Rashad Wright

Poets & Storytellers Open Interview Date: 2025/08/08 

“I’m speaking from my soul ‘cause that’s what I’m willing to throw on the line to do this.” 

- Rashad Wright

Gregg Yupanki Bautista: That’s some incredibly powerful work. I’m really excited that I had the opportunity to finally see you perform. I’ve been wanting to since before I reached out to you several months ago. So, this is incredible. Hopefully the feeling is mutual out in the room. And if it’s not, you’re wrong. (laughs) 

But yeah, when I was thinking about your poetry and the way that you take these lived experiences and transform them into something spiritual and uplifting, like I’ve expressed to you that one of my favorites from you is “Midas Touch,” I keep thinking of the endeavors of alchemy and the idea of how it changes base metals like lead into something brilliant, like gold. And that’s really what you do with your performances - you take these difficult experiences you’ve lived through and you put them through so many processes so that you essentially have to continue living with them to construct your performances. I’m wondering… I imagine it’s something difficult to always live with and continue sharing and living in these experiences to recall them to perform. It’s something that comes up with some of our featured performers here, but what kind of guardrails do you have in your life or in your practice to really keep you in a good and healthy emotional and mental space? Being that you share and perform often…

Rashad Wright: Well, I need to just take a breath real quick, I’ve never had someone tell me my poetry is alchemy. Thank you, Gregg… I’m formally a memoirist, so half of my writing is poetry and I combine the figurative language techniques that poets use with memoir writing. So I’m using my own lived experiences as a base. I always argue with people, I tell them I’m not a good writer, I can’t come up with shit, this isn’t science fiction. I’m only working with the lived experiences I have. I think a better writer could create an entire world, something from fiction, but I don’t think I’m good enough. Someone who does have that pool, does have that resource, feel free to use that because it is exhausting. 

It is hard, it is challenging, revealing so much of yourself and doing that consistently. I’m not sure if I need any more separation from the art. It is hard being so in my art and involved in it, but I don’t think it’s as dangerous as people think it is. 

GYB: I know that some people feel that art becomes a therapy, and other people are the opposite mindset where it’s like they need to step away from the art and be with family or community, like healing places and healing individuals that they have in life. Do you lean towards one of those? 

RW: I did go through 7 years of therapy, both one on one and group therapy. I’m still in contact with a lot of people from that group. I still have a close network of friends and people who support me in innumerbale different ways. I have a whole community, I believe. You see me practice community even walking in here. I don’t want to do anything by myself. It’s nice knowing that everything I do I’m doing it wanting others to hold me accountable. So it feels safe because I’m always doing it with people I trust. 

GYB: Yeah, so speaking about community, to kind of circle back to what you had said about not using certain tools or ways of writing… the way you speak and the way you per perform, I’ve heard you refer to it in an artist profile video I watched online where you intentionally write colloquially so that it’s inclusive to everyone watching. Was that an intentional decision from the start or is it something you developed over the years of writing and performing? 

RW: My favorite writer is Nikki Giovanni, and I model my word choice a lot after hers. She’s a big influence in the way I communicate with an audience. Even as a child reading Giovanni, I said, “I get this, I can digest this, I want to make my work just accessible as I find hers.” 

GYB: Yeah, I love that. 

Just to dig into the last poem that you performed, “Joy,” that’s such a beautiful poem and the end really just turns the poem back on itself. I kind of use that poem as a reference while going through other work that you’ve done, kind of trying to find a sort of tool or mechanism that you use, and… This is just me, but I feel like you have a really interesting or informal Volta where you change the tone of the poem and that moment in “Joy” is very evident. And then you have another poem, “Three Easy Steps,” where it’s like a back-and-forth, back-and-forth. And essentially this tool that you use presents this one idea in the narration, and then turns it to the opposite perspective. So on one hand there is elevation and the love of the black body, and then a turn reveals what’s actually going on in the world of these really difficult, horrible things that are happening to black and brown people. And it’s just like, you know, there’s the awareness that we’re just expected to be okay with it. With that tool, I feel like you’re reminding us, “No, there’s another way. We are together, we have to support each other. We get through these things together,” going back to what you said about community. I think that it’s psychologically and physically very empowering as a viewer to see you embody that, and I really appreciate that. 

RW: Thanks, Gregg.

GYB: Last question before I hand it off to the audience, I’d love to go back to “Midas Touch,” because it’s such a wonderful poem - 

RW: Can I just say really quickly… Yo, thanks for that breakdown! (laughs) 

No, I mean, when I was studying in college and getting my bachelors, I got feedback all the time. People told me what my work was doing. I had someone else be like, “Oh, I see what you’re doing there. Clever. Nice job.” That’s what I’m saying - talk to artists, tell them how they’re doing because I’ve never heard someone talk about my work that way. Thank you so much. That’s so nice to hear. 

GYB: Thanks Rashad. Yeah, I love this one-on-one format. It’s great for everyone that’s really interested to learn more about the poets, but selfishly, it’s just for me. (laughs) 

So with “Midas Touch,” I’m going to be very, very honest because I know that vulnerability is really important for you. 

When I heard… (takes deep breath) Sorry… 

Audience Member (AM) 1: Oh, I’m with you, darling… 

GYB: When I hear you deconstruct and reconstruct a new pantheon of black bodies and black historical and mythological figures and naming all these icons… that’s something that I struggle with as a Latin American person, because we also don’t have a pantheon that’s acceptable or that people want to even remotely acknowledge. I was out on a walk with my dog listening on headphones and when that part of “Midas Touch” happened, I stopped and started tearing up. That was such a powerful moment. 

So you’re reinserting lineages, you’re taking transatlantic histories and ancestries and placing it in the forefront. As a poet, you’re making us confront it. You’re spanning linear history, but also your poetic lineage and all of your influences. When it really comes down to placing all that ancestry in front of us, when you take a step back and look at your work and think about your body of work, what would you say to us listening that we could do to be better ancestors for our future generations? 

RW: Papa’s Tango is a dedication to my dad, Romeo’s Whiskey is dedication to my mom, and I lost my dad maybe two years ago now. And ever since then, I’ve just been kind of like, “Yo, I’m gonna start making the choices that would have made him proud.” And I think that made me a better person. So, know that there’s someone, whoever you care about, someone could be just like you that you never even was on this planet with at the same time, but they’re looking over you. Try to make choices that make them proud. So, you know, give your all everything you do, because there’s someone that can’t do it, or because you’re allowed to because of that. 

::motions upwards:: Thanks, dad. 

GYB: Thank you, Rashad. All right, a questions so I can continue crying in the corner? (laughs) 

AM 1: Less of a question more just a comment. Cause I’m wrecked over “Joy.” I’m over here… (pauses) I emote a lot in when I read and that’s a challenge. I just need to say, that last line. I’m gonna cry, like, on the way home. That’s what I’m gonna do in the car. You know, I’m married to a black man, and I’m raising one, and… 

RW: Thank you. 

AM 1: So thank you, because we all need to sit with that. We all need to sit with that. 

RW: So we’ll all just do it, then. 

AM 1: No, you did it right. 

RW: I mean, I’m saying all of us. We know what this challenge is, now let’s that’s identify that. 

AM 1: Yeah. 

AM 2: So Gregg talked about the alchemy that you bring, and I just want to reiterate and sort of. For me personally, it felt like a medicine that would sit in me and sort of do its work, and it’s beautiful to have been in the gift and I’m so grateful for this seed and your work and the sound of it, you know. Sound as alchemy, sound as medicine. It’s ephemeral. And I think it sticks in our bodies once it’s there. It’s a song, right, that lives in our biology. So I’m grateful to be with your work, you right now, so thank you. 

I have a question, as a poet myself… I’ve learned a lot about how to speak from you. Where your voice came from a few times, I heard it coming from a very electric place, deep in your soul. It was charged, right? The “Midas Touch” one was such beautiful sense of that. And I just wanted to ask you, you talked a little bit about these demons chasing, always trying to “shh” silence, you know, shame you. I feel like we all walk with our own and as a poet to the voice, what brings you beyond the threshold of pain into the power of the voice you offered us tonight? 

RW: I joined the National Guard to get a degree, so I could do this. So I have to study English, be writing, the craft, be better at it. If I’m willing to do that to be in a space and share with y’all, I may enhance my tone a little bit. I may be speaking from my chest. I’m speaking from my soul ‘cause that’s what I’m willing to throw on the line to do this shit. So that’s what you’re hearing. It’s not just a performance. You’re watching someone share something with you that they put their life into. Put your all into it if you’re doing it. And this is the one thing I decided to put my all into, and I’m glad to share it with everyone else and see what that does. 

And I would love to invest in you all that get you all to the same point as well. You don’t have to give as much as I did, hopefully. (laughs) Not everyone should be in the military to become poets, I’m not telling y’all that to do that. (laughs) So let be let me teach y’all what I do so you don’t have to do that shit. Everyone got a story. 

AM 2: Yeah, true. Thank you! 

AM 3: I was wondering about how much or how recent music has become a factor, because you were referencing all these. And how does that shape the way you you write and approach your work? 

RW: We were having this conversation in the car. I actually bring it up often - ::whispers:: I don’t know how to make music. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.  

AM 3: You can sing, though! You got it, that’s all you need. 

RW: Thank you! My dad was a jazz singer and sang with the band. So I grew up watching that. 

I don’t know. Justin, how was it working with me? This is like our second project. 

Justin Calderon: So, whatever Rashad is doing? I’m trying to find a way to speak the same language on whatever instrument I’m using, if that makes sense. If Rashad is picking up the volume in the intensity in the lyrics, then I’m going to be right there with the guitar doing the same thing. If there’s idea that one or both of us have, I’ll find a way to make it work together. That’s the best way I’m describe it. 

GYB: It’s like a symbiosis. 

RW: (to Justin) You got my back! There. (laughs) 

Yeah, I started my first band and made a play. I started this band to make a film. We’ see if that happens. 

GYB: Does teaching and working with people who are hoping to work up to being able to do something like you do, does that does that play a role in any of your own development as well? 

RW: I think just because I’m probably so immersed with everything I do, I feel like teaching has more of an effect on my personality than anything else, I act like a teacher. (laughs) It’s who I am now, I don’t know what to do about that. 

That’s actually one thing I want to do more. I want to teach more because I want to learn more. And yeah, I’m trying to put myself in more environments where I am learning. It’s nice meeting and mentoring new artists because they have different perspectives. So I end up studying different things to have an influence on them. I try and cater my influence to their needs. 

GYB: Mhm, I mean, that’s a sign of a good teacher, to identify and know what they need.

RW: And know how to affect them. 

GYB: Yeah. 

AM 4: Thank you for sharing “Joy,” it resonates beyond beyond. It taps into something. And then the music, you guys work so well together that it truly embodies that feeling. Not only that, the parallelism of the joy that is birthed from that sorrow is bliss. Yeah, thank you. 

RW: Thanks! That poem’s my baby right now. 

AM 5: Everybody’s talked a lot about the poems that you shared, but your introduction of yourself, is that a poem itself? 

RW: That’s also on sale for the low price of… (laughs). It is, it’s in the chapbook. 

AM 5: It’s so beautiful how you represented yourself right off the bat. I felt like, not in a parasocial way, but also like I knew you and where you were coming from. It was beautiful. 

RW: I wrote that poem as my introduction speech when I was named Poet Laureate of Jersey City. Every line is about some history I had in Jersey City. But yeah, it’s sounds like an introduction because it was. Like, I want my city to remember me. 

AM 5: Well, it’s impossible to forget. 

RW: Thanks! 

AM 6: I’m wondering, what are you doing next, where can we see you next or hear your music or your work? What’s going on with you?

RW: I’m teaching a lot this school year, and I was just asked to write another play, which I had to make heads or tails about because I’m really pouring on my soul to making a movie with this band right now. 

First up is Joy, doing that video, shot it, shot half of it last Sunday. Shout out Brayson*. And shooting the second half of September, and then a movie, Writer’s Tears. 

(*note: During his  set, Rashad shared an anecdote about his experience with filming the first portion of the video for Joy, where his nephew Brayson, a sweet little boy in all aspects, would not cooperate with set directions in the scene. Brayson and Rashad ended up sitting under a sprinkler for several takes.)

AM 6: So we just follow you on Instagram, YouTube, and we’ll see it all? 

RW: That’s so much better. I’m on Instagram at write_raw, write like the verb, underscore, raw. 

GYB: So to close us out, I’m going to ask you the question from our randomizer prompt for the night: What is a hopeful note for a younger you? 

RW: A hopeful note for a younger me…

“You’re better off without the cheerleaders.” (laughs) 

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