March Feature: Performance Poet I.S. Jones

We are proud to present our March feature, Issue IV contributor I.S. Jones!

I.S. Jones is an American-Nigerian poet located in New York City by way of California. She left all the California Sun behind in pursuit of poetry and the performance arts as a profession and life source. She is currently a TWH (The Watering Hole) fellow, holds an honorable mention from the Academy of American Poets, winner of the "Power Poetry" scholarship, and is a graduate student at Hofstra University. As a performance poet, I.S. uses the stage as a temple, a place of healing, to illuminate critical issues of race, gender, class, and overall societal disadvantages. When asked "What propels you to write and perform", she states, "I write because it is far too painful to sit in my silence." I.S. is a poet who is Black and loud about it while providing her audience poems that entertain and humble. She is currently co-editor at Chaparral, a online literary magazine. She is editor-in chief-of Upcoming Hip-Hop, a blog which spotlights and works with emerging hip-hop artists as co-host of a podcast The Encore Radio Show.

Q: What is the responsibility of the poet? What would you say to the criticism of some slam poetry that art/poetry should be kept separate from politics?

A: The poet has a responsibility to themselves first before anyone else. They have a responsibility to make the kind of art that they can be proud of. I know we often want to divorce the poet from their work once it is accepted by an audience, but I think all poets should come to a body of work thinking of "This is mine. I made this for me". We have a responsibility to write for the silenced and marginalized. We have an obligation to write to break boundaries, to experiment, to stretch the limits of the page. We have an obligation to have fun and to have a vicious love for our work. We have an obligation to tell our stories because our stories can save others. Especially as a person of color, often times some narratives don't reach me because I don't have those life experiences.

I think all art forms are political because the personal is political. I don't think it is possible to separate the two in art. With my own work, I don't intentionally seek to be political, but the subjects that move me are political in one way or another. I have a poem called "what i learned (after Aja Monet)"--the poem is a reflection of the self, but by being aware of yourself outside race or even outside superficial beauty as a Black woman is a political statement.

Slam poetry has always been political in that it was founded as a means to give poetry back to people who didn't operate in academia. I wouldn't love poetry the way I do if not for its performative possibilities. Also, effective art is supposed to make its audience uncomfortable or at the bare minimum aware of what's going on around them, so to people saying they should be separate, I feel as though they are trying to remove its fangs.

Q: How have you felt yourself grow as an artist since you began writing?

By living and reading everything. Since I first began writing, I have felt myself grow as an artist drastically. I'm not even the same person and I am grateful for that. Since I've begun, I used to look at my work as just a medium to re-create emotion. Now, I'm mindful of the ways in which I want my work to operate in the larger conversation of poetics. To a degree I still look at my poetry as a means of self-exploration, but as I have somewhat gotten older, moved, been in and out of relationships, ended friendships, made new ones, created business partnerships, traveled, embarked on graduate school, fallen in love, out of love, back in it again because I don't learn, gone through crippling waves of depression, anxiety, and self-doubt, poetry has been there for all of it--to bare witness in silence but attentive fashion.

The shift towards writing about other subjects has only worked for me if it the subject terrified or fascinated me, which is apart of why I came into performance poetry as well. I've been performing since I was 18 and it never stops being utterly petrifying to get on a stage, but I do it because I love it, because I reach a new audience every time and because it scares life into me.

I felt a lot of my growth come in the wake of my father's stroke. It was during this time that I became obsessed with writing about death and the way the body betrays us, one the subjects my graduate manuscript revolves around. We enter into an abusive relationship with our body when we don't take care of it, and that idea about death, dying, the way the dead try to talk to the living, and creating myths which all stems from the disjointed history I know about my family.

While I have gone through some loss, tragedy and loss don't always need to make a poem. I remember hearing from someone, I honestly can't remember exactly where now, that some emerging poets think they need to have gone through turmoil to make great writing. One needs to be an observer of the universe to begin to be a great writer. All you have to do is open your eyes to begin.

Q: What work/poem are you most proud of to this date?

I would say the work that has scared me and made me uncomfortable is the work I'm the most proud of. I think that is where the real work begins. Working on my first manuscript, the poems I have been working on are a reflection of my flaws and shortcomings, yet seeing where I'm lacking is exciting because my work grows as I do. I often get lost in the politics of poetry, so returning to my poetry as my first love is necessary in creating the work that I can be proud of.

Other than poetry, the articles I'm writing which engages hip-hop in critical discourse is work that I am proud of because it exposes how some people just don't like women with opinions.

Q: What artists inspire you?

God, so many! I'm growing this literary family tree of poets I feel a deep connection to based off their works. Three poets who I feel are like my sisters are Aracelis Girmay, Tracy K. Smith, and Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Audre Lorde is my mother-poet. Then there's James Baldwin, Rilke, Terrance Hayes, Mark Doty, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolfe, Zora Neale Hurston (a friend and I have a running joke that I manage to slip a Hurston quote into every conversation) David Orr, Li-Young Lee, Roger Reeves, Mindy Nettifee, Claudia Rankine, Jericho Brown, and the list goes on and on.

I'm currently in between books: "Beloved" & "God Help The Children" by Morrison, "Citizen" by Rankine "Between The World & Me" Coates and "Mule & Pear" by Griffiths.

Q: What do you wish you were asked more? Both about yourself or your work.

"What are beautiful things which terrify you?"

"How is your spirit today?" (This is something a friend of mine asks because asking "How are you?" never yields an honest response)

"Did you drink enough water / eat enough fruit today?"

"What did you today that made you feel brave?"

"How were you kind to yourself and to others?"

"You are young, but what are your regrets?"

"The moon seems to find her way into your work from time to time, why is that so?"

"Did the anxiety win today or did you?"

"Which poetic forms haven't you challenged yourself to write in and why?"

"If you could bring back someone who died and ask them one question, what would it be?"

"Did the silence win today or did you?"

"Your pen name is I.S. Jones. Where did this name come from?"

"Your first name is Itiola and your middle name is Stephanie. At one point you went by your middle name, but now you go by Itiola. Which of those names do you feel the most like? Which name best embodies who you are?"

"Is pizza truly the purest love possible?"

Q: That was one of the next things I was going to ask – why Stephanie? Why Itiola? Which do you own more?

Truth be told, depends where my head is at and who I'm around. My full name is very long and I feel as though I own all of them. The friends I've made since I've moved to New York, I'm not comfortable with them calling me Stephanie because they didn't know me I was when I was "Stephanie". I mean, yes, I still am and it is my name, but Stephanie is reserved for family, very close friends, and significant others once that relationship reaches a certain level. Both my names hold different levels of intimacy I'm still trying to figure out. Itiola holds my family's history; it was my grandmother's name. In my family, both my grandmothers chose this name for me without ever meeting and that is the magic of my name. It means "the child who fell into wealth". It is not a common name in America. It's Nigerian. Stephanie isn't even American, its etymology is Grecian.

I have owned Stephanie for so long to the point where Itiola almost disappeared. I went by Stephanie because that's what my family calls me and it made my life easier. People feel comfortable around a person who has a name they can pronounce. At one point, my parents wanted me to change my name to expand my job prospects, but if an employer is already discriminating against my name then perhaps it's not the best fit. I chose to go by Itiola when I had a wonderful professor, Dr. Venugopal, during my undergrad who showed me the beauty of having a difficult name. Because of her, I really began to take pride again in Itiola.

So today I feel like Itiola more than Stephanie. Ask me that again in a couple years and the answer might change.

Q: Why does the world hurt? Where do you go or turn when things get bad?

That's a difficult question. I would say the world hurts because things can seem insurmountable as a young writer. Kendrick said it best on his track "Sing about me / I'm dying of thirst": "And least hope that at least one of you / sing about me when I'm gone / Am I worth it? / Did I put enough work in?" I think about that all the time: Am I worth it? Because I'm still putting in the work, so I won't ever know if I put in enough work because I'll be dead before I see the end of my labor.

Some days I am out of bed before my alarm goes off and some days it takes me 5 hours to lift my head. When things are bad I bury myself in my work or I try to be helpful to others. A friend and I are working on some projects and so when I feel as though I don't want to try one day, I remember other people need and rely on me. I recently helped one of my friends get a fellowship and hearing from them "I got it because you helped me" felt so affirming. It felt affirming and in an odd way made me feel I am possible.

I turn to a playlist I made of a few songs that ground me, I read "The Dog" by Aracelis Girmay when things are bad because that poem becomes more and more glorious every time I read it. I nap. I sing terribly in the shower. I listen to podcasts. I call home if that is possible. I write it out until it leaves me. Sometimes all I have is my pen.

Q: What do you want readers to take from your work? For instance, "Stephanie?"

In the case of that poem "Stephanie" well the history of my name for one. Our names are the first stories we tell people about ourselves but it's a story that was written for us, without our permission. Being first born, at least in my family, that comes with a lot. My mom calls me her first miracle. "Stephanie" is my parents trying to make me as American as possible so I have fighting chance in this country in a way that they never had.

The poem explores the erasure history of being Stephanie. Because Itiola is a name "that is too difficult", instead of people taking the time to pronounce a name which doesn't adhere to typical western names, they would rather clean up the history and make it more accessible. The nicknames people have given me without my consent is an erasure. The poem seeks to rewrite the etymology of "Stephanie".

Stephanie means "my parents' hope," it means "working towards America," it means "clean the history," it means "the American Dream." That dream is for my parents to see their children divorced from their roots which is why the poem ends with "and what little dark-skinned white girl do you know about Nigeria?" My parents' American Dream is for me to achieve whiteness by way of my name, a new history.

Q: Then what is your American Dream?

One where several classes teach all Black writers as the core curriculum instead of an elective – from Phillis Wheatley to present day. To start.

I want an America where the percentage of POC in higher education is better than what it is now.

I want an America that acknowledges its violent history towards people of color and lets us live. Actually live.

Q: What advice do you have for our (predominantly young) writers?

Don't get caught up in the drama and politics of poetry, just do the work you can be proud of and don't worry about what people are saying or doing.
Please don't measure yourself against your peers. I'm telling you will either lose your voice or lose sight of why you're doing this.
Read more than you write. Jericho Brown taught me this and this must be a constant. It should never be the reverse.
Sometimes you will fall out of love with your work. Remember what made you fall in love with the craft and return back to that to recharge.
You can be paid to do this (believe it or not), so always push for stipends, honorariums, anything sort of monetary compensation for your work. Don't ever let someone downplay your worth.
Always be present. Facebook profile. Soundcloud recordings. Twitter. Tumblr. Open mics. Make a name for yourself now and don't be shy about it because you're competing with everything else that grabs peoples' attention.
Watch out for old heads (mentors) because sometimes they'll be the ones often time more than anyone else to sabotage you or try to take advantage.
Make friends with poets. Write together. Collab. Go to readings. Go where poetry lives.
Aggressive living will give you the fuel to write just as much as reading.
Keep in contact with poets you meet and professors because those connections will be so beneficial.
Be humble and inclusive.
Keep a writing journal. Never leave home without a pen or a writing utensil.
Open your eyes. Poetry is everywhere.