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

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Roses are red, violets are blue, has poetry ever been intimidating for you? For many people, this art form can feel unapproachable for a myriad of reasons, but today’s guest, 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. In this episode, 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. Plus, she shares helpful, fun, and low-stakes writing exercises that might encourage you to put pen to paper. Read Sarah’s poetry and more at kaysarahsera.com To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. On today's episode, our guest is one of my favorite people in the world and one of my favorite artists, the poet Sarah Kegg. At home on my desk, I have a couple of little sheets of paper taped up to remind me of the kind of work that I want to be doing in my life. And one of those lists is a list of artists whose work inspires me. Sarah's name features very prominently.

I love the way that Sarah plays with language. I love her sense of humor. And I also always moved and inspired by her vulnerability and her openness in her work. That's something that I really try and emulate and I aspire to. I think a lot of people, when it comes to poetry, I think a lot of people get turned off from poems early in their lives because they read some poems that are super basic and boring and all that they focus on is rhyming or because they read some poem that is incomprehensibly complex and pretentious. And then they decide, OK, all right, I get it. Poems are not for me. Poetry is not for me. But I think that is a real loss. I really think that there is such a

breath of poetry out there that there is something that will speak to you no matter who you are. And I think that an exceptional poem, a really exceptional poem, it cuts to your core and it sticks with you for the rest of your life in a way that almost no other art can. I hate to think that there are some people out there missing completely out on poetry because they gave up after Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, which, by the way, if that's your poem, if you love the Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue poem, great, more power to you. Nothing wrong with that. But for me, that's not the one that does it for me. And to get us started in this episode, here's a clip from one of Sarah Kay's talks where she's performing one of her favorite

spoken word pieces. And this is one that I personally really love as well. I see the moon. The moon sees me. God bless the somebody that I don't see If I get to heaven before you do I'll make a hole and pull you through And I'll write your name on every star. And that way the world won't seem so far. The astronaut

will not be at work today. He has called in sick. He has turned off his cell phone, his laptop, his pager, his alarm clock. There is a fat yellow cat asleep on his couch. Raindrops against the window and not even the hint of coffee in the kitchen air. Everybody is in a tizzy. The engineers on the 15th floor have stopped working on their particle machine. The anti-gravity room is leaking and even the freckled kid with glasses,

whose only job is to take out the trash, is nervous. Fumbles the bag, spills a banana peel in a paper cup. Nobody notices. They are too busy recalculating what this will mean for lost time. How many galaxies are we losing per second? How long before the next rocket can be launched? Somewhere, an electron flies off its energy cloud. A black hole has erupted.

A mother finishes setting the table for dinner. A law and order marathon is starting. The astronaut is asleep. He has forgotten to turn off his watch, which ticks like a metal pulse against his wrist. He does not hear it. He dreams of coral reefs and plankton. His fingers find the pillowcases' sailing masts. He turns on his side, opens his eyes once. He thinks that scuba divers must have the most wonderful job in the world, so much water to glide through. We're going to be right back with more from poet Sarah Kay in just a minute. We're back. We're here with Sarah Kay, an incredible poet who I also am glad to say is one of my very good friends. My name is Sarah Kay. I am a poet and an educator from New York City. Great. And now can you do one where you choose a different name? Oh, yeah, of course. Hello. My name is Chris Duffy and I am 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 said a 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. Yeah. 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 this 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? You know, 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 like, for example, when I was in college, I every single year would make Valentine's 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 Valentine's 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 do a halloween costume that's a word play 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 gotta share this with. 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 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. What am I going to do? And so in the dream, I went to my closet, I pulled out this hardcore leather jacket and 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 C-O-S-X. 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 the dream...

This doesn't translate to audio, but I'm shaking my head furiously. How dare you? What a wordplay atrocity that is. When I woke up from the dream, my first thought was like, you got to be kidding me. My subconscious could have been working on... We have real serious issues. You could have been working on, like, we have real serious issues. Like, 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 incorporate wordplay into their lives like this? 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, like, I am genuinely delighted many times a day by the smallest elements of my life, by the most mundane details.

life by the most mundane details. But 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 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? Like, 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 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, you know, 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. Like they found language for a thing that I couldn't find language for and they did it. And I have it in my hands.

Can you believe this? And that feeling is just like, you know, 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, you know, 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. I like that too. Is a list I really enjoy. Of course, there's ye olde reasons you should date me. Okay, ye olde reasons you should date me. I love that list.

Reasons you should not date me. Okay, ye olde reasons you should date me. I love that list. 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 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 going to give you all a little break for those seeds to start germinating. And while you do that, we are going to do some ads and then we will be right back. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there.

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alive? I think I said that publicly. No, it definitely was not that. Yeah, that was definitely in public. Chris Duffy, you're the funniest man alive. No, I said that publicly. 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're 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 about how to be earnest, to be vulnerable,

to admit to feeling anything is weakness and will be used 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 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 want to be a poet you should

only be reading poetry but i think just seeing the way that people use language craft narrative 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. I mean, 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. 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. 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 much on the product, it turns it into something that feels failable. 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. And 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 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. 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, it's you want to get to the bottom of this

hole that you're digging and you want to 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. Yep. 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 a 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. thoroughly enough for it. One idea that has 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, you know, that's a text message, that's a silly photo, that's a package in the mail, whatever it is. But I think just putting two and two

together to say like, yeah, you just caring 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 Balarezo, who's writing a haiku, Frederica Elizabeth Yosefov, who is scripting a sonnet, Anne 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.