. I think like obviously a lot of places I’ve performed I think are very Black, very Latin, a lot of places I’m invited to perform is very Black, very Latin, but I think that my poems are for general audiences. I remember I had a friend, he’s a Hawaiian artist and he had told me “some artists make art because they have an itch they want tos scratch, but I make art because I have a message I want to send. I kind of subscribe to that notion like my art is very much made with the idea that I have a message I want to convey and I think that anybody regardless of class, age, gender can receive that message and hopefully, you know, learn from it, and hopefully it has an impact on yourself.

Paula: What are some of the themes and ideas that you articulate inyour poems?

Maxwell: Themes and ideas… Really a lot of it is about mental health, I think especially as a man, particularly as a Black man, mental health is not something that we tend to talk about within our community, it’s not something thats really uplifted a lot, and often times I think positive mental health and emotional stability is honestly something that’s demonized within the culture just at large, but you know again, kind of going back to my community… so I like to talk a lot about mental health, I like to talk about positivty, just little things that get us thorough the day today, and I just like to talk about, you know, human connection, really, that kind of thing. I think a lot of times we put people into boxes put things into boxes, this thing is for that type of person, that thing is for that type of person, but in reality it’s like boxes dont exist. A lot of these lines are fake and I think what I like to focus on in my poems is kind of releasing the veil and demistifying a lot of these things that we compartimentalize and assign to only some people and making it something that everyone can enjoy. Like I have poem about hip-hop just literally explaining the entire background of hip-hop that I think a lot of people hear and it's like ‘oh, I never knew this.’ You know what I'm saying? Because you may not have exposure to it. 

Paula: With all those ideas, what is your writing space like? Is it in the comfort of your own home? Do you bounce ideas off of friends? 

Maxwell: I’m honestly not even friends with a lot of poets, a lot of my friends make music or they do film and things like that. I think really, when I'm writing, I like to do it in a space where I feel comfortable in but it changes again, just depending on the poem. Sometimes I like sitting outside, looking at birds, people watching and I get a thought and I write right it then and there. Sometimes I'm on BART and I'm writing it right then and there. I think a consistent thing for me is I like to be where there's noise. I like to be where there's people. I like to be where there's things because I draw my inspiration from the daily interactions that I think a lot of us just pass in the moment, but can be significant in ways that we wouldn't have even thought of. So for me, it's just like, really, I don't like to think that I write my poems in solitude. You know, I like to be out and about in the world feeling like I'm connecting with the places and the spaces that I want to write about. 

Paula: What would you say is the most challenging aspect when you write your poems? Is it figuring out the rhythm? Figuring out the lyrics memorizing the lyrics? What's the most challenging aspect?

Maxwell: The most challenging aspects is making something that you like. Making something that like, you genuinely can just say I'm proud of is the hardest thing I would say it's not really even the assonance or the wordplay or any of that. I think… actually no it's a little bit of the wordplay… but I think it's, you know, going back to the idea of you have a message that you want to send, I think a lot of times when you're a poet and you're performing on the stage, especially when you're getting paid for something like someone's paying you to deliver a feeling you kind of struggle a lot with having an idea of who you're creating this poem for. Am I creating it for me, or am I creating it for my audience? You know what I'm saying? I think when you're creating it for an audience, it feels very depersonalized and just trying to figure out a way to create something for other people that can still connect back to you is really difficult.

That being said, I think, really the way that I've kind of managed to push through that has just been communicating a message but with my voice, you know, and so I think that's where it goes into wordplay like you were saying, sometimes I'm talking about things that frankly, I don't really have a lot of experience talking about. So I have sometimes think what not what's the correct way to talk about this subject? I think about what's the Maxwell way to talk about this subject, right. 

Paula: With that being said, what is your writing process do you draw from your own experiences? Primarily the media? What inspires you? 

Maxwell: I think what inspires me what really just gets me pushing what gets me going, day to day life is love. Honestly, not even just love for people. It's just love for life. It's love for those around me, it's love for my community. It's love for everything, just even having the blessing to be able to wake up and draw breath. That's That's love of life, you know? And I think that's really my inspiration to write and what I draw a lot from a lot of my things have to do with like I said, mental health and community. And I think like media is definitely something that I get exposed to, you know, half me like, that sucks, but even in those moments, I don't think I write from a place of anger. It's more like I see the sorrow that my communities impacted by the sorrow that other communities are impacted by. And when I decide to write a piece about it, I'm not really writing a piece about the incident occurred. I'm writing a piece about overcoming that pain and finding that love within yourself. So I think yeah, like love, joy and persistence is really what inspires my writing. 

Paula: You write and perform, right? 

Maxwell: Yep. 

Paula: Okay, so I know a handful people that are hesitant to perform. What advice do you have for fellow poets that don't have the confidence to bring their writing to the stage? 

Maxwell: Yeah, I think my real advice like if you're struggling to perform, I've had a lot of people ask me that like after my shows and things like that, I think my honest advice is, do what you feel like is right when you feel ready, but just know there may come a time where you never necessarily feel ready sometimes you just have to jump into the pool. 

I told this one girl I know. Some advice my grandfather had to give him my mother who my mother then gave to me, which is that, you know, everybody wants to be fearless. Everybody wants to be fearless. But no one's fearless. You know? It's not it's not about getting to the point where you're not afraid. It's about getting to the point where you're willing to overcome that fear in order to reap the benefits that may come from you being persistent and being tenacious, you know, and so my advice to people who are nervous to perform or scared to perform or are scared to put their voices out there is just know that by overcoming this, not only are you being a benefit to you, you might be a benefit to other people. Because there's definitely been times in my life where I've written about vulnerable things that I've experienced throughout life and both things people in my life have experienced, they were okay with me telling their story to audiences and such like that and I've had people come up to me after and say crying even sometimes saying, that was really impactful. That was beautiful. Thank you so much this than the other You made my day comments like that. And just understanding that in that moment, if you're brave enough to overcome your fear, you might inspire the person next to you to be brave. Enough to overcome their fear. 

Paula: Besides poetry having an impact on other people, I want to talk about the impact it has on you. Would you say performing your poetry acts as a form of catharsis and if so, what qualities of performing poetry makes it cathartic? 

Maxwell: It’s 100% cathartic? I think when you are writing a poem it almost feels like you're looking in a mirror for the first time. It's like you finish a piece and you're looking down at a piece of glass in the form of paper with all these scratch marks on it, like led smudges and things like that, and you're like looking at it, and you're like, wow, that's me. You know? And then when you perform that piece, it's like not only are you saying that's me, when you're performing it, it's almost like this is who I can be you feel empowered when you say it doesn't just feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. It feels like you're standing on shoulders of a giant, you know, and I just think like, it's this really overwhelming feeling that I can't compare to anything else except for maybe skydiving.

I think like the aspects of it that makes it cathartic is just really just kind of going back to that bravery piece, is you get a bit of an adrenaline rush, you know, like you, you finally had the bravery to say what it is you've been wanting to say maybe your entire life that you didn't even know you wanted to say. You've gone from not even being able to have that conversation with you to being able to have that conversation with 250 people. 

Paula: Right. I know that writing poetry requires a lot of inward thinking and self reflection. How do you navigate the line between personal vulnerability and public exposure in your work? Do you ever regret sharing vulnerability with your audience?

Maxwell: Hahaha man…

Paula: How do you balance the two?

Maxwell: Balancing it? I mean, I guess it's really just figuring out what's more for you and what's more to inspire others.I know, for example, there's a woman, Native American woman brilliant, wrote a book called Bad Indians. And it was really inspiring but in the book, and in talking to us, she has certain points she was talking about things that are really touchy like sexual assault or like, these day to day experiences and past experiences that Native people have had, and even talking about herself, and her experiences her father and people heard life was like ‘wow, that was a lot.’ I'm sure that must have been a lot for her. But I think for her that was understanding that this story is going to help somebody else. And I think that's really how I find the balance between the two. 

Understanding what's really for me and what's really for other people, because there's definitely times where I might write about something that's more personal for me that I'm not going to perform. And I just like, knowing that I was willing to have that conversation with myself. But there's other things that I may write about where it's like, okay, like, I'm willing to share this with the world and have that conversation not just because I know, oh, this will benefit me because it's gonna benefit you. You know, like, I know that we don't talk about this and you need help, and I need help. And he she, we we all need the help. So it's like I'm gonna be the one to really break the proverbial glass ceiling on this. 

Paula: In your opinion, I know this is a very broad question, but what do you think is the purpose of writing poetry and performing it?

Maxwell: Poetry is about romance. It's about beauty. It's about life. Poetry is one of those things that just makes life worth living. I mean, like how many times have you might come home and you for instance, I don't know popped out a nice book with a glass of wine or you come back with your partner and you guys watch romantic movie, or you're willing to spend 15, 18, 30 something dollars on tickets for you and your friends to go see that new thriller that just popped out? Poetry's like that. It's one of those things that just makes life worth living. Without things like art without things like poems about things like movies or sports or whatever else life would just come and be us surviving…And I don't know if that's necessarily a life worth living. 

So I think to me, poetry is one of those things that has brought about self awakening for me and has made me feel comfortable with living but also it's honestly increased my livelihood. And I think really, that's the purpose of writing. Other people might say something different. I know like I said earlier, like for me, I have a message I want to send and that's definitely also part of it. Like, you have a message you want to send but I also think sometimes having a dragon to slay is sometimes what makes life worth living to and I think poetry is just a conduit for that.

Paula: For sure! Are there any poets or performers or activists that you look up to? 

Maxwell: Oh, 100% definitely. The number one activist I look up to his name is Fred Hampton. I love Fred Hampton because he uplifts not only the black community, but all communities have oppressed people as well, with a focus on creating a structure where we can be truly liberated within ourselves by having love and compassion for one another and it does in a building determine our own freedoms. Fred Hampton promoted the idea of the rainbow party, which came into existence and took these Latin kids and these Puerto Ricans Dominicans and brought them together with the Black Panthers and with poor whites in the south and combined us all and I think I really look up to that because I think all of our freedoms intertwined with one another. So he's an activist I look up to. 

Now an artist I look up to is James Baldwin. I love James Baldwin. I absolutely adore him. And the reason why is because James Baldwin lives in a point in history that was so drastically different from what I could ever conceive living in today's time. And he did that as a dark skinned man like me, but also as a gay man, which is something that's like so that's that's a completely different experience what I've had in my life, you know, the segregation discrimination I've had to deal with. I looked up to Baldwin because he was willing to be himself in a world that told him that he was a bane to humanity.

I look up to Baldwin because he was willing to create his art in a world where people told him that his words meant nothing. And I think for someone living in today's time where I've definitely gotten those sentiments from people around me or from societal messaging. It's really uplifting to think that somebody was able to go through something. I know it's not supposed to be an oppression Olympics, but someone went through something a lot worse than I did. And they were able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and live a happy life and for me, I want that. So I really look up to James Baldwin.

Paula: You're a political science major, right? 

Maxwell: Yep.

Paula: What are your academic and career goals? And how do those goals align with the themes that you articulate in your poetry

Maxwell:  in terms of career really, I just want to continue to be a writer and I want to tell the stories that we oftentimes don't get to hear. I want to tell the stories for the people that oftentimes don't have a voice. And I just want to continue to uplift the people, hopefully with my words, the way I have been on a larger scale. And my ultimate goal is I want to be part of the legislative body in California. I want to help institute policy and change policy that harms people. And I just want to continue and hopefully magnify the amount of research I do with things like criminal justice reform, and housing rights and economic rights for not just the Black community, but frankly, the Latin, Native, and Asian communities as well.

Paula: I know you do a lot of events showcasing your poetry. I most recently heard about the event that you did, the Black Panther Party. Could you tell me more about that and why you chose to perform there? 

Maxwell: The Black Panther Party event was the free annual breakfast celebration. And so for those who don't know what the Black Panther Party is, it's an organization that was created in the ‘60s meant to uplift the black community and help us determine our own futures politically, and economically as well. They have a whole 10 point manifesto, I’m sure people can look up. Fred Hampton, one of my idols was also the chairman of that party. The reason why I decided to do it was because I was invited by a former Black Panther named Catherine Powell. 

And also because I really wanted to feel like I had the opportunity to give back to not only my community, but the people who served it as well. I wanted to have the chance to really be able to pay thanks and homage to those folks and just having the opportunity to serve breakfast to the Black Panther alumni who served breakfast to children when they were my age was like such a beautiful experience. Just even being able to feed kids and uplift the Fillmore which historically has been oppressed was just it was so fulfilling, and I honestly loved it. The kids loved it. I'm happy the kids loved it. And I don't know it was it was a really fulfilling experience. 

Paula: Awesome! That sounds like a great opportunity. But where do you typically perform and why do you choose those places to perform? 

Maxwell: I perform everywhere. A lot of times like colleges, but also Gold Beams in Oakland. I'm gonna I'm gonna plug my people real quick…

Paula: Go ahead!

Maxwell: Gold Beams in Oakland, Second Mondays, Their Amazing Spaces, FUBU Space, For Us by Us. For Black artists for my Gold Beams for the Starry Night Plow in Berkeley, Historic Slam Poetry Spot For the People and Oak Stop as well Black owned business in downtown Oakland, the triple ACC African American Arts and Culture Complex in the Fillmore… and today, SF State!

Paula: Yeah!

Maxwell: I always joke with my friends like "Maxwell, you go everywhere, you literally go everywhere." I'm like "I'm where the culture is" you know, and that's where I want to go. And that's where I want to be. I want to be in a place where I feel like my words can have the maximum impact for people who can relate to them. There’s different messages for different people, right you know, but I like to connect with my people to connect with people come from places unlike my own as well. I like the opportunity to learn and frankly sometimes going into places to perform like in the Mission or like in SOMA or like in these other places is such a beautiful experience because I could share but in my culture with other people and I get to also hear a bit of there's.

Paula: Nice! Okay, well if you want to hear Maxwell perform live that's where you want to go… And yeah, that's all the questions I have for you today. Thank you for being here!

Maxwell: Nice, thank you I appreciate it.