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Interview: Yrsa Daley-Ward

Cover of Yrsa Daley-Ward's The Terrible     Cover of Yrsa Daley-Ward's Bone     Cover of Yrsa Daley-Ward's On Snakes and Other Stories

 

Yrsa Daley-Ward was born to immigrant parents (Jamaican and Nigerian) in England, then lived in South Africa for several years as she pursued a career in modeling. It was in South Africa that she encountered the slam and spoken-word poetry community and began writing. She has now published three books—a collection of short stories, On Snakes and Other Stories (2013); a collection of poems, Bone (2014; 2017); and, most recently a memoir, The Terrible (2018). Daley-Ward considers herself an activist for feminist, LGBTQ+, and mental health issues, but expressed the hope that her writing is for everyone.

 

Lisa Roney for The Florida Review:

It’s rare to find a fashion model who becomes a poet. I read that you had come across a slam poetry event, a spoken-word poetry event when you lived in South Africa. I thought that was a wonderful story. Did that inspire your frankness? It’s interesting to think about you as this very independent person who speaks about the fashion industry in this very honest way and yet still participates in the fashion industry. I just wonder how you combine these two worlds. Is it the sort of situation where you feel a little estranged from the fashion world? Do you have good friends that are thrilled that you are also writing? How do you combine these two cultures—one of which seems to be based on a certain kind of objectification of women, and yet your poetry is very strong and powerful and feminist and anti-objectification? How do you combine them?

 

Yrsa Daley-Ward:

I think it’s really important to remember—and that’s, I think, the beauty of doing lots of things that are seemingly contradictory—that we’re all multi-faceted human beings. There are models who write. There are people who are seen controversial and wild to our brilliant parents. There are teachers who are engaged in nefarious activities. We’re all like a composite of so many things, and to be in your fullness is really important. I think too much we’re defined by what we do [for a living] or what we look like, even like the gender binary, being super feminine or masculine, so to speak. I love to embrace all aspects of myself. I think that’s super important.

 

TFR:

I think a lot about the spotlight and how the spotlight is different for a model versus an author. Could you comment about how the spotlight is different?

 

Daley-Ward:

It is, and it really shouldn’t be, but it is! It’s sort of this weird Venn diagram that’s happening. I enjoy both because in both there’s an aspect of you and performance and rawness. As much as people don’t appreciate it, modeling is an art form like writing. I do think it is.

 

TFR:

I’m sure it is.

 

I’m just thinking about the spotlight. I think a lot of that performative act. Do you think it’s easier for you to perform as a writer because you have the modelling career?

 

Daley-Ward:

No.

 

TFR:

It’s a different kind of performance.

 

Daley-Ward:

It’s completely different.

 

TFR:

That’s what I was fascinated about. For some reason, I think it had to do with seeing those photographs of you, especially the ones that were with the Guardian article and they were extremely beautiful, but they were also severe and remote, distant. I felt a great deal of distance from you, so I was like, “I wonder what it’s like to be photographed in that context.” I’m sure you are performing that for the camera, yet there is something else that comes across in these poems that’s so powerful and human and down to earth. You had described that first spoken-word event where you read your poem and people applauded for you and loved it—you felt that close human connection. I was just interested in how those two things are different or similar if they tap into each other at all.

 

Daley-Ward:

First of all, that article was really odd because what I said was taken out of context in nearly every line, and I completely didn’t recognize myself in that or in the photos. If you look at any other photo, even in modelling, I just don’t look like that. It was strange. I think most photos capture my essence as it is, but I do think there’s a different spotlight. In modelling, I guess you’d be prepared for what’s happening, whereas you roll up to a writing event and then, all of a sudden, people are taking photographs and it’s just you. But both of them are just different aspects of the same thing. I love balance; I love being able to do the switch between the two. I write every day. I actually do a lot more writing than modelling at the moment, but I really enjoy both elements. I think they can bleed into each other. I think you can show humanity and softness, maybe not in the Guardian article [laughter], but humanity and softness in modelling in the same way.

 

TFR:

I am fascinated by how you developed such a strong sense of self coming out of the religious background that you describe in some of the poems, and in other interviews as well. It’s a very strict, very severe kind of upbringing that you’ve described. I guess the stereotype, especially of women, who come out of that kind of background is that they are very self-sacrificing and they’re very self-abnegating. They don’t have a lot of confidence, and yet you do. You exude strength. Where did that spark start for you that, “I’m me and I’m these complicated things and I’m going to be powerful”?

 

Daley-Ward:

I was lucky enough to have been introduced to literature and language at a really young age by a mom who was a single parent, a Jamaican immigrant, so the need for education and everything like that was impressed on me from an early age. So, I got this gift of opening books and learning about deep and complicated subjects and people who didn’t always say what they meant, people who were doing all kinds of things. I read everything when I was young. I read the Bible, I read the Kama Sutra, both of them very intently. There’s always been dichotomy and contradictions, but I think that allowed me to feel rich. And conflicted—yes—but conflict is very human, isn’t it?

 

The gift of religion helps you understand people because you go to church or wherever it is that you worship, and you see the way people struggle with religion and what they say versus what they do and everybody trying to chase this ideal. Of course, religion has its very difficult aspects, but it’s also really beautiful. Learning to appreciate and see the joy in a lot of different things is something that such a strict religion did for me because as much as I was nervous and I felt like I was not going to heaven, I also loved the ceremony of it and the fellowship of it as well. There are lots of different parts to it.

 

 

TFR:

How would you describe your own religious belief? I felt like Bone in a way moves back in time. I was really touched by getting to the poems in the latter part of the book where they seem to be very kind to your grandparents and your mother. I had formed this question early on which was like, What is your relationship with your grandparents now? What is your relationship with that? You’ve talked about it already a little bit, about the community that you found in the church and the beauty of the ritual and such. Maybe that’s a very personal question, but I’m really interested in that same issue that you brought up, which is about watching people in various religious traditions struggle with what they mean in their own lives. We have a lot of that going on in the U.S. public life right now.

 

Daley-Ward:

Oh, goodness! Yes, so much.

 

TFR:

If it’s not too personal a question, how do you relate to the religious world that you came from?

 

Daley-Ward:

I’m not a Seventh-day Adventist, which is the religion I was brought up in. It’s ever-changing. I’m attempting to fathom what that is. What do I believe still? There were a lot of things that were heavily ingrained, and they never really worked themselves out. Even though I live this life that is apparently the opposite of all of that, there are things in me that aren’t going to come out. I do catch myself on any given day wondering what the truth is. Of course, nobody knows for sure. We live on faith. Especially, Christians live on faith. I am constantly grappling with how I feel about religion and the idea of God versus my idea of the universe. I am spiritual, but religious, no.

 

TFR:

I think that’s really what I sensed in this book, and it comes across really well. Your poem “Poetry,” from Bone, but which you read in an online video, reminded me a lot of Tess Gallagher’s short essay, “Ode to My Father.” Do you know that essay?

 

Daley-Ward:

No, but I’m going to read it.

 

TFR:

I brought it to you.

 

Daley-Ward:

Oh, my God! Thank you!

 

TFR:

She has this wonderful line. She says, “If terror and fear are necessary to the psychic stamina of a poet, I had them in steady doses just as inevitably as I had the rain.” This is an essay and poem about her parents arguing and her father beating her and how she gradually came to forgive him. When I read your poem “Poetry,” I was very much reminded of that.

 

Daley-Ward:

I see the link.

 

TFR:

I wanted to ask what you see as the connection between difficulties in life and poetry.

 

Daley-Ward:

There is nothing that you can’t work up into art. Whether it’s poetry or whether you’re painting or making a piece of theater or anything, what happens to you is going to strengthen what you are doing. The thing I think is so beautiful about poetry is how we can succinctly reach into our hearts and the hearts of other people because we are all having the same experiences on this planet. These experiences transcend, for the most part, class, race, gender, all those things. I think it’s important to have those moments and—I wouldn’t say to document them or identify with them—but definitely reach out. If a poem can make somebody feel somewhat less isolated or that there is somebody else who understands what they are feeling or just put a voice to how they’re feeling, then the poem’s done its job or the piece of art has done its job. Of course, difficulty is gold.

 

TFR:

It’s such an interesting thing about writing. It’s kind of a joke that we tend to say. Something terrible happens to you, and you’re like, “Oh, well, it’s material.”

 

Daley-Ward:

Yeah!

 

TFR:

I think it’s an odd juxtaposition for writers where sometimes they end up seeking it out.

 

Daley-Ward:

Yeah—that’s dangerous!

 

TFR:

Being destructive in their own lives in order to have material. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn’t work out.

 

Daley-Ward:

I guess too much of that could block you. Those difficulties are going to come up. You don’t need to make them happen. They’re part of life.

 

TFR:

Why do you think it’s so important for poetry to reach beyond the “elite,” to reach ordinary people, and what do you think that poetry can do to help ordinary people?

 

Daley-Ward:

We’re all ordinary. We all have feelings. Literature is for everyone, not a select group of people. That’s ludicrous! What can it do for ordinary people? It gives them voice, it helps people feel less alone, it brings us together and we all desperately need to be brought together because we’re so divided. We’re all connected in this world. It feels crazy to me. Poetry acts as a bridge. It brings us closer together, it helps us not feel so alone, it gives an outlook to something that’s inside. If I was not writing, God knows what mental state I would be in.

 

TFR:

Your poems are very, very, very personal, but they also feel to me that they have a social, political edge to them. They have implications beyond the self. I think for writers in particular, the current social state that we’re living through in this world can feel increasingly hostile. How we might work, all of us, writers, to bring people to poetry and to literature where I feel that there is this more complex understanding of other human beings?

 

Daley-Ward:

I think there are so many things. This is actually so exciting because this is starting to happen online—and I know people have a lot of mixed feelings about this—but even the poetry, almost a whole canon already, that has appeared on Instagram has made lots of young people, people who would never pick up a poetry book for fear that it might be boring, which a lot of poetry is . . .

 

TFR:

Sometimes it is!

 

Daley-Ward:

Things like that—poetry in dance, in films, poetry with music, going to prisons, teaching it in schools. Impromptu poetry performances on the street would bring so many people to it because they realize, “Oh, it’s not this closed shop. It’s just people talking about their feelings.” If more people knew that and didn’t think that it was this thing that is closed. Honestly, there is just so much poetry that I don’t understand. I know it’s so clever, but I don’t think I’m a strong enough reader of poetry yet. I buy poetry books by the bucket-load, but I’m still learning how to read it and how to access that super academic poetry. I love everything, but it’s important for that not to be the only thing.

 

TFR:

I agree. That’s one reason why I was so drawn to your book.

 

Daley-Ward:

Yes.

 

TFR:

Partly, it was that contrast with some of other poets. Just the contrast is a wonderful thing. We can have both of these things. We can have the world where someone is paying attention to every single syllable and creating some kind of sonnet or some kind of formal poem and yet, we can also have poetry that’s raw and down to earth.

 

I’m also really looking forward to your memoir [The Terrible]. I love that you said, “It will tell everything.”

 

Daley-Ward:

It pretty much does.

 

TFR:

What do you think is the relationship between truth-telling as an important kind of upstanding thing to do and rebellion for shock’s sake? What’s the relationship between those two things? How do you think about truth-telling?

 

Daley-Ward:

I think it’s a powerful tool in a world where there is not a lot of it, unfortunately. I never intended to write a memoir or tell anybody anything about myself, ever, but it’s just the way in which this has come to me. There were doses of fear that come along with that. When I started to examine what the reason for this was, the most important thing that came out of nowhere—and which gives me a reason to be here and sit down and be able to do all this, without turning me into a nervous wreck—is just the fact that I think to be here is to be in service to the world, in service for people for whom these experiences are completely normal. When I speak about marginalized communities, it’s not only people of color, queer people, sex workers, people who’ve been involved in what we call criminal activity. I’m a deeply private person, but something about making this kind of work is stronger. I was talking to my friend today on the phone and we were just talking. I get some lines sometimes when I’m just chatting and I said to her, “My destiny is louder than my comfort.” I was like, “Oh! I’m going to Tweet that!” It really is at this point. It’s become more important to do that.

 

TFR:

It’s gone beyond yourself and your expression. You feel a responsibility to other people.

 

Daley-Ward:

I do! Otherwise, how are we going to do this? Our sex workers are going to think that they can’t write the next bestseller. Children of color who live on council estates or in the hoods are going to think they can’t write a Pulitzer prize.

 

TFR:

Especially now, because we do seem to be in a time of shrinking opportunity where the rich get richer and everybody else is left behind. It’s scary sometimes, especially in terms of education. I understand that completely, that sense of responsibility for bringing that forward.

 

Could you comment on Instagram and other social media as a method of artistic expression? Do you see social media as the future of poetry and other literary forms? What are the limitations of that?

 

Daley-Ward:

Not completely the future, because where there is progress and wonderful work on Instagram, one of the issues with things happening on mass media is that, sometimes, it might lose its power. That’s a small price to pay because it’s making literature current. Literature has always been current, but now to reach everybody, because almost everyone has a smartphone. As much as people who have an attitude about this won’t like this, I think it’s wonderful because if you were never interested in poetry, now, these days, people will be engaging with poetry whether they know it or not, which I think is wonderful, especially for young people, the next generation.

 

TFR:

What’s next for you?

 

Daley-Ward:

Every day I ask myself that. It’s The Terrible next. I just finished my final edit of that which has been a really interesting process. I’ve just relocated to New York. I love to meet people and I love to read poetry, and I hope to do so much more of it live. Sometimes I do it with musicians. Just to be doing what I love and to create more work constantly. I hold myself accountable in that way—actually getting stuff done. So, writing and really documenting this time because it feels really special. It’s very important to me.

 

TFR:

Any last words of wisdom?

 

Daley-Ward:

I don’t know that I’m wise.

 

TFR:

Or last words of spirit?

 

Daley-Ward:

I would say that in this world, it’s more important than ever before for people to feel empowered to tell their stories because their stories are very valid, and if you are worried whether it’s strong enough or good enough or whether it’s compelling enough, always know that the thing that is the most raw and honest will be compelling to other people because we are all connected. If you have a story that you want to write, tell your story. We really do want to hear it.

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Lisa Roney

Lisa Roney is the editor and director of The Florida Review and Aquifer: The Florida Review Online. She is associate professor of English at the University of Central Florida and the author of Sweet Invisible Body: Reflections on a Life with Diabetes (Henry Holt), The Best Possible Bad Luck (Finishing Line Press), Serious Daring: Creative Writing in Four Genres (Oxford University Press), as well as short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry in numerous journals and literary magazines.