Using Your Gifts To Make A Difference

Founder of “Still Brave” Shares His Story

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Still Brave Childhood Cancer Foundation is committed to providing non-medical supportive care to children with cancer and their families. They take funds raised to help families pay rent, mortgages, car payments, home repairs, funerals, etc. They also have a program for the brothers and sisters of children with cancer who almost always get overshadowed — through no one’s fault — and host events to celebrate them as well.

The families Still Brave helps tend to be below the poverty line before their child’s cancer diagnosis. They do a lot of work with inner city kids, African American kids, Spanish kids, immigrants. I’ve never asked if they were a citizen of the United States before I offer help. Still Brave is who social workers call when there’s no one else to call.

From skydiving, tattoos, and boxing rings to ultra marathons and poetry-a-thons, funds are raised in the most unique ways for Still Brave. 

Let’s learn more about Tattoo Tom and how Still Brave helps “brave little souls.”

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Poet Life Podcast: Where’d you get your name?

Tattoo Tom: Most people assume that my nickname came from the tattoo shop that I owned, but the truth of the matter is I was also a videographer at a skydiving facility. And there were five Toms that were there. So in order to differentiate them between me and everybody else, they started calling me Tattoo Tom. 

Later on, I became a professional boxer, and that moniker followed me into my boxing career, which was short lived. And then when Still Brave started, it just followed me there. It’s just kind of my shtick that’s really worked.

PLP: What year was it when you got into the fight?

Tom: So my daughter was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2007, and I was a single dad at the time. I really got to the point where I was struggling because I couldn’t work. There were treatments. We spent eight, nine hour days at the chemotherapy clinic five days a week, and then I had to care for her on the weekends. So I couldn’t work. And that was tough for a guy like me to be in. I’ve owned my own businesses my entire life. As much as I hate to admit it, there was one time where we were just desperate. We didn’t have any food. We were getting food delivered from a soup kitchen. A food bank was helping us out. It was a foundation that stepped up and helped us with our rent that month. I felt so grateful to them that I was trying to think of a way that I could pay them back. 

We came up with this idea for me to fight at the Patriot Center. So I set up a boxing match. And the money we had gotten from the foundation was about $1,500 or $1,600. Even though I got knocked out in the second round of the match, I raised over $20,000. So I gave the entire amount of money back to the foundation that helped us out.

My first fight was in November of 2008, and my daughter walked me into the ring of the fight. Because I lost that fight, we scheduled a rematch, and unfortunately my daughter passed away in January of 2009. So the second time, I walked into the ring by myself. I lost that fight again — I’m not a professional boxer. I decided I was going to pick up a safer sport.

We were able to touch a lot of lives, and that segued into Still Brave. 

When my daughter died, I wondered why somebody didn’t do anything. And then I realized I am somebody.
— Tattoo Tom

PLP: Tell me about the name, Still Brave.

Tom: I ran out to the pharmacy one evening. I was gone for 10, 15 minutes. When I got home, she had gotten up to use the restroom and she struggled to get there. She was on an oxygen tank. She had gotten tangled up in her lines, fell down, and couldn’t get back up. So when I got home, she was crying. She had soiled herself, and I picked her up, washed her, and carried her back to bed. 

She whispered in my ear, “I’m still brave, right Dad?”

She was still brave. A couple days later, my daughter died. She fought bravely, and she really was still brave.

The irony is that she wasn’t being brave for herself. She was being brave for me. So I promised that I would spend the rest of my life helping children with cancer and their families that were in similar situations. Shortly thereafter, Still Brave became a reality. The universe has conspired in our favor, and we’ve been a force to reckon with.

PLP: You told me you wrote a little poetry?

Tom: I’ve been writing poetry since I was a kid. Something that’s interesting is that I had a seventh grade English teacher who tasked us with writing a poem, and in school I was too cool for poetry. But she talked me into it. She really impacted me. Her name was Mrs. Link. She was like, “Tom, I think you know, based on what you’ve done in class, you can write a good poem.” From that moment forward, I wrote a lot of poetry. 

Occasionally you’ll see me down at Busboys and Poets on open mic night. Every once in a while I’ll get down there. I’m also a singer songwriter. So I write a lot of songs. And I’m also currently working on a book. There’s a lot of layers to me.

PLP: You started to incorporate the tattoos in your fundraising, right?

Tom: Yeah. I’m always trying to think of how I can incorporate what I am into what I do. I’m just trying to be Tattoo Tom that does childhood cancer activism, right? So I’ve incorporated skydiving. I’ve incorporated music. So I was like, how do I incorporate tattoos into this? 

It started serendipitously, quite frankly. I used to own a tattoo shop, and the now owner is a good friend of mine. He said to me one day, “If you ever have a family whose child passes away, you call me and I’ll hook them up.”

That’s sort of how it started. We started doing tattoos for families whose children passed away, free of charge. As things started to evolve, I got this idea one day. What would happen if I decided to auction part of my body to the highest bidder? They could tattoo anything they want on it (within reason, of course).

The first auction I did, this little girl with brain cancer raised $3,000. She and her friend went out and did yard sales, car washes, odd jobs and did everything they could. 

Do you know what they made me get tattooed? They made me get a kitty-cat-butterfly-unicorn standing on a softball. Then for the next four or five years, we auctioned off a part of my body and got a variety of tattoos.

PLP: Let me ask you, how do you do it? Especially with the funerals and hospital stays?

Tom: On a scale of one to 10, when my daughter died it hurt 12. 

There was one little girl named Gabriela Miller, and she and I would write poetry together. She would write a line, then I would write the next line. And we got 10 or 15 of the most amazing poems. So when, unfortunately, Gabriela passed away, it hurt 11. There’s been a lot of kids I’ve gotten close to, and when they pass away it hurts 11. When most kids pass away, it hurts 10 like it should. But here’s the thing, I haven’t gotten back to 12. I know in my heart that I can get through 12. 

I’m not afraid of anything in this world. But what I am afraid of is 13. That’s how I know I can do it.

PLP: If you could leave something with the folks, what would you say to them?

Tom: I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m not going to tell you what to think. But I want you to do something. Think about these kids. They don’t have a voice, and they haven’t done anything to deserve cancer. 

When my daughter died, I wondered why somebody didn’t do anything. And then I realized I am somebody. So what I’m looking for is for somebody to help me. Please help me.

Advocate. Donate. Volunteer. Do something. 

If you would like to learn more about Still Brave or donate to this incredible organization, visit stillbrave.org

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Finding Your Excuse to Start

An Example for Poets From Words of a Fiddler’s Daughter

“There’s no excuse” is something you may hear a lot in regards to making things happen for yourself. And that phrasing can be off-putting or actually keep you from starting on your goals. But what if there was a different way to think about it?

What if you can view adversity as your excuse to start.

That’s the mindset of Adam Summerhayes, Murray Grainger (the duo that makes up The Ciderhouse Rebellion), and Jessie Summerhayes (the poet bringing words to the duo’s music). In their conversation with The Poet Life, they made it clear that COVID-19 became their excuse to get started on their projects. 

Creativity can’t be stopped

Lockdown limited The Ciderhouse Rebellion’s ability to record music in the same space as one another. So they found a way to use a landline phone to hear each other in real time, no delays, and they also were able to send each other recordings to record overtop of. 

However, the excuse to start on a new endeavor came during lockdown while Jessie, Adam’s daughter, was home from college. Jessie is a poet and also was finding ways to continue creating during the pandemic. On National Poetry Day in England, Jessie had an idea to put her poetry to their music.

That idea put them in the zone. To the point that they created and produced an album in three weeks. Throughout lockdown, they’ve produced two albums and a book of poetry and then some. 

“Maybe whenever we are challenged, that is our excuse to start.”

Because of these projects, they’ve been able to connect with archaeologists at a mining site to help them tell the stories of the miners that worked and lived there. Previously, the mining site would teach about the history of mines and the work being done. But with the addition of The Ciderhouse Rebellion’s music and Jessie’s poetry, they’re able to help tell the stories of the human beings and the emotional depth that took place in that space. 

The adversity of lockdown forged an idea that sparked new successful projects, which sparked the new connection with archaeologists. While no one wished for COVID-19, it was the push this group needed to connect the dots and create something bigger than music and poetry alone.

What does this have to do with you as a poet?

There may be some challenge in your life that you feel is holding you back from working on your goals. But if you can reframe your mindset, that challenge is actually your excuse to start. Think about it.

What’s more poetic than using hardship to fuel creativity?

Take a moment to think about the challenges you’re facing right now. How can those challenges inspire, inform, or speak to what you’re planning to work on? 

I’m not going to spell it all out for you, because only you know your life and the obstacles you’re facing. All I can do is suggest you reframe your mindset to get the pen moving.

What do you say? Is this challenge in your life the excuse for you to start on your goals?

Be sure to watch and listen to the full episode with Adam, Murray, and Jessie. You won’t want to miss their full story and see what other nuggets of inspiration you can get from them!

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The collaboration between poet Jessie Summerhayes and The Ciderhouse Rebellion is called The Word’s of the Fiddler’s Daughter. Together they created an album where narrative poems are transformed into spoken word and interwoven with the intimacy of folk idiom improvisation. This poem cycle of whispered histories drawn from the land enters into conversation with these improvisations - each adding a new voice to the tale being told.

How to Travel and Perform All Over the World as a Poet: Stephanie James, “Just a Vessel,” Tells All

Stephanie James, “Just a Vessel,” is bringing the world together as a traveling poet and musician. Life is about who you know and who knows you. And that’s led her on quite the journey not only as a poet and singer, but also as a traveler and human being.

Stephanie worked a corporate job for eight years before getting to a place where she could quit and pursue her dream of traveling the world full-time. It wasn’t easy, of course. These things never are, right?

“When you take that leap of faith, you’re going to have people that are naysayers. You have to jump anyway,” Stephanie says. “Say what you want until you see what you said.” This is something she tells herself regularly, “because you have to really believe.”

And you can trust her word. She has made this life work for her. She went to 38 countries in 3 years. 2020 would’ve added another dozen or so but, of course, we all know why that couldn’t happen.

So how does this travel bug make this minimalistic, poetic traveler lifestyle work? Let’s dive in.

You have to plan ahead to be a travel poet

Actually, let’s let Stephanie explain this one:

“It’s really you figuring out what you want to do in addition. Like if you don’t have a publicist that’s putting you in shows and getting you enough money that you need to be where you are. You need to make substantial money. You also want to be saving while you’re doing all this and having fun.”

She continues, “determining what you want to do and how you are going to do it. If you want to work remotely, that’s fine, but what are your skill sets? As long as you have wifi, you can work anywhere. … There’s so many different avenues that people can take to do what they love and still eat.”

Overall, Stephanie says the strength is something within you. And if you want it enough, you’ll figure out how to make it happen. She also notes that people don’t always realize she did work for a corporation for eight years. She put aside that comfort to take her leap.

“You have to plan it,” she says. “It takes a lot of preparation, a lot of sacrifice.”

What exactly does planning look like for Stephanie?

The saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” But what that phrase leaves out is that you need to be able to plan ahead and be able to adapt on a whim.

Stephanie left for Ecuador in 2017 with her second album in hand and carried it with her to 38 countries. She had quit her job without another job lined up — something she does not recommend — sold her car, rented out her place, and took one backpack and one suitcase on the road. That’s where the minimalist side of her kicks in. She prefers to focus on the experiences, not the stuff.

Two months in, she spent her time in Ecuador and Chile searching for a job. When she got to Uruguay, she was able to find remote work in sales, her previous line of work. However, in order to be adaptable, she got a digital marketing certificate in case she ever needs to shift gears.

So how does travel and poetry work in this scenario?

“Everything involves people and networking and building a strong network around yourself,” she says.

Anywhere she went, Stephanie was searching for events on social media and through her connections or people she met in the new country. It sometimes took quite a bit of digging to find the right people to connect her with the poetry community in a new space, but she says it was always worth it. Those people she met are the connections she needs to be able to perform on new stages.

Something that was reassuring to hear Stephanie say is that “every country [she] visited, everybody was super friendly.” Which tells me, the supportive poetry family can be found anywhere. Those relationships she built are what allowed her to do international videos with local videographers and other creatives. She’s even been able to tap into the expat community  to build relationships and even work with them on projects.

Bonus: Her experience performing abroad has allowed her to raise her prices too, while remaining humble about receiving donations rather than paychecks. She says, “It’s kind of cool to see the growth in yourself from doing stuff to get exposure to what you’re charging now and being on that bigger stage.”

How do you perform poetry in a country that doesn’t speak English?

According to Stephanie, it’s similar everywhere because “energy is energy.” She says that if it’s a warm environment, you’ll know and join in. And if it’s not, you’ll know and just keep moving and find somewhere else.

Sometimes people can’t speak English, so she is trying to keep practicing Spanish and hopes to learn her poems in Spanish. But she says sometimes people just love your delivery and your cadence, even if they don’t know what you’re saying.

Pop stars do this all the time, right?

Traveling can impact a poet’s pen

Traveling allows Stephanie to take it all in in addition to performing. She’s learning from poets in other countries and taking in the cultures. That’s exposing her to all these different poetry styles, cadences, and terms. Her horizons have been widened from traveling and performing in other countries.

Stephanie says it beautifully, “The most beautiful people that you’ve met don’t look like you anymore, and that does something to your psyche -- what you’ve always been told is wrong or right. It does something to you when you see so many beautiful people that don’t look like you.”

Final thoughts: “Pivoting is a traveler’s name”

You have to remain diligent and alert when you’re traveling and visiting a new place for only a month. Stephanie says she had to immediately know where the nearest Metro bus station was, grocery store, gym, and then events in the area. She had to start connecting with people right away. Because if you don’t do it immediately, you’ll not notice that two weeks have gone by, and your time there is almost over.

“Pivoting is a traveler’s name,” Stephanie says. “Nothing ever works how you think it’s going to work. Maybe the airport is different, they move slowly in this country and now you missed the bus. So many things happen all the time. As a traveler, you have to be able to pivot, go with the flow, handle change when it happens, and smile while being grateful for the present moment.”

Stephanie strongly urges travelers to ease back into traveling when things are safe and opening again. She says, “You have to be mindful that a lot of these economies rely heavily on tourism. So they haven’t seen tourists for six-plus months. So when they see tourists, they may be very aggressive. … I don’t want to be the first tourist that they see when I’m back out there. And being an American is not received as well right now because of the state of our country. You do have to be quite mindful.”

Look, we could go on and on about Stephanie’s incredible accomplishments. But you’d get a lot more out of it hearing it from Stephanie herself. Listen to her full episode on Poet Life Podcast now to dive even deeper into her tips and experiences. You won’t regret it.

Let’s close this out with Stephanie’s quote one more time, and let it sink in:

“Say what you want until you see what you said.”

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Stephanie James ( “Just A Vessel”) is a poet, vocalist, speaker, and host. Her mantra is “If I inspire you, you are my inspiration.” As a digital nomad, her lifestyle is to spend 1-2 months in each country and continue exploring and sharing her gifts with the world. Her ultimate goal is to continue encouraging her peers to step outside of their comfort zones and embrace the beauty in the differences and similarities that we all share. Discover more about Stephanie and her travels at justavesselpoetry.com

Creating Safe Spaces for Poets

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If we’re going to build the poetry industry and uplift the poetry community, then a top priority needs to be the safety and well-being of our fellow poets. No question.

Too often, people are faced with situations that are uncomfortable or unsafe. Poets, specifically, are put in the position of traveling alone or to a new place to perform, teach, host, what have you. Even more so, there’s a chance they don’t know anyone in that new place. So we in the poetry community and industry need to do our part to protect one another.

Anita D. couldn’t agree more. She sat down with the Poet Life Podcast and shared her unfortunate assault experience while traveling as a featured poet. And from her story and her approach to the poetry community, we were able to learn about her mission to create safe spaces for poets in the community.

Ensuring your own safety with contracts

A common practice in bookings is to have some sort of written contract or agreement on the terms of your payment and services. However, if you don’t have an agent, you’re in charge of that yourself. Be sure to have someone else read through the booker’s contract as well after you’ve read through it.

Here’s what Anita recommends poets do when reviewing contracts for their own safety:

“My advice for women, especially when the world opens back up and you’re going on tour, in your contract or agreement, have a hotel as part of the payment. You want to fly me out there? Then you need to book me a hotel, and I need to be the only one that has access to that hotel. So at the very least I have someplace safe to go at the end of the night. Everybody has their own standards, but now I ask for a hotel and a rental car. I want to be able to get myself around and be able to leave when I want. I want to be able to sleep by myself with no worries or concerns. Also, recognize where you're going and research the host and venue.”

Doing your homework on where you’ll be traveling to as well as asking for compensation that will make you feel safe — that’s what poets should be doing.

However, bookings don’t always provide a contract to sign. But you’re allowed to create your own. Google search for a template, alter it to fit your needs and names, and have the booker and yourself sign the agreement. Making your own contract will help protect you in any potential legal situations, plus it gives you the opportunity to list your compensation needs.

Contracts and signed agreements will go a long way in protecting you both personally and legally.

Building a safe space infrastructure for poets 

Part of building an industry means building the infrastructure around it. This includes protection for the members of the community that makes up the industry.

Look at other industries (e.g., acting, comedy, music, education, corporate America). They all have some sort of regulations, unions, committees, boards, resources, etc. in place to help protect the members of that industry’s community. That’s exactly where Anita’s thinking goes:

“There needs to be people that everybody feels safe with that don’t have a question mark over their heads and that are reliable, honest, trustworthy. That’s safe and can hold others accountable. We can’t stop people from going out and performing and hosting or whatever, but we can prevent them from being part of larger organizations where we know there will be other people and larger groups. We can do as much as we can to protect [poets].”

The poetry industry actually has a unique position right now. Because we’re new and in the process of being built, we can start those safe spaces early on and can only become more effective and stronger over time. Can you imagine what a poet safety organization would look like for the industry as a whole? It may not be perfect right away, but it’s a safe place to start.

Anita says, “If we could have that on a larger scale, I think it would help. I don’t think there’s a 100% solution to it, but I think we need to do it. I think people need to be doing everything they can to protect everybody in our community, especially women, especially black women.”

Without the poetry community, poetry wouldn’t be able to thrive. While that’s an obvious statement, it needs to be said. Because protecting the community, means continuing the art form we all love so much. And protecting the community means protecting the safety and well-being of those who are traveling or participating in any way.

Look, there’s so much more to this conversation than a single blog post could hold. Please, please go listen to or watch this full episode anywhere you stream podcasts or on YouTube. This is a critical conversation to be having, and we are grateful to Anita D. for sharing her story and providing great insight into what can be done about protecting our fellow poets.

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Anita D. is a San Diego-based spoken word artist and slam poet by way of Brockton, Ma. Currently ranked as the #3 poet in the world, she is also a current member of the nationally ranked San Diego Slam Team. Through her work, both in and outside of poetry, Anita advocates heavily for women’s rights & mental health awareness. In February, she released her first self published project titled “And The Psych Ward Says”, a chapbook depicting her experience as an involuntary patient inside of a psychiatric unit. Her work can be found on All Def Poetry, Poetry Slam Inc, Slamfind & Button Poetry. Learn more about Anita D. at anitadpoetry.com.

Changing Your Approach to Poetry: Perspective on Growing the Poetry Industry

The poetry industry can only grow if more of us are being intentional in our approach to the craft and making strides for the industry. We at Poet Life Podcast sat down with Pages Matam, and he agrees.

He says, “There should be more Rudy Francisco’s on Jimmy Fallon. More Brandon Leake’s winning America’s Got Talent. More poets in writers’ rooms for TV shows, films, and commercials. We should have a league for the poetry slam. Why aren’t there unions for when something like COVID happens?”

Let’s hear more about Pages’ approach to the poet life and how we can do our part to grow the poetry industry.

Evolve your approach as your goals change

Your goals and approach to your poetry career should never be stagnant. If they are, you’re most likely not growing. Take Pages for example.

He says, “[My approach] continuously evolved because the goal is to change, right? The goal is to create intention. It builds your work ethic. I’ll say, if you have a goal, you create an intention to reach that goal. And how you reach that goal is what creates your work ethic.”

His first goals transitioned from becoming the best writer/performer you can be to how can you make money with this? And that’s the state a lot of poets are in or struggle to move between: Going from working towards being the best poet you can be to learning how you can make money from poetry.

“And that’s operating from the place of capitalism,” Pages explains, “because we live in a capitalistic world. Because of that, we’ve got to get money so we can pay bills. We need to get out of the struggle or to flex.”

Talent needs to evolve too

But it’s not enough to stop there. Once you’re out of the struggle or once you’ve had the opportunity to flex that you’re able to make money from your poetry, there’s got to be somewhere to go.

And Pages knows that: “Now, when that goal happened, I started moving towards the way of setting myself up in learning patterns, working, and putting myself in positions to continue to get this work while still working on my craft. Because talent needs to evolve here.” 

Look, this next piece of wisdom is too crystal clear coming from Pages’ own words to paraphrase, so we’ll let him say it best:

“[You have to] study poets; read other poets, other writers; watch other poets and other writers. Learn about stage presence by watching comedians, right? Not a lot of poets are studying because we have this belief that poetry is this intuitive thing. 

“We’re like, ‘You can’t tell me about my intuition and how I feel.’ And that’s true, sure. I can give you that, but I can tell you that the way you wrote about those feelings was poor technique. I can tell you that the techniques you used, the skill set you used to convey those ideas, those stories, those thoughts were poorly constructed. Not well executed. Not nuanced enough. 

“And of course the flip side of that is the elitism, right? Because there’s a lot who don’t do the work, but then there are the ones so far removed because they have the mindset of, ‘I have this achievement, 14 different degrees, 17 MFAs, and this book award and this book award, blah, blah, blah. That if you don’t write like this or that, then your work is not valuable.’ So there are extremes to both sides of the equation. Oftentimes though, it’s easier to remedy elitism than it is to remedy the lack of craft.”

Just take a moment if you need and reread that to really let it sink in. Study other creators and performers to help inform your technique. 

Impact the market to help build the poetry industry

Every industry has a market. And every market is full of buyers and sellers — or in the poetry industry’s case, poets and those who book poets. The struggle with improving the market is the current attitude toward poets that accept money for their poetry.

Pages explains this well, “They’re like, ‘Oh, don’t be the poet that accepts the lower amounts of money from places. That’s messing it up for the rest of us.’ And I was like, messing it up for who? Now that means I have to do the work to present myself and say, “This is why I’m worth this amount.’ That’s on me now. They blame the homie that’s taking less money, saying it’s affecting the market. To the same degree, me taking more money can also affect the market. But my quality of work is above the lesser money.”

A poet accepting money for a gig just grows the market, which creates an industry. So how does this affect Pages’ approach to his poetry career?

Create the infrastructure that will build the industry

The market is important, but it takes more than market value to build the poetry industry. We need infrastructure as well. This is what Pages has to say about that:

“If we want to talk about the market, then we need to talk about how we are creating a system that has some legs, some foundational elements, that has a union, that has a base salary, insurance. That’s the type of stuff I’m on now. The infrastructure part that literally every other system uses.”

If you look at other industries, you’ll find exactly those things: base salaries for different levels of experience, unions, insurance and benefits, etc. We should be working to implement those basics to build our industry. What makes this difficult?

“We want to be so traditionalist,” Pages explains, “and we’re stuck to this underground, real-rap-raw mindset, and there’s a space for that. That can exist. I’m not saying get rid of it. I’m saying adapt and offer different choices, and the ability is right there. We can create actual ways and tangible results that lead to and yield bountiful careers.”

Expand your audience to grow the industry

Beyond market value and infrastructure, there’s the audience. Without an audience, the industry stands still. Going back to studying other poets, we also should study others in the industry who are succeeding. Others who are succeeding are appealing to audiences outside the poetry community. They’re reaching the mainstream public.

Pages brings up Button Poetry as a solid example: “[Button Poetry] is smart enough to recognize the need to get people outside of the poetry community to buy into this so that it can grow into something bigger.” 

But why does this work? 

“I don’t want to do things for other poets because other poets aren’t paying these bills,” says Pages.

Basically, this works because the poetry community is often the typical starving artist that can’t afford to pay for your craft in full. Plus, the mainstream public is the majority, which means they have a larger influence on the public perception of poetry.

How do you grow that audience, then? Pages says it all comes back to your approach.

“I know a lot of talented people who are not doing anything. I know a lot of people where I’m like, ‘This is terrible, but they’re on top of the world.’ What’s the difference here? A lot of times it’s the factor of your approach to your work.” 

Take some time to evaluate how you’re approaching your poetry career and if you’re setting yourself up for success and growth.

We’ll leave you with this final thought from Pages:

“If your approach to the craft and the way that you build your work and your network goes beyond doing things for views and claps, then the people you’re bringing up are going to be okay.” 

Meaning, if you approach poetry for more than praise and really focus on building the industry, you’ll set up a path to success for poets after you.

Be sure to listen to the full episode, because this nugget of wisdom barely scratches the surface of what Pages had to share with us. You won’t regret it!

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With over a decade of combined experience as an award-winning writer, touring and teaching artist, producer, event coordinator, and host, Pages has garnered both a local and online following, various tv and radio appearances with over a million YouTube views, and many opportunities to perform across the country and different parts of the world, with appearances to audiences as large as 20,000.