Poet Shanta Lee joins me today to chat about her new collection, Black Metamorphoses.
Bio:
Shanta Lee is an award-winning artist who works in different mediums as a photographer, writer across genres, and a public intellectual. She is the author of the poetry collection, GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues (Diode Editions, 2021)and illustrated collection, Black Metamorphoses (Etruscan Press, 2023). Black Metamorphoses has been named a finalist in the 2021 Hudson prize, shortlisted for the 2021 Cowles Poetry Book Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Idaho poetry prize. Her current exhibition, Dark Goddess: An Exploration of the Sacred Feminine which features her short film, interviews, and photography, is on view at the Fleming Museum of Art. In addition to her dedication to the arts, Shanta Lee serves on the VT and NH Humanities Speakers Bureaus in addition to serving as a VT Humanities board member as a governor appointee. Learn more about her work at: Shantalee.com.
What do you enjoy most about writing poems?
I never really thought about it from a space of enjoyment, more like feeling a strong pull towards it and across other areas of creating. Writing poetry, like writing in my journal, were among my first languages in terms of writing.
Can you give us a little insight into a few of your poems – perhaps a couple of your favorites?
Ohhhh, it is so hard to choose a favorite. Many of the poems have some interesting backstories. There is one in particular that also points to my other passion: anything having to do with haunted or paranormal histories! The poem, “How to Reverse a Conjure” is written for Remus, after the enslaved man who lost his life altering building a chest of drawers for his enslaver. His enslaver wanted the chest built because of this child who was due at any moment, however, upon seeing the chest, he did not like it and beat Remus to death. It is said that as a result, this chest of drawers was cursed. I learned about this item (which nows sits in the Kentucky Historical Society) and could not stop reading about it, the long line of individuals who died when they encountered the item, etc. It added more depth to my thinking about intergenerational curses or the ways that some wrongs do not have simple fixes. What could balance or even, apology look like within something that is as uncorrectable and unchangeable as the fact and impact of enslavement?
What form are you inspired to write in the most? Why?
I don’t have a form per se that inspires me most. For me, when it comes to poetry, I like to think about the ways that a poem might need to try on different outfits before finding the right fit if that makes sense as opposed to me seeing out to engage a specific form. Don’t get me wrong, I do sometimes have a form in mind, but other times I find that it is best to go in knowing that nothing of what I want to will or enforce upon the poem may stay that way.
I also would very much be interested in seeking to create new forms OR engaging in the forms that have been dead or forgotten if possible.
What type of project are you working on next?
I am working on an anthology with Etruscan Press called Sign and Breath which is exciting. I also have some prose and more poetry manuscripts that are in different states of being alongside of the fact that other realities for Black Metamorphoses are being explored. Given that there are images that were commissioned for Black Metamorphoses, I am working with two other individuals to bring images and sound to a museum space as a digital installation.
When did you first consider yourself a writer / poet?
These are always complicated questions for me because I never considered myself one thing, but have moments of awakening at different periods. A strong visual language was always within me alongside words, especially when I think about my earliest experiences with literacy. In some ways, I feel like I am still exploring what it means to be someone who creates across genres of writing and photography.
How do you research markets for your work, perhaps as some advice for not-yet-published poets?
In terms of advice, here are some important things and key points I am still sitting with:
- Not everyone will like or even “get” your work. Sadly, within any industry, there are places that are considered the moment path you have “arrived” though, know that you will be possibly sitting there thinking, “I’ve been at this for 1,000 years” (at least it will feel that way). You have to known or feel that for yourself regardless of the loud of the noise around.
- Define your own pace and success. Again, it is so easy to get caught up with what one person is doing versus another. It can even feel like wondering if you should stop doing the work altogether because it can feel like it is not being noticed, celebrated or recognized. Setting your own definitions for success will help you or ease that tension a bit. This brings me to my next point.
- Ask yourself do you want to be the flash in the pan or play the long game? Have been saying that I want the Ovid deal. Let me work be lucky enough to last for 2,000+ years OR perhaps be fragmented like Sappho and maybe, just maybe, someone will still find a way to connect with it.
- You better love what you are doing because you are going to be looking at it over, over and over again. I am talking bout revision and the different ways that one will be sitting with their work in the process. You have to be able to stand engaging with it. If you can’t, explore that.
- Be working on other things. There is a bittersweet feeling to the arrival of a finished book or a finished creative work (heck, I am dreading the day that my current exhibition is coming down though I know it is taking a trip to another place). The point is, if you have other things you can connect with, it eases the pressure away from the work and yourself so that you can balance any range of emotion you will inevitably experience in your birthing process with your project.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
Sometimes, especially if I am needing to write or do something that talks about my process with photography or if I am writing prose, I imagine myself on Oprah’s coach. I hear me saying it to her.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Many things, I did not want to be one thing (not surprising). I wanted to be a lawyer, then at some point, a nurse. One consistency though, and I promise I am not pulling your leg, I wanted to be a glamorous adult. I did not know really what that meant — nor the cost of such a thing! — but I imagined myself as looking and living glamorous. I don’t think that has a job title except as a paid socialite, ha!
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
If you are truly engaging in what makes you burn in terms of your creativity, it is not all fun and games. Sometimes, it will break your heart. Sometimes, you find yourself stepping away or doing a dance with different parts of it. It is your teacher, both the things you are creating and the process.
Links:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Etruscan Press