How to Be a Better Human - How to enrich your everyday life with poetry (w/ Sarah Kay) (Rerun)

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Roses are red, violets are blue, has poetry ever been intimidating for you? For many people, this art form can feel unapproachable, but poet and educator Sarah Kay, suggests that people who don’t like poetry just maybe haven’t found a poem that really speaks to them. Sarah proposes a fresh approach to this ancient art, talks about why playing with language can help you get in touch with yourself, and discusses the ways that writing and art help us form deeper, meaningful connections with others. This episode was originally recorded on November 29, 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I used to say, I just feel stuck. Stuck where I don't want to be. Stuck trying to get to where I really need to be. But then I discovered lifelong learning. Learning that gave me the skills to move up, move beyond, gain that edge, drive my curiosity, prepare me for what is inevitably next. The University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. Lifelong learning to stay forever unstuck. With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan,

you're not with FIZ. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fiz.ca. If you're anything like Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at Fizz.ca. If you're anything like us, you love attention. And my favorite way to get all eyes on me is with next level shiny glossy hair. Which is why we're so excited to tell y'all about the new LaMela gloss collection from the girlies at Tresemme. And gigglers, we've got you too, because Tresemme partnered with us to bring you 1-800-GLOSS, a special bonus episode of Giggly Squad

where Hannah and I give advice on all things hair and giving gloss. Check out the episode and grab the LaMeller gloss collection today because I'm officially declaring this spring gloss season. You are listening to How to Be a Better Human. I am your host, Chris Duffy. And before we get started with today's episode, I have a favor to ask you. Everyone on this show works really hard to put together these episodes. And I'm so excited that that hard work has been recognized in a nomination for a Webby Award for the best advice and how to podcast.

You know, people always say it's an honor to just be nominated. And that's true. We are really honored to be nominated. But I also can't lie, I really want to win. Getting an award like this would be a major opportunity for us and for the show. It would be a chance for us to promote the show, to reach new listeners, and to give the folks who work behind the scenes on this podcast some much-needed and much-deserved recognition. So it would mean a lot to me if you went to vote.webbyawards.com, that's vote.webbyawards.com,

and voted for How to Be a Better Human in the Best Advice and How-To Podcast category. Voting is only open till April 17th, so there's not much time. Please vote now. And once again, that is vote.webbyawards.com, and we are in the podcast category under the best advice and how-to show.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, on to today's episode. We have got the poet Sarah Kay talking about how to enrich your everyday life with poetry. Sarah is one of my all-time favorite artists, and she's also one of my all-time favorite people. I've had the great privilege of knowing her since college, and it's such a gift to have seen her work over these years

and to just know someone as talented as she is. We are re-releasing this conversation that Sarah and I had back in 2021 today for a couple of reasons. One is, I think it's a fantastic conversation. I think it's one of the best episodes we've ever done, and I think that it really speaks to this moment, even though we recorded it several

years ago. Another reason though is because Sarah's new collection of poems which is called A Little Daylight Left was just published this month. A Little Daylight Left is such a beautiful collection of poems and I really hope that you will check it out. And to give you a taste of how great it is and how great Sarah is, here is a new poem from Sarah. This is from the new collection. And this is Sarah performing in front of a live audience in New York City at the venue, Caveat. Miles from any shoreline. I frequently miss entire days caught in my brain's spider webs. But if I happen to look up in time to notice that the darkness still has a little daylight left to swallow. I will ivy up the fire escape to catch whatever embers of the day are still slow dying behind New Jersey. And last week, through the fog of my loneliness, I realized the living room

was slippery pink, which I knew meant a light show must be on display. So with a quickness I reserved for emergencies I scampered to the roof and sure enough an explosion of upside-down Clementine cotton candy cloud wisps was tie-dying the Hudson River neon and I swear I am not a lightweight, but I was color-drunk immediately dizzy with gasp and skyward reaching, hoping my fingers might find a bell I could ring that would summon all of New York City to look up and west. But there was no bell and no one to call, just my own astonishment, still willing to answer after the first ring,

how predictable, one good sunset, and I release my nihilism like rose petals behind a bridal gown. Look, I have married my cynicism and renewed my vows, but it didn't stop the streetlights from coming on at the exact moment I passed beneath them when nobody else was in the park to see it, like the whole city was winking. And yes, I blushed, the way I do

whenever someone beautiful flirts with me. I haven't stopped thinking about death. I am just ringing every last jaw drop from the tissue between heartbreaks. On a long run outside the city, along a highway and miles from any shoreline, I found a starfish alone on the asphalt, an unsolvable mystery,

with no witness to corroborate. And there I was again, wandering the streets of bewilderville, population one. What else could I possibly do but swing wide the doors of my delight to this patron saint of unbelonging, fragile and whole and so far from home. If you too have been the one nobody asked to dance, I have a starfish I'd love to introduce you to. And I don't have any proof, but one time the wind, or my ancestors, or unseasonal warmth, carried three hawks to

my kitchen windowsill to rattle my coffin to cocoon, and two of them left, but one of them stayed, eyed me through the glass like a promise or a dare. So lately, I am trying to pick up when the universe calls. Okay, we're going to be right back with more from poet Sarah K. in just a moment. I used to say, I just feel stuck, but then I discovered lifelong learning. It gave me the skills to move up, gain an edge, and prepare for what's next. The University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. Lifelong learning to stay forever unstuck. With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff.

And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with FIZ. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fiz.ca. If you're anything like us, you love attention. And my favorite way to get all eyes on me is with next level shiny glossy hair. Which is why we're so excited to tell y'all about the new LaMelaure Gloss collection from the Girlyz at Tresemme. And Gigglers, we've got you too.

Because Tresemme partnered with us to bring you 1-800-GLOSS, a special bonus episode of Giggly Squad where Hannah and I give advice on all things hair and giving gloss. Check out the episode and grab the LaMeller gloss collection today because I'm officially declaring this spring gloss season. We're back. We're here with Sarah Kaye, an incredible poet who I also am glad to say is one of my very good friends. My name is Sarah Kaye. I am a poet and an educator from New York City. Great. Now, can you do one where you choose a different name?

Oh, yeah, of course. Hello. My name is Chris Duffy and I am a stand-up comedian and New Yorker masquerading as a Los Angelino. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to have you here. Why don't we do the most stereotypical question first, which is how did you get involved in poetry in the first place? Well, how did I get involved in poetry in the very first place is when I was a kid,

I used to run around the house and ask my mom, and by ask, I really mean like demand. I would be like, poem! And I would make my mother write it down for me. So if I'm feeling particularly cheeky, sometimes I will say that I've been writing poems since before I could write because- So when you started poem, you were like,

I'm dictating a poem, you write this down. It wasn't like you give me a poem. No, correct. I was like, is anyone quick, someone take this down. Mark this down for later. But I would say actually that my real like origin of my relationship to poems is that when I was in elementary school,

kids, we didn't go to the cafeteria until middle school. And so from kindergarten through fourth grade, everyone either brought their lunch to school with them or the school provided lunch. And so every single day for those years, my parents took turns writing a little poem on a piece of neon-colored paper that they would fold and put in my lunchbox. And so neither of them are poets. I don't think either of them would consider themselves writers. And now looking back, it seems like a little too neat of an origin story because it seems like they were planting seeds for a future poet. But I assure you, it was not that. It was just one of many ways that they demonstrated to me that I was loved. But

basically what it did is it made it so that my relationship to poems was that poems became something that was dependable, like clockwork. I knew I could expect it every day, but it was also a surprise. It was also a gift. It was intimate. It was a secret. It was the sign of care from someone who loved me enough to craft it. And so I think that's really what started my relationship to poems is what I call the lunchbox poems.

Well, that also gets into one of the other things I wanted to ask you about, which is how do you incorporate wordplay and poetry into your day-to-day life? All kinds of different ways, which frankly, I don't explicitly think about until someone thoughtful like you asks me to. But I would say, for example, when I was in college,

I every single year would make valentines for all of my pals on Valentine's Day. And I would write each of them a personalized limerick. I'm like, I feel like everything about me screams like the kid who brought valentines for everybody in class. Like that seems like- You have big Valentine limerick energy for sure.

Really big Valentine limerick energy. So- As a person who knows you, I also know like, you love to Valentine limerick energy for sure. Really big Valentine limerick energy. So as a person who knows you, I also know like you love to do a Halloween costume. That's a wordplay. I feel like you're someone who cherishes when you find like a funny phrase or a pun or something really that is playing with language. You are like, I got to share this with people and you start sending it around. Take a photo or whatever it is you document. Yeah, I mean, it's maybe an affliction.

It's certainly a disease. There's no doubt about it. I know that there are so many people who have less positive responses to puns specifically, but I just find them so delightful. And the Halloween thing happened because many years ago, I had a dream, like a full, like I was asleep, had a full actual dream. And in the dream, I was late to the Halloween Day Parade in New York City, which I try to go to every year.

And in my dream, I was like, oh no, I don't have a costume. Like, what am I going to do? And so in the dream, I like went to my closet, I pulled out this like, like hardcore leather jacket and like a collar with spikes on it, I think. And I found a blank white t-shirt and I wrote this elaborate trigonometry equation and the answer to the equation would have been like cosine X like COSX but instead of putting in the answer I put like a blank line X and so my costume was that I was a rebel without a cause and when I woke up from this dream. This doesn't translate to audio, but I'm shaking my head furiously. How dare you?

What wordplay atrocity that is. When I woke up from the dream, my first thought was like, you gotta be kidding me. My subconscious could have been working on, we have real serious issues. You could have been solving climate change, and instead you were out here like, oh, you know what though? What about this trigonometry pun?

Like that's what we were working on in the depths of our sleep. But then of course I was like, well, I have the opportunity to make my literal dreams come true. Why would I not do this? And so I had to do it. And now it's become a tradition of terrible pun costumes that I can't outrun.

What kind of advice do you give people on how they can And now it's become a tradition of terrible pun costumes that I can't outrun. What kind of advice do you give people on how they can incorporate wordplay into their lives like this? Like, how do you get your brain to start working on that while you're sleeping? It really has to do with habits of observation and giving yourself the opportunity

to relish in your own delight. So I am genuinely delighted many times a day by the smallest elements of my life, by the most mundane details. I think most people, when they experience delight, they experience it in the moment, and then it flies through their hands and they're on to the next moment. And so the poetry work, I think, is when a moment of delight happens to instead of letting it fly away as fast as it usually does, to just pin it just for long enough to ask yourself like, what what about this is delightful to me and what about this could I maybe try to find a way to share, whether that's in the form of a poem or by snapping a photograph or whatever.

I think that's where that comes from. How do you technically keep track of the words or phrases or things that delight you? Do you have a notebook? Is it an app in your phone? What are you doing? Yeah. You can't see it, but I'm holding it up. I have a little up. I have

a little notebook that I keep nearby at all times. I would say that this notebook is incredibly unpoetic. I don't do any poetry writing for the most part in this notebook. It's much more record keeping and it is really about those moments where something happens and I can see it's going to fly away really fast. And so I just jot it down really just to note it for later. And then when it is later and I'm like, you know what? Today is a writing day. I need to get some writing done. Then I crack open this notebook and I have these little, you know, I think of them as Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs back to moments where I was genuinely struck by something. And I can look at them and go, yeah, that was a really wild thing. Or, oh man, look

at how I've jotted this same thing down three times. It's clearly something that's sticking with me or allowing that notebook to show me what my brain has been snagging on recently. So that when I have time to really meditate on it or to really dig into it that I have clues. Because I think so many people want to write and then sit down in front of a blank screen or a blank piece of paper and are like, okay, world inspire me now. And honestly, that is very hard to do it that way, I think. So this is a little trick of just marking down these little delights and curiosities so that when I have the writing time,

I have these little breadcrumbs to return to. Do you have any sort of writing practice or routine where you go back through those ideas and sort them out into actual writing, or is it less formulaic and more like you just go back if you feel inspired? I think a little bit of both. I think sometimes whatever has been floating around in my brain

shows up strongly enough and pulls me to the desk. And sometimes I have to be intentional about making writing time. I also think that so much of my joy in connection with poetry is the writing and is the sharing of my own work, but is also just being around other people that love poetry. And so just getting to talk about poetry and analyze text and discuss it with folks who also are passionate about poetry in and of itself gets my enthusiasm engine running. And so that also I think really helps significantly in pushing me in my own process too. And also I think with an art form like poetry, sometimes people assume that that is a very solitary art form, which it can be certainly. And like

when I'm keeping my notebook, that's something I do for myself by myself. But at least in my case, I didn't fall in love with poetry in a textbook or a classroom. I fell in love with poetry in a dive bar. And it was because that space was where poetry felt communal and urgent that it really captivated me. And so that continues to be an element of poetry that I really respond to is the ability to be in community with other people and to share poetry with other people, my own and others. I mean, very few things make me as alive, make me feel as alive as when I read a poem by someone else and I go, oh my God, I needed this poem right now.

They found language for a thing that I couldn't find language for and they did it. I have it in my hands, can you believe this? That feeling is just plugging my soul into an amplifier or something, right? As an educator, what's your favorite exercise for getting people who don't think of themselves as poets into writing poetry? I would say that one thing that I'm always thinking about

is trying to lower the stakes around both poetry writing and also performing because those are two things that I think people have a tendency to really raise the stakes for themselves. And so I usually like to start workshops with asking folks to write some kind of list because a list as a form is much more accessible, I think, immediately, or at least much more familiar to people. People write lists all day long in their life. And so being tasked with a list doesn't feel as terrifying as being tasked with a poem, I think. So in my TED Talk, I mentioned writing 10 things I know to be true, and that is a list

that I genuinely return to quite often. And it's exciting to see what I know to be true today that suddenly changes the next time I write that list. And what are things that I know to be true that continue to be true to me for years down the line. It's like a kind of amazing self-diagnostic actually. So that's one that I recommend to a lot of people. That one's pretty broad. Sometimes people like having more limitation or more specifics. So another one I sometimes like is

things I should have learned by now. Oh, I like that too. Is a list I really enjoy. Of course, there's, you know, ye old reasons you should date me. Okay, ye old reasons you should date me. I love that list too. Yeah, reasons you should not date me.

You know, these are just some, the point is to allow yourself the opportunity to take a peek at what you already have going on in your brain without worrying that it's not poetic enough or deep enough or, you know, good enough or worthy of poetry. Any of these lists that give you opportunities deep enough or good enough or worthy of poetry. Any of these lists that give you opportunities

to see which of these seeds want to turn into poems is a great place to start. Okay, we're gonna give you all a little break for those seeds to start germinating. And while you do that, we are gonna do some ads and then we will be right back. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at Fizz.ca. If you're anything like us, you love attention. And my favorite way to get all eyes on me is with next level shiny glossy hair. Which is why we're so excited to tell y'all about the new

LaMelaure gloss collection from the girlies at Tresemme. And gigglers, we've got you too, because Tresemme partnered with us to bring you 1-800-GLOSS, a special bonus episode of Giggley Squad, where Hannah and I give advice on all things hair and giving gloss. Check out the episode and grab the LaMeller gloss collection today because I'm officially declaring this spring gloss season. Small business owners, we know the drill. You're passionate, driven and ready to grow. But when it's time for a bank loan, you're met with a no. season. Simply apply online, get approved for $10,000 up to $300,000, and access the funds you need in as little as 24 hours.

Get started now. Visit JourneyCapital.ca today. We're back with poet Sarah Kay. One thing that I heard you say a long time ago, and I actually can't remember if you said this to me personally, or if this was something that you said more publicly, but you talked about- Was it, Chris Duffy, you're the funniest man alive? No, it definitely wasn't.

I think I said that publicly. It was not that. Yeah, that was definitely in public. It was, Chris, you have to stop what you're doing. Stop right now. Rethink your life. Well, no, something that I heard you say that you try and go through your life with your arms open, like to catch whatever comes your way rather than with your arms crossed across

your chest in a way that makes you look cool. Like that that is the sign of being cool is blocking things when you try and have your hands open to catch. And I think about that so often. I think about that so much, that idea. And I was just wondering if you could talk about that a little bit more and then I want to discuss it with you. But like, what do you mean by that, by having your hands open?

I think that, so the specific instance that I think you were talking about, if I remember correctly, it was a long time ago that I gave that talk. But I think I was talking specifically about the terrifying experience of being a teenager specifically and the messaging that teenagers receive against you. And therefore, to refuse to let anything affect you or to show that anything has affected you is the safer path, basically. And so it's a mode of protection to move through the world being unaffected, or to appear to be unaffected, at least. And a lot of what I do in my work with young people is to try and both tell them and also show them hopefully, the benefits of the risk that to risk being vulnerable and to risk being earnest and to risk having the world affect you is scary and also worth it.

And I think perhaps what is missing from that conversation or what is missing from that initial comment as you remember it is just an acknowledgement that people who do walk through the world with their arms crossed metaphorically, that is not a character flaw that is often a result of learning how to survive and that their circumstances has necessitated that kind of self-protection. And so it is also the case that I don't just want to encourage people to be open and vulnerable willy-nilly and subject themselves to danger or anything else. I want to be part of the world building that makes it safe for everyone to be able to walk through the world that way. I was going to ask for people who are aspiring poets and writers, but I also think it applies to you now too, which is how can people get better at writing and using language?

What do you do when you have this desire to be somewhere and you're not quite there yet? How do you get better? I think reading is a huge part of it. I think anything that you want to be good at, it helps to know what is possible or what has been possible thus far. And being able to have access to as many examples as you can get your eyeballs on just opens more and more doors, I think, in my experience. So reading and reading and reading helps, not even necessarily reading in the specific genre

that you're writing in, right? So it doesn't mean that if you wanna be a poet, you should only be reading poetry, but I think just seeing the way that people use language, craft narrative, accomplish an argument so much has been done and made for us to feast on that I think it would be silly to not spend a lot of time soaking in all of that good, good writing. So that is the first one, perhaps not a particularly controversial tip. It's so true. If you read someone's writing and then you read something fascinating, whatever it is,

then you go, oh, well, that is a trick that people can use. I had never even thought that you could do that. Absolutely. then you go, oh, well, that is a trick that people can use. I had never even thought that you could do that. Whatever, whether it's, you can write the transcript of a phone call and that can be your dialogue, or you can write a voicemail, it can be text messages, it can be writing without verbs. I mean, just all of the things that you see happen

and you think, oh, that is expanding the realm of what's even possible in my brain. Absolutely. And then the other thing that I think is helpful, and this doesn't work all the time and it doesn't work for everybody, but when I am wearing my educator hat, I try to think a lot about orienting my work away from product and towards process. So by that I mean I never want to be grading a student on a poem because who am I to determine the arbitrary goodness or badness of this poem? That is unhelpful to me. What I can do is ask this student to learn how to give feedback and how to take feedback, learn how to attempt

several drafts, learn how to collaborate with another student, learn how to take risks in performance, learn how to work on the skills that are going to serve them beyond just this one single poem in their process as a writer and as a performer or a person who says words. Right? So because I think that when we focus too it turns it into something that feels fail-able. And that has the risk of really damaging someone's relationship to poetry, frankly. So because I think that way when I'm thinking about my students, I would also say, can we have that kind of compassion

for ourselves as writers? Yeah, it's interesting. When I'm writing scripts, if I'm working on a TV project, one of the things that I always think is that the point is not to write one perfect script, that's impossible. The point is to get to draft 10 as quickly as I can. Sometimes that requires a very bad draft one.

So that draft two can be a little bit better and then draft 10 will inevitably be better than one or two ever it could be. And I think about the same thing, right? Like one of the things that I love about podcasting is that it's just inherently iterative. Like it comes out every week and so by the end of a year, I listen back and I like this episode better than the other episodes. Hopefully. Right. Fingers crossed, you know. But I think just by doing it and making it not about each one being perfect, you inherently get better. And I think the people, and I'm including myself in this, but people who focus on making sure that the one thing they put out is as good as it could possibly be, they often end up never putting out anything at all, because it's kind of impossible to make one thing be as good as it could ever possibly be. Yeah, or another way of thinking about that is, because like, let me not sit here and pretend

that I'm not that, and like, let me not point fingers when I should be pointing them at myself. Like, I'm absolutely somebody who is a perfectionist, or if not a perfectionist, then just, you know, very product oriented sometimes and trying to work on that. Yes, absolutely. I think that when you think about it less as a product,

because if it's a product, then you finish it one time, it's done and it doesn't matter if you're still curious or have more to say, but if you think about it as process, well, you wanna get to the bottom of this hole that you're digging and you wanna see what is the treasure that's buried down there. Exactly. And sometimes you like find something

and you're like, amazing, wait, is there more down there? And you keep going, you know, like that happens too. I mean, I'll be writing poems about my little brother for as long as the two of us are on this earth, right? So I have written one poem and I'm not like, well, figured him out. Yeah, locked him up. Phil, you're done.

We're coming to the end of this interview. So what is one idea or book or movie or piece of music that has made you a better human? What's one thing? Yeah, I knew this question was coming and I still didn't prepare thoroughly enough for it. One idea that has made me a better human is when I realized that I could love someone and think about them all the time and care about them and be invested in their life,

and be invested in their life, and they can't know that unless I show it to them. And this was important, especially when I was traveling all the time, because I was physically far away from pretty much everyone in my life. And I was so sure that it was obvious that I missed everyone, but no one knows that that's happening in my brain. And so I think figuring out that I needed to find small ways to demonstrate that, and it didn't require a lot, that's a text message, that's a silly photo, that's a package in the mail, whatever it is.

But I think just the putting two and two together to say like, yeah, you just carrying in your head is not the same thing as you expressing it in a tangible way that someone else can experience it. I think that really helped make me a better friend and a better person. That's beautiful and so, so important and true. Well, Sarah, I always love talking to you.

It's always just such an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for being on the show and thanks for sharing your work and your wisdom with us. Thanks for having me. That is it for today's episode. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and this has been How to Be a Better Human. Thanks so much to our guest for this episode, Sarah Kay. On the Ted side, this show is brought to you by Abhimanyu Das, who's penning an ode, Daniela Ballarezzo, who's writing a haiku, Frederica Elizabeth Youssefov, who is scripting

a sonnet, and Powers, who's crafting a limerick, and Cara Newman, who's vibing on a villanelle. From PRX Productions, How to Be a Better Human is brought to you by the allegorical Jocelyn Gonzalez, the rhetorical Pedro Rafael Rosado, and the literal Sandra Lopez-Monsalve. Thanks to you for listening. If you enjoyed our show, please share this episode with a friend and leave us a positive review. We really appreciate it and it makes a big difference. Thanks so much. Have a great week. I used to say, I just feel stuck. Stuck where I don't want to be. Stuck trying to get to where I really need to be. But then I discovered lifelong learning. Learning that gave me the skills to move up, move beyond, gain that edge, drive my curiosity, prepare me for what is inevitably next.

The University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, lifelong learning to stay forever unstuck. With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with FIZ.

Switch today, conditions apply, Details at fizz.ca. If you're anything like us, you love attention. And my favorite way to get all eyes on me is with next level shiny glossy hair. Which is why we're so excited to tell y'all about the new LaMelaure gloss collection from the girlies at Tresemme. And gigglers, we've got you too.

Because Tresemme partnered with us to bring you 1-800-GLOSS, a special bonus episode of Giggly Squad, where Hannah and I give advice on all things hair and giving gloss. Check out the episode and grab the LaMeller gloss collection today because I'm officially declaring this spring gloss season.