One poet's journey: Stacy Dyson
Spark Interview: The Writer's Journey Series, #2
I met Stacy Dyson in the back row of a reading at the California Women’s Museum. We were both there to share a bit of our work in celebration of National Women’s History Month a few years back. So were about fifty other women, many of whom had much more to say than they could fit in the five minutes they’d been allotted. Two hours later, my butt so numb it might as well have been the chair I was sitting in, it was Stacy’s turn. She rose, walked with great presence to the microphone. She took a look around at each one of us, smiled, took our measure. Then she launched into her poem “Sisters” and blew us all awake. Each line snapped us to attention with images of strong, empowered Black women dressing up not for a man but for themselves and each other. She read a few more poems and then returned to her seat next to mine. I whispered something sophisticated like “wow” to her. I introduced myself. We connected. It wasn’t until our Zoom interview earlier this month that I learned she’d been nearly paralyzed with shyness that day. I learned, too, that Stacy Dyson will not let anything get between her and her poetry, not shyness, not the rare infection that permanently damaged her eyes, not the bad knee, or love, and certainly not the expectations of others.
As this year’s Women’s History Month winds down and we come to the cusp of National Poetry Month, I am proud to introduce Stacy, a poet who has spent her life giving voice to women in her writing and helping women and students find their own voices. Among the most striking revelations from our interview is how her own voice has changed in response to the tragedies and protests of last summer and over the months of lockdown.
“There were so many days when I was so angry and wasn’t good at channeling it... So I had to use my voice, my poetry and put it out there. I didn’t have a choice.” - Stacy Dyson
As you read this interview, you’ll come upon several opportunities to listen to a brief performance in which Stacy answers questions before I even asked them, while making you laugh, think, feel.
First, here’s her bio
Performance poet, playwright, a cappella vocalist... Stacy Dyson has spent her life performing, singing, designing, and producing her way around the world of spoken word poetry.
Ms. Dyson has done program design, residencies, workshops, and live performances in all sorts of places–Colorado, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, New Mexico, South Dakota, Nebraska, to name a few– and all over San Diego. “But the stage is my natural habitat. It’s fine to tell your stories, but for me, unless I can vibe, interact with a crowd, my job is only half-done.”
She is the author of seven collections of poetry — Black Diamonds, Obsidian Ice, Blues in the First Position, Woman 724365, Nefertiti’s Kiss, Por Innocencia, and her latest, Follow Me on This. Coming soon: Lovely and Suffering, a collection of poems written during the pandemic. She has also created five CDs of poetry and spoken word.
“The Madonna of Nevada,” “Por Innocencio,” “A Woman Beside the Sun,” “So Many Angels,” and “(Love Me) San Diego Style” are poems, stories and music that “celebrate/document/declare what it is for me to be a Black woman in this world, what it is to be an artist, how myself and my sisters navigate our lives. No, that way is not easy. But it is often joyous , and always carries the sanity of truth”
She was selected Poet Laureate for the Imagination Celebration in Colorado Springs and nominated in 2009 Nominee for Poet Laureate for the State of Colorado. She won the 2000 Colorado Women's Playwriting Festival winner for her play Fannie’s Girls: a 4-1-1 in 5-Part Attitude and has been co-founder/lead poet of Page to Stage: Women's Words, a series of writing and performance based workshops for women.
Based now in San Diego, Stacy is working on her next CD, Follow Me on This, and getting ready to begin another women's writing group: Firescribe. You can find her, her books and CDs at her website . You can also find her on FaceBook . Click here to get on the list for more information about Firescribe.
Now let’s dive in
Stacy Dyson is a poet because…
“The usual question is why, what made you be a poet…”
So begins this fiery performance from a 2011 show Stacy did here, in San Diego. In three minutes, she lays out the call to be an artist, the answer, and we learn who she is, the impact of her family, and what she stands for.
Betsy: You’ve told me you’ve always been a poet, no matter what else you’ve done and no matter what other hopes friends or family might have had for you. How did it all unfold for you?
Stacy: I wrote my first poems when I was five -- I didn’t start out, you know, writing little fairy tales. I started with poetry. There has never been a time in my life when I didn’t want to write poetry. As I got older I thought about teaching and that sort of thing. I thought about being a pediatric surgeon for a really long time, then I switched to journalism so I went to the University of Northern Colorado and studied that. But I was still writing poetry all this time. I actually finished my first collection of poetry in my Black Studies class at the university. The teacher put notes on the board and never turned around. So all I had to do was copy the notes and then write my poems. There was a brief flirtation with the idea of the military that lasted for about as long as it takes to say this. After leaving school, I worked as a temp because I knew then that regardless of what I did for a job, I would write and perform my poetry. That was the important thing. Through word of mouth my audience got bigger and fast forward, I’m in my thirties and I get involved with Imagination Celebration in Colorado Springs. I worked with them as an independent contractor setting up and doing programs in schools. I would come into a school as poet-in-residence and work with students to write and perform their own poems and worked with teachers on how to do these programs themselves. The focus has always been on poetry.
Betsy: And women. So much of your work has focused on women. There was the Page to Stage series you ran for women poets in Colorado. Even now, you are getting ready to start Firescribe, a new series of writing-to-performance workshops for women. Was that something that was always important to you?
Stacy: Yes. I remember in college, I wrote a play that the Student Association was going to help me produce. The cast happened to be all female. The male student coordinating everything, comes to me and says “you need a man in here.” I said why? He said because more people will come to see it. I said uh huh, thank you for your opinion. I walked away. I am still not willing to acquiesce to that idea. Men get a lot of voice in our culture. I want to make sure women are heard. That said, I also support male poets. We had a group back in Colorado, an affiliate of the Page to Stage workshops for men.
Betsy: Your work has brought you into schools where you’ve worked with students from Kindergarten through high school as well as teachers but from what I understand, they didn’t know they needed you until you proposed the idea of bringing a poet into the classrooms and exposing the students to what is possible with words. Can you share a bit about how that works?
Stacy: I’ve learned that the more any artist diversifies, the more chances she’ll have to work. Schools are always looking for artists to come in. So I developed a program template for coming into a school for a period of time and working intensively with classes. Each kid writes a poem and then, at the end, they perform their work. They sing. I make and edit a chapbook of all the poems for the schools. At the same time, I propose a component where I’m training teachers to do this going forward. For a long time I would just do cold calls to the heads of schools or departments and all have the same concerns: the students have to be able to write and speak at a certain level by the time they graduate.
On top of this, I can give the kids a chance to discover something new about themselves. When I’m working with them, I can say that not every child will play a sport, not every child will join a club, but there are tons of poets out there. It’s just that no one has asked them to try. They have fun. I have fun. When it comes time to do the shows, some are shy and ask if they all have to perform. I tell them yes, it is three minutes out of your lives and you will not die. [Laughs] The crazy thing - I’ve been doing this long enough so that now, when I go to some schools in Colorado, I’m working with the children of the children I first taught.
Working without a net
In this performance from a show called “Down and Out,” Stacy opens a window into a single year when her personal and financial lives crashed and burned, testing her commitment to her chosen path.
Betsy: You’ve described a career that some might say is heavy on risk -- these days you depend on your art for income, you’ve moved cities to launch new workshops - from Colorado to San Diego, from San Diego to Louisiana and then back again to San Diego, and you are willing to put yourself out there and reveal yourself in your poetry. How did this go over with the people in your life?
Stacy: All have seen me perform at one time or another. My older sister went from not understanding to be one of my biggest supporters. My father absolutely loved the idea. My financial insecurity would drive my mother crazy. She wanted me settled. She was never really happy that I didn’t have a regular job. Then there was the whole idea of a man and marriage and family - she thought those things were important. My father had his concerns too but he understood. He loved the whole idea - he’d been one of those guys who would sing a cappella on the street corners. He got it. They both helped me though. They held me and my four sisters to a really high standard and that gave me confidence. I feel I was born to do exactly what I do. This is a gift. I can’t say I’ll work when I feel like it, there is a level of morality to it, to using what I was given.
One of the highest points of my life was when, back in Colorado when I was working for Imagination Celebration and was launching my first CD. I planned a show to fall on my birthday. The room was packed - one friend drove four hours to be there - but it was also the first time my father got to see everything I’d been doing. He saw and heard me but he also saw all these other poets, both women and men, I’d worked with. He loved it all and then he loved it when he saw everyone buy a ton of chapbooks and CDs. I’ll never forget that night and how great it was to share that with him.
Writing as a Black woman: a voice evolves
For Breonna, Lyric 2. Start this video at the 10:56 mark and you’ll hear poet Gil Sotu introduce Stacy for the The Poet’s Tree, a program from the Old Globe Arts Engagement Live program. Then sit quietly while Stacy performs one of the poems she wrote in the wake of Breonna Taylor’s tragic death.
Betsy: You told me recently that you feel your voice as a poet has changed and that your recent work in the next two books Follow Me On This, and Lovely and Suffering, reflects an anger that you didn’t always let yourself feel. Can you tell me more about that?
Stacy: George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. So many more. I am from the generation that was told things were going to change in our lifetime, things are going to improve, going to get better. Nothing has changed. The pandemic made it worse. I wanted to protest but couldn’t because I have an autoimmune disease and can’t move fast enough to get out of the way. There were so many days when I was so angry and wasn’t good at channeling it -- all it would take is for someone to say hello and I’d be off and running. So I had to use my voice, my poetry and put it out there. I didn’t have a choice.
Betsy: Have you, in the past, ever softened your voice or made compromises along the way perhaps because of the audience or another reason?
Stacy: Not when I perform. When I’ve been teaching I’ve encountered principals or administrators who get worried about poems I might be sharing with the students. Once in Colorado I used a poem of mine about domestic violence I would use for students in 10th grade and up. The principal told me “I don’t think our kids need to know about this.” Well at the time Colorado was ranked among the highest states in domestic violence. His kids already knew about it. More than half of them were living it. Another time, I sent that same poem to another teacher who said yes, absolutely, you have to do this. I didn’t understand why she was so vehement about it but I did the work and it turned out their freshman girls were having serious problems with members of the older classes. No one was taking it seriously. When I got home, my tour manager tells me she’d just gotten a call from the principal. Five girls walked into his office to talk about what had been going on. I could have happily ended my career right then. That’s what poetry is for.
Writing is only half of the job
Betsy: You’ve said in other interviews that “the stage is your natural habitat” but what has that meant this past year when venues have been closed and the opportunity to gather with a live audience has vanished?
Stacy: Words need to be out there. I feed off a live audience. You know I’m a very shy person. If you tell me come on over there are just a few people, I panic. Meeting new people or being in a room with just a few people - that’s scary for me. But an audience is something else. There is an energy there, I don’t get anywhere else. I can feel how my words land and hear what comes back. It have to be able to read my audience. When it’s going really well I’m just flowing. Just in it. Boom I’m there.
It was very difficult in the beginning of this whole quarantine period to adjust to online venues but as I said before, I had to get my work out there, now more than ever. I had no choice. I used Facebook to publish my poems. I’ve performed them in online venues and in my Aperitif Concert series. One thing about being forced to remain inside and depending on the Internet to reach my audience -- I’m reaching folks on the East Coast now, people I never would have reached by performing solely in person. And I don’t even have to put on a nice pair of pants.
The price
Betsy: What price have you paid for choosing the path you have chosen as a poet?
Stacy: [Laughs] Sometimes it feels like it has cost me my sanity. We could start with that. But really it has cost me a lot of time with my nephews who I helped to raise and who I love very much. One’s 28 now and one is in his early thirties. I’ve missed a lot of that time with them and their own families. Then there is the obvious thing, you know, not married, no kids of my own. I was never really minded to have children -- for about twenty minutes I wanted to be Olivia Walton then it passed. But my generation got married. Every little girl has wedding plans. But as I got older I found myself asking: do I feel about this guy the way I feel about my next poem? When the answer was yes, I said call the preacher. That has happened twice so far but both of those ended.
It has cost me financial security. I was talking to a new poet recently. And she was asking me how I made a living. I said. I’m like every other artist in the world, times of feast times of famine. I’ve learned how to manage the ups and downs. I tell my classes all the time, if you are going to make money as a poet, you have to steal it, marry it, or find it some other way. I write, I teach, I coach, I tutor. All of it comes back to the poetry.
Five quick questions
The books by your bed right now: Going Postal by Terry Prachett Voodoo River by Robert Crais Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris The Sweet Potato Queen’s Field Guide to Men byJill Conner Browne Tricky Business by Dave Barry
The one book you've re-read so many times you it by heart: Only one? That’s tough. The top three are Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers, Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz, and The Last Unicorn by Peter S.Beagle
If you could pick one author/poet/source of inspiration to go out to dinner with, who would it be? Dinner? At this point, going OUT with ANYBODY would be inspirational! But, if I have to choose...Living: Tabitha Brown. Dead: Teena Marie
Of all the tools you depend on to write, what are the two you could not live without? [special pens, books, apps, paper, magic spells, etc.] Music and a fine-point black ink pen
Describe your idea of the perfect day. My perfect day is more likely to be night-time. Wake up late, do a big baking or cook something labor-intensive (I am dying to cook a HUGE Thanksgiving dinner for someone), lots and lots of music, someone sympatico to cook/dine with, then a few hours to write or sing (or both), then a long conversation who someone who actually knows how to converse, then bed just as the sun is coming up.
Catch Stacy Live Sunday, March 28
Confronted with the absence of live venues for the past year, Stacy launched the monthly Aperitif Concerts, shows she live streams from her home (and sometimes garden). You can catch the next one tomorrow, Sunday March 28 at 4:30 PM Pacific Time (7:30 PM East Coast, 6:30 PM Central, 5:30 PM Mountain) on YouTube right here: The Aperitif Concerts. You can also catch the recording anytime after that.
More of Stacy’s work
Stacy avoids using titles for her poems - she lets them name themselves in the listener and reader’s mind but here is an exception:
“Chocolate Blues” - “When I say I need a chocolate fix I ain’t talkin’ about some boy…”
Find more of Stacy’s performances here.
Leaving you with this…
The black woman is forever
Symbolled
As strong, brassy, bold
Independent
Does anyone understand
That I need to cry sometimes?
This is not weakness
This is survival
The intelligence of acquiescing
To life’s caprice
Without buckling under the strain
Because if I go down, who will
Care for
My house
My heart
Everybody else?
The black woman is
Forever declared as
Fearless, brave
Courageous
Does anybody understand
That I am afraid sometimes?
This is not weakness
It is survival
The necessary decline
Into the protecting shadows
Because if I give in
Who will make a change?
Make a way
Forward?
Verbal, free of speech, declarative
The black woman is forever painted
In pose of articulate, lively
Vocalization
Does anyone understand
That I cannot always use
My voice,
Sometimes my action is required alone
Words would only defeat the purpose
Of necessary interpretation
Because if I cannot be silent
Who will dare to sing
To question
To scream outrage?
My way is older than civilization
Slightly younger than the dawn
Of what men call
Time
Too impatient to exist by other definitions
I live inside a world that needs me able
Does anyone understand
In order to do those hours justice, to create
And speak to effect, I must
Know where to speak
How to be afraid
When it is my duty to myself
To cry
Because if I fail
Who will care for
anything?