If you have been struggling to focus on anything recently, you are not alone. With so much going on in the world – from a global pandemic to a long overdue reckoning about anti-Black racism and white supremacy – finding engaging media has been especially challenging. Fortunately, memoirs are a great way to gain a new perspective and widen our worldview, and author and poet Saeed Jones has written a truly powerful one.
Saeed’s book, How We Fight For Our Lives, which came out in paperback this summer, is an honest and beautifully told story of Jones’ childhood, adolescence, and young adult life. As a Black gay man hailing from Tennessee and Texas, some elements of his story may feel familiar. Whether you relate to his experience or not, his moving prose offers an eloquent and fresh perspective on identity, family, and his unique ability to convey ideas and emotion through poetry and prose.
The Campaign for Southern Equality team spoke with Saeed this summer about his poetry and prose, his decision to share his story through memoir, and his advice for LGBTQ+ people struggling to make their way, especially in the South. Read the interview here:
ELI BUNDY: For folks who may not have read Prelude to Bruise or How We Fight for Our Lives, can you tell us a little bit about them? And in your memoir, you discuss many personal moments from your adolescence and adult life. Previously, your work was focused around poetry – what made you decide to open up in this memoir format?
SAEED JONES: Prelude to Bruise is my poetry collection that I published in 2014, and the idea for those poems is that I wanted to use poetry to look at all of the different facets of the word “boy” in American culture. It is a signifier of a time in our lives, it has gender and sexual connotations, it’s about our relationship to masculinity, and it can be used as a racial epithet – when folks call grown Black men “boy” as a sign of disrespect.
I was working on that, and about two years later I decided I wanted to come up with a character to take us on a journey through those poems, and his name is Boy. So that’s what the book is about – a journey through identity, especially growing up in the South as a Black gay man.
In the lead-up to publishing Prelude to Bruise – which is inspired by my life but more of a persona, not accurately about me – I realized that maybe it’s time to actually talk about my persona – talk about what did happen to me, no persona, no metaphor. There’s obviously a lot of inspiration in the poems, but I think I was hiding a bit because I was scared and also processing, frankly.
So I got started on writing what became my memoir, How We Fight For Our Lives, which is my own coming-of-age story, and it’s also about how we figure out who we are in relation to our culture and our country. Coming out of the closet for queer people is the beginning of understanding how we relate to our families or how we relate to our country as African-Americans, in my case.
ELI: Since you have written in many formats, from magazine writing to poetry to memoir, what are some similarities and differences you’ve noticed about the different forms, and what advice do you have for young writers?
SAEED: The way I think about form is the way we’ve come to understand careers. When we look at our parents or grandparents, very often they would work the same career, often with the same company, for years and years, and they often retired with a pension.
In your 30s or younger now, many of us have come to understand that we’re going to have a bunch of different jobs, pursue a bunch of different things in our lifetime. And then through that work, a mission emerges – rather than a specific job.
As someone who writes poems, essays, books, newsletters, etc. that’s what it feels like to me as a writer. The mission is the same: I’m trying to use my personal experience and perspective to speak to culture, to speak truth to power, and to make people feel more at home in the world. Whether you identify with me or relate to me, I hope you recognize the humanity of what I write. I love when readers say, “Oh, you really helped me understand something about myself.” That’s always the goal.
So for writers who are trying to figure out what they want to do, it’s important to think of your mission first. And then you’ll find your form. You could parse the ideas of a mission in 6,000 different ways – a TikTok can be as impactful as a poem can be as impactful as a literary essay.
For writers who are trying to figure out what they want to do, it’s important to think of your mission first. And then you’ll find your form. You could parse the ideas of a mission in 6,000 different ways – a TikTok can be as impactful as a poem can be as impactful as a literary essay.” – Saeed Jones
ELI: That’s interesting to me. For people in my generation, teenagers, the idea of having a mission rather than one specific career, that makes life sound way more hopeful. It’s nice to hear that you don’t have to choose one thing and then do that for the rest of your life.
SAEED: There was a point certainly in my life where I felt like I had to choose, and then you learn very quickly that that’s not how it is. And I do think that’s a good thing. If you want to be a storyteller, if you want to help people build community, if you want to create a sense of justice or equity for people, those are all different missions, and there are a lot of different ways to do that. I’ve been a teacher, a writer, a poet – but whatever medium or form or job title I have, I hope the long-term goal is the same.
ELI: I’m curious about your thoughts on the violence that we’re seeing this year against people of color, but especially queer and trans people of color. During this global reckoning over racial injustice and white supremacy, what advice do you have to uplift queer and trans people of color?
SAEED: I do want to say that I’m not a sociologist – not an expert on this. But I do want to say that part of what I think is happening is that we are getting better at identifying instances of violence against queer people and trans people. I don’t want to excuse the ongoing epidemic of violence against trans women of color in particular, but part of what i think is happening is that it’s being reported: Trans people’s identities and pronouns are making it into the conversation, so we understand what’s happening. Before, so often, 10 or 20 years ago, I wondered if when violence occurred, it wasn’t even reported, it wasn’t even heard. I think we’re beginning to understand the tip of the iceberg, which of course is a huge problem. I like to offer that perspective, which is just mine.
For those of us, however we’re negotiating our privilege, it’s in part about leveraging our privilege. If you have a bigger platform, more resources, more privilege, a big thing you can do is use your privilege to signal boost, draw attention to, and highlight what’s going on.
I certainly try, as a gay cisgender man, I try to flag that while it’s not easy to be a Black gay man in America, it’s more difficult to be differently abled or a Black trans woman, or undocumented. When I have an opportunity to speak up, I try to use that moment to look at the full picture. That’s one thing we can do.
But when we’re navigating our privilege, part of what has to happen is private work. So often, there’s this dynamic where we tend to turn to our Black coworker or our trans friend, and we ask, can you help me feel better or can you help me understand? And they probably could, but they’re also probably exhausted.
I think we need to take ownership of this work – read, develop a better handle on language. We can do some of this on our own. We don’t need marginalized people to be our unofficial teachers all the time.
ELI: After reading your essay about why you love Columbus, OH (in the poem “Columbus, Ohio Is My Home”) and hearing your positive experience with being queer there, I’m curious what advice you have for queer and trans youth, particularly in the South, who are living in places where being openly LGBTQ+ can be dangerous or scary.
SAEED: Listen, I grew up in the suburbs of North Dallas, TX in a very culturally conservative suburb, and I literally lived off of Main Street. And I remember, particularly as a middle and high school student, I remember thinking that I am the only boy in town who liked other boys. I felt so alone. And perhaps at the time when I would see gay TV characters, like on Will and Grace for example, they were always white; I didn’t see Black queer people living outside of New York City.
So figuring out your place begins with relationships. You have to start on the 1:1 level to build a sense of community. You can do it anywhere. And the first step for anyone anywhere is that you have to find that friend: the confidante who you trust and love and can feel safe with, and they feel that way with you, too. And out of that relationship, you open up, you take risks, you grow, you become yourself. And then you find another person, and another person, and you build a network.
That’s what we are always doing. I’ll say that I have traveled the world, I’ve lived all over the United States, I’ve been to other countries. And even when I’ve lived in places that are perceived as “liberal havens,” maybe it is easier to be a queer person in those places, but there are still homophobic bullies. In the end, there’s nowhere in America where we can live and truly escape the hate that all Americans need to deal with. You’re still in America. It’s important to remember that it is difficult, but you’re not the only person going through it. So find your people where they are, and remember that you are never the only person going through what you are going through.
When we’re navigating our privilege, part of what has to happen is private work. So often, there’s this dynamic where we tend to turn to our Black coworker or our trans friend, and we ask, can you help me feel better or can you help me understand? I think we need to take ownership of this work – read, develop a better handle on language. We don’t need marginalized people to be our unofficial teachers all the time.” – Saeed Jones
I think we need to take ownership of this work – read, develop a better handle on language. We can do some of this on our own. We don’t need marginalized people to be our unofficial teachers all the time.
ELI: I remembered the first time realizing that I am not cis, and I talked to other people who had similar experiences, and I remember people saying that you’re not the only one going through this. Talking through other folks who have “made it out” through their teenage years, that can be really hopeful. When you’re so isolated, it can be such a big difference.
SAEED: Absolutely. Things can just be overwhelming! I mean, look at this moment! I’m sitting with my dog in my living room, and people are kidnapping protesters, stormtroopers and police here, in the middle of a pandemic. And all of this is happening while we are just trying to live.
There’s always a risk of spinning out and losing perspective. I try to think – well, these are things that are on my radar and that need to be on my radar. But I also need to connect with people. I need to talk to my friends. I need to read a book and ground myself. When you’re alone and feel isolated, that is one of the first challenges: How do I connect with someone so I’m not just in my head, freaking out.
ELI: Right, any one of those things can be a massive cause for anxiety, but the fact that they are all coalescing right now is overwhelming. Anyway, all of that is great advice and good perspective – so thank you for taking the time. I hope these next few weeks treat you well, and I appreciate you speaking with me and sharing with the Campaign for Southern Equality team. Thank you.
Learn more about Saeed Jones at www.readsaeedjones.com, and check out How We Fight For Our Lives by clicking here. Saeed is on Twitter at @theferocity.
