“You’re gonna get an idea, your brain is a busy place.” —an interview with Tara Betts 
by Alycia Calvert

From an interview conducted by Alycia Calvert in conjunction with her visit to Binghamton and Alumni Reading on February 24, 2023

Alycia: Hello, I am so honored to get to meet with you, I think your collection Refuse to Disappear is really beautiful. 

Tara: Thank you 

Alycia: How long has poetry been a part of your life, and what did that journey look like for you? 

Tara: I’ve been writing poems since I was twelve or thirteen. But I don’t think they got  very good until I got older, like you know, when you look at the stuff you wrote as a kid you go Oooh (laughs)… I still have my little notebooks from then. I haven’t pulled them  out and looked at them for a while, but I’m glad I kept them because it reminds me that  I kept to the dream.  

So Yeah, I feel like it’s kind of been a circuitous route. I got my beginning in  journalism here in Chicago, I was going to write for magazines. I was always writing  poems even then, but I thought I was going to maybe write for Vibe or Essence or  something. And I kind of just fell into the spoken word community in Chicago. I was  really involved with Young Chicago Authors. I was one of the people who helped start  Louder Than a Bomb here, which was the big teen poetry festival. They did a movie  about it a few years back,  They used to have a teen arts program, called Gallery 37, that the mayors wife,  Maggie Daley, had started this program. So I kind of got my start teaching there and  teaching with YCA… But that was the place that I really felt like I started to understand  that I wanted to study writing more deeply,…  

I feel like sometimes as a woman you kind of hit a roadblock. At that point in  Chicago, it was very much a boys club. So, I was frustrated, but I said, “you know  what, I’m young, let me try New York.” So I moved to New York,… I was performing, I  was reading, I was writing. I worked at Bowery Poetry Club for a while, Bob Holman  was my boss.  

I was a regular attendee at the Dodge Poetry Festival, and I met Maria M Gillan. I  happened to chat with her, and I said, “you know, I’ve been thinking about doing a  PhD, I don’t know though,” I published my first book before I came to Binghamton,  was actually teaching part time at Rutger’s, and I had been there for five years… but a the time, a lot of the university writing programs had ratcheted up from the MFA to the  PhD. I just missed that window. So, when Maria just called me out the blue and was  like, “Do you want to do it?” It was at a time when I was actively applying. It was so  serendipitous, and I said, “Yes, I want to apply.” 

Alycia: What cool timing!

Tara: Yeah, I think it was meant to be because when I said, “Ok, it’s time.” I got in with  one of the Clark Fellowships. Then after I finished my PhD at Binghamton. I taught fo one semester in Binghamton, before I moved back to Chicago because my Mom died.  It was kind of hard, like, I was planning to move back to do some caregiving  for her. And then she passed. I had already made plans to be back, I was literally  packing. So when I moved back I already had a full time job at USC teaching  composition, still writing, and you know writing chapters for a couple of critical books,  you know. I looked at publishing poems, I just kept cranking, cranking, cranking… I  had already written, Break the Habit mostly at Binghamton, some of the poems that are  in, Refuse to Disappear started to come out, like, around 2016 to about 2020. So, most  of that book was written before the pandemic.  

Alycia: Wow, and what were some of the things you were writing about then? 

Tara: I was writing and thinking about Michelle Nichols who died, in the time period.  That poem has been getting a lot of attention lately. Or thinking about Say Her Name  and Black Lives Matter, and police brutality; and a lot of that stuff has been in the media. The stuff about Kanye West, the poem, “Because Hip Hop Unlike Slavery, Was a Choice.” So, all of that that I was thinking about was kind of coming to the forefront  of a lot of public conversations.  

So it’s interesting to think about how the book touches on that kind of stuff. Eve the title poem, “Refuse to Disappear,” I got that poem out of many conversations I had  with a west coast poet named Eric Priestly, who was really instrumental in the Watts  Writers Workshops. He passed away before I could tell him about the book so, there’s  a lot of interesting touchstones that are letting me know that this book is kind of  closure on a certain period and certain ideas. And now I’m wondering what’s next. So  I’m writing stuff here and there 

Alycia: Wow, that’s so immense, and in thinking about your new collection Refuse to Disappear. I want to look at the format of the book a little. It is broken into these three  sections; “Say Her Name,” which looks at relationships between celebrities, musicians,  artists of color; the next section is “Boom Bap,” feels more musical and like it’s own  compositional contribution, and then the final section, “A Wall is Just a Wall,” which, a you mentioned earlier, recognizes individuals effected by racial violence and police brutality. In reading the collections almost felt to me in the ways it reached toward art  and identity like a Triptych on black Identity, like a kind of worship. So, I wonder what  your thoughts are on the process of creating this work, and does that idea resonate at  all? 

Tara: I love that you call it a triptych. Haha, I didn’t consciously call it a triptych in my  head but,… I feel that. I just saw these different movements happening with the book once I started to gather all the poems…Things that I was writing at the time, kind of  came to me as they came… you don’t always see the patterns until you set it all out.  I feel like, Arc and Hue,… was like an assemblage of poems that I gathered  together and I was learning how to experiment with form. Break the Habit was me  looking at personal stuff, and trying to figure out how to process it. Then this book  felt like. You have these very different suites, there are very different things happening They need to go together in that particular way, so that people can see, and [the form]  kind of amplifies, what they are doing individually and collectively 

Alycia: And the flow of the book feels very intuitive. I think that’s one of the things  love most about this collection; the undercurrents of movement in resistance felt very  physical, the rising and falling, but also the pushing, flying, restraining, the visibility an the silencing, but ultimately the resilience. I’m so struck alternately by the language,  and the imagery sometimes in rapid succession. So, my next question is, Do you have  a typical mode for entering a poem that enables that kind of motion? 

Tara: I think I usually do have an idea, and sometimes it springs from a phrase,  sometimes it’s a song. Sometimes it’s an image… I’m always telling my students you  have to be a close observer of the world, and I think a lot about concrete detail,  specific imagery. So if something hits me, like a color, a quality of light, a smell anything really. If it’s something concrete, I can touch it, it’s tactile, that’s the thing I try  to ground the poem in. Because I know for another person, that will help them make  more sense of it. 

Alycia: I really feel that awareness throughout. I want to shift to thinking about how  these senses are affected by space. I think that idea of rhythm in place and how that affects practice is so important. I love Chicago, it’s a great city. You have been teaching and writing in Chicago, it feels so much a part of your poetry. Is Chicago a place you feel helps to center your practice, or is it one of many places? 

Tara: It is a special place. Because, like all major American cities it’s gentrifying, so it’s  getting a little bit tougher to stay in if you’re not making a certain amount of money. But  it’s not impossible. I feel like, as a whole, it’s been really healthy. For my rhythms as a  person. I feel like every place has, like a rhythm and a momentum. And although I  learned a lot, I met a lot of people on the East Coast. Did a lot of great things. It just felt  like the rhythm was not for me. It felt very intense all the time.  

Alycia: Yes, this shows up in the pace of some of these stories as well. I want to look at some of the imagery you are using in your poems. There are many of these really cool pop culture moments. Like in “Mrs. PacMan Insists: No Sweating in High Heels.” It feels like some big themes told through a really relatable premise.

Tara: Yeah, and that one is about body image, right? I just thought about how  ridiculous it was, right? Like, PacMan is running in a maze to collect pellets, and can  change on a dime. Right? And the woman character, has to do the same thing, but she’s doing it in high heels, and she has to have all the makeup and a bow. Like when I  really thought about it out loud. I was like, ‘This is so absurd, right?’ 

Alycia: So absurd, completely. In thinking about the range of imagery and tone within the collection, there are pieces that are if not heavier, at least more intense tonally like  the opening piece in the collection, ‘“Transcending the Bough,” After Brittney Leanne  Williams.’ Her work is beautiful, and I think it would be too simple to  say these poems are operating solely in an ekphrastic mode, but I’m wondering if and how you view your work in conversation with ekphrasis? 

Tara: Oh, I do and I don’t. I will say this. I was a Cave Canem Fellow in the early aughts  and because I met a lot of poets who were really interested in that. So, I said, ‘let me  try it.’ Also, at the time, I went to London. I went to some museums. I got to see Van  Gogh, and the Lobster Telephone, by Dali, Decamps, like all the stuff that we should see, right? I wrote a poem about the Vestal Virgin, a painting at one of the museums I  went to. I ended up writing a poem about a piece by Kerry James Marshall, because  he’s a famous painter here in Chicago… And if I think about my career trajectory a little  bit more, I’ve always been excited about this idea about being in conversation with  other creative people, right? I know music always comes up, visual art is starting to  come up more. And I’ve written about photography. I’ve written about movies. At  Binghamton. I did a series of poems for a choreographer. We wrote this libretto about  Muhammad Ali. So, This kind of has always been an underpinning for me. Like, I didn’t  so much want to perform anymore. I wanted to write stuff that other people could perform and think about how it looks when other people bring it to life. 

Alycia: I love how you are looking at these two things; the ways we feel our work  progress and this idea of multiple kinds of experience. The experiential nature of  poetry, in combination with these other mediums. 

Tara: And it kind of can impact the choices you make as a writer, but it can also give  you some freedom. So that you don’t think you have to do the same things you always  do. I think that’s really exciting. I wish I had more opportunities like that. So I’m kind of  poking around to see what else is around. And it’s been a pleasure because I’ve taught  a lot of young people and I’ve seen them go on to do that too. Ya know, in ways that I  never imagined.  

Alycia: That kind of leads into my next question, As a published poet, you’re active  within your community, we discussed some of the cool things you’ve done earlier, but  in 2021 you were the inaugural “Poet/Artist for the People” Practitioner Fellows, as part  of a fellowship co-hosted by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture and  the Pozen Center Human Rights Lab at the University of Chicago. You also participated  in the but you’ve taught for the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project. So, how do you balance all of that, the writing, the teaching, your work in the community, any sort of  personal life on top of that?  

Tara: Well, (laughs) I do meditate. I take lots of naps, but also I feel like you have to be willing to say  “yes.” And I hate to sound like Shonda Rhimes about it, but you got to be willing to  say, “yes.” And then also too, like, just stay ready… I used to teach a lot with Tyehimba  Jess, before he published his first book, leadbelly. I remember we were both really working hard in Chicago, it’s not an easy city to make it as a writer, and make a living,  performing and writing. So we used to both say, ‘I don’t turn nothing down but my  collar.’  

And now we’re in a different phase, you know, or it’s like, grind culture is not  healthy thing. But, you gotta be strategic about those opportunities, too, right? Like,  there’s some people I want to collaborate with. There’s some things I want to write.  There’s some things that just takes me a little longer because, I gotta sleep. I gotta  watch what I eat. I need to take vitamins. I gotta go exercise, and if you’re not thinking  like that, you’re not really preparing yourself for the long haul of doing that work. So, it is thinking about the balance. Thinking about just consistently  showing up. I think we take it for granted that if you consistently show up, you can get  a lot done. Some people only write like 15 minutes a day, or a page a day, and it adds  up. You can write 300 pages in a year and still take about two months off in there 

Alycia: Two months off sounds fantastic. Do you ever get creatively stumped though Or, what does your daily practice look like? How do you get over it? 

Tara: I don’t force myself to write every day, I used to. I definitely encourage people t write every day, if you need to develop a writing practice. But they discovered you have  certain times. Like if you say, ‘Okay, if I write three days a week, that’s my optimum  time.’ Or if I write in the hours between three and six, or one and four am, because  nobody’s going to call me or ask me for something. You know, like, whatever your time is, you make that happen. I try to encourage people to do that. For some people the  writing everyday is good to get them started. But how much can you realistically sustain, as a practice? So I think a lot about that when I’m trying to just set peak times for myself. I try to spend time feeding the well. Yeah, like, I’m gonna  sound like Maria, where I just invent these little phrases. I’m feeding the well, it’s like,  you don’t make yourself write. You just absorb things, like you watch movies, you listen  to music, you read books, go for walks, make you good food and just pay close attention to those things. Yeah. And I guarantee you, if you do that, you’re gonna get an idea, your brain is a busy place. Yeah, you’re gonna start making associations and  putting things together. It’s not something that stresses me out and makes me feel like,  I’ll never write again… 

Alycia: “Your brain is a busy  place it will come up with something,” may be my favorite advice ever. Ok, switching  gears to think about teaching. You taught during covid, you’ve done zoom. What  was that like for you, and what are some of the trends you are noticing with students?

Tara: Oh, God did not like. It is. I think a lot of students are just, Oooh Baby… it’s hard to manipulate that  energy, Like, I get tired, I want to go home, drink some water and put on my pajamas  and go to bed because the energy in the interaction is like they almost expect me to  just lecture, for the whole class. And I’m not doing that. That’s not what we do. I think  that’s gonna impact education for a while to come. We’re just going to be thinking,  what are multiple modalities to get them engaged? Also, I think, as people in creative  writing, and people who promote literacy in general, we’re gonna have to do a lot to  make sure people don’t just say books should die, right? (Laughs) 

I mean, we’re already looking at book bans. We’re already looking at  students who don’t love to read. I’ve taught at several universities, in many, many  classes where they tell me this is the first time they’ve read a full length poetry book They may read anthologies, but they don’t say I’m gonna read a book by a poet. So, we have a lot of things to work on in the culture.  In terms of reading lists, You know, I do use a lot of anthologies. In one class I have  them reading Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard. I’ve taught Jeffrey McDaniels T Endarkenment, Teeth by Aracelis Girmay. I like those books in particular because I felt  like there is a lot of formal diversity, the voices are different. Sometimes I try to thin about what the student wants to write as well, who will speak to them? 

Alycia:  So, in this  space where we sometimes feel numb with the study, what are some of your go-to books if you want to feel again? Or maybe books that give you the feeling of relocating  from one brain space to another.  

Tara: That is hard, I was teaching African American Lit, and it was really beautiful to go  back and reread Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, one book that  definitely made me cry was Mama Day by Gloria Nailer, it’s a really beautiful book, an in some ways is a bit of a precursor to some of the Afro-Futurism, speculative lit we  see nowadays. Poetry wise Native Guard did make me cry a bit because she’s talking  about losing her mom; and when I was at Binghamton, I thought a lot about Sharon  Old’s book Stags Leap and Denise Duhamel’s Blowout because those books were  about their divorces, and I came to Binghamton right after a divorce. I think you find  book and it just happens to echo some part of your experience, and it’s going to touch  your heart a little bit.  

Alycia: Absolutely, that something that speaks to experience. I want to thank you so  much for being so generous with your time, I have really enjoyed our time together.  

Tara: To you as well. Thank you, and take care.