diVERSES reKINDLED: In Conversation With Poet Sayuri Ayers

Giving feedback for me used to be a selfish experience.

What I viewed as flaws for my own work I assumed others would view as flaws in their work as well.

This view would often come at odds with the world. I would look at others’ work with a sense that the quality was lacking, yet also see that same work not only being accepted, but acclaimed, in other spaces.

For those who have been following my journey, you’ll already know I am a self-proclaimed Judge Addict, a phrase I know claim openly and proudly. With judging comes a sense of preference, taste, and wisdom, though not everyone will agree on my verdicts, and there is an aftertaste of arrogance. But the value of taste and preference is that not everything meets the taste or is preferred.

Part of coming into a greater understanding of myself is that I also better realize that others have their own tastes as well. Naturally, as people are artists, the goals I have for my art are not the goals all poets have for their work.

As someone who often comes into positions of mentorship and feedback, it is refreshing and affirming to find others arriving to similar conclusions.

In a Micro Mic discussion with Sayuri Ayers, we got into the topic of feedback. How do we comment on people’s work when they come to us, especially as we are often not entirely sure on what people wish to do with their work?

In fact, even when people express their goals, there often is a holding back—the entirety of the intention masked behind pride, face, and fear.

Sayuri, far more succinctly than I put into words myself, uses a similar guiding principle: for the poet seeking guidance, we can ask two key questions. What is the experience I take from the art? How well does my experience meet your intention?

These two questions remove bias and emotion that can color longer discussions of the work, and instead cut to the real key of a poem’s eventual success.

It does not matter what I think of the poem, or whether or not I would pull it off a shelf myself. The only mark of achievement is if the poem lands how the poem intends to land for the person it was made to land for.

Full conversation with poet Geoff Anderson and poet Sayuri Ayers: https://youtu.be/1YRJ80iIv_c