Alison Stewart: This is All of It on WNYC, I'm Alison Stewart. Bronx born poet, educator and activist Roya Marsh's latest collection of poems weaves together themes of Blackness, queerness, community, love and survival. It's titled Savings Time. This is Roya Marsh's second collection since publishing Daylight in 2020. In the author's note, she writes, they are banning books and bodies. It's a matter of time before they come for our last breath. She also encourages readers to find joy in the ordinary while reflecting on what it means to feel truly liberated. There are poems about Black joy and rage, including a poem lamenting the death of Tyreen Nichols, who was killed in a police involved shooting in 2023, and multiple pieces reflecting on to exist as a Black woman, including an ode to The Color Purple.
Savings Time is out now. Author Roya Marsh joins us to discuss. Hi, Roya.
Roya Marsh: Hello. Good afternoon.
Alison Stewart: Tell us where you had the inspiration for titling this book of poems Savings Time.
Roya Marsh: Yes. The manuscript came together well before a title was there, but I had always had a working title which was temporal in nature and was really questioning our relationship to time and when I say our, I mean myself as well as my immediate community. My first book, Daylight, was a courageous exploration of my personal identity.
It detailed my transition from the label of tomboy when I was younger to self identifier as a Black butch woman. The writing for me, I think, is very personal because it highlights my journey and I use these poems as tools for self liberation. With this deep commitment, Savings Time, it isn't just a continuation of Daylight. It is to me a time capsule.
It is a piece of art that is meant to capture and imprint something extremely significant into the hearts and minds of those alive right now and those to come. This work for me, I believe, is a part of a broader pursuit toward collective Black liberation and it emphasizes that the revolution actually requires the participation of all of us, not just individual salvation.
Alison Stewart: I would love if you could read a poem for us. I was thinking of Hypersensitivity. Could you read that?
Roya Marsh: Yes, I would love to love to.
Alison Stewart: Love it.
Roya Marsh: Hypersensitivity is a term made up by the devil to keep angels falling from grace. Is shock treatment, is silver tape on the mouth, hands, feet, is a gag order, is an order of protection placed by yourself against yourself. Is a sleep aid, induces a coma, is an antidepressant, keeps you asleep inside yourself is a straight jacket, keeps you wild inside yourself.
Won't let the inside out, only the outside in, makes you uncomfortable, makes you a feeling, makes you a loner, makes you a color that no one wants, does not make you a human. Is white America is, Black America, is Latin America. Is having all of these Americas in one America and not once feeling whole or home.
Is a body in the street from 3:00 p.m. to 9:47 p.m., is a body bleeding and cuffed and dying. Is a pointer, a trigger, a trigger finger, the chamber, the barrel, the bullet, is the last breath, is a response to stimulus that plucks a nerve in the accuser and has nothing to do with the accused, is the time I tell a man he is not my daddy and he calls me a--
Is that statement coming from my daddy, is me missing my daddy, is me falling from grace is me never being graceful, never being an angel, never being the devil, just being hyper and sensitive.
Alison Stewart: That is poet, performer, and educator Roya Marsh. She's reading from her second collection of poems, Savings Times. She's joining us to discuss. Sometimes poets write about traumatic events. There's several referenced in that, Hypersensitivity. There's several referenced, but sometimes you're dealing with something really internal, something really internal within yourself. How do you write about both of these or do you keep them separate?
Roya Marsh: I feel like it's almost impossible for me to separate these things based on my lived experiences. I think that they all come out at the same time and there are often instances where one might be sitting atop the other. It might be at the forefront and I need to push through that in order to process, in order to recognize if I'm thinking about the themes of Black joy and Black rage.
I'm thinking of how I only know to experience joy because I've experienced rage. I only know to experience rage because I have experienced joy. There's no other way that I would be able to differentiate between these things had I not experienced the other. There's a constant interrelationship for me, I believe.
Alison Stewart: I want you to read the poem. He Seemed so Nice. Could you tell us the impetus for this poem before you read it?
Roya Marsh: Yes, absolutely. I don't intake the news and television as much as I used to, but growing up, it was always something that I watched when I was getting ready for school in the morning or maybe it was playing when I was at my grandmother's house and it was the background noise for us to drop our homework.
I thought so often about the transition from the news actually being new information to what it is now where it's constant reporting of crimes, and then they canvas the neighborhood and they get people to speak and/or my lived experience out in the world. I hear different perspectives around topics that have popped up in media where folks will always try to honor and humanize certain assailants and immediately dehumanize and demonize other assailants based on their race and ethnic backgrounds.
This poem specifically speaks to the language that I've heard in my personal Black lived experience of people attempting to highlight how someone who committed an egregious atrocity just seemed so nice.
He seems so nice. He has two parents and a football trophy. He holds the cigarette butt until he can put it in the garbage. He takes out the trash and recycling and wheels the cans back into the yard. He curbs the dog. He waves at you while mowing the lawn, Irons his Confederate flag and lanes it across the hood of his pickup.
He signals before he turns. Taught to hunt like his daddy, a man who takes his life out on everyone else. Cleans his gun before he shoots, picks up cans and shells after practice, scopes game, and attacks when least expected. Manipulates the art of silence and blinking. Finally dabs the sweat off his brow. Stands over this bloodied once in a blue body cause nice men always take out the trash, don't they?
Alison Stewart: That's Roya Marsh reading from her book Savings Time. When you're writing, are you writing for catharsis? Are you writing for change? Are you writing for both?
Roya Marsh: Yes, I love that question. I think I am writing for all of the above and more. I feel not addressing any of these topics would be willfully ignorant of me and having the platform to reflect on pain, outrage, and grief that come with witnessing or experiencing state violence makes it my duty. And so writing, I'm writing and it is encompassing all aspects of my, all complexities of my personal lived experience.
I'm hoping to challenge oppressive systems. I'm hoping to honor victims while demanding accountability. I'm hoping to seek justice and equity for marginalized communities. I'm always hoping to offer solidarity to those impacted because I know that the power of literature can raise awareness and inspire direct action.
Alison Stewart: You have a poem called Gay Girl, which starts off with the boy asking, boy, you gay or you girl? To which you answer, we can't say on the radio, but you have an internal monologue, shall we say? How do these poems reflect on how people see other people who are part of the LGBTQ community, particularly Black women?
Roya Marsh: Yes, I love that. That Poem in particular is something that is also born of a lived experience where one part of my identity is nullified based on another aspect of my identity. Whether someone has actual proof that I identify as this or not. And I think so often about these conversations where because I am a queer woman, I identify as queer and I'm in same sex relationships, that means that I'm less than a woman by some other societal standard.
That isn't true to me, that isn't authentic, and I know that. And so I use these poems to challenge that particular aspect of the status quo, to say, I am all these things, I am none of these things, and there is actually nothing that you can do to pigeonhole me and to lock me into a box of your expectations.
Alison Stewart: Roya, I understand you were a writer before you were a performer, and you've often mentioned you accidentally signed up for your first poetry slam. How did that happen?
Roya Marsh: Yes. Hilarious story, I always want to cite the host of that event, who was Nathan P. I was on a date, actually. I was going to try to sign up for this open mic, do my little whoop-de-whoop and move on. And once I was finished and I got applause and everything, I'm feeling myself, I'm sitting in my seat, a couple more performers go and the host then calls out to me.
The host is like, "Do you have another poem?" And I'm like, well, for what? I already performed. The host then goes on to explain to me that this is a poetry slam and I find out what the poetry slam is after I've already somehow entered myself by signing up on what I thought was an open mic list. I win this poetry slam.
I'm introduced to this completely new arena of competitive performance poetry, which really changed the trajectory of my life as a writer. I wasn't a performer at that point. I was just someone who had memorized my writing and was saying it out loud and then my eyes were opened to the world of people who were living, dreaming, writing, and creating so much work that just felt so resonant to me.
It felt like this was a place that maybe someone was even hiding from me for all of this time.
Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Savings Time. It is full of poems by Roya Marsh. Roya, thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your poems with us.
Roya Marsh: Yes, thank you so much, Alison.