It's a sunny day in Georgia when I sit down at my computer, steel my nerves, and enter a video call I've been anxiously anticipating; an interview with Saul Williams. It's the first Thursday in May, 207 days after the occupying forces in Palestine launched an escalation of genocidal violence, a US-backed militarized campaign that has killed over 40,000 people and desecrated the whole of Gaza. While the nation-state does its ugly work, there is still yet poetry. Poems, in the encampments on college campuses, within the mutual aid efforts that defy borders. Poetry in each literary institution boycott, each declaration of solidarity backed by direct action, and every glorious effort of mutual aid. In this twisted choreography of resistance, our poems dare to survive. So do we, and it is worth writing down.
While we do all we can to—as poet Rasha Abdulhadi puts it—"get in the way of Empire," I'm interested in what poetics offers us by way of strategy. I'm interested in what the mechanics of world-building look like for writers against genocide and fascism. I'm interested in the dreams and fascinations of poets who write as a means of liberation. For many of us, it is simple. Our nation is waging an attack by proxy; employing political, cultural, and religious manipulation that thwarts protest and engineers public consent. We've been severed into those who condemn apartheid and those who abide by it—our so-called middle grounds reduced to rubble, covered with white phosphorus. While politics is a theater, poetics is a suturing: weaving a bond between us and our convictions, between our theories, and praxes. Poetics makes plain the relationship between a forest on the southeast side of Atlanta and a resilient slip of land west of the Jordan River. This folio invites you to stand with us, your left hand touching the rough oak trees of Weelaunee, and your right hand holding a branch from Gaza's many olive trees. Come, consider how even the air you inhale moves between us the same way… Holding us together as we survive unthinkable circumstances. Pushing at our backs as we fight.
An artist committed to weaving the work while naming these stakes is Saul Williams. A genre-defying, creative savant who describes himself as an "artist first," Williams' work traverses the realms of poetry, rap, film, theater, and instrumentation. He's known for politically rooted projects that don't shy away from critiquing the violence of capitalism, racism, and misogyny, across the creative and political domain. Williams comes off as an anti-celebrity-celebrity—the kind of man who casually recalls disagreements on "Black Capitalism" and misogynoir with famed rappers, all while escaping the sauntering apathy toward capitalist violence, as his hip-hop peers seem to wear it like cloaks. He offers familial critiques of other artists by name with a similar air—laughter, dry humor, and an almost tender, intimate chiding. Saul's rise to notoriety began in the summer of 1996, first as the Nuyorican Slam Poetry Champion, continuing with the release of the cult classic documentary SlamNation. By the time of his 1998 acting and screenwriting debut in the feature film SLAM!, Williams embedded himself in poetry and hip-hop culture. The following decades saw Williams making cameos in hit television shows, performing alongside Erykah Badu, Sonia Sanchez, and Nine Inch Nails (to name a few), and creating anti-war critiques of US Policy across genre and medium.
As I waited for him to join the video call, my nerves weren't merely for admiration for Williams and his work. I was (and am, still) wary of the apathy that celebrity incentivizes. I don't believe any famed artist is doing enough. What might our conversation reap? And honestly, what is enough? Who among us has earned the right to declare we've done so? Williams himself detests the idea of being a solo voice, being listened to louder than others in a room. So, consider our conversation alongside poets George Abraham and Rasha Abdulhadi, who organize in community and literary spaces against the disappearance of Palestinian resistance, and Palestinian people. Consider them alongside a lyric essay from poet and writer mónica ortiz, who moves with a tender consideration of the "self" and the stakes. Consider all of these words, reader. Turn to these poets like political strategists or revolutionary choreographers, like grassroots cartographers. Turn to them as trees, cleaning the smog of the State from the air so we can breathe. Turn to them, then turn toward yourself. Then, face forward. We got work to do.
With You,
Aurielle Marie.
AURIELLE MARIE (AM): Saul, thank you so much for agreeing to meet today. My first real question is, how are you?
SAUL WILLIAMS (SW): Well, I would say that as distressing as the clampdown of the establishment, from the top down, from the President to media pundits, to college professors, to police, to IOF officers, that's how much my heart and soul is with the people of Palestine—and, of course, with *all* disenfranchised people across the board! I feel invigorated, despite.
AM: I share that vigor. Who are you carrying with you today?
SW: I mean, I'm aware that this is a marathon that we are running. This fight is a marathon. And in many ways what's happening now is so crucial to how we construct, you know, future identities—like what does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be Black? What does it mean to be alive? To be someone who resists? I'm carrying all of the wisdom of all of the ancestors, writers, poets, artists, thinkers, philosophers, [and] activists. People who were taken out, people who dedicated their lives, people who have roadmaps to liberation that remain unfulfilled, just as I carry the present-day martyrs.
AM: Ooof. Yes to that… You know, Audre Lorde called poetry "…the quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives." That definition has been a beacon for me as a writer—allowing me to see poetry and poetics as not a container, but a lens, or scope. I know that you've talked about poetry being in our living and not just work on a page.
SW: Absolutely.
AM: But what is the way a poet should be, in the world? What is the responsibility of the poet off of that page?
SW: Well, first, I would raise the question of whether we are ever off of the page. We are "writing" through our choices, small acts, dialogue, the things we pledge allegiance to, and the things we are critical of. I tend to look at poetry as code, if you will. All of us are something-slash-something else. Whether we are poet/organizers, poet/teachers, poet/painters, poet/musicians, there are poet/lawyers, you know—we [all] are balancing acts. So it's crucial that we instigate that balance by realizing that we have to let these worlds bleed into each other. Let our visions bleed into each other, our activities bleed into each other.
AM: Yeah, that'll preach. That's good. It's intricate, really delicate work. I'm a writer and a poet, but I also live less than 10 minutes from Weelaunee Forest, where Cop City is being built. I'm from this place, I see the way that Empire is at work, both on the artistic side and on the political side.
SW: Well, you know, [we would] really have to struggle to find how all of these things are *not* connected. [laughs]
AM: You feel me? [laughs]
SW: I spent 10 years, researching, writing, composing, and working around the last film, Neptune Frost, that my partner Anisia and I did, where we were essentially breaking down what was happening in the Congo. It was 2010 when someone [in Senegal] exposed us to the reality of e-waste camps. Where our tech goes to die.
AM: E-waste camps are still prevalent?!
SW: These e-waste camps across the continent and the world, are positioned near the mines where the colton, cobalt, and all of the materials that go into our machinery are sourced. I started making connections, first of all, between the so-called technological progress of society and how it was so heavily based on a very analog form of exploitation. Sudan as well, right, because Sudan is rich in gold and resources. And of course, what goes on in the Congo has *everything* to do with the resources of that land. The same is true for North and South Korea, for Ukraine. In all of these cases, these lands are resource-rich, and the powers that be are willing to form militias, to pit militias against each other. They are willing to do all sorts of things for the sake of "progress" in society.
All this kind of tripped me out as the hood started getting more like gold and diamond-y. Thinking about [it] at that time, they started calling it conflict minerals. I remember the first time I met Kanye, he was about to put out his second album with [he begins singing] Diamonds are Forever. Yea. I had had a conversation with him and Hype Williams, actually, about Sierra Leone. [This] in turn, led to that song being called "Diamonds from Sierra Leone," which led to them making a video that traced the diamond. Ultimately it didn't change anything, other than the title of a song. It didn't lessen these niggas' affinity to bling!
AM: You know, the chains was still poppin'! [both laugh]
SW: But, you know, it was a personal conversation. And I remember being in the position to say… you guys sound…hypocritical. What are you guys protecting? What power are you protecting? Right? We have an opportunity, daily, to operate that critique, to facilitate dialogue. I do think that there is a crucial importance to the way that we operate [with] each other, and that eventually reaches society… I forgot what question I was responding to.
AM: It's all right! This is my favorite kind of dialogue. [both laugh]
SM: I mean, I took this interview because I appreciate you. But in these moments I'm so tired of my voice…
AM: [interrupting] No, wait. Am I allowed to disagree with the person I'm interviewing? [laughs]
SW: Yeah, if you want!
AM I think there is the alchemic work, certainly. But I think dialogue is alchemic too, potentially. The way that we talk to one another, the things that come up, what surfaces or materializes because we are chewing through something that we don't quite have clean language for yet. I think that is all a part of the poem.
SW: Hm. I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking about the modes of defense, we go into. Like… recently, I remember hearing like, J. Cole a few weeks ago, say something transphobic.
AM: Of course.
SW: Right? And I'm like, what's wrong with these cats? Same thing with Dave Chappelle These are people that—in some cases it's people I know or I know people near them—they're surrounded by men who don't call them out. They're surrounded by men who think that shit is funny. They're not surrounded by anyone who says, "You know, that's fucked up because bah, bah, bah." They don't get that critique. As we become more and more cognizant of these things that are happening, and the role[s] that we play, or can play… in defusing, transforming, shifting these things—all of it is crucial. I remember being a teenager, boycotting Coca-Cola, Reebok, Exxon, Shell—because my older sister came home from Fisk [University] and said, "We're not partaking in this because they're invested in South Africa's Apartheid."
AM: Boycott born of a simple conversation.
SW: Yeah!
AM: I love that you landed there because I have this question about so many of my favorite artists, maybe I'm looking for a blueprint, a how. How does one Saul Williams come to be themselves in a world where talent and access could have otherwise taken you down an apathetic professional path? How do we create more artists who see resisting genocide and revolution, as intertwined with making "good art"?
SW: Well, look… on one hand, yes, it's in the personal. There is the fact that my parents were activists in the community. I mean, my mom was a school teacher, and my dad was a pastor. My parents celebrated artists that had something to say: Odetta, Sidney Poitier or Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte, these types of people—so for me, there was [already] an association of art with movement. It was politics. So I found it very strange when people would try to dissect it. Right? Even with early hip-hop, it was, "Oh, no, no, no, no, we using this platform to SAY something." The hardest beats [were] coupled with stuff that made you think. I listen to Fela and I'm like, "God damn," you know? His life is on the line in these songs. He took his mother's coffin and carried it to the Prime Minister's house and the name of that song was "Coffin for Head of State." I'm lucky to have read Octavia Butler as a teenager. To have read Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker, as a teenager. I don't know how I could turn out any other way.
AM: Amazing. I've been writing a book and reading a lot about theoretical fugitivity and fugitive poetics right now, a lot of Fred Moten. Which, of course, leads me to Sonia Sanchez. So Imma call on her a little bit and ask you, where do you reimagine yourself? And, well, where do you imagine the students on campus, the folks surviving in Gaza—where are we headed? Where is this world headed? Where do you hope that we're headed, if I dare to ask about hope [laughs].
SW: Normally, my response to the question of hope is, like, I don't really fuck with hope. As the Tao says, "Hope is as hollow as fear. Have faith in the way things are." It's true, that the armies are formed against us. It's also true that we've formed an army. We are capable of dismantling the imperialistic and colonial goals of our leadership. I would simply say that we are in the position to stop production.
AM: That's right.
SW: We are in the position to freeze assets. Make the 1% and the leadership hear us—I know they already do, even as they do everything in their power to shift narratives and deflect conversations…
AM: Some would say that's precisely why, you know.
SW: Of course, of course. So, I believe that [in] these encampments, and [in] Gaza, we've always found ways to exist and excel in confined spaces. What happens when we transform that vision? I dream of excellent education [and healthcare] being readily available to all people in this country. Abolitionism—restructuring our relationship to punishment. Part of the reason why I am so active in this moment is because there is an opening here… For me, that has been the goal of every single thing I've done in my career: try to be like when Pac said, "I may not change the world, but I may spark the mind that does." I think it's so crucial for us to be listening, reading, and participating in actions that can bring down the system. I look at art as a weapon. And I'm not here saying everybody's actions need to be nonviolent, either. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that everybody plays their part.
AM: Whew.
SW: Listen. That question of where are we heading? Mostly, I'm just excited to see! Sometimes you stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, and sometimes we have to stand on their necks. Art can feed, can build, and when it does, it does it so well. I mean, you mentioned Sonia Sanchez—Sonia Sanchez is still *alive.* We be celebrating bullshit people, while many of the voices that could teach us so much are *still alive,* you know? There are so many, as I've already stated, people who have left bread crumbs who have left maps of how we can approach this idea of the future.
SW: [US Empire] thinks a good idea of the future should involve cops with drones, guns, and da-da-da-da-da-da. All the shit that's tested out on Palestinians that they then bring [here]. So I think that we have troubled times ahead. But I do believe that we can make it through to the other side. That's good travel. And good trouble. It's a fight worth fighting.
AM: Yeah.
SW: And it's worth pointing your pen in that direction. Your voice and your heart. Forming deep bonds, and realizing, as many of us have been doing, who's actually ready to get down and dirty? Because it's time to get down and dirty. You don't do that without risking something…
AM: That's it!
SW: That's the thing. But that's also where great art comes from.
AM: Yeah, that troubled, troubled spot. I imagine a lot of writers and artists, a lot of people will read this article and find themselves in a place of scarcity and fear. Will be trying to figure out the choreography of holding that balance, as you said earlier. They're like "I'm working on this grant," or " I go to this college.."
SW: "I work at a movie theatre, I just make popcorn."
AM: Exactly! "I'm making 12 bucks an hour." Who would you point those people to for the breadcrumbs? I'm thinking about folks like the departed Refaat Alareer and Walid Daqqa, who were both martyred by the state. Pearl Cleage. What artists would you send to folks who are trying to find their balance?
SW: When I was a student at NYU, there was a place called Bleeker Books. It was *packed* with old books, really packed. And I used to go into the back of that store, and just kind of spin around and stomp my foot to see what fell. Literally. And the book that fell, I'd be like, "Okay, that's what I'm supposed to read."
AM: Yeah. I love the body as Oracle. I love that. [both laugh]
SW: The first time I did that, the book was by Carlos Fuentes. Terra Nostra. And it actually [changed] my life. I'm wary of saying the "Oh, you should dah-dah-dah…" because every path is different. You're not going to read it until you're ready anyway.
AM: Asé. That's a good check.
SW: People already have a list of things that they intend to check out. There's somebody reading this who *heard* of Sonia Sanchez, or who *heard* Audre Lorde, or who *heard* of June Jordan—but never took the time to read. Who *heard* of Octavia Butler and always meant to grab Parable of the Sower or Parable of the Talents. So maybe it's Samuel Delaney that's for you, or maybe it's Carlos Fuentes for you. Or maybe it's Pearl Cleage—the Pearl Cleage!
AM: So is it just… be on your way? And the map is gon' find you?
SW: Yeah, be on your way. Like, pay attention to the signs. Read the signs. Inspired simply means "to breathe in." To inhale. Inspire, breathe in. Expire, breathe out. Suspire, stop breathing. Inspiration is everywhere—as long as you alive! Oftentimes, my inspiration comes from the suspired. [They] may not be breathing anymore, but their work sho' is. The goal is to make work that breathes forever. That's what that poem by Refaat is about.
AM: I can't think of a more brilliant way to land. That was glorious. Thank you so much for your time and for your labor. I really appreciate it.
SW: I appreciate you and it was a pleasure to talk to you.