When you're dealing not with your own experience is, but this external experience you've had. I'm curious what your sort of strategy for bringing that to life. How do you try to capture something like that when you're a not in your how do i treadir beautifully capture my own history? Yes, well, i think the central thing i ask myself is, i'm beholden to telling a beautiful story, but i also want to tell a responsible story. And so when i am at stake, or when the subject is my life, and that's at stake, then that question becomes more pertinent.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and critic whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and many other publications. His new book is A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance.
“I learn from hearing my elders tell stories. There’s an inherent knowing of yourself as a vessel for narration who also has to—is required to—hold the attention of others at all costs. And that’s essentially what I’m trying to do. The broader project of my writing is almost a constant pleading of: Don’t leave yet. Stay here with me for just a little bit longer.”
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