As a young child at the ripe age of 7 years old, my father, a technophile, managed to give me a "hand-me-down" computer of his that couldn't connect to the Internet but had the most important feature for an aspiring writer: Microsoft Word.
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I used to sit at this computer for hours, newspaper in hand, and any other written document I could find, pretending to be a journalist, even though I had no idea what I was writng or what it meant. It was from then on I knew what I wanted to be: a writer.
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My obsession with writing and reading managed to get me a private tutor in the first grade because I was hyperlexic. As a genderqueer child in white suburbia who was a walking pride flag, I was naturally ostracized. This social isolation led me into an outsider perspective, which drove my innate inquisitiveness to understand the world and why certain groups of people were marginalized and oppressed. My outcast status led me to explore issues most children wouldn't be caught reading: social justice issues.
Outcast Origins
"This social isolation led me into an outsider perspective, which drove my innate inquisitiveness to understand the world and why certain groups of people were marginalized and oppressed."
The Tumultuous
Teens
"Distraught and mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally spent, I again went back to the one thing that helped me find solace: writing..."
Years later in my teen years, I unfortunately disclosed debilitating family abuse that persisted throughout my childhood. Distraught and mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally spent, I again went back to the one thing that helped me find solace: writing, but this time I managed to delve into poetry.
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It was at this point I became obsessed with William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sylvia Plath. I took again to my former years of copying lines and rewriting them into my own poems. I eventually started transferring my poetry onto canvas and had them featured at a local non-profit created for children who had experienced childhood sexual abuse. Sharing my poetry and having it featured in a building lit a burning fire inside of me: I knew my calling was to share my poetry and art with the world.
Once I graduated high school, I went to college furthering this passion for the written word. It was at Mount St. Joseph University where I got a taste of what it was like to edit and be featured in a literary magazine, but it wasn't until graduate school where I became aware of my potential as an academic and writer.
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I realized that like every living organism, words also have their purpose and placement. This time in higher education allowed me to sit, reflect, hone in on my writing process, and figure out who I wanted to be as a writer. It granted me the opportunity to see the poetic in everyday life, to see myself as the people's poet and the academic's poet, much like the admired Robert Frost.
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This natural inquisitiveness I have harnessed since the young age of seven years old allowed me to tap into the "art of attention." I could find metaphors in every day life; I could sit on words and let them marinate in my mouth, much like the tobacco my father carefully placed in his bottom lower lip--this is how language and my craft works--it sits and permeates through my bloodstream and unconsciousness until it flows through the conscious forming fractals and fragments I call poems.
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If it wasn't for being naturally inquisitive and paying attention, my poetry would have not come into fruition. Listening to everyday conversations and tapping into nature's wisdom has shaped who I am as a writer. It's the little things you notice while walking down the street and asking those internal and external questions: What is the universe trying to tell me? Teach me? What does this dead Northern mockingbird on the sidewalk say about my internal environment? What is this Baptist pamphlet saying to me in the men's bathroom on "How To Be Saved" as a queer person? If the human body is 70% water and the Ohio River is effortlessly flowing next to me, then how can I honor the river effortlessly flowing through me?
The Advent of Academia: Perfecting My Process
"I could find metaphors in every day life; I could sit on words and let them marinate in my mouth, much like the tobacco my father carefully placed in his bottom lower lip--this is how language and my craft works--it sits and permeates through my bloodstream and unconsciousness until it flows through the conscious forming fractals and fragments I call poems."
Coming Out, Coming In
"It was during the pandemic where I truly found my voice and passions...The isolation of the pandemic allowed me to have a safe space to come out as non-binary and queer. Finding my gender identity and sexuality helped me find my voice in poetry, social justice writing, and helped me create another craft: collage making."
It was during the pandemic when I truly found my voice and my passions, because after witnessing electroshock on another gay person and many years of homophobic and transphobic abuse, it wasn't always safe for me to disclose my identity with others. The isolation of the pandemic allowed me to have a safe space to come out as non-binary and queer. Finding my gender identity and sexuality helped me find my voice in poetry, social justice writing, and helped me create another craft: collage making.
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While protesting in the streets with my local community, I was also ferociously typing up stories at home and publishing them in Streetvibes. I also hosted a Social Justice Writing workshop for local activists with a local professor at NKU, Chris Wilkey, to help others use their voice to combat social injustice.
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I managed to be a featured poet at the Rainbow Gallery during Trans Day of Remembrance, just a week after I got top surgery and still had drains inside my body, but I knew I needed to share my poetry with my community. I even managed to get my collage art, "Moon Landing," "Fitting In, Getting Out," "Towards a Definition of Nobody," and poetry featured in an exhibition for SOS Art Cincinnati's Pride Celebration.
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Since then, I've been carving out spaces for my work to emulate who I am as a writer and artist, which has included finding homes for my poems, "Dear Mom," "How To Be Saved," and "My (Our) Strap" in Many Nice Donkeys and Babyteeth. These poems are one of many featured in my latest chapbook, How to They/them, which reflects this mission of combining art forms, forming fractals by mixing collage with poetry, ultimately mirroring my genderqueer identity--honing in on the fact that I am not only queer in gender but queer in art form too. I am an amalgamation of parts coalescing, of art forms coming together, of myself coming out to come in.
