The Interview with Karisma Price

Happy Black History Month and Happy Valentines Day! Whatever forms of love you experience in your life, I hope that you’re experiencing the best of it today.

Greetings to new subscribers and welcome to Sitting in Silence, a newsletter for writers, readers, and thinkers. The interview is an ongoing feature of the newsletter. I love talking to writers about inspiration, craft, and life. They never disappoint. So, from time to time, you’ll find these intimate and enlightening conversations right here. This issue’s conversation is with the debut poet Karisma Price. Her first book is out today!

Karisma Price is the author of I’m Always So Serious. National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes said of the book: “Price speaks directly to and for you while speaking distinctly for herself. These are the masterful portraits, mercurial testimonies, and verbal inventions of our imminent poet of the new school/south, the next generation. I’m Always so Serious is brilliant.”   Karisma is also my “twin.” (We share the same birthdate of September 20.) We have a lot in common such as being Black and being from New Orleans as well as a love of anime and weird, dark humor. And even though I’m a head taller, my nickname for Karisma is Giant because of her massive poetry talent. Karisma is also a fine screenplay and short story writer. Did I also mention, she became a professor of poetry at Tulane University at age 23(!).

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Now, for our interview.

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Maurice: What are your earliest memories of reading or writing stories?

Karisma: I think there are multiple answers to this question. I know you asked for earliest memories of "reading or writing stories," but my earliest memories of stories in general are actually through listening. My parents grew up together (knew each other since the third grade) so I grew up listening to stories they told of their friends and neighborhood. They were writers sharing the same cast of characters from their memory...Okay, my earliest memories of READING: Green Eggs and Ham and The Little Engine That Could at bedtime. Several times a night. My parents were exhausted. I've loved books since before I could read and even more once the words started making sense. A core memory I have of writing a story is a 3^rd grade writing assignment where we had to describe Santa and his workshop. I remember being so hyper focused on describing of the elves and the North Pole. Looking back, I realize I really wanted to impress my teacher and to be told I was a "good" writer.

Maurice: Sounds like your parents reading to you so much really paid off! It's such a beautiful connection between parents and children and one that so many of us can remember. I recall a Mickey Mouse book where he was trying to trick a giant into thinking he was strong enough to ring water from a rock only it was really a block of cheese! I learned a lot about cunning from that. Do you remember when you started writing poems seriously? Was there a moment when you said, "I'm a poet?" What drew you to poetry?

Karisma: I remember decided I wanted to be a poet in the 7^th grade when I took a creative writing class. I was one of those "serious" children (hence the book title) who craved approval, but I also think it's because I was and still am very sensitive. I think I just wanted to be heard. Children need that. I don't think there was "one" moment where my brain just decided to be a poet. It's because of an amalgamation of life events and how I perceive them. I'm a poet because the child in me refuses to stop asking questions. 

But I have a distinct memory of being in that 7^th grade creative writing class and reading poems about war. I was struck by a line in Pablo Neruda's poem "I'm Explaining a Few Things" where he wrote: "...the blood of children ran through the streets/without fuss, like children's blood." That line's never left my head since. We were learning similes in class, and I didn't know you could compare something to itself. Neruda was writing about the Spanish Civil War and its atrocities. His repetition pulls the reader closer to the violence instead of moving our mind away to a separate comparison. We have no choice but to sit with it. 

So, yes, that was very morbid. And 12-year-old me was trying to adjust moving back to her hometown after a deadly flood, so it resonated. 

Maurice: Your brilliant debut book of poetry, I’m Always So Serious, is coming out, like now. I had the good fortune to read early versions of it. I noticed you do that thing that Pablo does. You like to bring us in close to the thing. You bring us close to New Orleans, close to Greek myth, close to James Booker. Talk about your approach and why you're drawn to drawing us close to the heart of the matter. 

Karisma: Thank you for the blurb! I appreciate you reading, twin. 

My approach? Hmm, I don't know if I really have an answer to this question. I think the speakers in my poems have always been concerned with getting to the meat of the issue. Whether that is the "emotional" truth or the "facts." Poetry is not non-fiction so not every single detail in my poems are EXACTLY true to real life—and I do use metaphor and persona to get to those "truths"--but I think if I can't talk about the thing then why write the poem? I want the poems to be purposeful and honest and not just write around the idea. 

Maurice: By the way, the cover is stunning. The girl on the cover looks just like you. But she's not you, is she? Tell us about the cover and the artist. I assume you're happy with it.

Karisma: She does, right?!!! Plot twist, she's not! The piece is called "The Girl Inside" by Delita Martin (check out her wonderful work here.  Martin is a fantastic multimedia artist from Texas, and it was important to me have work by a black woman on the cover). I am extremely happy with the cover. It was my first choice and I'm so happy I got permission to use it. I got to meet Martin recently when some of her work was on display at the Stella Jones Gallery here in New Orleans. I've been a fan of her work for some time, and I remember being on the subway about six years ago looking at some of her pieces when I scrolled and saw this one. It took everything in me not to jump on the crowded J train. The girl looks exactly like I did when I was a child and it terrified me. I'd lost a lot of childhood photos after Katrina, and it was like looking in a mirror. I asked her who the girl was when I met her, and she told me the subject was a good friend's daughter. Shoutout to my doppelgänger!

Maurice: I wonder if your doppelganger writes poems? Speaking of which, which poems, books of poetry or poets do you find yourself turning to again and again?

Karisma: That's a good question! For a while I wasn't reading because I had a horrible back injury which, after a year and a half of trying to get answers from doctors, turned out to be complicated by a connective tissue disorder I never knew I had. It was a very painful time (both physically and emotionally), and I couldn't turn my neck in certain directions without pain or strain. Things aren't 100% better, but I've made major progress. During that time, I started to (and still do) listen to audio books and learned that I really like speculative fiction. Octavia Butler, NK Jemisin, and Carmen Maria Machado are some of my favorite speculative authors that I return to (big shoutout to the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. His voice is so soothing and that's what I listened to a lot on drives to doc appointments). Some poets who I always return to are Natasha Trethewey, Jericho Brown, Lucille Clifton, and Gwendolyn Brooks. "A Lovely Love" by Gwendolyn Brooks is so beautiful, and I find myself whispering and repeating the last two lines to myself randomly. The idea that someone can be "definitionless" and free in love really sparks joy in me.

Maurice: Ah, yes. Gwendolyn Brook is the best! Also, in true twin fashion, you beat me to my next question. What, other than that poem, sparks joy in you?

Karisma: Watching low stakes TV shows, apple juice, boba tea, being understood.