JA: In terms of your writing, practice and process, what informs that or how does that unfold, that act of putting the word to the paper, or bringing it, the expression, from inside the body out?

RL: I have two children and they are three and 18 months, so I don't get much writing done when they are inviting me to play, or crying, either one. But I do a lot of Facebook posts, actually. Ever since my son was born, I was doing a lot of these really short notes on mothering and they were tagged with #ThisIsTheBeginningOfAnEssay, and often times they're a paragraph or less because I could never get more than that. But taken together, they can expand as lyric essays, right? So for me, how I get the work on the page is through stolen moments. And for me, I'm a natural night owl, and so when the children are in bed, I finally have time when there are no other sounds in the house. And that is so important for my creative process. I am easily distracted and even research into some small detail, I will go down that rabbit hole. I will be in that rather than writing the thing that I was actually supposed to. Right? And what I find these days as well is establishing the habit of creating some art every day. And right now, it is in the space of collage. Visual poems, if you will. And again, in relationship to ancestors a lot, but also celebrations of blackness. Sitting down and making a commitment to create something every day, even if it's just a line or whatever. And I know for myself, sometimes that can be the hardest thing.

JA: You have a new book, black god mother this body, coming out in 2022 and that’s so awesome. Can you share with us a little bit about it?

RL: So black god mother this body is in the space of exploration of revolutionary mothering against the burning structures of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, all of that. And expanding into this exploration of the divinity, the authenticity, the ancestral alignment within us. And the book is sometimes funny, because I can be funny, and sometimes it is heart-wrenching, right? There's a poem in there that speaks about the state sanctioned violence and the killing of black peoples, black and brown people. And my fear as a mother in this country. Making it very explicit: I do not want to raise my children here after the age of 12 because by 12 they are seen as adults. I fear for them as adults in this country. And I know as someone who has traveled, I have felt safer at almost any other place that I have been, even a country that had just come out of almost 30 years of civil war. I felt safer there than I do in my own country. And so I don't want that for my children. So the collection explores things like that. And yes, it is also a struggle for joy, right? This struggle of mothering and not wanting struggle and grief and mourning and concern and anger and agitation to be the only things that my children say, hear or see, so much so that I'm going through a challenging time with my work. And yesterday, my son is so smart, he said. Basta. Basta meaning enough, right? And it was so timely. And that, of course, he's heard enough of all these struggles. What he wants to do is play and I want to play too, so that the book is getting towards the space of letting it go to play.

JA: I'm looking forward to it. And thank you for sharing that. I was having a thought the other day how racism is different in other countries/outside the US. And I was grappling with the magnitude of that, the impact of it. I think the last question for you would be, to leave us in the act of writing, do you have a favorite writing prompt?

RL: That is a hard question. I teach several different classes that are accountability workshops. And part of my practice for my students in those classes is to develop a new writing prompt, actually two per day for a month. And they write every day for a month in response to those prompts or against them, and we workshop every week. And so when you ask me what my favorite writing prompt is, I've got so many. I think the one that immediately pops to mind is this one: I was a dancer in a former life. You're always a dancer, but I was actually in a company and actively practicing. And I had a teacher who was a dancer with Alvin Ailey’s company. Alvin Ailey had long passed but she had worked with Judith Jamison at the time. I love the work of Alvin Ailey, the dancers that come through that company. And there is a piece in particular from Revelations called I Wanna Be Ready and I love the song. I also love the piece. It's so beautifully simple and yet incredibly revelatory within the body. There's a YouTube clip where a dancer is actually performing a modified version in Alvin Ailey’s old church. And there are singers, there's a choir that sings the song as the dancer performs. Beautifully done.

The prompt that I like to give to others is to watch that video a gazillion times and then try and enact the first 30 seconds of it. In your own body, right? However you can do the movements - you could do them with your hand if you like, with your eyelashes, if you want, whatever - but actually try and bring that, the action that you see, into your own body. And then write from the memories that will emerge. Write from the experience that comes from that. And I always tell people when they're encountering any kind of text, especially poetic text, but any text, including watching a video, that you have to watch it, you have to read it, at least two times. And you're listening or watching for, at least for a poem, you're listening for the words that stand out for you. You're listening for the meaning. You're listening for how the poem brings memories to mind. You're listening for what the listening or reading invites you to understand around form. Write something. Same thing with a visual text. Listening for how it lives within your own body, what changes within your body? Because you are listening, because you are reading, because you are watching- goose bumps or aches or whatever it is. How are you processing it in the fullness of yourself and then writing that on the page. And then something magical will emerge. Because it has to when you are experiencing something otherworldly.