Maya Gwynn
With KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn with Black Perspectives IE, a show we learn about the amazing things members of the Black community are doing in the Inland Empire. My guest today is award winning poet, writer and educator Romaine Washington. Thank you so much for being here.
Romaine Washington
Thank you for inviting me.
Maya Gwynn
So I should say welcome back, because you were first on KVCR when you were a teenager, which is so cool. But I want to start back there, when you first knew that you were a writer. When you look back, what's the earliest memory where writing showed up as more than an interest, but like a necessity to get out emotions for you?
Romaine Washington
I was 10, and I went to St Anthony's, when there was a St Anthony's in San Bernardino, and I just wrote all the time, and the nuns accused me of copying.
Maya Gwynn
Copying who?
Romaine Washington
I don't know, but they said, where did you get this poem from? And I was like, I wrote it. And they really grilled me. And I was - first I was really offended, and then I was like, I must not be half bad. So that's what kept me going.
Maya Gwynn
From that point, how did it become, when you were an adult, continuing in writing?
Romaine Washington
To be honest, you know how some people pick up a football and they just play football? For me, I've always loved the music of language, and even when I was little, before 10, I would sit on the swing and recite Robert Louis Stevenson's Swing poem to myself. And so it's always been a part of who I am. Even when I'm not writing, I'm writing, so in times like this, I'm writing and I'm dreaming and writing. And so when I sit down, it usually pours out, sometimes good, sometimes not good, but it's the mode in which I am able to navigate the world.
Maya Gwynn
Yes, that makes complete sense. I love the titles of your book. Purgatory Has an Address and Sirens in Her Belly. Both of those titles have such strong imagery and tension. How did those titles come to you? And what do you want readers to feel before even opening the book and then after as well?
Romaine Washington
When you understand what it means to be pregnant and to have a warning sign in the birthing inside of you, you know sirens in her belly. And it actually was inspired by a woman who was schizophrenic and she was having an episode, the family called. She wouldn't comply, and I felt like she had sirens in her belly that said, I cannot get into the car. And they actually ended up murdering her. That was one of the poems that stayed with me. So I had, you know, this list of poems, because I believe that a book shouldn't stay at one low point, because that's how life is. So it kind of goes up and down and up, and so that's one of the cruxes of the book. Mental health and our society, especially in the black community, is in the core of me. So I have an anthology coming out in May called 88 Unashamed Black Mental Health Stories. So that inspired that. And Purgatory -we lived on Madison Street, and you have your ups and your downs and your heavens and your hells, and you have that throughout life. We had purgatory. Our house was purgatory. So that's where that title comes from.
Maya Gwynn
Wow, that's, yeah, that's very clever. You're also an educator. How does teaching influence your creative practice, and how does your creative work show up in the classroom? What do you hope students or emerging writers take away from learning with you?
Romaine Washington
For one thing, I believe that all writers are educators. We're constantly teaching. Any communicator, as you are, you're teaching us about the community, and so every time I step into the classroom, I want my students to learn about history, current and future. Every single lesson, every single time I do a presentation in teaching and poetry, I want you to think about the past. I want you to think about where we are now, that tension in the titles, and I want you to think about where we're going and how we can change it, and how we can see our past, present, and the future, and how we can alter that.
Maya Gwynn
We kind of already touched on this, but in a time of political, social and emotional fatigue, I talked about this with my producer earlier, just turning on the news, it feels really heavy. What does poetry allow us to do that other forms of creativity and other forms of communicating can't?
Romaine Washington
I'm not going to say that other forms cannot. I'm going to say we have different mediums of achieving, hopefully, the same thing, depending upon our craft, skill and heart. And so what poetry does, though, is it distills. So we are under a lot of stress. I'm getting ready to do a workshop called Exhale Grief, Inhale Growth. And so I have a friend, and she's been dealing with a lot of grief, and she goes, I think I have compounded grief, and we all do right now, because we all know people. You don't even have to know somebody that has died, just when you leave one thing to another. You have to mourn and move, mourn and move, and so in change, which is life, we're constantly grieving, and we have to learn how to acknowledge it. And part of the burden of the grief that we're carrying is that we're trying to pretend like things are still status quo while moving against what we see. And you can't really fix, if you've been in a relationship, you can't fix anything, and still try to do status quo. So we take a breath and we exhale what's going on. We do the blues, and every word matters. And when you get it out, then you can see it, and you can let it go, and then you can move towards, what do I need to do now to get to the next step as a whole person? And I think that's what poetry does.
Maya Gwynn
Yeah, I feel like you just did that for me. We're gonna move to our rapid-fire portion. I'm excited to hear your answers. If your work had a theme song, what would it be?
Romaine Washington
A Love Supreme by John Coltrane.
Maya Gwynn
Oh wow. I love that song. If you have to teach a master class or give a TED Talk on a random skill you have besides writing or education, what would it be?
Romaine Washington
Thinking. Questions.
Maya Gwynn
Definitely. Do you have a favorite Inland Empire restaurant or landmark that reminds you of the Inland Empire?
Romaine Washington
My favorite landmark are the mountains. I just love looking at the mountains.
Maya Gwynn
It's very beautiful, especially after some rain and the snow.
Romaine Washington
Yes, and it doesn't cost a thing.
Maya Gwynn
How can people keep up with you and support the work you're doing?
Romaine Washington
I have a website, Romainewashington.com, I'm on Instagram, and you can hit me up there at poet romaine, and I'm on Facebook, at I am Romaine Awesome.
Maya Gwynn
Thank you so much for being here. This is a great conversation.
Romaine Washington
Yes, thank you.
Maya Gwynn
Of course. Romaine Washington is an award-winning poet, writer and educator. Find this segment others at kvcr.org/bpie. Support for this segment comes from the Black Equity Fund at IECF, advancing racial equity and supporting long term investments in black led organizations in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Join us again next week for Black Perspectives IE. For KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn, thank you.
