Continuing our focus on the arts as an antidote in times of political turmoil, today we’re joined by local poet Nate Marshall to talk about his most recent collection, Finna. His poems consider the brevity and disposability of Black lives, question how gendered language is related to violence, and explore the vastness of Black vernacular.

Marshall and Muldrow discuss the weight of writing about challenging moments in history. He says he remains curious about power, language, and masculinity. But too often readers have been primed to expect racialized suffering in Black American literature. And readers too often get caught in the authorial fallacy, that the speaker of a poem is the author. Marshall cautions against flatting Black writing and Black experience. He talks about the human condition being layered, complex, and rich. Muldrow says that writers describe suffering so that the reader can see the launching pad for their resistance. 

They also talk about the labor of writing, their educational opportunities, and the role of the poet in times of political turmoil. Marshall says that his role doesn’t change according to the times because we’re always in a state of turmoil. Regardless, the role of the artist is to sing, he says. Marshall also reads from one of his new, unpublished poems. 

Nate Marshall is an award-winning author and editor from the South Side of Chicago. His most recent book, Finna, was recognized as one of the best books of 2020 by NPR and The New York Public Library. He is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at The University of Wisconsin and lives in Madison, WI with his wife, the writer Alison C. Rollins, and their very cute daughter.

Featured image: the cover of Finna.

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