Pushcart Prize nominee! Tara M. Stringfellow, MAGIC ENUFF: Poems
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
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[0:20]a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZiviMedia.com or follow me on social at Zivi Owens,
[0:26]or join the community at ZiviReaders.
[0:31]Tara M. Stringfellow is the author of Magic Enough Poems.
[0:35]Poet, former attorney, Northwestern University MFA graduate,
[0:39]and semi-finalist for this full bright fellowship.
[0:42]Tara Stringfellow has written for collective unrest, Minerva Rising, Jet Fuel Review,
[0:48]Women's Arts Quarterly Journal, and Apity Journal, among other publications.
[0:52]After having lived in Okinawa, Ghana, Chicago, Cuba, Spain, Italy, and Washington, D.C.,
[0:57]she moved back home to Memphis, where she sits on her porch swing every evening
[1:01]with her hand, huckleberry, listening to records, and chatting with neighbors.
[1:05]Welcome, Tara. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Magic Enough.
[1:11]Well, thank you so much for having me.
[1:13]Oh my gosh. What a beautiful, powerful book of Poems, my gosh.
[1:19]Oh, yeah. You're a superstar.
[1:23]It's true.
[1:25]You know, I appreciate it. I'm a rather nervous for this collection to come out.
[1:31]Oh, well, somewhere I read you say, you know, you're, you're black and a woman and a poet,
[1:36]and all of these things are true.
[1:38]And you're just like leaning into this identity as well.
[1:41]And I know it could be nerve-wracking, but, you know, it's part of you, right?
[1:45]No, I always tell folk I was born a poet.
[1:48]Yeah, there you go.
[1:51]So talk about how this collection came to be and how you envisioned it at the outset,
[1:59]or how did the poems become part of this collection tell me the whole story behind it.
[2:04]Please.
[2:05]Oh, my agent sent me an email right after I had just turned in Memphis.
[2:10]I don't even know if Memphis had been published or not yet,
[2:13]but I just turned in the final draft.
[2:16]She sent me an email.
[2:17]She said, hey, don't you think it's high time this world saw some of your poetry?
[2:23]I said, oh, right girl, you're right.
[2:26]So I got to work.
[2:28]And I sent her a collection the following week.
[2:32]And she said, oh, wow, I didn't know.
[2:34]You guys took a whole book ready to go.
[2:36]I have a whole book.
[2:37]And so then we got the book deal.
[2:39]Maybe even right before Memphis came out for the poetry book.
[2:44]I mean, this collection is my life's work.
[2:47]Some of these poems I've been working on.
[2:50]15, 16, 20 years.
[2:54]And I've been editing them over.
[2:57]Over many a Saturday at some cafe pouring over them.
[3:03]Many of the poems I wrote while I was studying for my MFA at Northwestern.
[3:08]So I graduated from there or 2017.
[3:11]Yeah, this is this is my life's work.
[3:14]This collection has been years years in the making.
[3:17]I would say at least 15 years for some of some of the poems,
[3:21]especially I think some of the love haiku.
[3:24]I'm not written some of them in college.
[3:27]Right after college.
[3:28]So like 2008.
[3:30]Wow.
[3:31]Right.
[3:32]So I poured myself into these pages for sure.
[3:37]So then aside from nervous.
[3:39]And how does it feel opening yourself up like this?
[3:42]How does it feel?
[3:43]Part of me feels like wow.
[3:45]I am writing poetry.
[3:47]I have a book of poetry published by the biggest publisher in this land.
[3:53]In a country that was designed to enslave me,
[3:56]Phyllis Wheatley couldn't get any of her poems published here in America.
[3:59]And I said wow, 250 years later, we've made a way.
[4:03]Phyllis Wheatley carved away.
[4:05]She made her a black female poets to get our words to the masses.
[4:10]And then part of me is very sad that it took that long.
[4:14]Well, that it's taken all of my life to get this collection to see the light of day.
[4:19]So part of me is very sad that I can't imagine the struggles for other black writers to get their words across in a mainstream way.
[4:27]And why is that?
[4:28]You know what?
[4:29]I don't know.
[4:30]I'm so difficult.
[4:31]And, you know, coupled with the fact that in my state of Tennessee,
[4:35]they're banning books left and right by black women writers, by queer writers.
[4:40]I'm very glad this collection is coming out right before the election.
[4:44]I do have to say it's a political book.
[4:46]And I had to say so.
[4:50]I don't know.
[4:51]Part of me feels really great.
[4:53]Like how far we've come.
[4:54]And part of me feels like ooh, we're regressing.
[4:56]You know, the fact that Tennessee is banning so many.
[4:59]I mean, and not just my state of Tennessee across the South.
[5:03]The fact that so many books are being banned.
[5:05]It's as if it's attacked accused by, you know,
[5:09]enslavers to keep my people silenced and without agency.
[5:14]And in perpetual servitude.
[5:17]If we don't have access to libraries to literature.
[5:20]So part of me feels very conflicted.
[5:22]It's like, it's been 250 years.
[5:24]But, you know, a black child can't go into a library and check out a book by Alice Walker.
[5:30]Who are we as a nation?
[5:31]What are we saying?
[5:32]Yeah, it's hard to believe, honestly.
[5:35]What's going on?
[5:36]It's just unfathomable in so many ways.
[5:40]Can I read part of only read from Exodus?
[5:43]One of your poems?
[5:44]I mean, I'm probably, you'll probably laugh as I try to read this, but I mean,
[5:49]I can't read it in my voice.
[5:51]But anyway, we've cradled enough bodies of men we love,
[5:54]bleeding out onto uncaring streets,
[5:56]learned to roll my hair with funeral programs,
[5:59]climbed into sheets that may shroud my children, black rituals.
[6:02]Emmett Till was my Peter Rabbit.
[6:04]My mama only read from Exodus.
[6:06]I am the Lord thy God, which have brought the out of the land of Egypt
[6:10]out of the house of bondage.
[6:12]I wonder what most Egyptians thought when the Jews cried with locusts and plagues
[6:16]and blood that their lives mattered.
[6:18]My father pulls from a cool, not a damn thing.
[6:21]He exhales, backing out the drive.
[6:23]My mama comes running, gasping.
[6:25]He'll need that.
[6:26]She says unfolds one long pearl rosary.
[6:29]Yay, yay.
[6:31]Oh, I heard that for Tyree Nichols.
[6:34]He was killed years ago here in Memphis, beaten to death,
[6:38]trying to get to his mama's driveway.
[6:41]And also, I called my mother when it happened.
[6:46]And Tyree was killed here in Memphis.
[6:49]And I said, what do we do now?
[6:51]And she said, I'll never forget that she says in times of extreme sorrow.
[6:57]We pray.
[6:58]And in times of extreme joy.
[7:01]We pray.
[7:03]And so I sat down.
[7:04]I was so angry.
[7:05]I didn't know what to do with my with my rage.
[7:09]But this beautiful black artist from Memphis was beaten to death.
[7:16]For what?
[7:17]You know, for what?
[7:19]Traffic?
[7:20]Finally, a traffic stop.
[7:22]You got to be kidding me.
[7:24]This is an artist.
[7:25]This is a black man.
[7:27]He was a photographer in Memphis.
[7:29]And he was just driving home from taking pictures of a sunset
[7:34]from Shelby Farms.
[7:35]And so where I walk my dog here in Memphis.
[7:38]So yeah, I had to write something for him.
[7:43]I felt as if his life deserved.
[7:47]The best words I could come up with at the very least.
[7:51]That man deserved a good poem.
[7:53]That's where that came out of.
[7:55]What do we do when all these black men and children are being gunned down
[8:01]or beaten to death?
[8:03]Is being who they are existing in this world?
[8:08]Well, yeah, that's that's the poem that came out of it.
[8:11]And of course, I wanted to make a parallel to the Jews.
[8:15]And it's so telling that since October 7th, there's been a genocide in Gaza.
[8:21]And it's like, why is.
[8:23]Are we not understanding that history is repeating itself?
[8:26]That if you oppress the people for years for generations based on their race,
[8:32]based on their religion, based on their ethnicity,
[8:35]it's not going to bode well.
[8:37]Why?
[8:38]It's like, no, I think there's no one listening.
[8:41]I don't get it.
[8:42]Oh, well.
[8:43]But I think it's the job of us poets to point out when the world isn't listening.
[8:47]You know, I think that is the role of a good poet to say,
[8:52]yes, this place is beautiful.
[8:54]This world is beautiful, but we could do a lot better.
[8:58]And so I think that's the message of this poem.
[9:00]Like, we could do a lot better to black man in this country.
[9:04]Wow.
[9:05]That's beautiful.
[9:06]Thank you.
[9:08]Can we talk about one more called this woman?
[9:10]Oh, yes.
[9:11]I want that one.
[9:12]That's a good one.
[9:13]Okay.
[9:14]This woman.
[9:15]Do you want me to read it?
[9:16]Do you want to read it?
[9:17]I feel like, do you mind me reading it?
[9:18]I will call it actually in front of me.
[9:20]So go ahead.
[9:21]I don't think I remember this one.
[9:22]Okay.
[9:23]Don't read it.
[9:24]My mother was 10 when she got her first black eye,
[9:27]some white man at the counter of a North Memphis deli,
[9:30]fixed her with a square jab that sent her flying off her stool,
[9:33]catch up adorning her mother's head in a blood crown.
[9:36]My mother was inconsubably calm among the chicken bones on the floor,
[9:40]still as a stone wall, mustard in her hair,
[9:43]while white screamed at her to go back to the Memphis Zoo.
[9:46]She knelt there on her hands and knees and tried to breathe,
[9:49]fought the blackness, seeping into her vision,
[9:51]the dizziness trying to overtake her.
[9:53]She said she mowed the Lord's Prayer.
[9:55]This woman asks me for anything, anything at all.
[9:58]I give it.
[9:59]Ooh.
[10:00]My mom grew, well, my mom's from Memphis and she grew up going to sit in with her mother.
[10:08]She'd take, I can't imagine as a child, as a 10 year old child sitting down at a counter in the South and having grown people.
[10:16]These are adults, grown white folk, you know, her old things at them, throw things at them, per set them their children, and it boggles the mind really to think about the children.
[10:30]We're going through this. And then when I came to this country, because I grew up in Okinawa, I came to this country when I was six or seven about to turn seven.
[10:39]And the insults I would hear, you know, when going to my, you know, Italian Catholic school.
[10:45]I was like, y'all know, I mean, it's like a child.
[10:51]Is that not factor in at all? Like I always knew I was black, but I didn't understand that that meant I could be unwanted.
[11:00]And until I came to this country and I said, wow, wow. And so yeah, that poem is just generations of of tiny black girls are trying to just just exist in this world.
[11:14]And the insults that we've sustained from doing that is incredible to me. And yeah, we're still here in this country. We still love it.
[11:22]I know I was going to say like, if I were you, I would have like been like, where's my ticket back to Okinawa.
[11:28]Why, I did. I said, I said, listen.
[11:35]We can't stay here. These people see, try to tell us. And the food isn't as good.
[11:41]We could be in Okinawa walking around in silky, monos, you know, eating udon.
[11:49]And yeah, working with plus people.
[11:53]But I don't know why, but I love this country. This is my homeland. My ancestors made it. So why would I we even go anywhere else part of this.
[12:03]More much like that. You know, we it's our duty to make this country better.
[12:09]So I guess that's what I'm trying to do with this little collection. We'll see what happens.
[12:14]So, wait, so tell me about the experience publishing Memphis and being a Jenna's pig and all of that whole stuff. How, how has that changed your life?
[12:23]Well, goodness. I mean, I write full time.
[12:27]You know, that was always my dream. Since I was three years old to be a poet to be a working writer to just do that as a job. I've always had to have like other jobs to fund my writing and to be able to.
[12:41]I quit my job as a teacher when I got the book deal. I didn't have to financially work anymore. I could just work on writing. And so that has changed my life and I mean, wow, I'm in the middle of a second novel now because I have time and I can write.
[12:57]And it's just a beautiful experience. And I'd have to think. I mean, of course read with Jenna, but also the women in the city in my Memphis. They really put me on the map.
[13:10]It was the most bought book in this city in like 2022. I think I also diary of a Wimpy kid.
[13:20]And it's beautiful. Like, I'll go around the city. I was out at the Memphis chess club downtown like a week or so ago and I ran into a woman. I was like, Hey, you want me to sign your book. She was just sitting down reading it. She was like, what? You're here.
[13:34]Yeah.
[13:35]Like, I lived here. And that's amazing to see to be in the city and I'll get recognized now. And women will just start crying. They're like, Oh my God.
[13:44]If you like, I can't believe the support that women of all races have shown me. And so that's, that's a fantastic. I am still kind of wrapping my head around it. It's surreal. Like, I walked into a bookstore.
[13:59]It's too long and just started jumping up. And now I look behind me as like as Beyonce.
[14:04]I was like, why stop? It's like not me. You were talking about what I'm excited that I'm here. So that that is a beautiful gift and blessing in my life that so many women are so excited.
[14:19]I can invite it to parties now.
[14:22]People love me after events. That's crazy. As a poet as a, you know, an introvert, you know, I'm fine by sitting by a fire with my dog and so the world.
[14:33]So it's so good that people like want me out and like, what a photo.
[14:39]Crazy people.
[14:42]People need to know it. It tickles me.
[14:46]Oh my gosh. I love that. Can you talk about what your next book is about the new novel?
[14:52]Mm. No.
[14:57]I'm not good. This is a good day. All right.
[15:01]But I'm right. I think it's, I don't know. I hope she's okay. I think I'm doing okay. I don't know who knows.
[15:12]I'm only halfway through her, but there's things happening in her.
[15:17]I don't know. We'll just see what.
[15:19]No idea. I have no clue. You'll pray for me to finish the second novel. I don't know what I'm doing. We'll see.
[15:26]I mean, I don't think anyone ever feels like they know what they're doing. So I feel like you're in good company.
[15:31]Right. Hopefully.
[15:34]Unless you really don't know it getting.
[15:37]When he sits down to write. I'm like,
[15:40]well, let's just have fun and see what where this page takes me.
[15:43]But for me, give me some strength to finish this, this day of novel.
[15:49]Well, do you have any advice for aspiring authors perhaps not to inspire them to write their second novels?
[15:55]Because now we know how hard that is, but
[15:59]I'm like, why aren't I in dinner?
[16:04]He's like, no, you can't. You've got to do this.
[16:07]Okay. No, but the best writing advice I've ever received in it was the most infuriating advice too.
[16:14]Well, it's from Tana. He's the coach. I saw him at Northwestern and I said, you know, I just love you.
[16:19]I just want to like live in your aura and like all of you around like on your like a tiny little like demon on your shoulder.
[16:26]And he's like, okay, well, don't do that.
[16:28]That was it.
[16:30]He said, just keep writing.
[16:33]And I was writing Memphis at the time when I met him.
[16:37]And it took me a few more years to finish it.
[16:40]I was getting my MFA when I met him probably like 2016.
[16:43]It took me to 2020 to finish it after the book.
[16:47]So it took me some years, but I followed his advice.
[16:51]I just kept writing.
[16:53]So that is my advice to all aspiring writers out there.
[16:56]Just keep writing.
[16:57]I know it's infuriating.
[16:58]I know it's frustrating.
[16:59]You do not get into this business.
[17:01]Lord knows for the money.
[17:03]Before the immediate fame.
[17:06]I've been doing three.
[17:08]I'm 38 and I'm finally.
[17:10]My poetry published by a major press.
[17:14]So it's taken me some time, but just keep writing.
[17:17]Something will break.
[17:19]You know, you might be 38 when something breaks for you.
[17:22]You might be 48.
[17:23]You might be 28.
[17:24]You might be lucky and do it early.
[17:26]But for most people, it takes a lifetime.
[17:29]And so I say love it.
[17:31]Love poetry and prose that much that you would give the vote your
[17:35]entire life to it without ever seeing a set.
[17:39]That's how much you have to love it.
[17:41]Do it just for the creation of the art itself.
[17:46]And if you can get to that point where you do it just for the love
[17:50]and joy of adding to the Western canon.
[17:53]Of trying to elevate the art form in some small,
[17:56]individual way.
[17:58]Then this success, the fame.
[18:00]Hopefully some money will come.
[18:02]But please don't do it for that.
[18:04]Don't do it to be a big name in this industry.
[18:07]You'll never get anywhere.
[18:09]It's for the love of the poem on the page.
[18:13]And just keep writing.
[18:15]Something will break.
[18:16]I love that.
[18:17]Tara, thank you so much.
[18:19]This has been wonderful.
[18:21]And I'm wishing you all the best on this collection.
[18:24]So beautiful.
[18:25]Congratulations.
[18:26]Thank you so much.
[18:27]Okay.
[18:28]Bye-bye.
[18:29]Bye.
[18:31]Thanks for listening.
[18:32]Two moms don't have time to read books.
[18:34]If you love it, please leave a review.
[18:36]And follow us on social at Zippy Owens and at Zippy Readers.