Spoken Word Poet Phil Kaye talks all things about his new book ‘Date and Time’ in this exclusive interview with The Knockturnal.
Check out our interview with Phil Kaye on his new book Date and Time, which hits shelves September 18th.
The Knockturnal: What drew you to poetry as a profession?
Kaye: I first saw live poetry when I was seventeen year old, and I had never seen live poetry. I had pretty much convinced myself I wasn’t good at poetry or writing, and I saw a kid my age get up and do a poem. I still remember having this feeling, this light bulb going off of like, this is an option. I think for me the idea of being able to tell my story and talk about whatever I wanted to, in whatever way I wanted to, was really freeing, exciting, and challenging. It’s had me hooked since.
The Knockturnal: Can you tell us a little bit about Project VOICE?
Kaye: Project VOICE is an organization I run with my dear friend and fellow poet Sarah Kay, same pronunciation of last name, but different spelling. It’s a long weird story; there’s a poem about it if you are super confused.
We run Project VOICE together, that partners with schools around the world to bring poetry into the classroom in both performances and hands-on workshops. The organization is not just interested in putting on a great poetry performance, which we are, but also using poetry, specifically spoken word poetry, as a tool for students to use to get to tell their own story, to tell what’s important to them, and explore what they are thinking about in the world.
I think when it is used well, spoken word poetry in particularly can get students excited about language, about speaking their mind, and about finding their own voice and footing in the world. I think that was the case for me and for Sarah, and a lot of other folks I know. So that’s a lot of the mission of the organization.
The Knockturnal: What was it like being asked to perform for the Dalia Lama?
Kaye: It was very surprising at first. I had to do some reference checking to make sure it wasn’t a scam! It was such a huge honor, and he really has been such a force for good for so long; it was just kind of a deep honor to get asked. I really had to get my stuff together so I didn’t blow it. It was a wonderful day that I will remember for a long time.
The Knockturnal: In your new book Date and Time, you talk about topics like the Internet and mixed race identity, what draws you to these topics?
Kaye: I’ll go by one by one. I think with mixed race identity, I grew up in a predominantly white suburb in California, and my mom is Japanese and my father is Jewish. I didn’t know all that many Jewish kids, and I didn’t know all that many Japanese kids, definitely didn’t know any Japanese Jewish kids. It was hard you know; it could have been, but it wasn’t terrible.
I remember feeling like this odd duck. There were all these things about growing up that no one else got. It wasn’t something that I particularly saw in the books I read, or in the TV shows I watched. You know, every once and a while I’d see a mixed race character, but their interiority was never really explored. It was more of a fun fact about them at best, if it was even acknowledged at all. I remember getting to college and there was not just a mixed kids club, but a HOPA club, HOPA being half Asian, and being truly blown away that there was enough half Asian kids to constitute an entire club. I was feeling very seen by that in this community of people who had similar experiences as what I did, so exploring that in my art felt exciting to me and important to me personally. So I want to share that with the world.
The Internet feels like this thing we all have this kind of collective dysfunctional relationship with, and it’s fascinating to me. There are so few things that all of us are interacting with so often, and I think a lot of folks feel a lot of different ways about it.
Which it makes sense, like it was actually a relationship like, “Oh I’m seeing this person and we spend most of the day together, but at times they make me feel kinda crappy, but I’m totally dependent on them.” We’d be like “Woah, woah, woah, we need to talk this through!” So I think it’s just digging into that more, and seeing where it went.
The Knockturnal: One group you discuss in Date and Time are millennials. What do you think it’s like for millennials in 2018?
Kaye: I think it’s a funny thing where one of the millennial stereotypes is that we are all self-obsessed and everything is about us. But then there was also this funny thing where for so long, for ten years, everyone was talking about millennials all the time.
So it was this bizarre feedback group of like, “they’re self obsessed, but let’s keep talking about them and giving them all this attention, and as a brand how can we reach millennials? What are they buying and thinking about?”
And it’s fascinating now as that’s kind of moved on, and we’ve kind of become old news and there’s a new generation below us, generation Z. I personally feel mostly relief, and there’s a little bit of “What about us now,” so I think it’s kind of a funny changing of the guard that I think is overdue.
The Knockturnal: How important to you is it to relate in subject matter to your readers and listeners?
Kaye: I think relatablity can be a tricky thing, to me what feels more important is being authentic to your voice and experience. Hopefully that in itself has relatablity, and I find that it often does. One of the big traps in writing, especially something more short form, is this idea of “If I write something more generic it will be more relatable,” and I’ve found that actually it kind of works in the opposite. As we drill down into our personal experience, that is kind of what people connect to.
