HC: When did you start writing poetry?
NA: I started my freshman year of high school. I didn’t start performing until my junior year, after my mentor Kevin Johnson encouraged me to.
HC: What is your muse/what do you write about the most?
NA: I’m always writing a love poem but mostly from the aspect of not having experienced that. Generally, I have a lot of emotions and I write them down instead of telling someone.
HC: What is the hardest thing for you to write about?
NA: I’ve wrote my first poem about my bestfriend’s brother who died this past summer. I think death poems are the hardest to write about because the second I want to write about my happy past memories, I want to write about the grief that I am still dealing with. It’s hard for a person to only be present in pictures and to try and find the words for how that makes you feel is difficult.
HC: What made you start writing poetry?
NA: I took a poetry course and fell in love. Writing a poem back then was easy because it was always honest. Now I have to focus on saying what I want especially when my opinion towards something might impact my job or future opportunities.
HC: Do you perform your poetry? Or is it more so for yourself?
NA: I love performing. I think being on the stage reciting my original poems is the best feeling possible. The only way I keep a poem to myself is when it is too painful to re-live and I think that’s the part people that don’t write poetry don’t think about. Poetry is painful sometimes, reciting and performing brings up all the emotions you have when you originally wrote the poem. It’s getting flashbacks on stage and still having to remember the next line, it’s painful sometimes.
HC: What poets inspire you?
NA: I love the rawness of Nikki Giovanni’s early poetry. The group that inspired me and pushed my poetry is called The Strivers Row. They are a poetry group based in Harlem that I have personally had the chance to talk to and they inspire the unapologetic poet in me. They gave me confidence to perform my poetry and not just write it. Out of the group I think I have deemed Alysia Harris as my favorite. She shows me how to use my poetry as strength rather then only use it when I feel weak so I wish I could thank her for that.
HC: Your favorite poetry?
NA: I’m a hopeless romantic so of course love poems lol.
HC: What type of poetry do you write or prefer to write?
NA: I like writing poems that express my opinions about taboo topics. I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But I like being able to express mine in such a creative way.
HC: What is your favorite piece of poetry you have written?
NA: It is this piece called “Bomb Shelter” about a boy I am friends with and it addresses his infidelity plus how strong my self will is. It was a poem I bled out on paper basically. It helped me gain closure as I wrote it and helped me grow the first time I performed it with him in the audience.
HC: Anything else you want to say…?
NA: Any body can be a poet. You just have to start writing and keep writing.