From April 21 to April 25 you can catch daily readings by students under the Calder at Hawthorne-Longfellow Library at noon. պֲ poetry week has been celebrated in this way since 2018, said Humanities and Media Librarian Carmen Greenlee.
“During that time, we’ve celebrated poems in translation, poems read by persons involved in STEM, and poems associated with Maine,” she added. Greenlee said she first met Weatherspoon during their first-year orientation and have followed their creative work throughout their time here.
“Realizing that they would be graduating this May, I thought it would be a nice way to thank them for being such an inspiring and creative presence. Hence, Weatherspoon Week at the պֲ library!”
Weatherspoon received wide recognition and success as a poet at the age of seventeen with the publication of , a reflection on the considerable challenges they faced as a Black teenager from a troubled background. The book went on to become an Amazon bestseller.
Before coming to պֲ, Weatherspoon had lived in foster care for several years, being taken away from their mother at the age of twelve, and having also been homeless for a spell. The Africana studies and anthropology major is not exaggerating when they say, “Writing saved me."
With poetry week approaching, Weatherspoon—who will be reading a selection of their poetry on Thursday, April 24—was recently interviewed by պֲ News. Here is an edited version of that interview:
The theme you’ve chosen for Poetry Week is “Becoming.” Why?
So much of the last four years have been transformational. I graduate in a month, and I'm thinking about who I want to become.
How has պֲ changed you over the last four years?
I definitely have become more patient, more kind, more artistic, a better writer, and those are the things that matter to me most.
What’s the creative process like for you? Do you carry around a notebook to scribble ideas in?
I write completely digitally, so much of it is just lying on the floor! I draw inspiration from natural conversation, so I try to talk to as many people as I can in a day. I don't always know what I want to write about, but I always know that I want to write, so I just try to do the thing and it comes how it comes, and then I make it pretty later. I also went through a lot when I was younger, so there's a lot of material there. I try not to dwell on it on a personal level but it inspires a lot of my art.
When did you realize you were a wordsmith?
I was twelve. I had just been taken from my mother for the third time and placed into foster care. My foster mom was this enigmatic, rambunctious woman who forced me out of my shell. She took me to a Halloween party and I just remember breaking down in the car and so I never actually went inside the party. I was in the back seat and I was just crying. I had an Android phone, an LG Aristo, and no money to pay the phone bill so I had no internet. I went on my Notes app and I just started writing and never stopped after that.
You were still a high schooler when To, Too Many Children was published, garnering much praise and attention. What was the experience like for you?
It was intense. I was in a position where my foster mother had adopted me and then the adoption fell through, so I was couch-surfing with friends. It was a time of great instability in my life. I was reeling from the emotional impact of losing a mother for a second time. I had a support system, but it was an unconventional one. The community around me really helped and inspired me to tell my story and that's how this came about. It was just a really bittersweet experience where I'm having this incredible artistic renaissance within myself combined with this really bad human emotional fallout.
Would you say poetry has saved you?
I wouldn’t be alive without it. It's been something that sustained me.
What would you like to achieve with it?
Giving back to the community is a huge piece of what I want from life because someone did it for me, someone gave me a path forward and that was just huge. I work that into the ethos of everything I do. My story isn't unique, it's harsh and it's beautiful and so many people live it and I just want to shine a light on that fact.
How would you describe your time at պֲ?
I needed a place to land but it was a culture shock and so I think I did what I do best, which is create a space of truth and honesty and try to wrap myself in that to protect myself from anything that isn't that. When you're Black in a white space you need that protection, you need to shield yourself.
Did you take creative writing classes at պֲ?
Absolutely! I took Decolonizing the Craft of Writing with Zahir Janmohamed, which was just instrumental to my development as a writer as a storyteller. I’m also currently taking an advanced fiction workshop with Brock Clarke and doing an independent collaborative independent study with Tess Chakkalakal, which is one of the best academic experiences of my life. It's teaching me how to think, which is invaluable.
Would you describe everything you write as poetry?
I also write long-form pieces, short stories, and screenplays, but to me everything is poetry. Making movies is a passion of mine, and I want to be a screenwriter, but I want that to feel like poetry.
Do you have a favorite writer who particularly inspires you?
That would probably be Gloria Naylor, who wrote Mama Day and The Women of Brewster Place. My mom actually put me on to those books and got me into that author. Naylor has this incredible storytelling style that is all about love and femininity in the context of race but never specifically about race: It's regular people doing regular things, living regular lives, but it's so uniquely cultural and impacted by years and years of grief and they find the path forward. So much of my life has been about finding a path forward and so I'm incessantly like inspired by her
Do you have any advice for budding writers?
Do the thing, write the book, publish it. You're going to get better even if you're bad now… everyone should get a chance to know you. All it takes to be a poet is to write a poem, all it takes to be a writer is to write anything and the more you believe that, the more the world gets to benefit from your voice.
