Hello beautiful, creative people!
It's that time of the month again, as we reveal our upcoming featured poet! June's poet is the fabulous Mina West, a vocal champion of black pride and of strong women, and we caught up with her to chat about her inspirations, and her upcoming debut poetry book.
If you would rather watch the interview click on the video link below, or just scroll on past to keep reading.
We hope you enjoy it!
Hey Mina, thank you for talking to us and for being our poet of the month for June. I've already seen the poem we'll be sending out, and I love it! It talks about a very specific moment that inspired you to write poetry, and one example line is "her words changed me". Who were you speaking about there, and what were they talking about?
Back in the day, there was a platform called Def Jam Poetry. I don't know if anyone watched that. It was an American platform. And I watched one... the poet's name was Savannah. She was basically talking about the issues within America around being a black woman and the fight, the battle between different
people. I was like, oh, my gosh, her words are so enticing! I just went right into it and I just started to watch lots of different videos. I remember hearing a specific poem called 'By Genetics', and she's of the faith - I'm a Christian, of the faith as well - and her poems were like she was speaking directly to me about things I needed to change in my life. So that encouraged me to write my own poems. To be honest, I've always written poems, but more in the form of a diary, but something just clicked with me one night and I was just writing like crazy! And that's kind of how I became addicted to poetry.
So having felt the power of change in poetry, what changes do you hope that your poetry can make in the world?
Honestly, it's one of the reasons my book is coming out - I’m doing an annoying plug here, it’s called 'Whisper: Words I Speak Privately'. The main theme is "once a whisper, now a chant". I just want people to find their inner voice and find their confidence and feel confident in getting that out. My friends now find this hard to believe but I was really shy, guarded child and I kept things to myself, and the book talks about the process I’ve gone through in my relationship with poetry.
There's three chapters, 'Whisper', 'Venting' and 'Chant' - it’s me finding my voice - not only finding my voice but feeling confident. When you think of a chant, you don't just think of an individual, you think of a collective, of you finding your tribe and feeling confident around the friendships that you have, the people that you have around you, and not suppressing your voice. We're all human beings. We all fall short. We all fail in some areas and do some things that are probably wrong. But we learn and we grow and we move and we develop, and if you just keep hiding and being too afraid to fall, saying everything as a whisper, then to try to find your voice. And so I hope my poetry encourages people to do that.
You've run poetry workshops for teenagers that encourage self-love. How are the teenagers that you work with responding to poetry?
I think it is actually in a very positive space! To be fair obviously they’re getting to be outside of the classroom, with their mates, they were already kind of excited - it's not your typical Maths, English Science we're doing! But poetry transcends that. It can be words written on the page, or when you perform it on stage it kind of links to rap, and battle. So I think poetry can suit everyone, it’s just I try to help that particular person find their personal style and literally say: "Freedom. Write what you feel like writing".
Now, I'm not going to deny it, there are some gifted youth and some people who just join the workshop for fun, and whilst we do talk about rhyming, repetition, different styles of writing, but really I want to go into your core. What do you want to say? What do you have to say? And let them run with it. It's amazing to
see the different pieces that come out of any particular theme.
I know that you enjoy the performance aspect of poetry and spoken word. Have you missed it over the past year or so?
I'm looking forward to getting back on the stage but I have welcomed the break. Obviously, the pandemic's been really sad, there've been people who have lost their lives or health situation. For many there were really horrible circumstances, but I needed to take a step back. I needed to take a step back and pause and remind myself why I love poetry. If I'm being honest before the pandemic I was almost thinking of quitting it. Not because I don't love it, just because the weight of the nine to five, (I work full time) and I just felt like, what is the next step for me?
And then, by having a pause and really reflecting on what's important in life, knowing that tomorrow's never promised, I just had a new love for it. It gave me time to tackle a new form of writing where it’s people reading it, rather then spoken word, and just kind of finish a project. So I can't wait to go back on
the stage, but I have welcomed the pause, so I could write and finish a project that I'm excited is finally coming out.
That project is your debut poetry book, ‘Whisper: Words I speak Privately’ which is being released on May 18th. How excited are you for that?
I fluctuate! I think it's because I'm really close to the launch period right now. Sometimes I'm so excited people are going to buy my book! Other times I have anxiousness. I always tell myself I don't write to appease anybody. I write for myself and I feel like by staying true to myself, then I can be raw and vulnerable with what I'm writing and just be real. But I can't help having an element of "Will people receive this well? Will people like this?" I'm giving you my heart outside of my body right here and people just might go "Oh, this is crap"! I get so nervous, but in all honesty, I'm ecstatic, I can't believe it.
I can’t wait to read it! I do know that one of the themes within the book is your relationship with God. What role does this relationship play in your writing?
It's sometimes prayer. Sometimes my poems are prayer in terms of my conversation with God. I have had poems where I'm like, talking about something I'm battling with and I don't even want to talk to God about it, but He'll just force words into my head. I feel like it's a way me and God sometimes converse, I feel that as well it's a gift from God because I'm feel blessed in life, but I went through difficult times at a young age. I don't want to dwell on it too much because I'm very thankful for the parents that I have. But alcoholism, abuse, really fractured my view on the world, and I was a very angry child. I needed a form of release. I needed a way to just get whatever was in me out, and I think God gave me this as a gift and then also encouraged me to share it with others. The core me is a friendly, happy-go-lucky, loving person. And during my teenage years, I didn't know that person. But through my relationship with God and using poetry as a vessel, has just helped me be more confident in myself as a person.
We are actually going to be sending four Poems by Post subscribers a copy of your book. Can you tell us a little bit more about other themes that run through it?
Yeah, so I call this a collection so some of the themes you might have seen in my spoken word videos. Some involve relationships, or what I like to call situationships', of just me in dumb situations with guys, it's in the chapter 'Venting'... As much as there's some deep issues, I'm also a young woman going through relationship and hardship issues. I just getting irritated at men, you know!? I touch on a little bit relationships with my family, I talk about how my mum inspires me - I've got a poem dedicated to her in that one. And obviously I love all people, but women in general inspire me. I relate with them so much and I have themes within 'Chant' around how they just encourage me a lot. Being a black woman as well - I've got my natural hair poem, struggles around just us loving our skin. And so I talk about these different themes that've happened within me in the last seven-ten years of me building up my own voice.
Strong women are a common theme throughout your poetry, is your mum the main inspiration for that?
Yeah, my mum is a single mother that has three kids. And she’s a boss! She secured us, covered us, supported us. I'm Nigerian, so sometimes the career aspirations people had for me were lawyer or doctor. That's even what my mum wanted me to be back in the day. And I was like, "You don't know your daughter, there’s no lawyer or doctor in this being right here”! But regardless of what path I
picked she really pushed it, pushed me. I also have other amazing women in my life, my spiritual mother and my mentors. I also feel like I push the narrative a lot because people like to pit women against each other. So I want to be able to be chanting for girls, to be girls' biggest cheerleader as well so we can build each other up and create a platform where we all can win.
If I could talk about the females that inspire me the most… I'm so stereotypical, but I don't care. Beyoncé. She's boss! I sometimes don't want to do nothing and I'll just watch a video of her performing at Coachella and I'm up. I'm up, doing whatever I needed to do!
If you could convey one message to all of our Poems by Post subscribers, what would it be?
Oh, that's a good question! To be fair, the poem I've done for Poems by Post is more like an origin story of why I love poetry. It’s about you an insight into what makes me kind of tick and how I became personally addicted. And I hope that I can create another addict as well.
Thanks Mina! If you want to see more of Mina's poetry you can watch some of her brilliant spoken word videos on her YouTube channel, or connect with her on Instagram (@minawest_). Of course, 'Whisper: Words I Speak Privately' will be available from the 18th of May on her website - www.minawest.com.
