Many of your poems touch on serious topics like religious trauma and mental health. How do you approach sensitive material like this?

Recently, I explored weaving my own experiences with the narratives of my religious texts, like a child expanding the plot of a cartoon series playing pretend. Alongside figures I think we're taught to see through unjust lenses, I let the reader see what happens to me as I too am seen through that lens. It offers my community way to take our tradition up as our own and use a shared language. I derive peace about poetry's controversy by considering other mediums- If an oppression in my community is getting perpetuated, I can “take a photograph” of how it's impacting me or “end the short-story” where that story has ended. There can always be a sequel. Anyone who's willing to listen could use more direct and clear portrayals of these emotions or narratives. To me, the fact that I'm having the conversation is love, hope, grace, and respect.

In “Spiral Down Staircase,” there is a twisting quality to the words that replicate the title. What was your process for capturing the essence of that feeling?  

There was a humorous whimsy to the fatigue over repetitious novelty in that first line, which ends with the meter dropping on the word “down”, starting that thumping rhythm, sending the rest of the lines flowing back in on themselves. The other initial idea for the poem was in the end lines—making a lot of right turns that ultimately add up to one path. Technically, that would be a square! But in real life, falling into cycles or getting swept along rhythms feels more circular, even if our life is also jarring, so the poem is both smooth and bumpy as it embodies a circle and a square. I naturally give myself a lot off full-bodied expression of full-bodied emotion to notice and then play up, but we're all pervasively embodied, so we can all look and lean in!

The stylistic elements of the poem really stand out. How did you decide the format of the poem? 

I try to make it as easy as possible for readers to pick a speaker up and put them on for themselves, riding on an emotional journey. I grew up listening to a lot of hip-hop, rap, and R&B, so rhythm is crucial for me. I feel the line breaks, stanza breaks, and punctuation marks aren't perfect until readers can pick the poem up and rap it- or at least feel empowered, grounded, oriented, and undistracted reading the poem aloud! Readers shouldn't have to worry about flow. The first line set that cadence in motion, but exact line breaks have flexibility as long as the meter “adds up” like the math of musical measures. It's fun to make line lengths vary in correlation with rises and falls of emotion or pacing at which thoughts unravel.

There is a distinct mention of ages seventeen and three in the poem. What led to the decision to include those specific ages?

I was always told a shift in my subculture took place when I was three. I know that at four I relied on sweeping things under the rug. A seventeen, I was ready to open a can of worms... and did not know how to handle it! I was very depressed and very anxious. About a year later, I largely shoved it back under the rug, but I went through a similar process a few years later once I was more supported. I became a lot more peaceful but did a lot more crying! That was the worst of that, but I still recognize ways my body processes what it needs to process when and how it's able.

It was noticed that you work as a reader at libre. Has working at the literary journal impacted your writing experience?

I'm still new to Libre, but most of all, I've really loved how it's given me a space in which to talk with artists about art- and themes that matter to us- any time, any day!

Do you have a favorite song to sing or dance to? If so, what? 

“Leave the Door Open” by Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak, and Silk Sonic is my number one song for scream-singing in the car, and “Foo Foo” by Santana and “Snap Yo Fingers” by Lil Jon, E-40, and Sean Paul are my top two dance essentials!

Read Lydia’s poem, “Spiral Down Staircase” in dulcet Literary magazine, vol. One, Issue No. 1.