Safiya Sinclair, HOW TO SAY BABYLON: A Memoir
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[1:03]Safia Sinclair is the author of How to Say Babylon, a memoir.
[1:07]Safia was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
[1:10]She is the author of How to Say Babylon, forthcoming from Simon and Schuster.
[1:15]She is also the author of the Poetry Collection, Cannibal, winner of a Whiting Writers
[1:19]Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Metcalf Award, the OCM Bookest Prize
[1:25]for Caribbean Poetry, the Phyllis Wheatley Book Award, and the Prairie Shooner Book Prize
[1:30]in Poetry.
[1:31]Annabelle was selected as one of the American Library Association's notable books of
[1:34]the year and was a finalist for the Penn Center USA Literary Award and the Sheamus Heaney
[1:39]First Book Award in the UK, and it was long listed for the Penn Open Book Award and the
[1:44]Dylan Thomas Prize.
[1:46]Sinclair's other honors include a push cart prize, fellowships from the Poetry Foundation,
[1:51]Sivatella Rainieri Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, McDowell, Yatto, the
[1:55]Breadloaf Writers Conference, and the Fine Arts Works Center in Provincetown.
[1:59]Their work has appeared in the New Yorker, Grandma, the Nation, Poetry, Canyon Review,
[2:03]the Oxford American and Elsewhere.
[2:05]She received her MFA in Poetry at the University of Virginia and her PhD in Literature
[2:09]and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California.
[2:12]She is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University.
[2:17]Welcome, Sifia.
[2:18]Thank you so much for coming on moms.
[2:20]Don't have time to read books to discuss How to Say Babylon and Memoir.
[2:23]Thank you for having me.
[2:25]I have to ask so people listening can't see, but Sifia's fingernails are painted, perhaps
[2:29]the same shade as her first summer.
[2:31]Intentional or not intentional?
[2:33]Very intentional.
[2:34]I have been to have a photo shoot a couple weeks ago and I was like, I'm intentional
[2:41]all the way down to the nails, so let me, you know something a little interesting, you
[2:47]know?
[2:48]Well, seeing you here and I'll try to share a clip of this on YouTube or something, but
[2:54]it's a far cry from the way you describe yourself at different parts of the book from when
[3:00]you, your teeth were a crumbled mess in your mouth and you're being so, you know, ashamed
[3:06]about your appearance in front of your classmates and just from that to see you sitting here.
[3:13]Look, just so perfect, like you're a model.
[3:16]It's amazing.
[3:17]It's just like an amazing end to like the experience of reading the memoir and then meeting
[3:21]you here on Zoom.
[3:23]Well, it was, you know, it was quite a journey to get to that place because I think for
[3:28]so long in my life, I felt that I was being kind of outcast and like diminished by so many
[3:37]people, you know, by my teachers at school, by my classmates because I had redlocks and
[3:42]then when I was at home, by my father because I was, you know, a girl and because I also
[3:50]questioned a lot of the rules and a lot of what comprised rest of far I in my household.
[3:58]And so I felt small for a long time and I had to retrace that journey in the book as
[4:05]well and then to get to the place of feeling like, yes, I want to celebrate my womanhood
[4:11]and my feminine routine instead of being diminished by it, which is how I felt for much
[4:18]of my adolescence.
[4:20]Wow.
[4:21]Oh my gosh.
[4:22]You write in a very raw, brutal, just so vivid details about the experience of some of
[4:33]the most difficult scenes with your father and I don't mean to paint him in any, you
[4:38]know, everybody has stuff with their families in all sorts of different ways.
[4:42]But I will say as literature, you write as scenes in a book.
[4:46]They come through as really, I mean, it's hard not to read without feeling so deeply,
[4:54]especially the scene when you felt your mother was not on your side for once.
[4:59]How did it feel writing about all of this and having to relive it because that couldn't
[5:04]have been easy?
[5:06]It was not easy at all.
[5:08]You know, I, I kind of had to brace myself in the writing of it.
[5:13]There were certain scenes and certain chapters that I knew ahead of time, like, okay,
[5:18]deep breaths, meditation, make sure you like go into this with like a strong spirit.
[5:25]And no more times when I was writing the first draft where I was like at the type, like
[5:30]typing and weeping at the same time.
[5:33]And I was just like, okay, I just have to push through just keep going.
[5:36]You know, we've through it and get to the end so you know, it was difficult and part
[5:42]of I wanted the reader to feel almost skin close.
[5:47]I wanted the reader to feel that I wasn't just telling what, what happened from a distance
[5:53]when I wanted you to kind of be there and feel it in a narrative way.
[5:59]And so to do that, I really had to go into detail.
[6:03]I had to remember the scenes and the dialogue I had to, you know, kind of express what
[6:10]I was feeling and that includes reliving it, you know.
[6:14]And then of course I had to edit it like, you know, if someone had told me that I was
[6:19]going to have to reread everything like 10, 15, 25, so I don't rethought this because, you
[6:28]know, it's one thing like the first writing of it, but then like, editing it and then
[6:34]revising it and then again, you know, it's like, and I look out the editor and I was like,
[6:39]oh my goodness.
[6:41]And then I recorded the audiobook a month ago.
[6:44]I was just about to ask if you had recorded it yet.
[6:46]It was a whole other thing that I was, I did not know what I was getting myself into
[6:52]when I agreed to do it that it wasn't just, you know, narrating the book, but it was
[6:59]also like what I want to do it well.
[7:01]So I have to like change my voice a little bit or give the characteristic of my father,
[7:07]my brother, my mother, and then also voice or in some ways really act out a lot of those
[7:14]scenes that were some of the most harrowing of my life.
[7:18]But I think that's the last time I really have to return any of those, but I think the
[7:24]catharsis is over, hopefully.
[7:27]I remember I recorded my audiobook.
[7:29]I wrote a memoir called Bookends.
[7:31]Anyway, and ended I talked about people who I loved and had lost and there was this one
[7:35]passage and I started reading and I was crying, I think it was about losing my grandmother
[7:39]or something.
[7:40]Anyway, they were like, they paused and they're like, okay, just take that one again from
[7:44]the top.
[7:45]And like, I literally just read this and burst into the ears.
[7:48]Like I can't do that again.
[7:49]Like really right now, you know, I know, so anyway, but I had fair warning from the many
[7:56]authors who had warned me that it would be good.
[8:00]I had warnings too or on people who are even like, are you sure you want to record the
[8:05]audiobook?
[8:06]It was like, yes, and it's one thing to be for a warning and one thing to be sitting in
[8:12]the booth and kind of like, yeah, it refacing everything, you know.
[8:16]But then didn't you have a minute?
[8:18]Didn't you have a minute where you were like, maybe I could be an audiobook narrator for
[8:21]a job.
[8:22]Did you have that?
[8:23]No.
[8:24]I would have never been there ever.
[8:28]Okay, nevermind.
[8:30]Like, I'll give it my all.
[8:33]I'll probably never even listen to it on his list of videos, like, and I hope it's, you
[8:41]know, a compelling listen, but it's for me.
[8:45]One and done.
[8:47]Oh my gosh, well, part of what makes the book so powerful is that you create characters
[8:54]that are so vivid out of people who are real and in your life, right?
[8:58]Like your mom becomes a true character.
[9:01]And one of the pieces I loved about her, and I just want to read this line or two.
[9:05]That's okay about your mom who you spoke about with such reverence, right?
[9:09]And she started this whole education thing, really, and it's amazing.
[9:13]Anyway, you said, on her darkest days, it was always books that gave my mother's world
[9:18]a clear sort of hope.
[9:19]She couldn't leave, but she could still escape.
[9:22]She would rummage through the rubbish bins of the adjacent hotels on the beach looking
[9:25]for old books left behind by tourists.
[9:27]Their pages stained with discarded coffee grinds and fruit peels into their pages.
[9:32]She went always searching for something greater.
[9:35]So great.
[9:36]I love the role of books in your mom's life and in yours and then that you became a writer.
[9:40]Tell me more about your mom and her devotion to education and helping literacy and helping
[9:47]so many kids and all of that.
[9:49]Oh my goodness.
[9:51]I just feel so lucky and blessed that she was my mom.
[9:56]You know, I think I wouldn't be a writer today if it weren't for her.
[9:59]I wouldn't be a pop.
[10:00]Oh, it weren't for her.
[10:01]Cause she had this love of literature her whole life.
[10:05]And she would always tell me that it was something
[10:07]that made her world more expansive,
[10:11]even when she lived in a place
[10:13]or lived under circumstances that would make her world
[10:17]actually feel small.
[10:19]You know, literature was the thing that really gave her
[10:23]a keen sense of hope.
[10:25]And she believes in education as like,
[10:29]I don't know, as citizenship.
[10:31]You know, for a long time, she would teach her classes for free
[10:36]cause she just thought that it was her civic duty,
[10:38]that she just wanted to help everybody
[10:41]that she could through learning and through reading.
[10:45]And she, yeah, she devised her own program,
[10:48]her own methods, her tools of teaching
[10:50]that she like used on me and my siblings.
[10:53]And then everyone was like, oh my God,
[10:55]like what's the secret?
[10:56]And then she was like, okay, like you could come over
[10:58]and I can like teach your children as well.
[11:01]And she even had an adult component
[11:04]where she would teach the parents of the children like,
[11:07]this is how you go about, you know,
[11:11]expanding the world for your children through reading,
[11:14]through recitation of poems, through songs,
[11:17]through, you know, walking through nature,
[11:19]appreciation of nature.
[11:21]And all of those things,
[11:23]all of those are the tools she gave me to become a poet.
[11:27]You know, looking back on it later,
[11:29]like she handed me my first book of poems.
[11:32]She would have me and my siblings like memorize
[11:35]and recite poems, she would take us on nature walks
[11:39]through, you know, the countryside.
[11:41]And she would like point out to me the name of every plant,
[11:44]every flower, every insect I would see.
[11:47]And from there came my love of the landscape
[11:50]and the natural world and they're bloomed my poetry.
[11:54]And then my love of literature.
[11:56]I could tell you, nobody is a big fan of my work
[12:00]that my mother, like she will sit in the front row
[12:04]of my readings and I will look down
[12:06]and I'll see her like mousing the words of the poems.
[12:11]That's so sweet.
[12:13]I know, it should just be like,
[12:14]I just can't believe I have my own personal poet.
[12:18]Oh, so, you know, if nothing else,
[12:22]I am her personal poet.
[12:26]Oh, my gosh, you need to put it on a pillow or something.
[12:29]You know, like your little coat bag, you know,
[12:31]courtesy of your personal poet.
[12:33]Exactly.
[12:35]Well, the journey to becoming a poet
[12:37]was also rife with unexpected twists and turns in your life
[12:41]and your relationship with the old poet who you don't name.
[12:44]I'm assuming very intentionally
[12:46]and having a mentor who ends up, you know,
[12:50]taking a turn, you prefer not to take,
[12:53]I'm trying to say it nicely back in things away,
[12:55]but, you know, there's also a sense of real loss
[13:00]that you feel reading those parts that you really trusted him
[13:03]and that sense of like just deep,
[13:06]we'll almost grief over what you thought you had
[13:09]and then was lost again.
[13:11]I don't know if that's how you experienced it, but it was.
[13:14]And you know, it was also a very confusing thing
[13:19]for a 17 year old to kind of process, right?
[13:22]Because there was so much good in it, you know,
[13:26]the beginning where he was someone who mentored me in poetry
[13:32]and he was a person that made me feel like what I had
[13:37]to say was worthwhile for the very first time.
[13:41]You know, so having this happened at 16, 17,
[13:43]after growing up in this kind of very repressive household
[13:47]where I was being molded into someone
[13:51]who was supposed to be obedient and client and silent.
[13:54]You know, these were the virtues of a rest of the woman.
[13:58]And I, you know, kind of question that and poetry
[14:01]was the place where I really first found my voice
[14:04]and cultivated that voice and that self,
[14:07]that the person I could become in the future.
[14:10]And so when I met him, I did feel that I was validated
[14:14]as a poet for the first time that, yes,
[14:17]I should continue this thing.
[14:18]And this is what I have to say is important.
[14:22]And I should say it.
[14:23]And then, you know, having this kind of betrayal,
[14:27]which is, you know, not uncommon for so many of us
[14:31]and, you know, thinking about all the different ways
[14:34]at the patriarchy kind of is insidious
[14:37]and kind of reaches even things that you thought were pure
[14:40]and untouchable kind of become tainted and destroyed
[14:44]in some ways by these kind of patriarchal, you know,
[14:49]views and actions.
[14:52]I'm also trying not to give it all away.
[14:54]Okay, we can keep going.
[14:56]But I don't know, I mean, I could talk more and more about it,
[14:59]but I did want, when I was writing it,
[15:01]the reader to feel this, the same sense of kind of shocking
[15:08]and crushing betrayal that I felt like at first,
[15:10]it was like, wow, full of wonderment
[15:12]and excitement and purity and then this moment
[15:16]where everything shifted.
[15:17]And I was reduced again not to my mind,
[15:20]but to my body was a moment that was really hard for me.
[15:26]And one that I couldn't even come to terms
[15:27]with until like a few years later
[15:30]with time and distance and really thinking about
[15:33]what happened and that it wasn't okay.
[15:38]You know, there's so much in the book about, you know,
[15:41]what is the role of the outsider of the fan,
[15:44]not the outsider, what is the role of somebody who notices
[15:47]when something untoward is happening?
[15:48]Is there a role for that person?
[15:50]I mean, there's an example with your mom,
[15:52]with the little boys who showed up with cigarette burns,
[15:54]all over him and then never showed up again him and his brother.
[15:57]It's like, what is, how can anyone help?
[16:00]What are we all to do when we see these things?
[16:03]And like, what is the reader to take away from this
[16:05]at the end?
[16:06]Are we to stand by and listen to stories or mistreatment
[16:11]of women or anybody, boy, whatever?
[16:14]Like, what are we supposed to do with all of this?
[16:16]Like, what do you want people to take away?
[16:19]It's a good question.
[16:20]You know, I think sometimes it's hard
[16:24]or it feels overwhelming to think about
[16:27]these different questions of abuse and violence
[16:31]and what to do as an observer.
[16:35]I don't know what's the answer to that.
[16:38]You know, I think we would all feel like stepping in
[16:41]and whatever ways we can is the best course of action.
[16:45]You know, like with those young boys, my mom,
[16:48]we searched for them, we tried to find where they'd gone
[16:52]but we never found them.
[16:53]But I think from my side where I was also a person
[16:58]who was, you know, a victim of different kinds of abuse,
[17:03]you know, for a long time, as I was saying before,
[17:07]I couldn't even process or come to terms with it.
[17:09]And then when I finally started to come to terms with it
[17:12]and went on my own journey of healing,
[17:16]the thing I wanted most was to fight a path,
[17:21]particularly for my family and my father,
[17:24]a path to forgiveness if there was one,
[17:26]if it was possible.
[17:28]Because I knew I couldn't write the book
[17:30]if I didn't have that.
[17:31]I couldn't, I didn't want to write the book
[17:33]if I was still hurting in the way that I was hurting
[17:38]when I left home.
[17:41]You know, I think it would have been a different book
[17:44]if I'd written it out of that hurt and out of that wound.
[17:48]I needed a place of distance.
[17:50]I needed, you know, what my professor's called
[17:53]a place of safety.
[17:55]And I think that's what I wish for anyone
[17:57]who's in this, who's in this similar position
[18:01]is a place of safety.
[18:03]And what, in whatever ways we can help to offer that,
[18:06]I think is part of what we can do in these situations.
[18:12]Yeah.
[18:13]How does the rest of your family feel about the book?
[18:15]And Kaaba, especially your siblings.
[18:18]You know, they haven't read it.
[18:20]What?
[18:21]Yes, I know.
[18:22]They hate, they all have copies.
[18:25]But as far as I know, I haven't read it.
[18:28]You know, I think my brother's wife read it
[18:32]and told him, told it to him.
[18:34]My sister, Efay, you know, she,
[18:38]I think everybody's on their own journeys
[18:40]to healing and processing.
[18:43]You know, mine might be this strange way
[18:46]of actually like writing it down
[18:50]and sharing it with the entire world.
[18:54]But, you know, everybody else is dealing with it
[18:58]in their own ways.
[18:59]And I have to respect that as much as I can.
[19:02]You know, they, they've all said they're proud of me
[19:05]and they've read like the short excerpts.
[19:07]You know, like they, they all had to read the New Yorker excerpt
[19:10]because the fact checker called them
[19:13]and asked them every single thing about their life.
[19:15]So, you know, they all read that.
[19:18]So they have some sense of it.
[19:21]And strangely love my father asked me if he could read it.
[19:26]And this was the first time he'd ever asked me
[19:28]to read anything I had written.
[19:31]And so three weeks ago, I was home in Jamaica
[19:34]and I gave him a copy of the book.
[19:36]And so I think of all my family.
[19:38]He's the only one who is actually reading the book.
[19:42]And, you know, were you nervous about that?
[19:45]I was, but I think that I tried my best
[19:49]to give everybody grace and to write with a kind of nuance
[19:53]that might, but, you know,
[19:56]that he would come across as a complex and flawed human.
[20:00]but not a cartoon villain, you know, and that I wanted some moment at the end of, you know,
[20:08]an opportunity for hope, an opportunity for a change in the future or some kind of catharsis.
[20:14]Like I wanted the book in some ways to try to break these cycles of trauma if I could,
[20:22]if it could be some kind of currency for change and healing in my family.
[20:29]And so, you know, yeah, it gave me and my father the opportunity to actually talk to each other
[20:37]in like a very real way of the first time. So I think we're all it's already giving me
[20:44]the first step towards whatever healing might come. Oh my gosh. Wow. So what comes after this now?
[20:52]and you're going to go on, I'm sure this whirlwind tour and, you know, where do you want this to go?
[21:00]What more, what writing projects do you want to tackle next? Like what's on the horizon?
[21:07]So I really was looking forward to turning back to poetry and writing some poems,
[21:14]but I'm also working on a novel, which is, you know, under contract with my publisher. And so
[21:20]I'm sure they're going to be asking the same question. At some point, I imagine like January 1st,
[21:27]like, hey, what's going on? But, you know, working on this novel, it's a multi-generational
[21:36]novel about that kind of traces 600 years of Jamaican history beginning with the arrival of Columbus
[21:44]in the 15th century and the decimation of the native Taino people in Jamaica. And then we kind of
[21:51]follow six different women through six different, you know, periods in Jamaican history starting
[21:57]with Columbus' arrival. It's slavery with Jamaica's independence with the revolution of the 70s
[22:05]and it ends in the near future by the seaside where, you know, we're kind of facing the
[22:11]oncoming climate apocalypse. Wow. Gosh, oncoming climate apocalypse. Nice and light thought there.
[22:26]Are you going to be doing any of book marketing in Jamaica? Yes, I would, you know, I'm really
[22:32]excited to do some things in Jamaica. I really want to go around to high schools in the parish
[22:39]you know, share some books and maybe do like some workshops with the students there. You know,
[22:44]I want to give back and I want to like reach that young Jamaican girl who's kind of imagining
[22:53]she might be a writer, but it feels so far fetched that she can imagine as a reality. I want to reach
[23:01]and see her and say, it's possible, you know, keep going, keep writing. And so I'm looking forward.
[23:10]That's awesome. What are you reading? What do you like to read? I have been reading Nanakwame
[23:15]as she brandy as a new novel called Chiang Yang All Stars, which is a really fantastic,
[23:23]you know, the way he's writing about the carceral system about the prison industrial
[23:30]complex in the US, but told through this really interesting dystopian near future kind of frame
[23:38]where we're thinking about how, I'm thinking about American TV and violence and so on. It's a really
[23:45]great book. And so I'm savoring that one and I just finished reading a poetry collection called
[23:52]the Ferguson Report and a ratio by Nicole Sealy. I have to give give a little shout out to a poet
[23:59]because I know my roots is poetry. This book is amazing. She takes the Ferguson Report, which was
[24:06]commissioned by the Department of Justice after Mike Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri. And she
[24:14]through her erasure kind of makes something kind of like startling, dazzling, new, it complicates
[24:22]our ideas of, you know, of racism, of police violence, of, you know, the history of Black people in
[24:33]America. And but she's taking all of that, all of that traumatic past and present and thinking
[24:42]about the future, a future that leans toward hope and toward wonder. And this that kind of
[24:49]of offer, future is desire, yearning for a future of possibility is something that I really love
[24:55]and this book does that. So those are two books that have been really feeding my soul. Amazing.
[25:01]Yeah. Do you have what's your biggest like procrastination technique? Like when you're in the
[25:08]middle of doing stuff, you have to do for work or writing or something you don't want to do,
[25:12]like what does it do? Snack, do what do Instagram, like what is your thing? What are your things?
[25:17]It's so bad. It's so bad. I don't even know if I should say it. Yes, you should say it. I
[25:25]do, I do shop. I go shopping. Okay. All right. You like online shopping where I just sort of start
[25:33]imagining like outfits and clothes. That's not so bad. I thought you were going to say you had like
[25:39]it's like, I don't know if you're gambling addiction or I don't know what you're going to say.
[25:43]No, my biggest procrastination. And then sometimes I try to like justify it a little bit like,
[25:53]you know, I could be wearing this to an event or reading. So I'm doing something that's actually
[26:01]this was gonna end up on my to do list at some point. Exactly. But that's definitely up there
[26:08]for procrastination.
[26:13]Oh, it's funny. Okay. Well, what is your parting advice for aspiring authors?
[26:18]I'll say the same thing. I tell my students, read everything. Read widely.
[26:25]Read everything you get your hands on, not just, you know, not just novel, not just fiction,
[26:31]read poetry, read science, read nature books, read philosophy, read theory. I think
[26:38]as a writer, that is something that only ever helped me get better or make my work more complicated
[26:46]or to see who I'm in dialogue with or to see what writers are on my family tree. Like, where does
[26:50]your work bloom from? It comes from reading deeply and widely and, you know, sort of nourishing
[26:57]the writers soul and the news, the reading. And then I'd also say give the advice that my own
[27:04]eight-year-old self went asked by the Jamaican press what advice I had for other children.
[27:13]She said, you just can't give up. And so I'd say that also to writers, you know, it is hard work,
[27:25]but don't give up. Amazing. Sophia, thank you so much. This was wonderful. Thank you for sharing
[27:31]bearing your soul on the page and for chatting with me today. It was so lovely talking with you.
[27:36]Thank you. Thank you. Good luck with everything. Thank you. Okay. Bye. Bye.
[27:44]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[27:48]follow me on Instagram, at Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign
[27:53]up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors
[27:58]on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[28:03]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.