Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? My process for writing is difficult to define because I am generally moved to write. The poem that I’m sharing, “This Fire Tastes Like…” is one that will be included in my upcoming poetry collection, The Firetalker’s Daughter.
Click on the below link to purchase The Firetalker’s Daughter from Finishing Line Press
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-firetalkers-daughter-by-regina-yc-garcia/
It was actually seeded through an episode from the series Lovecraft Country. In one episode, the historic, infamous, Tulsa Massacre was the setting. Travelers from a future time traveled back to that time to find answers regarding a present issue.
Click on the the below link to read about Lovecraft Country’s Season One Episode 9 “Rewind 1921”
In this real-life massacre, which took place in 1921 in Greenwood, Oklahoma, (LEFT) the relatively affluent African American community, also known as Black Wall Street was almost completely burned to the ground by white looters and arsonists. Reports indicate that like around 300 people died, and many that weren’t were held, captured by the mob until the police came to detain them ( the victims, not the looters). This was a story that was practically buried and was fading from American history.
Click on the below link to read about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Click on the below link to read about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
In truth, I didn’t realize the horror of it until I saw a depiction of it in this series. It was a fiery scene in with fire, fear, courage, death, and this afrofuturistic lens that just collided un my psyche. It was set to this haunting music and overlaying that music was the divine voice of poet Sonia Sanchez performing her poem “Catch the Fire.” It just lit my soul on fire. I went to sleep that evening and woke up the next day, early in the morning, and the poem was sitting in my brain.
Click on the link below to view Sonia Sanchez read her poem “Catch the Fire” at the 1994 Furious Flower Conference
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I wish that I could tell you that it some place full of literary inspiration, sun streaming through the window, but it was written in fervor one morning, sitting up on my bed. Even less sexy, I typed it on my phone. There was this line running through my brain, demanding definition, exemplification, expansion…it was wild. I could not move until I had finished.
Were there any lines in any of your rough drafts of this poem that were not in the final version? And can you share them with us? So as I stated earlier, I wrote it in a burst after a bout of inspiration, so the poem itself was initially written in less than an hour. Sometimes, it happens like that, a gift from The Spirit or the ancestors, a “remember us” or a “say my name” urging from somewhere. In regards to revision, there was nothing I deleted, but one of the lines that was not initially written, I actually did add at some point later. I felt the need to acknowledge that this fire to kill and/or destroy has been regularly weaponized against communities of people of color for years in places that you may not even think of. So I added “Tasted like Old Eppes High/Tasted like all it had consumed” because this was an all Black school that, upon the prospect of desegregation, was burned down. This happened well before I was born, but the elders talked about it frequently. There were various other places within my city that ‘mysteriously’ burned, churches and neighborhoods, before and during the Civil rights movement. Eppes High made its way into the poem for that reason
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I really want readers to come away with the idea that what has been used to destroy can be repurposed to rebuild and restore, maybe not always in the physical ways, but maybe in figurative and or spiritual ways. In the same way Sanchez’ words inspired me to think about what “catch the fire” really means, I want them to see and feel the energy of fire, to think and act on ways to use ‘fire’ to excite and empower change in regards to issues surrounding human rights and social justice. It is imperative the lens be adjusted. We need to find hope in small and large ways and spread it like fire.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional for you to write and why? There are a few, but maybe the most emotional part of this poem for me is the part that says-
New fire gonna propel these children into
They won’t need the water of the oppressors
Because they are children of living waters
There is just such hope in some of these young people, many of whom appear to be more accepting of who others are and who they are. I see this often as I teach young people on the postsecondary level, and I am encouraged. They are open, critical thinkers especially when they are given the space to be and encouraged to think. I so often see my generation mired in rigidity. I get happy when I see young people care about each other and the world. My prayer is that we don’t destroy it before they can fix it.
Has this poem been published? And if so where? This poem is often requested for performance/reading, but it has not been published, yet. It will appear in my upcoming book, The Firetalker’s Daughter , published by Finishing Line Press. It is in pre-sale right now, and it will ship at the end of March.
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-firetalkers-daughter-by-regina-yc-garcia/
Click on the below listen to listen to Regina YC Garcia read “This Fire Tastes Like…”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d0H7OnrwhhcmcbwotwaCZXoAgv_xcEH9/view
Regina YC Garcia is an award winning Poet, Language Artist, and English Professor from Greenville, NC. She is a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she received a BA in Speech Communication with a Concentration in the Oral Interpretation of Literature and East Carolina University where she received a Master’s in Adult Education and a Graduate Certificate in Multicultural and Transnational Literature. For 23 years Regina has taught both Developmental and Curriculum English and Humanities at Pitt Community College where she also serves as the PCC Global Programs Coordinator and Multicultural Activities Committee Chairman.
Her published/upcoming work appears in the South Florida Poetry Journal AutoEthnographer, The Amistad, Main Street Rag, Up the Staircase Quarterly and others. Her work has also been featured in an Emmy-Award winning episode of Muse, featuring the “Black Light Project,” as well as in the 2022 Sacred 9 Project of Tulane University. Her book, The Firetalker’s Daughter from Finishing Line Press is due for release in March 2023.
Most of the BACKSTORY OF THE POEM links can be found at the very end of the below feature:
http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2021/02/will-justice-drakes-intercession-is-251.html