Bookwild - Pelumi Olatinpo's Manifest Destiny: Being a Witness to Corroborate Experiences That Have Been Hidden

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

This week, I talk with Pelumi Olatinpo about his new poetry collection Manifest Destiny. He shares how and why he created a new type of poetry, what inspired him to write about Manifest Destiny and the way it echoes throughout history, and the power of bearing witness.Manifest Destiny SynopsisAmerica turns 250 in 2026. In MANIFEST DESTINY, Pelumi Olatinpo delivers an essential examination of what we’ve been, what we are, and what we might become.This isn’t a traditional book. It’s a new form entirely—159 “sonetas” that compress centuries into seconds, each one exactly sixty words. Think of them as diagnostic tools, or prayers, or evidence. Olatinpo’s innovation makes complex history feel like music in your bones.Olatinpo writes with the authority of someone who has lived the contradictions he interrogates: arriving undocumented at fifteen, becoming a citizen twenty-two years later. This second book after the acclaimed Poeta moves through four sections—from intimate love through historical memory to prophetic witness—each soneta a small revelation.“All men are created equal, some more equal than others.”“In Lagos, you damn the bled, or join the dead.”“I’ve loved you with the darkest and brightest blues / Of every ocean.”The journey spans continents and centuries, connecting Gaza to Gettysburg, colonial Nigeria to contemporary Chicago. Code-switching between biblical prophecy, constitutional language, and Nigerian Pidgin, Olatinpo reveals patterns we’ve been trained not to see.Extensive endnotes turn every reference into a teaching moment. The final piece appears on the book’s endpaper—making it impossible to close without confronting the question: who remembers?For readers of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, and anyone seeking to understand America at this crucial moment.Essential reading for the 250th anniversary. A book that transcends genre to become necessary equipment for our time. Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

This week I got to talk with Palumi Olatimpo about his poetry collection manifest destiny. If you are watching on YouTube, you're able to see the copy that I'm holding. And we are doing a giveaway. So two people are going to win a copy of this. It has beautiful sprayed edges with the gold embossed lettering. But also, there is some wonderful poetry in here. So this is what it's about. America turns 250 in 2026.

In Manifest Destiny, Palumi Alatimpo delivers an essential examination of what we've been, what we are, and what we might become. This isn't a traditional book. It's a new form entirely, 159 sonatas that compressed centuries into seconds, each one exactly six words. Think of them as diagnostic tools or prayers or evidence. Olatimpo's innovation makes complex history feel like music in your bones. Olatimpo writes with the authority of someone who has lived the contradictions he interrogates,

arriving undocumented at 15, becoming a citizen 22 years later. This second book after the acclaimed poet, moves through four sections, from intimate love through historical memory to prophetic witness, each sonnet a small revelation. Some quotes from it. All men are created equal, some were equal than others. In Lagos, you damn the blood or join the dead. I've loved you with the darkest and brightest blues of every ocean. The journey spans continents and centuries connecting Gaza to Gettysburg, colonial Nigeria to contemporary Chicago. Code switching between biblical prophecy, constitutional language, and Nigerian pigeon, a lieutenant Tempo reveals patterns we've been trained not to see.

Extensive in notes turn every reference into a teaching moment. The final piece appears on the book's end paper, making it impossible to close without confronting the question who remembers. I loved this poetry collection. I kind of worked my way through it over a couple weeks. It is just, it is so powerful. And if you've been listening to some of my other episodes, you know that actually the concept of Manifest Destiny itself has become something that I have gotten a little bit obsessed about, particularly in the sense that we used this idea of Manifest Destiny as a reason for white people to come to a land that was not theirs. And to perform mass genocide on the people who were here and to then enslave people.

people to build the whole country. So this is a concept that I have been interested in sounds weird since it's such a terrible concept, but it's something I have just been on my own learning journey about and realizing how it's not the pretty little concept that the name suggests. So I really deeply appreciated how he was able to use words. like it mentioned in the summary from all kinds of different dialects and perspectives to really talk about what has happened in the past, what's happening in the present in America, and also what is happening in Gaza presently.

If you've been listening to me for a while, I feel like this is something that would be really interesting to you. If you've not ever read a complete poetry collection, I hadn't read one this long. and I will definitely be reading more because this was that good. So I definitely encourage you to pick it up. And now let's hear from Palumi. So I am super excited. We have our first poet on the podcast. This is actually, this is kind of a big moment. So hopefully, hopefully I have good enough questions. But I'm excited to talk with Palumi Ola Tempo about Manifest Destiny, your collection of poetry. So thank you for coming.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. Yeah. So the first thing I always want to know is like how writers came to writing. So what drew you to poetry for like at the beginning? I think at a very young age, I was introduced to, I would say, English literature and the sort of Shakespeare and the others like it. And also, I come from a culture, the Urba culture,

where there's a lot of poetic expression. There's a lot of horror tradition in our culture. And so I would say sort of a hybrid of those two experiences sort of formulated, you know, my introduction and my passion towards poetry. Yeah. And so for this one, you created almost your own type of poem with the sonata or I have about asking that correctly. Okay, cool.

So what made you want to create that new structure? Yeah, I think, you know, so number one, right? I maybe in this sort of culture that we do live in today where you have a one minute reel, you have a tick-tac second, you know, to grab attention. So, you know, I felt like I needed something. I needed a medium, a new way of writing that I was able to communicate something in the clearest and most succinct way possible, right? And I think there also maybe was a sense of vanity as well that in that the Shakespearean Senate usually is about 14 lines. And I was like, I would go this and less than that, you know.

I love that. So, you know, playing around with that. and I just felt like, you know, wow, you know, it's this, you know, because the attention span and then also the creativity that it also requires that, hey, that if you have something to say, what is the easiest, what's the clearest and the deepest way that you can say without losing and still communicating your thoughts clearly. So all those, you know, lent themselves to the sonata form, which also, like I said, the musicality of the form is also intrigued to it. So also, that sort of creator is like multiple. guntlets for myself that okay need to be short, needed to be musical, they also needed to be, you know, as deep as it could be,

you also need it to be clear as well. That even if you do not read poetry, that you can still read this and it could still understand it. Yeah, totally. I hadn't even thought about attention spans as part of it, but that does totally make sense.

When I was researching you a little bit, I saw an interview you did with Z Network. Oh, yes. And you were talking about, kind of also, like, along with what you're saying, it said, like, every word must earn its place. This isn't poetry for poetry professors. It's poetry for the mother in Gaza, the teenager in Chicago, and the worker in Lagos.

And then you also say, like, you want the grandmother who never finished high school and the PhD student to both be able to read them. And I thought you said something pretty powerful, that poetry that requires a decoder ring is poetry that already. field its political mission. So can you talk about that too? Like sometimes poetry is so like maybe the hoity-to-oity literature community. Can you kind of talk about what you wanted to do? Yes, you know, because and you know right now you're kind of like you're bringing out all this fashion. Good. Because, you know, I feel like poetry has gotten what I'll call a bastard name

in our current times. If you look at the history of civilization, a lot of the most famous and best-known works that we'll refer to to the way works of poetry. If you look at the odyssey, the iliad by, you know, these were poetic works, right? Now, hardly would you read or look at a end-of-year list of books to read and you'll find a poetry work on there. So poetry has become this niche that, okay, that you need a, like you said, you need a dictionary, you need some decode into, but I think that betrays what poetry should be all about. Poetish is primarily accessible because it's this one form of writing that bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the gut. At times, for instance, if you're watching TV, for instance, and you hear a jingle in an ad, right?

You could fall in love with a jingle first before you even know what the hat is selling you. It's because it's poetic. It resonates with your body first. You process it first before you even begin. to intellectualize it. And I think that is the power of poetry, to us process our world, the way we see, the way it should be,

and nobody should need a map. No. You figure out what's happening, you know? So all of those things we're kind of just like, yes, that I would like for us to move poetry from that shelf in the back of the bookstore to the front of me, where as writers, we are not writing for,

an educated elite that, you know, as a PhD, but it should be every day. It's who we are, you know, so yeah. Yes. Yeah, I love that. I read, I kind of read a lot of stuff now, but I used to like mostly read thriller fiction. And sometimes even that was something where I'd have conversations with some people where they're like, oh, but that's just an author who writes thrillers.

And I'm like, everything can connect with people. we don't need to be so pretentious about literature especially. Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. So I saw, I also saw that when you were writing Poeta, you kind of got the inspiration for this because you were seeing some parallels between what's happening in Gaza and what has happened in the U.S. for a very long time. It reminded me of that Mark Twain quote that's like history might not repeat itself, but, it does rhyme. And I like kept thinking of that as I was reading what you'd written. Can you talk about like noticing those parallels and wanting to write about them? Yeah. So as I began, so Poeta was my earlier work where I did introduce the sonata. It was going to like sonatas and sonnets in that work.

And as I began to write it because at that point, the Gaza war had just broken out. And I began to see a lot of what I was trying to write and what was happening in the in the newspapers on TV on cable and I I tried to read as much as possible so I sort of have a quite big reservoir of previous events from past centuries from past millennia right and I began to do like wait I'm seeing a parallel here right particularly and I think one of the main things that happened was that during that period was also during the period where I think I was getting my naturalization as an American citizen. So I think in the course of preparing for these tests, right, I learned about the Mexican-American war.

And I realized all the things that happen there. And I'm looking at what is happening now. And I'm like, wait, you know, who is the victim? who is the victor who is how his narratives being shaped right and i began just to be able to see wow like you said it might not be the same players but they are doing the same thing it's it's like it's like a it's like a script it's like i almost felt like wait we are cutting the loop we are caught in the loop yes the same experiences are playing themselves and what role do we have to play to break out of that loop or reinforce the loop you know so

So those are those kind of thoughts. I like, okay, you know what? I don't know the things that I tried to do in my works, poet and manifest destiny included is so not lecture. I don't lecture you on what you think. I don't say, this is it. You should think like this. But I just try to present the facts, present the experiences,

present the anecdotes and say, hey, are you seeing the same thing I'm saying? You know, so. Yes. Yeah. So that was kind of reminding me. I do have a wonderful copy for anyone who is watching on YouTube. It is such a pretty finished version.

But I had saved this one 288 because it really like gets until I think what you're talking about too. Like narratives matter and then like the words we choose matter so much. So I'm going to read it. I hope I sound poetic. But it says, I'm the American man and woman on the wild plains of the Wild West, taming the tribes of the wilderness, claiming their land for our destiny commanded by the creator. I'm the American man and woman on the scorched plains of the West Bank crusading in the name of holiness, but don't call me a usurper, call me a settler.

This is what I have been learning a lot more about in the last couple of years is kind of like the whole in my own history education. And how we call them settlers, because that's easier than saying like people who just stole land from people. So can you kind of talk about how you were able to use these sonatas to talk about words and how we choose our words? Yeah, and I think this Sonnetta 288, I just read, totally captures how power moves through language. Power moves through language. You know, how we can beautify, we can mystify or, you know, make something less threatening by the words that we choose to use, right? And I felt like, you know, for instance, in that soneda, for instance, if I said somebody was a settler, you, oh, it seems innocuous.

They're just, oh, finally just going to someplace. They're just settling down. It doesn't seem controversial. It doesn't seem violent. It doesn't seem like somebody's being a victim. It seems like, hey, kumbaya, we're all good, right? And that we enforces a particular narrative, right? But if we're able to choose the world that better reflected, then all of a sudden, we're able to get better engagement.

We're able to get better understanding of the situation at hand. And I think that's another I try to say, okay, hey, I try to inhabit the dialogue, the mindset of somebody that is say, hey, I'm doing this, but I want you to look this other way. you know, look at this other side, don't look, you know, and I think, yeah, and I think at times we see a lot of that, you know, from both national politics and also global politics. How to achieve narrative, certain words, satin, you know, becomes, you know, what is being pushed, you know, across all our media. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was, I read a book here recently called original sins, the miseducation of black and Native American children.

And it talked about the word civilization because a lot of the white men who were putting together schools. I say with quotes around them were saying they needed to civilize them, which like can sound. It's another one that can sound one way. And then you read our actual history and you're like, they were just stripping culture from people just to get compliance essentially. Yeah, definitely. I'll just agree to what you're saying, yeah. Okay, cool. And that book, it was fascinating.

That book was really reminding me of how I at least would learn about manifest destiny in high school in my history classes. And it does. It sounds like this sounds beautiful. It sounds like what they wanted to sound like like God said, their God said, this is for you, actually. But it actually was just used. to take stuff that wasn't theirs.

So can you talk about like the title of it and just how much you wanted to talk about that concept? Yeah, definitely. You know, so all throughout history, right, there is this kind of fog around the weaponization of religion. How religion becomes that one ticket where somebody presents to you and they say, okay, suspend your reasoning, suspend any doubt you may have, take, not our word, take the word of some

almighty supreme being as it. And if that is it, then all of us should just follow blindly, right? And we see how that was used, you know, in the whole growth and the expansion of America, the whole manifest destiny thing. That, hey, we are the chosen one. if you're not part of us, suffer in silence

and just endure what you must endure. And so we see that, you know, the Native Americans, you know, black Americans, particularly where, you know, Mexican Americans were at the broad hand of that. And so we see almost the same thing being played out. On the West Bank, in Gaza,

where, you know, Zionism, for lack of a better word, believes that it, they own the land, the land belongs to them, that anyone else on that land is temporary and theirs is the permanence, right? The same ethos that we saw in the 19th century America where, you know, everybody else be damned. And as we expand, then we are doing the will of God. So at times, so we see how religion then becomes a cover that just mask, I think, the worst of humanity, right?

Yes. We're in the name of a righteous God. We are doing Him, but what we feel that the evil that we do is vindicated because we believe a righteous God tells us to commit those evil. You know, it's the paradox. Yeah, it doesn't actually make any sense, but has been effectively, effectively and evilly used for sure. So I also saw you talked about how like poetry and words and the sonata specifically are a way to witness and what can happen from actually witnessing what's happened and what is happening.

So can you kind of talk about that too? Yeah. You know, so I believe that we have responsibilities to. witness, I would say, the complexity of the human experience. You know, I would say even particularly as writers. I believe that writers have a profound burden because, you know, writers sit in a place where we are able to articulate in a way that maybe a scientist might not be able to. In the way, maybe somebody else in any other lane of work or life may not be able to.

we are able to dig into the depth of the human experience and say, hey, you know, this is what the mirror looks like. So in a poetry, in manifest destiny, you see that, right, where, you know, there's a mirror that talks, that shows you what love should look like, that shows you what justice should look like, that shows you what ecology should look like, that shows you what betrayal even looks like, that even shows you what, you know, theology looks like, right? So I believe that we have a responsibility to be witnesses. Because at times, you know, there was somebody that read, that read Manifested Destiny and mentioned, you know, that for so long, they felt like they've been screaming into a void where nobody could hear them. That really manifested destiny made them feel validated. That somebody knows what they're experiencing.

And for me, that is being a witness. That is saying, hey, you know, just like how you go to a court of law and it's trying to make a case and they say, do we have any witnesses? And what witnessing does is that it corroborates that experience. It says that you are not just in your head. This is, you know, you're not the only one going through this. This is actually happening. How do we improve the human condition in that area or what are the things that we need to know? So, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, you really teed me up perfectly for my next question, actually, because you also do extensive footnotes about each one that you wrote, which I thought was really cool. And then again, in that interview, I saw that you said that manifest destiny comes armed with extensive in notes, not academic posturing, but evidence for the prosecution, kind of what you were just saying. And I have felt that way with some stuff that I have been sharing lately. I've been like adding links.

Like by the way, here's where you can go see why this is true. And I think there's a lot of gaslighting and there's a lot of erasure happening right now. And so it's so helpful to have these, to basically have your proof and then exactly what you're saying. Then we don't have to feel as crazy when like other people are essentially gaslighting. is where I'm headed with that. So did you know early on you wanted to do the end notes or when did you decide on that part? That's a very good question, Kay. You know, I would not say that I started out wanting to have end notes when I began

my own destiny because I didn't have end notes for poetry. So it wasn't, you know, but then two things happened. As I began to write and I began to use some allusions in the work, I realized that some of the illusions might be lost if you were not too familiar with my frame of reference, you know, that I could better enrich your understanding, you know, off the work, you know. So one of the things that I tried to subconsciously do or not subconscious, consciously do in the Swedish letters was have different access points, right? For instance, you were a PhD level reader that studied poetics for the past 10 years.

You know this where you could enter. if you were like I said a cashier in Alabama there was a place where you could enter so everybody had an access point into the work and the work still was still whole did not lose anything so I didn't realize that okay you know what

for some of the more extensive allusions or some of the things that I was trying to draw that it would be nice to maybe you know have some sort of at least bring you into my mind share my nose with you and then so I shared the work for some initial feedback to one of the

editors that I was working with. I just like, look at me, I think this could use some end notes because, you know, that would better help some. I don't know, oh, interesting, I was thinking about that too. So that just validated my thought that okay, hey, that would be nice to have some end notes. And then also

we live in a time where truth is up for debate. Where folks say, oh, alternative facts, my truth, your truth, you know, so we can never seem to agree on what truth is. So I feel like, you know, what we need for this work, I needed there to be an objective series of facts.

That no matter where you stand on the spectrum, that you and I as humans could look at this and say, it doesn't get more objective than this. You know, the sky is either blue or it's red. You know, you know. Yes. You know, so the fundamental. The fundamentals are still fundamental, right?

So I wanted to have a work that was that if you were to read it, you would not say I'm biased. Because the facts dictate what is written. And I'm not otherwise. So a big part of me was I needed credibility. I needed to eat like I said and then make up your mind. That, hey, this is it. This is how it is. look at the facts that say so, what do you think?

You know, so the idea is to provoke thought. And I felt like the hand knows, you know, went a long way towards that purpose. Yes, yeah, I agree. And it's helpful, too, because it's just when I'm having conversations about stuff, I'm trying to, like, have my sources, because I don't want, I don't want to be giving bad information. But then even with these, it's like, no, like, this means this. And, like, here's some of the background for it is helpful in conversations with. some people right now.

Definitely. So the other thing I thought it's interesting though, it has like historical and political and sociological poem or sonatas. And but also there are some like love poems in there too. And so what what was the purpose there to make sure that actually kind of both of those were represented? That's a very good question. As a matter of fact, I had one of our in-house editors who looked at the work initially. I think the core of your work is about a social movement, it's about the social justice.

I don't know about this love poems. They feel a little bit misplaced. Maybe we should make them another book. I was like, no, I don't think so. Because two things, that if you were to open the book and the first thing that hit you was some sort. of protest poetry, like, whoa, this is an angry poet, you know, you know, that it was said,

oh, this is, you know, this is an angry kind of work, right? And I was like, no, I don't want you to give that expression because I didn't write this in anger. I didn't say, you know, there were times I was angry, but it wasn't an angry work, you know? And also, I believe that

human beings are complex. You know, we live in several multiple identities at once, you know, and the same heart that experiences pain also experiences joy. The same heart that experiences love also experiences hate, right? So I believe that that we would not know what justice should look like. We have not experienced what love heart to look like. So I felt like having the works that they would love in there was was important to show us that, hey, this is possible. And when it's possible, it could look like this.

You know, the ups and downs and then it makes, and I feel like as a reader, when you read a work like that, where I've been vulnerable, I've introduced you to my humanity, and then you had to read the harsher, more ruthless pieces. It makes it make sense. It makes it look like this is all coming from the same place. And not two different persons. Right. Yeah.

And the love is what we're trying to be aspirational towards as well. Yes. Yes. So it's nice to have it there too, to be like, and this is why we don't want people treated this way. Like, yeah, I really enjoyed the inclusion of that as well. And you also did it in multiple parts. Did you write it as it appears?

or did you kind of like play around with the order after you'd written lots of them? Yeah, so I played around with the order after I was reading a few of them. So one of the things I wanted to do with Manifest Destiny was to write a story, right? You know, I thought of Manifest Destiny as an epic. You know, so the work for a lot of your listeners and viewers that might not be familiar with it is broken into four books. So there are four books in Manifest Destiny. And each book takes you on a journey, right? And then it climaxes and then brings you down, not brings you down, but kind of like descends.

You know, so it's like you're going on the side of the mountain, you're ascending, and then you're descending on the other side, right? So as I began to think about that within that scope, okay, I wanted you to be engaged. I wanted to tell a story. And then it needs to think of, okay, what sonnetta fits in what part of that narrative, right? And how does it work with a whole? that was also important that even as I was retrofitting it in, that wasn't breaking the message that I was trying to pass along at the end of the day.

So I had to keep those two thoughts in mind at the same time. Yeah. You know, so that sort of influenced, you know, the arrangement of your work as well. And so good enough for me, there were times where I wrote several of the pieces around the same time. And when it was time to arrange them, they went together in the same book. So at times that happened as well. So, but yeah, we're all. That's cool.

Yeah, it does help it kind of feel like you go on, like you're saying, like, kind of like four different journeys that are all related. With another thing about structure. So obviously, like you kind of invented this structure. you have to stick to a certain amount of words and all of that. What is editing like with poetry? So are you kind of like stuck on one word for a little while? Do I not like how it rhymes?

Like what's the editing process like? Yeah, I think the sonneta presents a different sort of challenge for many of the kind of poetic work. in this sense that. So a little bit of a recap for listeners and readers. So a sonnetta is no more than six lines, no more than 10 words per line, and there has to be a fixed rhyme scheme.

So let's say A, B, A, B, C, A, C, A, B, C, A B, C, you know. And the challenge that it provides is that, let's say if you're doing a freestyle, a free verse, you know, verse, you know, you could write more. multiple pages, you know, there is no need to, I guess, hold yourself to a certain limit of your expression. But the sonnetta demands concession that what will take, let's even in a work of prose, if you're in a novel, for instance, right? Now you're writing a novel and you might devote the first couple of chapters to setting up your story. The sonata demands. The sonata demands.

that your first one or two lines, you have to set up your story. Yes. You know, because it reminds me of, I guess, I don't know, if you're a fan of a lot of the rings. I am a fan of a lot of the rings. And I think, you know, I think it was in this, it had in the second or third installment. Two of the, of the health, none of the healths, you know, they were, they were sitting on some of the trees, right? and the trees we're having a meeting, right? And the guys are like, oh, you know, our friends are born in.

How come you guys are taking so long to say what you have to say? And then the tree leader said, in hold antish, it takes a lot of time to say anything. So if you say something, you got to be sure it is worth saying, you know? So that is the exact principle behind the sonata. result of that means agonizing over every word because you only ask 60 words. And it means every word almost has to be doing a double duty. Every word cannot just do one purpose. They have to serve two, three, four, at times five purposes, right? So you are constantly revising. You are constantly here. At times, you know, it takes me days. It takes me at times I could have reason something

that I thought is done and then a week later, I'm still revising it because I'm like, oh yeah, you know this is a better way to say this this is a better way to say this or you know so it's it's it's I find myself going through multiple drafts even though

it's just six lines even though it's just 60 words but you have so little time to communicate and what you choose how you choose to communicate them becomes more important as opposed to having multiple pages to you know, express your thought and, you know, you know, just you are constricted and, you know,

to make you wait as soon as fast and as clear as possible. Yeah. As reminding me, I, I edit a lot of videos and sometimes when we're like bidding stuff, someone will be like, we just need like, it just needs to be a really quick 30 second reel, but it has to convey so much information. So like, they come into it thinking, like, I'm asking you for something that's 30 seconds. that's probably not going to cost very much, right? Versus like actually not having to try to cut down 30 minutes to make perfect sense that quickly,

that's actually a lot harder to like figure out how to condense it and still pack the same punch. But like you're saying from the beginning, sometimes it needs to be short so that people will actually consume the message. Yes, indeed. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating trying to figure out just, yeah, when is consistent? precise necessary and like when is long form necessary. If I got to ask you a question, Kate, right?

So for you, right? So this is the first time you having a poet on the podcast. For you, what was it like reading a work of poetry in this format? What was the impact of the length of the format for you? Did it make any difference? How did you process all of that? Yeah. So I have read like standalone post like one poem at a time before, but this was like the first time I read through a whole collection.

And I think it was probably resonating with some of what I just said too where I've had to even as an editor figure out how to say things really succinctly. And it was also reminding me of what I end up loving about lyrics in songs when someone is able to like convey something with like maybe two very. verses and you're like, oh, that was really clever. I really understand that. The other thing that was interesting for me with this is I've been learning more about like Christian nationalism and the way that scripture has been used differently and you do you have scripture, I think, in the invocation at the beginning. And it was reminding me of, in some ways of scripture, but like scripture that is interpreted in a more positive and loving light than the version of Christianity I grew up in. So it was kind of reminding me of that as well. But like the other thing

that's different about reading it is obviously with fiction, it's like you're just trying to get through it. Not that there's lots of fiction that has made me think deeper about things too. But it's kind of like you do read one and then you just, I would, in a in a lot of cases, I've found myself than, like, sitting and thinking about it, which is something you don't typically do in fiction. I mean, I probably will when fiction really hits on some themes or I think what I've done, but it's a different style of consumption that still had me, like, thinking about things and the end notes I loved because even with some historical fiction,

what I've been enjoying more about that is it helps me learn about things that have happened without just reading a history book. So then I ended up searching everything. So it was kind of nice with this. But like I didn't even have to go to Google necessarily. I could read the necessary information with it. Awesome. Awesome.

Yeah. So that exactly, you know, what I guess I had in mind, you know. So the fact that you're going to do it's your first time reading it through an entire. Yeah. I would take that as a win. Yes. Yeah. It's just so powerful.

And it's, it's falling in like a vein that I've just got more interested and passionate about is like my own gaps that I had in understanding like the history of the United States. And then also kind of having basically I grew up as a pastor's kid. Oh. In a very white evangelical church. And I deconstructed pretty much once I was about 19 years old. just couldn't agree with a lot of the things that I had grown up with. And now I've been having this, what I'm almost calling a second deconstruction, where I'm hearing from other people whose Christian faith is, even their Christian faith is much more loving than the Christian faith that I grew up in, too.

So it kind of fell in, it also like fell into that vein where it was like, just another reminder that a lot of people approach spirituality differently than what I grew up around. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So how did, you know, how did you see the work definitely threads a lot of spirituality and theology, right? You know, how did you see? Where those turnoffs for you? Where those, how did those? No. No, it really wasn't. And I think it's been, it's been healing for me to be around spirituality and theology that isn't oppressive. And obviously, I'm a white woman in America. My oppression is not huge, but it's, I was still around, there is oppression towards women the way that Christianity was used where I was growing up. But it's, it's refreshing for me to be around, I get kind of what I'm saying, a spirituality and a theology that isn't about anyone being the chosen people or anyone,

one being completely right. Because like, if anything, my spirituality at this point is I'm like, I don't know. And none of us completely know either. I know obviously some people's faith. They do feel like they know completely. And I respect that as long as they're not treating people poorly. But it was kind of like getting to sample more of a version of a healthy spirituality. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing I saw, I saw that you were a little bit, as I would be too, a little bit nervous publishing this because you are drawing parallels between what's happening in Gaza and what has happened in history and lots of different scenarios. So what was it like? Like it's been published for a month now. How kind of how do you feel about having it out there now? Yeah. It's, uh, it's one of. of those things that as I was writing it, I mean, I had to ask myself, do you really want this out there? Because you're taking popular, you know, positions, you are, you are saying the emperor has no clothes on. And that could be consequential, you know, that people would have said not as much and

quote and unquote being canceled, right? But I just felt more. the burden like we've talked about to witness. I felt like for me that was just more important than any personal harm, any personal discomfort that I could get to suffer, right? That I am standing on the, I'm standing on what do call it, on the shoulders of giants. That are folks who have planned before me. You know, when I think of Dr. King, Medga Evers, Malcolm X, you know, you know, and that I've had a great personal pain, you know, troding the path that they have trodden, right?

So I feel that a lot of the things that I'm even saying at this point are not so new, but as a continuation of the dialogues that they've started, you know. So, yeah, to be quite honest with you, it's a little bit frightening. It's a little bit, you know, because as much as you want to get the message out there. I've been doing some publicity stuff and I'm like, but I know at times in the times we're living where there's a particular narrative that has been pushed.

So to come out and be pushing against their narrative at times could have some dire consequences. But I believe that the power of truth is more important than any fear. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you had things to say.

Yeah. Yeah. You've got to do that. I also really loved, I saw a quote from you where you said, poetry changes how we see and how we see changes how we act, and that really resonates with me a lot. What actions do you kind of hope this collection of poems inspires? I love that question, Kay, you know, because

in writing manifest destiny I wanted to I wanted to shine a light on ignorance and at times that ignorance is not

intentional. It is not malicious ignorant. There are some of things I do not know that in the course of writing this book I came about the knowledge of those things. You know, So I wanted to, you know, kind of like shine a light, kind of like bring that ignorance out of the dark into a place of light.

And in doing that, I'm hoping that it forces us to ask ourselves questions, hard questions. Questions that are uncomfortable to ask or uncomfortable to discuss that is not polite. Right. You know, by normal standards that I'm hoping that in provoking our conscience makes us ask what kind of world, what kind of society do we want? And I'm believing that when it does that, it will make us restless until we see the change that we believe is possible. You know, that if you read this work, if you struggle with. some of the things that is factual as laid out there that it will make you at times it's okay if it makes you angry yeah if it makes you sorrowful at times it's okay if it makes you wrestle

and with yourself and all that you've known it's okay if it makes you question all that you've thought about or you've been told and i'm hoping that that level of conflict within you gives you a level of boarding that on any level, whether it's municipal, whether it's local, whether it is national, whether it's global, makes you want to see a change. And I think like in wanting to see a change,

it causes you to act. So how that action is going to look like for each and every one of us would differ based on our capacity, based on our place in society and things to that nature. But at the end of the day, it

provokes an action from you, because now you cannot unsee what you've seen. You cannot unknow what you've known. You know, knowledge then becomes important to you that until you find a place to put it down, you are saddled with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's important to feel those feelings. And like you're saying, have them be like an impetus for action, not something where you're like, oh, that makes me uncomfortable. I just don't want to think about that anymore. And to your point of ignorance, that's kind of been what I've been thinking about more too is like it we we all don't know everything for all kinds of different reasons, especially in the U.S. there was stuff that just

isn't taught to us. But I think you're right. Like it's not always malicious that it's ignorant. And it's about like what do you do once you get this new information and kind of, I think even along with what you're saying, like, then does it spark more curiosity to, like, understand more about certain topics? And then kind of like we were talking about with the fact that there are the love poems there, like, does it motivate you to kind of hope for the aspirational version of how we could all treat each other? Yeah, exactly. You've made it on the head. Well, you did, too. I've got to just kind of say it back to you. So I do always ask people at the end if they've read anything recently they loved or if there's something that you always recommend.

So do you have any works that you really love that other people might want to listen or read? Sorry, not listen. Other words. I mean, there's a work by. Do you know the title? Yes, the fire next time. The fire next time by... Oh, James Baldwin.

Yes, yes, goodness. Forgive me, James Baldwin. Yes. So, yeah. So that is a great work. I feel like a lot of what we see there, telegraphs, you know, part of what we do see here in this work. And then also a lot of all Lansing Hughes have written. So I found a lot of this work very...

For instance, some things you wrote about religion that I was like, wow, they would have killed you. for this, you know. Yeah. You know, that was... For real. I would use religion to show the hypocrisy, you know, other kinds of stuff. So, so definitely works on like Lansing Hughes as, you know, it's another example of what I will say I've been looking at recently and even Lucille Clifton as well. It's another poet. You know, I'm recommending a lot of poets because... Do it. Yeah. You know, it's, I don't want you to see poetry, I mean to your readers and your listeners that is, to see poetry as a niche experience. Right.

Right. Poetry, poetic works can cover in short period what would take hundreds of pages of prose or even drama, you know, to accomplish it in the same length, right? Yes. I'm always about making poetry, you know, more accessible. And I think so a lot of these, at least these three works, authors and poets that I've mentioned to you, I think they have very much good accessible work that is maybe worth to explore. Yeah, awesome.

Yeah, James Baldwin, I'm like slowly working my way through his stuff, but I love him. He's just, it's similar. Some of his quotes are almost poetic, even though they're not. I mean, the work of prose, you know, so for folks that, you know, so even if you're not into poetry, the fire next time is the work of prose, and I think it's a great feat.

Yeah, totally. Well, obviously, I think everyone should go get this book. And then we also do have your publicist or publisher sent two other copies. So as of this episode airing, there will be a post on my Instagram to figure out how to enter that giveaway. So two people will get access to it. For anyone who is on YouTube, I just wanted to show it again. It has what is this? Not Embossed. maybe emboss letters, and then sprayed edges as well. It's just, it's beautiful. So you can go check my Instagram to try to win a copy. And otherwise, thank you so much for talking with me about it. Thank you so much, Kate. This has been awesome. I literally enjoyed this conversation with you.