BONUS MICRO-EPISODE: Sasha LaPointe is at your service

Some of America’s most celebrated poets are standing by to write poems for you on commission. Together, they form The International Bureau of Custom Poetry. More about the Bureau here.

In our second micro-episode, Bureau agent Sasha LaPointe shares her writing process, the breadth of her essays, and her focus on personal and shared experiences, all aimed at trying to 'make sense of the madness' in the world. It culminates in Sasha's poem, “S.O.T.D.”

Do you have a loved one you’d like memorialized in a poem? Or a precious memory you’d like preserved for the ages? Dorianne Laux and the other professional poets in the Bureau are standing by to work with you. Sessions can be private or taped for potential use on TAPIT. Visit our website to enquire. Or call our listener line at 808-300-0449.

Transcript

Todd  0:00  
Todd Boss here, host of There's a Poem in That, with a special micro episode designed to introduce you to a great American poet who is standing by to write for you.

TAPIT's new International Bureau of Custom Poetry is a new agency that puts great American poets at your service. You've already met one of our bureau poets, Sasha Lapointe, the surprise guest on a previous episode. 

Sasha  0:27  
I was like laughing a little. I was like, am I getting punked right now? Is Todd punking me? 

Todd  0:32  
In this episode, let's get real with indigenous poet, memoirist, punk rocker, and essayist Sasha LaPointe 

Sasha  0:39  
We're back. 

Todd  0:39  
Hey. 

Sasha  0:40  
Hi, 

Todd  0:42  
How are you? 

Sasha  0:42  
I'm good. I am currently on my friend's floor in Portland. This is her burlesque studio.

Todd  0:49  
Cool. 

Sasha  0:50  
Yeah. Like I was at a wild punk show last night. And I have my reading Powell's tonight. 

Todd  0:57  
Ah, fantastic. 

Sasha  0:59  
Yeah. 

Todd  0:59  
Powell's is the biggest indie bookstore in Portland, Oregon, and bills itself as the largest indie bookstore in the world. It's an important reading venue for authors. Sasha will read tonight from her new book, Thunder Song. Tell us a little bit about it. 

Sasha  1:12  
Um, oh, gosh, this is good practice, because I have to do this later tonight.

Thunder song is a collection of essays that I wrote, you know, pretty immediately after the completion and publication of Red Paint. That was like a long process. Like, I think the poems and the memoir, were like, deeply personal, deeply vulnerable, like, just looking inward. And by the time it was all done, I was so ready to like, turn my gaze outward, and tell different stories and be like, I don't want to talk about me anymore. Like I want to talk about the world around me. I want to observe things. But when I kind of resurfaced and blinked my eyes and was like, what's going on? It was during the COVID pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protest; the murder, George Floyd had just happened. Literally half the state of Washington was on fire that year. So I felt like oh, yay, I'm gonna look at the world. And then I was like...

[record scratch] ...the world is fear rocked. And so these essays are a response to that. I have essays about being at the protests at the Capitol Hill autonomous zone. I have essays about being a Two Spirit, queer, Indigenous woman decolonizing my diet and relationships. Some people are like scientists. Some people are doctors. Some people paint things. Like, when the world is doing world things, what brings me to the page is trying to make sense of the madness.

Todd  2:50  
I think it's really interesting. The arc that you went through with Bonnie. Sasha's guest appearance on TAPIT episode four, had her writing for Bonnie, a white woman living in Sasha's native Skagit Valley, who seemed to have little knowledge of the Indigenous community around her. Sasha's poem changed that. But you might remember how very candid Sasha was about the mixed feelings it triggered for her. 

Sasha  3:13  
This is a woman who I have virtually nothing in common with except for, like, geography. I have to say, I was like, I have to ask Todd why he chose me for this particular one. 

Todd  3:25  
People who talked to me about that episode said that being there with you, that was really key to kind of realizing that this is difficult for poets, and that there's more than meets the eye around it. Right. 

Sasha  3:38  
Yeah. 

Todd  3:38  
I wonder if you could talk more about that. Now that some time has elapsed? 

Sasha  3:41  
Yeah, um, I'm actually really grateful for that experience. In fact, I've been just recently mucking around in a new manuscript, and the Bonnie poem was in my files, and I was like, Oh, wow, does this fit? Where would this go? And I found its place. I mean, who knows what will happen with this manuscript, but I, like, found its place. And it's different than my other ones. But it's not not in my voice. Right. Like, it was interesting, because I felt like it pushed me out of my regular wheelhouse. You know, I have the things that I come to the page for, I have the things that I'm like, oh, no, I'm, I'm pissed off about this, or I'm really moved by this. I'm gonna write it. And to be totally honest, it's like what do I have in common? Or what would my voice even have in common with a, you know, 60 year old, like, white woman? I have nothing in common with this human, right, other than the fact that we're humans. Not to be disrespectful. Bonnie was lovely. Bonnie was amazing. Yeah, Bonnie was a gem.

Todd  4:39  
Bonnie is a gem. We love you, Bonnie.

Sasha  4:41  
But to kind of try to find something that would authentically connect to her that, she would appreciate, that she would get something out of I'm like, I'm, a, you know, weirdo, or freaky little Coast Salish woman, what do I have, possibly in common with this white woman who lives in Skagit Valley? And then it's like the...oh, the thing is Skagit Valley. Yeah, the place to pull the canoes onto the beach. And so that was my, that was my doorway, death settles and pulls the leaves from there trees, like a dance, like a ritual of grief and ceremony. That experience was really good for me. But it was a challenge. It was definitely a challenge. 

Todd  5:23  
Yeah. Can you imagine doing this work again, for someone who's just as different and doesn't share that landscape with you?

Sasha  5:32  
I would have to find my in, you know, like there always would have like something. (Yeah.) And there's always...I guess that's the thing that this taught me too, like...there's always something that you can find and kind of connect to, latch onto, and be like, oh, we shared this experience. Yeah, I say that now. But then if you came at me with like, here's this person. I'd like, whoa, whoa. I don't know.

Todd  5:55  
Yes. Bring it on, I will get to access a challenge in the offing. The challenge, dear listener, is all yours. 808-300-0449.

What does this mean for you in terms of thinking about your own reader, your own audience? Because who are you writing for? If it's complicated to think that your poems could connect with someone who's that different from you? 

Sasha  6:22  
Yeah, I guess I try not to think about the audience that...and that's real. That's not like a bullshit answer. Because I think if you think too much about the audience, and I tell this to my students in creative writing, like, because they'll be like, Oh, I can't write this because someone might read it or this person. And it's like, don't think about that when you're writing, then. If I think about the audience, as an anxious person, I will freak out. I suppose, in an intimate way, I write for people, like very specific people, where I'm like, this is about that one time we were on a road trip, and I fell in love with you. We're best friends. I write poems, certainly for people, and I have them in mind. 

Todd  7:03  
Do you have your poems handy if I asked you to read something that you've written for someone else? 

Sasha  7:08  
Yeah, I've got a couple. Let's see. Let me find a good one.

Okay, I found...

Todd  7:16  
Do you want to tell us anything about it first, or just... 

Sasha  7:19  
No. I feel like this is just so directly to someone. So I feel like it'll hurt it... 

Todd  7:26  
Yeah, great. Great. 

Sasha  7:28  
Okay. S.O.T.D. 

Todd  7:30  
S.OT.D. stands for song of the day.

Sasha  7:33  
mixtapes are the new/ smoke signals/ this distance traversed/ by Joy Division/ by Sonic Youth/ by all the things/ you found/ in the post-punk/ section/ send me song lyrics/ send me passages/ send me anything/ you made that day/ and stay with me/ a moment longer/ brush strokes/ and skate videos/ did you know/ Henry Miller/ sent Anaïs Nin/ love letters/ two friends/ entangled/ in language/ remember when/ we went to Paris/ remember the bridge/ and the wine/ we’ve never been to Paris/ but if your memory/ is as bad as mine/ there is no one/ to blow our cover/ so let us dance awhile/ and the miles between us are/ only part of the choreography/ are you still awake/ are you still at the party/ maybe one day/ we’ll marry/ other people/ and we won’t be/ at the other’s/ wedding/ but we’ll raise a glass/ and ask/ have you heard this one/ another song/ that reminds me of you/ Slouching Towards Bethlehem/ and Perfume/ a photograph/ a cup of coffee/ the stranger / at the show/ you should know/ that I’m always/ thinking/ about/ you

Todd  8:55  
It's a letter.

Sasha  8:56  
Yeah. And I feel like so many of my poems are that. I'm always amazed when people were like, Oh, I really liked that. And I'm like, cool, like...

Todd  9:04  
Wow, wow. 

Sasha  9:05  
I feel like it's so specific that sometimes that's bad. Like, I admire poets that can go write about, like, the tundra and the sea. And, like, it's just not my brain. 

Todd  9:17  
You do you, I say. You do you. All right. Let's see. So writing for other people, demystifying Sasha Lapointe, which, by the way is not difficult. Where does that leave us? How are you going to spend your afternoon before you go to Powell's? 

Sasha  9:33  
So we're thinking about going to go soak somewhere. Like, I love being in water. Whether that's swimming in the ocean, or what, I just am a water baby. And there's some really cool like, weird little, like, not spas. It's not bougie; it's not.. 

Todd  9:47  
Hot springs. 

Sasha  9:48  
Yeah. And so we're thinking of going there. So I can just like find a place to soak, take a bath, practice my reading. Whatever it is, it's going to be super chilled because I'm very nervous about Powell's. I don't know why I'm up on this like (wow) crazy pedestal for me where I'm like, "This is Powell's!" L ike, I need to practice  and chill. 

Todd  10:12  
That's great. 

Sasha  10:13  
Yeah.

Todd  10:13  
You will be amazing. Just be yourself because you are adorable, and I fell in love with you instantly on meeting you. You just have such a nice magnetic personality. It's easy to like Sasha Lapointe. You'll do fine. You'll do fine.

If you'd like to filter your poetic inspiration through the lens of a millennial with one foot in an ancestral world, wouldn't it be fascinating to hire Sasha?

For complete details about the International Bureau of Custom Poetry and the poets in it, visit our website poeminthat.com/poets. I'm Todd Boss, reminding you that there's a poem in everything. Now that there's a bureau for that

Sasha  10:57  
Am I getting punked right now?  Is Todd punking me?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai