<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the midst of writing your poems, you have to allow them to do and be what they want to do and be. And if you\u2019re writing the poems that you\u2019re really supposed to be writing, they should be scaring you. They should be having you ask questions about what you really value.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u2014Jericho Brown<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the spring of 2009, Jericho Brown came to Kalamazoo, Michigan to read from his debut collection, Please<\/em> (New Issues). The dynamism of the poems\u2019 emotions and music as embodied by Brown lit up the room and breathed a kind of tenderness, a stunned alertness, into the audience. I remember it so vividly because I was in the room, an undergrad just beginning to dedicate my life to poetry. Fast-forward 9 years later and Brown sits across from me, generously thoughtful, charismatic, and ever-curious on the eve of his third book, The Tradition <\/em>(Copper Canyon). At Washington University in Saint Louis as the Visiting Hurst Professor, his dedication to poetry\u2013the craft of writing as much as the cultivation of a community of readers and writers\u2013feels unwavering and, to me, galvanizing.<\/p>\n In addition to an anecdote about once, as a teenager, meeting Gwendolyn Brooks (!), Brown reflects on the beginnings of his career, his evolving writing process, and what it means to \u201cstay vulnerable to the work\u201d in a culture that primes us to run away from intimacy.<\/p>\n Aaron Coleman:<\/strong> What does it feel like to be releasing your third poetry collection?<\/p>\n Jericho Brown:<\/strong> I\u2019ve never felt so free about a book coming out. The first time I wrote a book it was my defense for my PhD and it was also the book that allowed me to get the job that I got, so everything about my first book was attached to something that made it necessary in the world for me to be able to pay bills and eat and pay rent. There\u2019s that desperation or need for a job. There\u2019s a way that, yes, you commit your life to poetry. But then after that you still gotta eat.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> 100%.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And with the second book, it was the same thing. I had changed jobs and in order to get tenure at this new job I needed another book. I think my second book was written by sheer force and will. I really pushed. A lot of those poems came from exercises. I believe in those as poems but what I mean is that they didn\u2019t come to me line by line like a lot these poems in this book. This book was like<\/strong> something speaking at, to, and through me<\/strong>. It felt like something in me and something in the world had to answer to one another. <\/strong>And that answer came through these poems. There was no reason for me to make these poems other than the fact that these poems needed to be made.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Sort of like the stakes have changed.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> It also feels like this book was, somehow, both rigorous and effortless. I miss writing this book. I miss the engagement I felt. It\u2019s actually hard for me to talk about it without getting emotional, because it was all I cared about. It\u2019s funny, because it\u2019s not a person, but I was at a point when this book was the thing in my life. It was all I wanted to spend time with . . . [laughs]<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> You were living with the book.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And, at first, when you have a few poems, you don\u2019t know that. And then, after the numbers change, after you\u2019ve got more than a few poems, you go: oh, I might<\/em> be working on a book. Then you write some more poems and you realize: oh, this is my book I\u2019m working on! And this is what it does, and this is what it\u2019s gonna do or <\/em>I don\u2019t know<\/em> what it does and I don\u2019t know <\/em>what it\u2019s gonna do! But when I say \u2018rigorous\u2019 I mean that many of the poems, for whatever reason . . . I became really attracted to a certain kind of rigor and certain kind of difficulty. I wanted to make certain figures work. I knew that I was dealing with certain kinds of architecture within the poems. I invented a form. I was doing all kinds of things that you don\u2019t have to do to write a good poem. But I wanted<\/em> to do that. And I say \u2018effortless\u2019 because it was hard work that didn\u2019t feel like hard work, it just felt like joy.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And at the end of it . . . you can ask close friends about this, Ayana Mathis, you can ask Michael Shewmaker, Malachi Black, at the end of it . . . I thought I was going to die. Because between Thanksgiving and I would say, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I wrote so many poems that I really . . . I was writing a poem a day. And it wasn\u2019t a poem a day that I sat down at my writing time to write. It was a poem a day that would be chasing<\/em> me.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Right!<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> You know this feeling. It\u2019s sort of like you get a line and it\u2019s like, \u201cActually right now I\u2019m driving this car . . . but . . .\u201d<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> . . . but I need to get this thing down . . . it\u2019s coming . . .<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Yeah! [laughs] There was a two-month period. It was the end of the semester and then New Year\u2019s Eve I caught the flu\u2014I don\u2019t know why nobody tells anybody this, but it feels like you\u2019re going to die, and you really could. Especially with the flu this past year. And I\u2019m telling you, I had the flu, and I was still out here writing poems. I could barely move, and I was trying to get to my keyboard. I was writing on pieces of paper in my bed.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Ugh. I caught the flu last winter, too. The bone aches. When it\u2019s hard to even open your eyes . . .<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And still I felt so overcome by this book. And so, why am I happy to see it come out? Because it\u2019s a book that I had a relationship that I didn\u2019t have [with the others].<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> What do you think brought on that surge of writing?<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> I think reading outside of my own genre, for one thing. Because so many people applied to [our job search at Emory], I was reading a lot of fiction that I hadn\u2019t read before. And I think a lot of the work that had come between the second and third books influenced how I was thinking, [there was] a lot of the poetry that I had been reading in the meantime. There were [Collected Poems<\/em>] from Frank Bidart and Rita Dove that were really important to me. A book by Monica Youn called Blackacre.<\/em> A book by Robyn Schiff called A Woman of Property<\/em>. I sort of felt the influence. Obviously, Claudia [Rankine\u2019s] book had come out\u2014my second book came out the same year as Citizen<\/em>. There were a lot of books that were starting to change my thinking about poetry. When you read a good poem you really feel like you\u2019ve come upon something. That you have<\/em> something. Like you own something you did not own before.<\/strong><\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> That you have a new tool for your life now.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And that\u2019s what I\u2019m after. And the Black Lives Matter movement [was an influence]. Then Moonlight<\/em> came out. I saw Moonlight<\/em>, I think, nine times.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Whew!<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> I could probably recite it for you now. [laughs] And I know it had a lot to do with me being able to write so much.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> That\u2019s a lot. You\u2019ve got me thinking about the value of new ingredients, that there are all sorts of new possibilities, new ways of seeing the world and new ways of moving through the world, because of them.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> I also feel like I have to say that, I feel like once this book comes out I will suddenly be a mid-career poet.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Whoooo. What is that?<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Exactly! What is that!? I don\u2019t know what that is, but I know that\u2019s the truth. I know that when this book comes out my responsibility to the community shifts a little bit. And it\u2019s important that I recognize that shift. And I think that\u2019s hilarious because I wasn\u2019t thinking about any of that while I was writing the book. I do think there\u2019s a difference in our world between having two and having three books if you take time between books. I mean, if you have three books in a year then maybe it\u2019s not such a difference. For me it\u2019ll be three books in eleven years and it\u2019ll also mean that I\u2019ve been doing this for more than a decade. And so, I think that in our world at least, that comes with responsibilities, but I\u2019m not sure what those responsibilities are.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Well, as you were saying, maybe the word\u2019s not \u201csecurity\u201d but there\u2019s something different now at your third book.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Yeah, security\u2019s a good word. Maybe that\u2019s one difference in the responsibility. The community has provided me with security and maybe I need to be providing people with more security.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Well, I don\u2019t know. I mean for poets like myself you\u2019ve been gracious to us in many different ways for a very long time. I remember in your Divedapper<\/em> interview<\/a> you spoke about being an \u201cambassador\u201d for poetry.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Yeah, you have to do it. I have to say I am suspicious of poets who don\u2019t. But then again, I don\u2019t really know poets who don\u2019t. Sometimes I\u2019ll meet a poet and it\u2019s like, \u201cSo what are you doing?\u201d But then it eventually it comes out that . . .<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> . . . they\u2019re being an ambassador in one way or another. Whether it\u2019s education or teaching.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Right. I don\u2019t think anybody else does it the way we do it. Writing reviews, posting a blog, running presses, running reading series, taking a picture with the book and posting it on social media, sitting with people to talk about their poems. <\/strong>I think about some of the people when I was first writing poems that were like, \u201cOh, show me some of your poems.\u201d And I would show them some poems! And they would sit with me and they would tell me all the reasons why my poems were bad. And, I mean, they could have been out getting laid! They could have been doing anything else. But that was the else that they wanted to do.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> I remember the first time I heard your work. You were reading from Please<\/em>, at The Little Theatre in Kalamazoo, and those poems, \u201cTrack 4: Reflections\u2014as performed by Diana Ross,\u201d \u201cTrack 5: Summertime\u2014as performed by Janis Joplin.\u201d I was just floored.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> You were so young and you had so much hair!<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Yup, the long locks.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And you were so wide-eyed.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> I was wide-eyed because I\u2019d just come out of your reading.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> But you were also just looking at me like, you were basically like, \u201cSo, tell me what to do!\u201d [pounds fist on thigh]<\/p>\n [Both laugh hard<\/em>]<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And I was like, \u201cRight now? While I\u2019m signing these books?!\u201d You just had this look of, \u201cJust tell me how to do this.\u201d And I was just like, \u201cUm, welp\u2014I can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Right, there\u2019s no one thing to be told. \u201cJust walk the path!\u201d You know you\u2019ve always identified those things in me before I\u2019ve been able to clearly say it or notice it in myself because, yeah, I was just looking for answers in a very . . . blunt, earnest way.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> But you also knew something.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Well, I saw what you were doing, I think.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Yeah you saw what I was doing but something in you knew what to look for\u2014and figured out where to go to get it. And something in you also knew what you wanted. I mean you might not have had words for it. But still that\u2019s very specific, that\u2019s very particular. You know? There\u2019s no reason why anybody would [want to] be a poet.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Right. [laughs]<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> You know? There\u2019s a reason why you were wide-eyed and the reason why you were like \u201cI need this<\/em> and I need it now<\/em>.\u201d There are plenty of people who go to readings and enjoy the reading . . .<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> . . . and they don\u2019t have that \u201cI need this<\/em> and I need it now<\/em>\u201d feeling.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> What I remember about that reading was that, from the vantage point of the podium, there was a pocket of black people sitting on the right toward the back and every time I had a little bit of a joke in a poem they would laugh. And the other people didn\u2019t know that it was okay to laugh because, you know, tones change in poems<\/em>. My poems have funny moments, but that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re funny poems.<\/strong> But the black people didn\u2019t mind that, they would laugh. So, it seemed to me like they really enjoyed the reading, too, but they weren\u2019t out there trying to figure out how I made it happen. We watch movies all the time but that doesn\u2019t mean we try to go be actors or directors.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Right, even if we love the movie.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Right, so what I mean is, part of the reason why I would be interested in answering whatever questions you had, it had something to do with something that I feel is outside of me. You know? If you\u2019ve been called, then I need to recognize it doesn\u2019t have that much to do with you or<\/em> me. I\u2019m just the person given to you in that moment and I\u2019ve got a job to do.<\/strong> I can at least tell you something to read even if I can\u2019t look at your poems.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Wow, yeah.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And why not [look at it like that]? We don\u2019t know . . . it all seems like\u2014nobody likes it when I talk like this, but I don\u2019t care\u2014it all seems very calling-oriented. And you were called to it.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> I have no problem thinking of it like that. And I can\u2019t say enough about you sensing the way that I was wide open in that moment. The kindness and generosity even in that first small interaction.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Well, I appreciate that. The nicest poet to ever live is a woman named Gwendolyn Brooks. Anybody who ever met her would agree with me. The kindness of poets is a great, amazing, kindness. And Gwendolyn Brooks was the queen <\/em>of that kindness.<\/strong> I have seen her sit and sign books and talk to individuals in a book line that went around the chapel of my undergraduate school. And I remember, after she had signed all those books and talked to all those people, when she was getting ready to go and packing her bag (we were taking her to this restaurant that was about to close because we\u2019d missed our reservation). I was very young, I must\u2019ve been 19 years old. I remember her standing in the doorway looking around saying, \u201cHold on, let me make sure. Does anybody else have anything for me to sign?\u201d And I remember when we sat down to dinner at this restaurant\u2014I think we went to Dooky Chase\u2014she asked me if I had read the recent anthology of African American Literature that had come out at that time. It was edited by Henry Louis Gates and she attempted<\/em> to have a conversation about Black writing.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And I remember, I didn\u2019t have the words then, but I know it now; I remember feeling like, I can\u2019t have this conversation this woman is trying to have with me, but I should be able to. And at some point, I realize she knows it!<\/em> Gwendolyn Brooks asked me, \u201cwhat is your conception of the line?\u201d And I\u2019m like, now this woman know good and well I don\u2019t have no doggone conception of no line! Why is she coming at me with that?? [Both laugh]<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> She was giving it to you for the rest of your career!! To be thinking about the conception of the line!<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Yeah!<\/em> She was literally planting things. And she must\u2019ve known. I mean I was interested but I wasn\u2019t really able to hold a conversation of that kind, and she must\u2019ve known that. So I don\u2019t know how<\/em>, but that next week, in my mailbox, was that anthology that she tried to talk to me about, the one I didn\u2019t know existed. Signed by her. As a gift.<\/p>\n Both:<\/strong> [long sighs]<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> That. Can you imagine? Gwendolyn Brooks.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Gwendolyn Brooks.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> By that time Gwendolyn Brooks had been Gwendolyn Brooks for a long<\/em> time. And so if that can happen to me for no reason, because I wasn\u2019t bright and shiny, I wasn\u2019t reciting sonnets. There\u2019s nothing I knew. That didn\u2019t happen to me for no reason. That happened to me because that\u2019s base, regular, supposed to happen, in that woman\u2019s mind. And that\u2019s what I have to make my base standard, too.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> That\u2019s incredible. Well, I was going to ask about those persona poems from Please<\/em> that really hit me when I first met you and your work, like \u201cTrack 4\u201d and \u201cTrack 5.\u201d Or \u201cLangston\u2019s Blues\u201d in The New Testament<\/em>. I wanted to ask about what persona allows for in your writing?<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> I think there are many things that I have to say and at the time that I\u2019m writing the poem I have no idea that I could possibly be the person who\u2019s saying those things. Because the lines feel so foreign to me in the sense that you\u2019re writing and you\u2019re dealing with lines [coming to you] and you\u2019re hurrying up, you\u2019ve just got to get them down.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n JB: <\/strong>And after I write them down, I ask the poems questions. One thing I ask that blob of lines\u2014at the beginning it\u2019s always a blob\u2014I always ask, who is your speaker? And often there are hints that the speaker is not me. When I wrote, for instance, that poem \u201cTrack 5: Summertime,\u201d which I wrote at the Callaloo Writers\u2019 Workshop, by way of assignment\u2014it was an assignment that Natasha [Tretheway] gave us about writing persona poetry\u2014I remember Remica Bingham was there, Roger Reeves was there. Also Douglas Kearney, CM Burroughs.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Whoa. Jeez.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> We were all there together. I remember writing, \u201cI am such an ugly girl. I am such an ugly girl.\u201d Twice in row, and knowing it was right. I didn\u2019t know where it would go in the poem, but I knew it was right. Now, did I feel like I was ugly? No. Did I feel like I was a girl? No. And at the same time, I did<\/em> feel those lines.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Affectively.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Somehow or another I did feel like, I\u2019ve felt this before<\/em>. Real, deep exasperation. Like, look at my situation. Here. And when I asked all those lines, who is your speaker, I had to figure out who would be able to say that. And that\u2019s how the poem started moving toward Janis Joplin. So, it\u2019s not like, \u201coh, I\u2019m going to write persona poems for this purpose.\u201d It\u2019s more like poems tell me that they are made more whole, more full, as persona poems. And then I do whatever the poem needs. I know people are really smart, and they say I\u2019m going to write a poem about apples then they sit down and write a great poem about apples. I don\u2019t do that. I try to let language tell me what it wants. I try to let whatever subconscious things that come out of me show me the direction that the poem wants to go.<\/strong> If I make a metaphor early on in a poem I assume that that will be the guiding metaphor throughout the poem or that there\u2019s a family of metaphors or maybe a conceit. There\u2019s something about that early metaphor that will guide me and tell me what else I can possibly say. Same thing for sounds. If I make a certain sound I imagine that sound will come back again and that it\u2019s going to morph and shift. I\u2019m looking for those opportunities when I write a poem. Which means that if I\u2019m looking for those opportunities in sound then I can\u2019t be concerned about what things mean.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Yeah, I feel that.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> I don\u2019t write poems about the time I \u201cBLANK.\u201d I mean I couldn\u2019t. I don\u2019t write poems given a particular subject matter. I couldn\u2019t. So me finding out that a poem is a persona poem is literal [laughs]. For me, when people talk about the discovery in poetry or the revelation in poetry, for me, that\u2019s literal. And it\u2019s the reason I write. That\u2019s fun. That\u2019s a good time for me. These words have come out of me and now I\u2019m going to assume that they belong on the page for a reason and I\u2019m gonna look at them and I\u2019m gonna say, who is your speaker? Where are you? When are you? Why are you so angry in line four? I\u2019m gonna ask you questions as if you are a being separate from myself <\/strong>and then the answers to those questions lead me to say other things that I might not have said. So, if I have \u201cI am such an ugly girl. I am such an ugly girl.\u201d That tells me Janis Joplin, then when I have Janis Joplin that leads me to Port Arthur. Having Port Arthur in the poem, that comes after figuring out, she <\/em>might be the speaker of my poem. Let\u2019s see if this is Janis talking. I mean, that\u2019s how I write poems. And it\u2019s how I write\u2014I want to be clear with this\u2014that\u2019s the case whether the poem is in free verse or if the poem is in a [traditional] form. There\u2019s a poem, I would call it a sort of Petrarchan sonnet, but the first eight lines are in couplets and then the rhyme varies in a different way in the last six lines. It\u2019s called \u201cThe Water Lilies.\u201d<\/a> It\u2019s a poem I wrote not really knowing I was. I figured out its patterns. I have to know everything I can possibly know about form. I have to know what the hell a sestina is to know that the poem is moving in that direction or could move in that direction.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> That the poem might be calling for that.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Yeah, so I see, oh, there\u2019s some end rhyme and this poem wants more end rhyme. That\u2019s how I write; I don\u2019t write my poems in the other direction. I do<\/em> try to be a thinking person in the world so that I can know what might make for resonance, but I can\u2019t use that until it\u2019s time to revise. When I\u2019m first drafting things it\u2019s really like, let me get all these words out and not worry about if they\u2019re even grammatically correct or making any kind of English sentence.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> It seems valuable and very sort of clear cut, at least for me, to think about the writing of the poem as a process that\u2019s \u201cI need to get this down, I need to follow this thing, I need to go with it\u201d and then the revising being a process of asking, \u201cWhat just happened?\u201d in order to discover what is happening there, what are the raw ingredients, what are the potentials, because I could revise this in a million different ways but the only way that I know how to do it is by asking it\u2014<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And by taking myself out of the way. Because if it were up to me I would just write poems about \u201cBLANK.\u201d Because of course I\u2019d rather have a book about \u201cBLANK.\u201d You know?<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Yeah, but it can\u2019t be that . . .<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> . . . because I believe in calling, you know? And I\u2019m okay with that.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> So, I say that to say when I\u2019m writing about blackness or when I\u2019m writing about queerness or about race or that which is southern or when I\u2019m writing that which is masculine or questions masculinity, it\u2019s not that I sit down to do that. It\u2019s just that that\u2019s where I end up because that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been thinking about. And there\u2019s nothing wrong with me thinking about that.<\/strong><\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Absolutely. And in that vein, I read a few interviews where you said the phrase, \u201cstay vulnerable to the work.\u201d I love that. It seems useful because it acknowledges something about the value of vulnerability and, at the same time, how so many things can try to pull us away from staying vulnerable to the work. Would you mind saying more about what it means to stay vulnerable to the work?<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> I sort of mean be ready to move if it asks you to move. Or be ready to stay if it asks you to stay. Or be ready to do without that amount of money if it asks you to do without that amount of money. You know?<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> It\u2019s a commitment.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> It\u2019s like when you\u2019re in love. You don\u2019t get to fall in love and not be vulnerable.<\/strong><\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> It\u2019s the same thing. If you\u2019re gonna have a relationship with capital P Poetry then you\u2019ve got to make space in your life where you\u2019ve just decided, \u201cOkay, you can have it, [Poetry,] just do whatever ever you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Like, \u201cOkay baby, I\u2019m with you. Whatever you wanna do . . .\u201d<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> \u201c . . . I\u2019m with you. Long as we together.\u201d [laughs] So, I mean that. But I also mean, in the midst of writing your poems, you have to allow them to do and be what they want to do and be. And if you\u2019re writing the poems that you\u2019re really supposed to be writing, they should be scaring you. They should be having you ask questions about what you really value.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Agreed. Yes.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> You\u2019re not writing if your poems don\u2019t lead you to moments where you are questioning all that you have supposedly believed in. You have to want that. And that\u2019s a crazy thing to want.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> Right. People don\u2019t want that.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Everything in our culture trains us to not be vulnerable, to avoid intimacy. And poetry asks us to be these ways that we\u2019re usually not trained to be.<\/strong> Poetry can train us to do that. We\u2019re not trained to do it. It\u2019s hard for people, I think, to admit that. I think for men especially it\u2019s hard to openly in the world say to everybody, \u201cI\u2019m seeking intimacy. I\u2019m seeking vulnerability.\u201d<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> It\u2019s true.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> I mean have you ever told anybody you were poet? Did you see how they looked at you? That\u2019s why. That\u2019s why they looked at you like that. Because you [essentially] told them, \u201cI want to be intimate. I want to be vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> At all costs.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/em><\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> And I\u2019m interested in centering that in my life.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> And so that\u2019s why they looked at you like that.<\/p>\n AC:<\/strong> It\u2019s confusing to people. Or threatening.<\/p>\n JB:<\/strong> Because people don\u2019t know that there\u2019s that much to a self.<\/p>\n
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