Interview: Salaam Green ~ The Woman In The Yellow Apron

Salaam tells a powerful story of reconciliation and redemption in this episode. There she was, at her residency in the South, witness to something that history could not deny. It was twilight, and she was tired, but there she was, the woman in the yellow apron, bearing witness to all that had come before her.

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Every once in a while when I interview someone I am absolutely gobsmacked by the experience. I walk away from my conversation with this human being with my world utterly transformed and I believe a little bit more in the magic in the world. I believe a little bit more in the magic in other human beings and that's exactly what happened when I had my conversation with Salem Green. Now she is the inaugural Poet Laureate for Birmingham, Alabama but she's also a storyteller and healer. She's a Kellogg Foundation racial healing facilitator as well as an Alabama Humanities Foundation Road Scholar. I could tell you so much about Salem like how she holds an English degree from the University of Montevallo and a master's in early childhood education from the University of North Dakota but you know what I'm just gonna let her do it because quite honestly this was one of those interviews where I just basked in her glow, In her words, In her presence and all I thought the entire time was preach. And so Salem, She preaches in the very best way with generosity of spirit and with grace in her poetry, In her presence in the world, In the work that she does in the world but especially in this conversation with me and I looked inside of this the Wallace House. Now the Wallace House is swept clean so it's not an antebellum home or space that you usually tour that we tour where you see these fancy curtains and these all these things. It's swept clean by meaning it's just wallpaper that's been stripped and been there for hundreds and hundreds of years and just all this thing but anyway I looked up into the windows of this tall white building while I'm there finishing some writing and getting inspiration and I saw this glimpse of this lady in a yellow apron. The first question I ask everybody is how do you self-describe if you had to appear on a stage which you have or you know introduce yourself to a small group of people how would you do that? Start off with the really great questions. Oh my goodness. I am a very very joyful sometimes not always as joyful as I want to be joyful southern black woman who lives in urban Birmingham Alabama who's originally from rural rural rural America where my heart bleeds and always will be in a small small town called Greensboro Alabama and I am an accidental poet. I did not ever understand or know that there was a such world in such a world where I would be a poet but I am a poet an accidental poet from rural Alabama who just loves the whole idea of writing in words and the healing power of words. Truly I mean when I was I was telling you I was refreshing myself on who you are and your work is so expansive and one of the things I love that you brought up you're an accidental poet I thought to myself one of your taglines could be a t-shirt or something become an accidental poet because I think a lot of people are walking around this world and they want to express things or feelings and they might think about poetry and get intimidated but I think I mean first of all putting yourself out there in any shape any form is very brave. It's very brave because it's very scary to put yourself out there but poetry poetry is this whole other beast and I just think to myself oh my gosh I mean how did you become so brave to do that? Oh my goodness I love the whole idea of becoming an accidental poet I think in 2025 that's that's the tagline for the world. It's a global tagline if you're gonna ever express yourself just become an accidental poet do not like try to worry about you know all of the things that you think you don't know. Yeah but for me I don't even you know you think about how does this happen how did this happen to express myself? I'm one of those people who I would self you know identify as an introvert but I don't hold that label close and dear I don't even know what it means except for that I love solitude with my little dog Gigi and all my life I've loved solitude so I've never really been comfortable in like social settings with folks but I've always known that I could like speak in front of like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people or just big crowds of people and then leave the stage and go back to my solitude and be fine where most people have this stage fright I don't have stage fright I have sit with other people fright you know sit in a dinner party fright you know what have you you know networking fright but the stage fright I don't necessarily have so I think there was just this innate thing that I always knew that I had a voice that could speak very well as far as articulation and projection and just having that gift and that's has kind of gotten me to be able to express myself you know and I think sometimes it has been because of loneliness and having to sit inside of myself and bury myself into reading and bury myself into sitting under oak trees and really becoming comfortable with my inner world yeah thank you for that um I do want to just be a little shallow right now and just tell you that you know here I am looking over your website which is just exquisite and by the way you are gorgeous at your headshots and the other images that you have on your website and I just thought oh my gosh I got a little intimidated to be honest I was like I'm a little intimidated but not just because of how beautiful you are clearly inside and out also because of some of the work made probably all of the work that you've done in the past and what particularly caught me is this new book that this this gorgeous cover the other the other revival poems and reckonings and I just was gobsmacked and on your website it says it's a collection of poems unearthed from the soil of the Wallace plantation this deeply personal and historically rooted work you interviewed descendants of enslaved people and descendants of their slave owners and I just want to ask how did this I don't know because this book to me is a revelation how did this revelation come to your heart thank you thank you thank you for all of that yes I think it came I think I was I'm living a life on assignment you know oftentimes like what is my purpose and all this kind of thing and I think I'm from assignment to assignment to assignment now especially since I'm menopausal and in that light I'm like you know I'm like I don't care get purpose and calling let's just do some assignments okay this is where I'm going you know I believe in God this is okay push me through and so of course there's nowhere on my black woman from the South card that says I want to go to a plantation house and be a poet I mean all that sounds really wacky right it's like who like this is not like necessarily something that's a career-driven moment you know or could even be something you could think of but I really had an opportunity to in a lot of my work community work I'm a former racial healer for the Kellogg Foundation so I've done lots of racial healing and work towards reconciliation or whatever we might call it today and that work has kind of just driven me into spaces such as the former Wallace House plantation where I was a poet in residence for many years where I sat and I just have done beautiful storytelling workshops and storytelling experiences particularly with black descendants who still live in that particular part of America and as a storyteller in a poet in residence is was just so beautiful but it also came to my knowledge and my thought how do we capture this oral history you know oral history is so important in America particularly for my elders and our aging population and we know and we have social media we have all these other beautiful digitized ways of creating memories but when you sit on a you know let's just be cliche on the front porch in the South and it's really what we were doing telling stories about their lives I thought how can we capture this in a way in which when we read it we really feel the rhythmic poetic soul of the folks who lives have been touched by this so I didn't think so much about I think the glorification of the of a plantation let's decenter that let's decenter all of that really didn't think about the guilt or the shame of the white slave owners or the fear of them being a part of it I thought about stories that were important to America important to our the canvas of people who live in America and how can we get this story out here we have living descendants who want to talk about their families want to talk about their heritage and as a poet I was like let me sit let me listen well and let me see if we can collaborate on some poems poetry like you said can be overwhelming but also we can't disagree with poetry you know we can't disagree with the verse and the stanzas like we can read an op-ed or we can read a nonfiction book and we could say ah you know but when we read a poem we I think it drives us into the whole idea of that this is imagination and this is real this is somebody else's story that's been imagined through the whole portal of spirit so long answer to say yeah I'm this cookie creative who thought like let's just do this let's see what happens yeah I have to say long but satisfying and I was just thinking to myself you and the medicine and the beauty that you're creating is exactly what I needed today because I think I don't know obviously I'm sure you've been noticing that the world is a little polarized and things are yes stressful heartbreaking heart-wrenching and I think it is good and it's necessary to interact and meet with people who could who can be touch points in our lives that remind us that magic and beauty transformation catharsis alchemical work are real and they're doing it every day and how they move throughout the world and and that's what you're doing for me right now just to let you know it's you are you know not only is your work a revelation but you are a revelation because you are showing up I appreciated your you're saying there there are these appointments that you're showing up for and you know you recognize them but not only that I think you know you could deny them you could say no I'm not going to accept the invitation because each one is an invitation but you you seem you're like ready to accept the invitation am I right about that oh my gosh I love yeah yeah now of course there should be some no somewhere in the world in my world but yes but when you're invited like the privilege of being invited into the story of someone else someone else's story the privilege and the honor to sit with someone and listen to them not just talk about their life but to express how important it is to know about the wholeness of what fulfills them and the people who came before them and the people who are who they are now as a result of that like that is like the alchemy of medicine that's the way that you know poetry is medicine but I believe that it is so important when you're invited in to someone's life to pay attention to pay attention we talk I talk a whole lot in my work about we want to have the capacity you want to have the bandwidth but at the same time there's an energy or spirit I believe that drives the work that I do when I did this book the other revival and really sitting and really thinking about like am I the right one to help tell these stories am I the right one who should be writing this book all those things and as I sat there and I thought I really thought what would my ancestors want me to do I come from black descent of enslavement you know I understand you know what this really means to be in a in a in America and have this heritage of being stolen and having this heritage of a family being stolen so what it means for me to go in and sit with folks and listen to those stories is something much more powerful so I believe that it was a divine assignment and it happened and I and also being welcomed in it's like you're welcome you know these black descendants and and and descendants of the enslaver that welcomed me in and say these are scary hard challenging stories but also there's been beautiful like there's more to people and more to us than the damage that has been done yes yes and I think one of the things I'm thinking about is you know I really think about beauty a lot and what does beauty look like and what does it mean to bring beauty into the world what does it look like because I you know as a kid I love to make mud pies yeah and you know there was something about the texture of the mud there was something about the smell of it there was it was just very satisfying I didn't have a lot of toys so the mud was really great and there was something deeply satisfying about kind of taking something that people would walk over that people wouldn't even notice that maybe had been created because it rained the night before that hadn't existed the day before and and working with it to create something new whether it was a pie or some sort of weird shaped house or whatever it was and but creating beauty out of something that other people dismiss and I think about what's happening in the US right now and the polarization and I think of things and images that's how things come to me and so I think about words and how important words are and how they can create a reality and how it's an it's inclement upon each and every one of us to use words to create beauty for others to create justice for others to create equality for others but some people didn't get that memo and so you know it's like the beauty is kind of providing this bulwark or this kind of moat or this we're it's we're pushing back we're creating as much beauty as we can as quickly as we can and including as many people as we can to push back against this what's at times seems like an overwhelming tide of fear and recrimination and and creating a narrative that doesn't even seem well it's malign you know and so I think about you and the work that you're doing I think about the work so many of my friends are doing and it can be exhausting so so how do you replenish yourself how do you you know drink from the waters of inspiration and make sure your energy levels because look aside from what's going on in the US right now also this book The Other Revival I mean challenging heartbreaking stories but with beauty also I can't even imagine yeah what it was like to receive those stories so how did you take care of yourself replenish your soul your spirit yeah thank you for that because that's so much truth like we got to remind ourselves and I will say it's been a real challenge for me to do that to remind myself of the beauty and to like make a choice because it's a choice to see the beauty it's a choice to especially as an artist to like decide I'm going to push myself more into the joy and the love while also focusing on the justice and the responsibility of what I have as an artist so as I was writing this book and it's maybe two years ago three years ago it takes a while to finish a book I got really really ill and I said to myself I said to myself I was like okay the plantation trying to kill me y'all this plantations trying to kill me literally you know and I know I'm being sarcastic now but I was like okay because I think that the whole idea of a black body such as mine a black woman body such as mine a black southern bodies woman as as mine going back into this space and this existence in this space there's something that really happens in in our DNA and chemically that happens that we go back into memory which memory is very healing but memory also can begin to allow us to heal in spaces that we didn't know that we were still breaking our hearts were still breaking in and this breaks my heart when I think about the polarization in America but also it just continues to break my heart when I think about what's happening to you know during enslavement what happened to my ancestors and what continues to happen in America so my body felt that and I'm a very sensitive fragile being like I said I love ease and and my body felt that and so I got really really ill and I did not pay attention and know that until it happened and when I say I had a couple blood trans to blood transfusions at the time very very anemic literally you know spirit was saying is this place is sucking the blood out of somebody or something and I always feel like I felt like I had one foot in the grave and one foot on the earth and that land and that soil and everyone's like you always so damn poetic I'm saying no I'm just saying you know I'm dying over here and I had to step back after writing this book to really pay attention to what happens to the body when it's breaking or when the hearts breaking but I also had to step back to be in some gratitude to a higher being to trust me with that message and that message was to replenish myself but that message also was saying imagine what these kinds of spaces and these places of you know reclamation have are doing to people who aren't even paying attention and don't have that so I replanted that's a I replenish myself first by acknowledging chemical reaction that happens when we enter into these spaces or conversations around these types of topics a lot of people can't do that aren't ready and embodying chemical just won't let them do that but those of us who are closer to the healing and closer to the medicine I think are prepared for that so for me I acknowledge that in the way I continue to replenish myself as a result of that is going back into my personal well of solitude personal well of imagination and I'll end with this on the land there was when I was doing this book the other revival and it was like clearly on former plantation land hundreds and hundreds of acres of plantation land which is beautiful you know there have been a horrible incidents that have happened on beautiful land which is the earth it's beautiful you know and as I was starting to feel better and replenishing myself doing the things we're supposed to do drink water eat healthy go to the doctor take my medicine all the things that we sometimes don't do as artists and high achievers I went to the end of the land kind of like in this little pocket of space that had this beautiful grass and all of these dandelions are growing and as I looked in the soil I saw all these different like little pieces of pottery that were dug deep deep deep deep in the soil so I'm like they look like someone has taken out pottery and just smashed it and over the 20 years it has gotten so deep in the ground and so if it hasn't rained and the in the soil is dry you see all of these blue and red and yellow little pieces of ceramics just coming up in this land this plantation land in the middle of rural America in Alabama what is this I'm like hey where is all of this like these shiny ceramic like gems coming from you know and no one could answer me no one had an answer to like I guess someone you know drop pottery I guess someone broke some glass out here like but it's now unearthing itself and I'm like oh oh okay it's unearthing itself for me to see how beauty persists and continues to exist and that replenished me enough to continue to remind myself that even in my body in my heart beauty continues to persist and exist it's like those little shards of pottery that are now like unearthing themselves at the right time underneath each other shining and and beautiful over the years and so I think we replenish with ourselves and we pay attention and we began to look at things through the eyes of softness and tenderness and nurturing the world thank you for that I was listening to you and thinking about you know the land at that plantation because you know among many other I don't know you could say subjects entities whatever the land was witness to what happened there and not only do I know that there was great suffering and heartbreak and sadness and sorrow from the human beings that lived on that land but I believe the land's heart was breaking as well because I'm a firm believer in trees bushes the land co-creating with us but also having to bear witness to some things that are beyond what we can comprehend and I was thinking about dirt and mud and hummus and how the land is constantly breaking down and regenerating and you know providing well now we know communication pathways for mycelial networks and that trees are talking to each other and just what they you know the land the trees all of these these live beings were saying to each other while the plantation was in use and I think about you know the land is always regenerating so I suspect that it has always been eternally rebirthing itself from the heartbreak and horrors that happened but I was wondering if you thought you know human beings can come then now like you and be in the presence of the land be in the presence of the the plantation be in the presence of all these stories you know that were created over time on the plantation we have the responsibility to heal those stories to I mean I don't want to say become hummus because that sounds dark but you know we have the responsibility to step into these places and become part of the healing the regeneration of the space of the energy of the stories that have happened there while also acknowledging the stories would you agree with that 100% I think that is our responsibility when we think everyone thinks what what can I do what can I do when there's polarization when there's discussions of challenges and what can I do organizing an activism and it's sometimes it's okay what you can first do is acknowledge these things but also your energy and your spirit taking it to a place or space you know taking that energy and that spirits and co-creating with the land everything from what I have people to do and sometimes when I do rituals in different spaces like Wallace House with other spaces I always ask someone to bring something of beauty to offer in this space you know even if that is just you you know if that's whatever and pray over this space or chant over this space or walk over this space or be in this space I totally think we are co-creators regenerating a planet so that the planet can continue to hold space for ourselves and humanity yes thank you for adding that last part about the planet continuing to hold space for us because sometimes some days I kind of imagine myself as a planet and I'm like I just want to shrug my shoulders today it's this experiment is not going well shift some people off like no that's not yeah yeah I'd love to go to this this piece of you as I think the inaugural poet laureate of Birmingham yes did you expect this how did it feel how you know at the beginning but how does it feel now like it like like I said earlier like an accidental poet you know I had I mean now I know but my early years of my former life it was a master's is an early childhood education so spent a lot of time working with little children I am from a rural part of Alabama in America we're growing up I wasn't introduced to poetry or introduced to literature in an expansive way or even careers or even that poets did this kind of thing so when you say poet laureate I probably didn't hear that there was a such thing as a poet laureate until I don't know by late 30s and 40s but I started this work in my 40s so I started really late in life and I was like I didn't even know there was a thing and so like okay there's a thing this is really prestigious I think you know but it seems very like but yeah so I've been doing this community work bringing poetry in space of storytelling I have a literary healing arts business where I use poetry and storytelling as a tool to help people to heal their lives through writing and using their voices to heal their own lives so I've been doing that in community like little workshops and trainings and that kind of thing so when this opportunity came so it's like you should apply and it's the first time that we have it here in Birmingham Alabama and I know other cities and states and regions many many years but at Birmingham our state has poet laureates but not our cities and I was like I don't know about applying I don't know I don't know if I really want the pressure of all of this Birmingham what people might not know Birmingham is one of the largest cities in Alabama we have maybe two hundred thousand people so it's very urban and it's one of those spaces where you where it's just an urban space but anyway I applied probably about ten minutes before the application closed which also I have to admit is probably not that I guess I should get around to this and I was like I don't know I don't know and I finally just hit the submit button I was like I know this is not a good application and they're great poets in this city more people are fine but I just hit the submit button at the very last minute I just said okay I'll do this thing and then you know we had many interviews and applications kind of formal and finally you know got it and I was like I don't think it's supposed to be me but here's another side of it so yeah when I say accidental poet yeah accidentally like submitting something at the last minute you know I tell people just hit the submit button just turn it in yeah well and actually hit the submit button on your own life even if you're an artist you know like show up because we need people to show up there are so many people that just thinking about a dear friend who I do love desperately but she she has a lot of privilege and she would admit that but just yesterday she's like I'm not getting involved with anything that's going on she's stepping back from everything and I thought to myself okay that's not what we need right now those are people and by the way you know are you aware of the privilege that you had in choosing not to engage because that is a massive amount of privilege and I thought I'm gonna need to take some time off from our friendship because I'm just one of those people I'm like I just don't this is not okay with what's going on right now so yeah yeah submit you know show up everyone show up I want to ask you because I love say asking this question when you were a kid what did you dream of becoming I think that thank you that's a great question I was like half a process I love what you talked about showing up I'll say a little bit about that and kind of get to that when was I kid but oh you know oftentimes you know when I'm talking to particularly I work a whole lot with women or folks who identify as as such and I'll sometimes say become your become the poet laureate of your life like you know you might not ever be like a poet laureate of some city-state region or whatever and no that's not interesting to you but basically advocate for the expression of who you are in your own voice in your own life become your own poet laureate like that's it no one can you know forget all this other things just become your own poet laureate advocate for your own voice and become that for yourself but as a kid you know I told people you know I always talk about the rural reality of my life but I would oftentimes like sit under this big oak tree under in my growing up home and there's this big oak tree that sat in front of our house had this like one dog I remember this big fat dog Brownie you know who kind of like lived forever and just would never move you know and as a child I think what I grew up when I think about it I don't think it was ever a career I never okay I'm gonna be honest I never thought about I don't want to work hard I'm not a hard worker it goes against my mother who's a teacher goes against my family who's all about excellence and went to college got degrees yeah I did it but I always just grew I always just dreamed of imagining like my whole gift is like idea generations like coming up with ideas for myself and for other people helping people like spearhead their imagination so I'm always all my life is even now I'm always under that oak tree imagining and dreaming so I I think as a kid I imagined that I would be a dreamer and I didn't see anything abnormal or wrong or shameful about that and I still am that dreamer yes we do have to dreamers have to pay bills you know I'm learning that you know we need to have better credit but that's what I just have to admit like I just dream dreamed of dreaming and dreaming with other people yeah another t-shirt idea dream with me oh hey got it yes thank you for that answer I mean it's so good to know the self because then you know the capacities you have for what you can bring into the world I love that it's we're like more than half an hour into the conversation and I'm now asking the second question which is that means that's a good conversation okay did you grow up in a religious household what did that look like as a kid and then how is that connection maybe evolved over the course of your life yes that's the thing when you talk with poets it's like poets don't seem like they would they talk that much yes poets oh we do yeah I did grow up in a very religious household my family I was a Christian I still am my mother very much so I grew up with a single mother I have two brothers older brother and a younger brother and my father even though divorced pretty early very my very first memory is standing in front of a Sunday school class in a church in this small town called Farnsdale Alabama with my father who was teaching Sunday school you know I remember standing at his leg as a child you like to hold on to your dad's leg or hold on to your parents leg as they're teaching it's like okay I'm not gonna let go so very very religious but also very spiritual and for us I church every Sunday Sunday school before church or every Sunday we had something called a young people's department youth group every week that kind of thing Wednesday Bible study I am from the Bible Belt so all the things that you might have heard except for you know some of the other kind of like maybe challenging things but for me it was community it was a village and I feel it really was about community and village when we think about the things that are happening in our society today and where we are I always go back to the community and the village of the church and the community and the village that the church contended for for all of us when I was growing up so there were of course imperfections of course there was like okay these are things that I necessarily are not part of my belief systems and values today but I see that there was a community and village that people were protecting but also making sure that we were there for each other like like I tell people all day long like if anything happens in the world today we know how to survive and by we my family will America like you talk about survival come on now you talk about food you talk about community like people who are close and know how to connect the church gave me that yeah yeah but today my role with the church is a little bit the same I started with religion religion not the church is a look I still have the same values of believing in a higher power believing in God I do have the value of I'm on assignment as a calling as a result of God for me of my understanding is is God and Jesus Christ that's my understanding but I also am not tethered to a particular institution or system much like I was growing up yeah okay yeah what thank you for all the amazing amazing I just love listening to you in general it doesn't matter what you're saying you could probably be reading in an ingredient list for a you know cake box mix and I would be like oh my god this is amazing I want to just say that what you're talking about and what you're sharing really reminds me of this gorgeous Catholic icon this beautiful painting I once went to a lecture at University of Portland up in Portland Oregon and it was someone who was an artist or us you know basically a theologian slash lecturers slash researcher who had spent decades investigating beautiful images of Catholic icons of all sorts beautiful works of art essentially and you know he was saying what is this really saying here what is this really saying and there is this great one of it looked so simple and I thought I think I'm missing more than half of life just in general but three people they look like women but they were wearing coverings at this table and you were looking at them sitting around this table one in the back one on the side another one on the other side and you know he said we you know everybody's been trying to figure out what is this you know what is this mean it's so simple but it's clearly powerful why is it powerful why is this resonating and he said what a lot of people miss is that there's a fourth space and it's for you and it's basically the invitation there is a place for you at the table recognize that understand that and so for me I've extrapolated that out into my life that I think a lot of I mean I'm gonna generalize here but the fracturing of our society a lot of the you know polarization more people need to be invited to our tables and that means you know what does that look like who knows what that looks like it'll look different for every single person but that means you know maybe making friends with someone who has a different point of view and saying hey come over for dinner or hey come to this party that we're having like include them because then when you include people and you ask them to share with you whether it's your life or a meal or what-have-you you can get to know each other better and maybe experience some compassion and empathy and understanding for where they're coming from and they can experience that as well and so I'm all for you know the invitation for the table that empty space it's always there for everyone that is so beautiful and such a reminder that we also have this responsibility for those of us who are like grappling with what's happening in the world today or just grappling with our own lives that we have an opportunity to evoke empathy and compassion and put it in action it's like okay I have compassion empathy you know I feel you know I'm you know but it's also that's a verb you know those aren't these stationary terms that we just like do you feel you should feel like this about things like no it's actually putting it into action like you mentioned your friend who says she's just fatigued from showing up or just privileged that you know hey throw my hands up in the air I don't have to so I won't and then it's like okay do I have a space that I can that feels nurturing and tender and that I can invite folks in who might feel fatigued or might feel like you know what I don't need to be a part of that I think that's the answer and probably one of the reasons I wanted to write the book The Other Revival and finish it and put these this voice out there is because The Other Revival is that space that there are other revivals that are happening not just the traditional revivals that have happened in the past but there can be the revival that you have at your table revival that you have at your little at your circle you know revival on your own front porch you know revival in your home that you know with your family and someone's kid who maybe you know is struggling and with questions about things like we have this what I call gentle power to be spirit led to do these things you know and I love that yeah absolutely and that's beauty that's art yeah a table full of people who are grappling with whatever and we all decide to have compassion that's art yeah yeah and I I love the word revival because if you just so just this is how my brain works okay because there is something inside that work that implies motion to me if you say it over and over again I get the image of a circle that is revolving and it's probably because there's revival and then revolve is very close and for me the word revival you know once you get it started once you invite that first person your table it becomes one of those machines that just keeps going because you've started it already and so inside revival once you start it it will keep going if you tend to it and just witness it it will perpetuate itself because it is one of those energies that will just it's meant to be brought into the world and maybe after a while it will have a mind of its own but that's okay good mind but exactly yeah I'll tell you a story it was very interesting I was in the Gulf Coast last year house sitting for some friends and I was doing some sightseeing and there are all these forts down there I thought I love history so I was like I'm gonna drive out and see these forts and I haven't seen that part of the country which is beautiful but also a little strange at the same time and I decided I don't know what I was thinking because I get so seasick to take the ferry from one fort to another one across the bay the car gets on the ferry departs all of a sudden I realize dear God I'm gonna puke everywhere I what was I thinking I this is horrible so I get out of my car and I stand by the you know I'm like I just gotta look at the water get you know what's the approach it's like a 45 minute trip so I'm like at the the railing and this woman approaches and you know she's she's like make small talk and it was very clear that she was sussing me out and so here I am trying to puke all over everybody and she was like oh where are you from and I said oh you know I live in New Mexico but then I was taking care of my mom in Chicago and she said oh you're from the north and inside that was she was white inside that was so oh my god and I thought whoa okay so I kind of understand the game that it's just started right now and I thought you know I could suppose all these things about her just by this question you know what my thoughts and interior beliefs are and her the way she orients herself to the world or I could just diffuse it by pretending like I did not hear what she was implying and just have good conversations so that's what I did because I was like I just cannot engage or nor do I want to because I'm about to puke and this could be a life you know this could be a beautiful conversation so that's what I did I oriented us towards something that was you know oh you know how long have you lived here and what have you done and all of these things and I made it about her which was great because by the time we were finished I could go back into my car and like drive off that ferry it was really interesting how within what 45 seconds of meeting there was that question and so much was implied in it about who I was and I thought I could take the bait on this I can't do it right now nor do I want to because is it gonna serve either one of us no you know I I know what she's fishing for but I'm I don't want to play with today I let's create something different it was actually very very interesting an interesting experience because I did not expect it Wow Wow exactly and I love how you created something beautiful and you made a choice to do that that is such a great you know great idea when I think about did like the work what is that work in the world like you asked a question about poetry I see poetry as a service and being a poet you know poet Laurie but also just being a poet or being a creative or just a human being it's a sir it's the service this greater service to all I'm like what's gonna serve me in this moment where there could be this trickling of bias or this trickling of sizing up you know who I am and sizing up you know going into conversation that may not be creatively productive but I love that how do we create beauty in the midst of opera in the midst of times where it could be opportunities for something ugly to happen particularly conversations and I bet that changed this person's whole perspective on their day you know they're ready to like size up something and say okay you know then it's like no no we're not gonna go there let's find out more about each other yeah and especially you you know you tell me about you like we all love that people love to talk about themselves when you people talk about me interviewing people like I can't believe people let you interview oh people love to be interviewed I mean not like it's for this TV thing but it's like oh my gosh you have to ask me about myself and what I do and that kind of thing because you're interested like I'm interested truly interested in who you are and creating something productive in this conversation so that's a beautiful story thank you it was a little alarming for me because I have this I'm I'm highly sensitive to scary situations and so it definitely triggered me when she said that and I thought I need to be really careful right now and so I wish I just like all my alarm bells went off and I was like okay I can swim but I don't want to get thrown off by the ferry by this moment I guess like no no thank you I'm already queasy I don't need yeah you know the other thing I think it's so important to remember and I you know went like that woman on the ferry especially women of every single kind are never given the opportunity to tell their story they're never given a platform even by their husbands you know their loved ones their partners their families people aren't interested in what they have to say people they get shut down so I've met so many women who have never been heard or listened to it's like I thought what I didn't know this was a yes yes women are not given platforms even in their own families to express their cares their concerns tell their stories of their interior selves and so also with this woman I you know I got the feeling no one had ever really been there for her to like ask these questions and say hey tell me about yourself I think it was a weird thing for her she's like this is weird but I run up against that so much just since that time just women who there's a woman at the museum where I work and she didn't speak until she was 13 and that was because her family was so abusive and she was basically told not to speak so even now she's in her I would say early 70s she wrestles with that so I just was like oh my god women of every type all the world I suspect yes I've been told to shut up and not you know not you know talk about themselves not tell about themselves not share and so I really want to be one of those people that's there for them yes the whole idea of how our own voices are the agency of our voice can begin to heal our own lives and as women who are taught to be seen and not be heard you know we're taught that we are to be beautiful and hope that we are to be you know quiet and to be you know comforting to other people and to be busy busy busy busy we don't want to hear your voice but I think it's very important you know when you have an opportunity to like be a circle for women be a circle and what I really hope to do is listen better I believe that the healing is not necessarily in the poetry or the art but the healing really is in being heard yeah feeling heard feeling known like now I feel known and for women our instinct to carry on a life that no one even knows about you know and we're carrying on these lives that we don't even care about when we began to exact our voices that's what happens and I think for me I started poetry after depression and after a major divorce as well like let me just go to a writing class let me just do something you know like the therapist go journal and you're like you know okay let me go find a writing class to like find an outlet and I was not the stigma of depression the stigma of divorce the stigma of being older as a stigma of being unpartnered I don't have children all the childless movement but all the things and sitting um you know at this writing class with other women sitting on this lady's red couch I began to write myself back together again I began to hear that my voice was poetry because other women would speak back to me and I think you're writing a poem I think your voice sounds like poetry I think that is something other people will want to hear and not only am I voicing my who I am now but I have other women who are validating that you know not in a superficial way but in a way in which allows me to know that I am seen and heard and yeah so that's the medicine for women right yeah absolutely yeah thank you like okay I just you're done my nervous system just with the conversation is just feeling so good I want you to know that so thank you I'd love to ask the main question of the podcast which is I would greatly appreciate if you could share an incident a moment an event in your life where you felt you witnessed something magical miraculous or mysterious you know I've had every story under the Sun as because humans are meaning makers and you know some of the events someone might call very prosaic a mother that was really loving who shaped someone's life I have had ghost stories I mean I've really heard everything it's kind of been an astonishing experiment so I'd love to hear whatever you'd like to share yes think about that I think I've experienced magic in each stage of my life and first I think magic I just love the idea of being able to experience magic and call it magic and not to shy away from it and think it's something that's scary or something that is kind of like off-putting and all these kinds of things it's a witchery whatever the word is so I get like millions of magical stories and I'm gonna think the one that's really coming up and it's kind of soon maybe I can quickly tell them but when I was writing this particular book the other revival and had gone through so much illness I remember one day standing between it kind of like if you see the photo on the cover of the of the book which I had no intention for it to be me on the cover of the book I was like no I do not want nothing you know anyway I was standing in front of these trees one kind of dusk night or evening at the plantation which I said I will never I mean I'm not going to this place at night like I am NOT one of those people and I was there what at night and I have just like grappling with this illness and I had to finish the work and I looked inside of this the Wallace house now the Wallace house is swept clean so it's not an antebellum home or a space that you usually tour that we tour where you see these fancy curtains and these all these things that's swept clean by meaning it's just wallpaper that's been stripped and been there for hundreds and hundreds of years and just all this thing but anyway I looked up into the windows this tall white building while I'm there finishing some writing and getting inspiration and I saw this glimpse of this lady in a yellow apron so of course I thought that's my imagination of being here at out at night and then I look back up and I kept seeing these glimpses of this apparition of this lady and this yellow apron as I'm there this Wallace meditation trying to heal while finishing and then as I looked this lady came out of these red kind of barn doors which the Wallace house has is like old red crumpled up brown doors that just are so large and now everybody wants these barn doors right but these barn doors that was like this labor of this black labor and she comes out of these barn doors down these these these white kind of rickety stairs or steps off of this porch and this lady in this yellow apron who I can tell has been the overseer of this former plantation for 300 years walks off the plantation and leaves and I'm still standing there watching this black elderly apparition of a woman in a yellow apron with this beautiful wrinkled dark black skin and gray hair with a braid that kind of flows down the length of the apron barefoot walk off this plantation and leave into the fog of this dusky evening in rural Alabama and as I stand there I clearly hear the ending for the book and the ending for the book was we all have a plantation or something in our lives that we need to walk off what is your revival where will you find your revival if an elderly black woman who was former enslaved can leave her overseeing house and just walk off a plantation what do you need to walk off so I walked off the plantation to book done done done done done the lady in the yellow apron is my revival and I believe she is all of our revivals I don't know I have never seen a ghost okay knock on wood there we go quite honestly this whole incident you handled with such a grace because if I was on a property like that at dusk and something like that happened to me I would probably fall down to the ground in a fetal position and be scared but you handled it with such wow that okay was it a revelation for you yes it was it was it was a holy revelation for me yes yes yes girl yes it was a holy revelation for me and my I mean my whole life you know yes my whole revelation has been tethered and stuck to things that are absolutely not good for me absolutely you know even doing this work at this poetry at this Wallace House plantation that's a now non-profit that also is still owned by the white enslavers who just like steal part of like this industrial complex of you know not getting paid what I need to get all these things was a revelation but the biggest revelation for me was not that not to be afraid it was like this space of peace and where there was no fear like usually I like I'm a very like scared I don't like horror movies I just like I knew not to be there at night I'm like okay you know I just don't like and usually I would have been like you I would have been like totally on the ground or like trying to like call someone but in that moment it was just a sense of peace a sense of assignment done like this yellow lady in yellow apron assignment done completed Salaam your revelation completion of this assignment to carry these voices away from the plantation the stories of this book is to carry these voices so that their personal revivals can be heard away from the places that have broken the spirit of them if this woman can walk off a plantation who was never supposed to walk off does and goes and finds her own revival my revelation was yes ma'am go find yours or I am my own revival she is her own revival Kirsten you are your own revival we are I'm so struck by this story and one the word that keeps coming up to me is witness mm-hmm and you know just as we spoke earlier about the land witnessing and holding what happened in that location here you are you've come back to witness in all these different ways and then there's this beautiful image of her witnessing you showing up for you mm-hmm before she leaves the plantation it's like she showed up to say I witness you and the work that you're doing and there's just this this incredibly circular beauty of seeing and understanding and appreciating and saying you know I see you I notice you I appreciate you and we're all in this together yes and I felt like also she was saying thank you it's just a graciousness like thank you for giving me permission to do the courageous thing thank you for tilling this ground thank you for healing yourself enough as well so that I can now feel that like you were saying and move away and go find that yeah and that's it everybody that alas is the end of my conversation with Salem green but to be honest I'm hoping to bring her back onto the podcast because I think that she and I have so much more to talk about and I really want to get her voice out into the world you know I am a fan of supporting and lifting other people up in whatever way I can do so in whatever small way I can contribute because I firmly believe that supporting other creators other beings in the world whatever form or shape they might take will be the key to creating more beauty and more justice and equality for everyone I need to thank Salem for her gracious presence her beautiful words her way of moving in the world all of it was such a gift to me and I hope a gift to you as well she changed my life and you know not only was the conversation such a blessing to me but then again you know I get the double pleasure of producing it and going back over our conversation and her words and gosh another reminder and another gift to me so yes it felt like Christmas came early this year and I am so grateful and please do remember I live and thrive on ratings and reviews so whatever platform you listen to this podcast on please do consider leaving a rating or writing a little review I'm so very grateful to those of you who take the time thank you for listening and here's my one request be like Salem and you know there are a lot of things I could say about her um show up to your life be generous of spirit include everyone step forward to the challenge I mean the list was very long when I had to pick how you could be like Salem it was so long but then I settled with this and I've said it before accept the invitation life is giving you invitations all the time to show up more profoundly and with more capacity than you've ever had before each and every day you never know when those invitations are going to come and Salem calls them appointments but whatever language you use they are being offered to you and I love Salem and just her utter humanness when she said I applied to be poet laureate in the last 10 minutes because sometimes we show up for our invitations right before the finish line and that doesn't mean that we're going to fail it might mean that we showed up right on time so be like Salem and show up for your appointments accept your invitations because you never know oh my gosh you never know what kind of magic and what kind of just amazingness is waiting out there for you to walk hand in hand with it you know that's thank you so much for sharing that story I'm just I'm going to carry this conversation with me for the rest of the day I just want you to know probably the rest of the week maybe the month we'll see we'll see likewise yeah um now you said you might want to tell a second story so I didn't want to cut you off if you do want to share that story as well well just quickly just whenever I think about this lady in this yellow apron she just reminds me of my grandmother who lived in rural Alabama to the small town called Snow Hill Alabama and my grandmother who never worked uh never learned how to drive um you know all the things um but also I always just have this memory of my grandmother um walking on her own land you know land that you know she owned collard greens that she planted there was a smokehouse where there was meat where she smoked meat ham and you know pigs and you know I'm from Alabama you know all of that chickens on her and so when I think and it's the dichotomy when I think of that lady in yellow apron I think of my grandmother walking in her own revivals every day gardening you know on her front porch making you know homemade meat all these things you know um which is not as prolific I guess as the lady in yellow apron but it's like isn't that all our our grandmothers and we think about if they survived and made their own little small revivals every day not these big things I know I've been trying to do in my life but it's like wake up and walk to the garden and pick your collard greens and then walk back into your house you know like my grandmother did on her own land proud and satisfied yeah okay our grandmothers are magic yeah she's magic yeah I mean and what a huge gift and a blessing to know her in that way and see her in that way I didn't really know my grandparents so um I love hearing about other people's grandparents because I can in that way sort of understand who they can be in our lives or how they can be present in our lives and and um that gives me a lot of comfort because that kind of um I don't know those people in our lives model for us a way of being in the world you know there's a potential there for us to witness them and say oh this is a possibility for me too to just be present in our lives to appreciate the small things the large things um and to understand that our lives you know whatever that our lives look like can be made of beauty and appreciation for all that's around us so um it sounds like what you're you know just a part of who your grandmother was so thank you um okay I want to ask you and this is not it would you like to share one of your poems on the show sure that's what I was kind of looking for I would love to um do that uh absolutely I am speechless thank you oh thank you so much thank you so much Kirsten this is a beautiful podcast and thank you for bringing beauty and also this healing circle of two people together that's going to be a revival for other people in the world so thank you oh my gosh you're what a gift for me today I was already looking at your um

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Profoundly beautiful and inspiring. A lot of Creators on Insight Timer feel very grassroots, self made and homespun. This podcast manages to be very professional in production and not lose any of those revelatory and intimate qualities of someone with lesser recording equipment and editing experience . It left me wanting MORE! I’m dealing with a painful bone injury after too much Holiday activity so this coming at this time is a deep gift. Thank You from my heart. So looking forward to exploring your other Soul Interviews. Peace in the New Year abd Beyond! Love, Nilz F 💕🙏🏾♾️💖🕯️💫🌌🕊️🪽