In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art & Public Space with IRVIN WEATHERSBY JR.

In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art & Public Space with IRVIN WEATHERSBY JR.

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A Conversation with Author IRVIN WEATHERSBY JR.

One of the biggest symbols of America is Mount Rushmore. This monument, right? But I think most people fail to realize where it's located and why it's located there. Even more importantly, who did it? It's on a sacred Native American mountain, a place that was central to their creation stories. But then you think about who did it, and it was a Klansman. The guy who sculpted Mount Rushmore was a Klansman. People were like, "Wait, really?" Like, how is that a thing? But it seeps into our understanding and our embrace of white supremacy. This whole notion of us using Mount Rushmore as a metric of excellence is really sad. We are honoring slave owners and people who viciously killed natives, and those who pillage other lands in the name of capitalism. That's what America is, I guess.

I think there's such a disinterest in education in America that it is sickening. We can't even agree on facts. It's up to states' rights to decide. Really? States can say that this is true in one state, but it's not true in another? Although these states are united, it's very bizarre. I'm hopeful for revolution. I'm optimistic. I want radical change. I think we are repeating history. We are going through a cycle of fascism and greed, and I think we're going to see a lot of states collapse. As a result of that, I think people are going to be forced back to their primal needs and concerns, but I think they're going to be forced to think about what makes us human. How do we become more human? Because we've lost that. We've given it up to technology. How can we figure out what makes us a really powerful species again?

On Motherhood & Memory, Trauma & Survival with Author HALA ALYAN - Highlights

On Motherhood & Memory, Trauma & Survival with Author HALA ALYAN - Highlights

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Novelist · Poet · Psychologist HALA ALYAN
Author of I’ll Tell You When I’m Home: A Memoir

I want to live a life of consequence, and I want to live a life that has stakes in it because that means that things matter to you. I think, in some ways, this memoir was a project of sifting through and excavating the darkest hours, both for me and for the lineage and ancestry that I came from. I think the darkest hours were experienced by so many people I come from who have had to leave places they didn't want to leave. I live in exile and have been forced to leave behind houses, land, cities, and people. Oftentimes, this has happened more than once in a lifetime, so they have carried that trauma. Of course, it plays out intergenerationally in many different ways.

I think it's a time of fear. I don't think I'm alone in that. I am scared for people that I love. I am scared for people who are quite vulnerable. I worry for my students. I am concerned for the places that I feel are engaging in complicity because that will be such a heavy legacy to endure later on, how people, places, and entities comport themselves in moments like this. They will be remembered. There will always be people who remember it.

I’ll Tell You When I’m Home - Author HALA ALYAN on Motherhood & Memory, Trauma & Survival

I’ll Tell You When I’m Home - Author HALA ALYAN on Motherhood & Memory, Trauma & Survival

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Novelist · Poet · Psychologist HALA ALYAN
Author of I’ll Tell You When I’m Home: A Memoir

I want to live a life of consequence, and I want to live a life that has stakes in it because that means that things matter to you. I think, in some ways, this memoir was a project of sifting through and excavating the darkest hours, both for me and for the lineage and ancestry that I came from. I think the darkest hours were experienced by so many people I come from who have had to leave places they didn't want to leave. I live in exile and have been forced to leave behind houses, land, cities, and people. Oftentimes, this has happened more than once in a lifetime, so they have carried that trauma. Of course, it plays out intergenerationally in many different ways.

I think it's a time of fear. I don't think I'm alone in that. I am scared for people that I love. I am scared for people who are quite vulnerable. I worry for my students. I am concerned for the places that I feel are engaging in complicity because that will be such a heavy legacy to endure later on, how people, places, and entities comport themselves in moments like this. They will be remembered. There will always be people who remember it.

ADAM MOSS - Fmr. Editor of New York Magazine, Author, Artist on Creativity as a Process - Highlights

ADAM MOSS - Fmr. Editor of New York Magazine, Author, Artist on Creativity as a Process - Highlights

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ADAM MOSS
Author · Artist · Fmr. Editor of New York magazine · The New York Times Magazine

 I was very interested in the state of mind of an artist as he or she goes about making. I think one of the things that artists have is not just an interest in their own subconscious, but also an ability to find ways, tricks, and hacks to access their subconscious. Over time, they understand how to make productive use of what they find there. We all have subconsciousness; we all dream and daydream. We all have disassociated thoughts that float through our head, but we don't generally know what to do with them. One of the traits that successful artists seem to have is this ability to cross borders into recesses of their own minds.

The Art of Writing w/ Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy & Max Stossel

The Art of Writing w/ Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy & Max Stossel

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This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.

E.J. KOH - Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet - “The Magical Language of Others”, “A Lesser Love”

E.J. KOH - Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet - “The Magical Language of Others”, “A Lesser Love”

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Award-winning Memoirist & Poet
The Magical Language of Others · A Lesser Love

I had delayed speech, and I had quite a bit of trouble with speaking. I think I must have been five before I was uttering some of my first words and trying to articulate. Simple communication was very difficult for me and my family, especially in a family where we were speaking several languages. They hoped to instill English. It’s the language of survival. There was a lot of frustration and fear in my relationship to language, and the relationship these languages had to each other, that was something I felt very sensitive to since I was young. Since before I could speak.

ANTHONY JOSEPH - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band

ANTHONY JOSEPH - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band

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T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.

ADA LIMÓN - U.S. Poet Laureate - Host of The Slowdown podcast

ADA LIMÓN - U.S. Poet Laureate - Host of The Slowdown podcast

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U.S. Poet Laureate · Host of The Slowdown podcast

This poem was written when I was having a real moment of reckoning, not that I hadn't had it earlier, but where I was doing some deep reading about the climate crisis and really reckoning with myself, with where we were and what was happening, what the truth was. And I felt like it was so easy to slip down into a darkness, into a sort of numbness, and I didn't think that that numbness and darkness could be useful.

Highlights - Sonnet L’Abbé - Poet, Songwriter, Editor of “Best Canadian Poetry in English”

Highlights - Sonnet L’Abbé - Poet, Songwriter, Editor of “Best Canadian Poetry in English”

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Award-winning Poet · Songwriter · Author of Sonnet’s Shakespeare
Editor of Best Canadian Poetry in English

Sonnet’s Shakespeare itself came out of thinking about the form of erasure, what working in that form could do and mean… And I was looking at critical writing about it, and I couldn't find anything that talked about the role of the poet who is doing that as censorial or as somehow violencing the original text. I was thinking about my resonance with the word erasure and thinking about censoring and deleting what somebody else has already said resonates with me as an analogy for being black, being mixed race, being racialized, and non-European in spaces that are predominantly Anglo-Canadian. One tries very hard. At least I did as a child, as a teenager, to just try to fit in and make my visible difference as minimal, as invisible as possible. So it's a way of thinking about erasing the self. And so I took that theme and thought, How do I show through a poetic erasure this dynamic of self-erasure and feeling erased?

Sonnet L’Abbé - Award-winning Poet, Songwriter, Author of “Sonnet’s Shakespeare”

Sonnet L’Abbé - Award-winning Poet, Songwriter, Author of “Sonnet’s Shakespeare”

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Award-winning Poet · Songwriter · Author of Sonnet’s Shakespeare
Editor of Best Canadian Poetry in English

Sonnet’s Shakespeare itself came out of thinking about the form of erasure, what working in that form could do and mean… And I was looking at critical writing about it, and I couldn't find anything that talked about the role of the poet who is doing that as censorial or as somehow violencing the original text. I was thinking about my resonance with the word erasure and thinking about censoring and deleting what somebody else has already said resonates with me as an analogy for being black, being mixed race, being racialized, and non-European in spaces that are predominantly Anglo-Canadian. One tries very hard. At least I did as a child, as a teenager, to just try to fit in and make my visible difference as minimal, as invisible as possible. So it's a way of thinking about erasing the self. And so I took that theme and thought, How do I show through a poetic erasure this dynamic of self-erasure and feeling erased?

Highlights - Anthony Joseph - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Writer & Musician - “Sonnets for Albert”

Highlights - Anthony Joseph - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Writer & Musician - “Sonnets for Albert”

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Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.

Anthony Joseph - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Writer & Musician - Author of “Sonnets for Albert”

Anthony Joseph - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Writer & Musician - Author of “Sonnets for Albert”

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Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.

Highlights - David Farrier - Author of "Anthropocene Poetics", “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”

Highlights - David Farrier - Author of "Anthropocene Poetics", “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”

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Author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils · Anthropocene Poetics
Professor of Literature & the Environment · University of Edinburgh.

Just thinking about how our actions play out over multiple generations who will have to live with the consequences of these decisions. I think we need to stretch our sense of time, and within that stretch our sense of empathy. The philosopher Roman Krznaric talks about that in his book The Good Ancestor, that we need a more elastic sense of empathy that can encompass not just those close to us or living alongside us, but those who have yet to be born will have to inherit the world that we passed down to them. But I think in stretching that sense of empathy and stretching that sense of the times that we touch, if you like, because all of us are engaged in activities that will lead long legacies, long tails, in terms of the fossil fuels we're consuming. And so, alongside that, I think we need to accept that the time we live in is a strange one, and time itself is doing strange things in the anthropocene.

David Farrier - Author of "Anthropocene Poetics", “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”

David Farrier - Author of "Anthropocene Poetics", “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”

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Author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils · Anthropocene Poetics
Professor of Literature & the Environment · University of Edinburgh.

Just thinking about how our actions play out over multiple generations who will have to live with the consequences of these decisions. I think we need to stretch our sense of time, and within that stretch our sense of empathy. The philosopher Roman Krznaric talks about that in his book The Good Ancestor, that we need a more elastic sense of empathy that can encompass not just those close to us or living alongside us, but those who have yet to be born will have to inherit the world that we passed down to them. But I think in stretching that sense of empathy and stretching that sense of the times that we touch, if you like, because all of us are engaged in activities that will lead long legacies, long tails, in terms of the fossil fuels we're consuming. And so, alongside that, I think we need to accept that the time we live in is a strange one, and time itself is doing strange things in the anthropocene.

(Highlights) Courtney Peppernell · YA Writer & Poet · Author of “Pillow Thoughts”

(Highlights) Courtney Peppernell · YA Writer & Poet · Author of “Pillow Thoughts”

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YA Writer & Poet
Author of Pillow Thoughts & I Hope You Stay

I really hope that kindness is preserved. I really think manners and being polite can go a long way. People are in such a rush these days. Everybody wants to acquire so much, and they forget to just be thankful for the little things in life. To slow down, how you move through the world and how selfless you are, holding open a door for someone, or just telling someone to have a good day. Those are all things that can have a lasting effect on another person and make them want to be better as well.

Courtney Peppernell · YA Writer & Poet · Author of “Pillow Thoughts”

Courtney Peppernell · YA Writer & Poet · Author of “Pillow Thoughts”

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YA Writer & Poet
Author of Pillow Thoughts & I Hope You Stay

I really hope that kindness is preserved. I really think manners and being polite can go a long way. People are in such a rush these days. Everybody wants to acquire so much, and they forget to just be thankful for the little things in life. To slow down, how you move through the world and how selfless you are, holding open a door for someone, or just telling someone to have a good day. Those are all things that can have a lasting effect on another person and make them want to be better as well.

(Highlights) E.J. KOH

(Highlights) E.J. KOH

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Award-winning Memoirist & Poet
The Magical Language of Others · A Lesser Love

I had delayed speech, and I had quite a bit of trouble with speaking. I think I must have been five before I was uttering some of my first words and trying to articulate. Simple communication was very difficult for me and my family, especially in a family where we were speaking several languages. They hoped to instill English. It’s the language of survival. There was a lot of frustration and fear in my relationship to language, and the relationship these languages had to each other, that was something I felt very sensitive to since I was young. Since before I could speak.

E.J. KOH

E.J. KOH

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Award-winning Memoirist & Poet
The Magical Language of Others · A Lesser Love

I had delayed speech, and I had quite a bit of trouble with speaking. I think I must have been five before I was uttering some of my first words and trying to articulate. Simple communication was very difficult for me and my family, especially in a family where we were speaking several languages. They hoped to instill English. It’s the language of survival. There was a lot of frustration and fear in my relationship to language, and the relationship these languages had to each other, that was something I felt very sensitive to since I was young. Since before I could speak.

(Highlights) ADA LIMÓN

(Highlights) ADA LIMÓN

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National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Poet & Host of The Slowdown podcast

This poem was written when I was having a real moment of reckoning, not that I hadn't had it earlier, but where I was doing some deep reading about the climate crisis and really reckoning with myself, with where we were and what was happening, what the truth was. And I felt like it was so easy to slip down into a darkness, into a sort of numbness, and I didn't think that that numbness and darkness could be useful.

ADA LIMÓN

ADA LIMÓN

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National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Poet & Host of The Slowdown podcast

This poem was written when I was having a real moment of reckoning, not that I hadn't had it earlier, but where I was doing some deep reading about the climate crisis and really reckoning with myself, with where we were and what was happening, what the truth was. And I felt like it was so easy to slip down into a darkness, into a sort of numbness, and I didn't think that that numbness and darkness could be useful.