Interview with Spoken Word Artist and Notorious Poet, Winter Wright

Papers: Where did you grow up, and how did your environment and people around you shape you into the writer you are today?

Winter: I grew up in the Bronx, NY. It was the best and worse of times. Family was a big asset to me. My mother’s home was like a hub. Many people in our family who ended up homeless, out of jail, or just in a bad way found themselves living in our living room. I was exposed to a lot. Drugs, abuse, poverty, laughter, community, and sometimes moments that were a combination of all the aforementioned.

Writing became a way for me to ventilate or reimagine my world, depending on what my soul needed. I actually started out writing remixes to my favorite songs. I would perform these “songs” in my mother’s living room turned shelter turned stage.

People would gather in the living room and listen to me rap, sing, read poetry, dance, act, etc. I would overhear people tell my mother how talented I am. It gave me the confidence to join glee clubs and choirs throughout my middle and high school career.

This environment made me extremely compassionate. I’ve lived with just about any person you can think of, and I’ve seen the better parts of them. I learned that people, myself included, are complex. I always leave room for that part of humanity.

Papers: That’s amazing. It seems like family has always played a major role in your life, and continues to be prevelant now that you have a family of your own. Which brings us to a poem of yours that we recently published on our site, Post Part Um?—where you speak openly about your challenges revolving motherhood. Do you mind telling us a bit more about that experience, and how parenting has shifted your writing style?

Winter: Motherhood was one of the biggest transitions I’ve ever experienced. When I wrote Post Part Um?, I wanted to encapsulate the identity crisis I experienced (sometimes still experience) when I became a mother. I constantly felt like things had to be together and no one could see me sweat. This led to postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. I was wearing so many hats and wearing myself down in the process.

This poem describes the moment I knew I had to get help. I had locked myself in the bathroom and cried harder than I ever had before. I remember looking in the mirror and not even recognizing myself. I had never saw myself so… distraught.

I thought, “If I feel this alone, I can only imagine there is another mother out there who feels the same way.”

Motherhood has liberated my writing. I’ve always felt compelled to tell the stories of the oppressed and misunderstood. Now, more than ever, I want to personify all the voices that get drowned out in the noise of our society. I want to make a relic of these voices for generations to come. I want them to know the battles that were fought on their behalf.

Papers: Your writing continues to evolve, and that is something we quickly noticed about you. Your involvement in the New York City spoken-word community is extraordinary, and you’re also balancing that with your newly released poetry book entitled, SO(u)L—can you talk about the differences between spoken word and publishing, and how has one encouraged or hindered the other?

Winter: Before I was a “spoken word poet,” I was just a girl who wrote poetry. I never considered taking it to the stage until 2017, when I visited Nuyorican Poets Cafe and listened to some amazing poets. Something tapped me on my shoulder and said I should give it a try. When I first started, I read. But it was hard to connect with my listeners. Before I knew it I was channeling my inner child in my mother’s living room.

There was something so validating about being accepted into this community.

Writing for the stage and writing for a page are always very different processes for me. Work that I perform has to resonate with an audience in a short amount of time. When you write a book or submit a literary work to be published, you are creating more layers for your reader to grasp. You want it to be the gift that keeps on giving.

SO(u)L is an anthology of my relationship with my body. Each chapter is a poetic, parenthetical description of where it’s been at each stage physically, mentally, and emotionally. I wanted to ask hard questions and answer them.

Papers: In the past our editor described your work as being both triumphant with a dash of melancholy, and that theme seems to be celebrated in many of your pieces, both on and off the stage. Do you mind talking about where that comes from?

Winter: First, thank you for that awesome description.

I think it comes from my will to survive and keep myself whole, no matter what. I’ve seen a lot of people let their circumstances run them into the grave, to a drug, to the arms of an abuser, to self sabotage. I guess a part of me is ministering to those people. I give voices to their, our tragedies and give them death too.

Papers: Lastly, what does it mean to be Winter, and how would you want your audience to engage with you and your story?

Winter: To be Winter and to engage with Winter, you have to be a conqueror or have the interest in being one. I write and perform for those who feel unheard, ashamed, misunderstood. I was once them and I want them to know that there is life, possibility, and purpose waiting for them.

My ideal audience supports my work, they come to my workshops, they believe in me and themselves, and they share how l impacted them to help me with my mission.

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You can purchase Winter’s collection of poems entitled SO(u)L on Amazon.