Host Rachel Zucker speaks with Robin Coste Lewis, author of the 2015 National Book Award winning Voyage of the Sable Venus and poet laureate of Los Angeles, about when to say no, how to say no, wishing people would educate themselves on centuries old African American intellectual tradition before asking her to respond to obvious questions, professionalism, calling in, her position as Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, the pressure, power and exhaustion of having to offering historical correctives, migration, celebrating black culture, archives, writing work that spans 38,000 years, photography, narrative as a story filled with holes, the arctic, brain damage, being a “baby writer” in her fifties, the value of having to confront mortality, environmentalism, research as devotion, the difference between beauty and prettiness, Cave Canem, Gwendolyn Brooks, loneliness, why she’s going to burn her diaries, Henri Matisse, and much more.