In the Spotlight: Thea Matthews
Thea Matthews is a Bay Area poet, artist, activist, and educator whose book Unearth [The Flowers] was recently released by Red Light Lit Press. The collection explores issues around feminity, childhood sexual trauma, incest, colonization, and race. The poems are lyrical, unflinching, and poignant. Matthews has a keen ability to write about issues that many choose to look away from with compassion and honesty.
I recently met with Thea Matthews to discuss her debut collection over zoom when she had a free moment from the many protests she has been attending in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. When we met, she had just finished submitting her newest poetry manuscript to a small press for consideration. In our interview, she shared her thoughts on the power of art during revolution, how writing can heal, and the need for community.
Shelby Hinte: I am curious about how Unearth [The Flowers] came to be. The poems feel so consciously connected and I wonder what the process of creating the collection was for you. Did you start with a single poem or did you have a collection in mind when you began writing?
Thea Matthews: The first seed, the first poem, I wrote was Lilac and the second was Hydrangea. Initially, I did not have a strong intention to write a collection of poetry that was taxonomical and a mirror of like an encyclopedia of personifying flowers. It was more so a response to the prompts that were given to me when I was still an undergrad at UC Berkeley. I was taking Poetry for the People (P for P) and it was there when I was writing and it was at this critical point in time that I was looking at how communities of color address the soul-wound of violence as a social issue. Specifically looking at child abuse. More specifically, looking at child sexual abuse. And [asking] how does that manifest in communities of color and what are folks doing to address the problem? Somehow by the grace of the universe I was introduced to transformative justice and survivorship visibility. I was introduced to these activists, survivors, and advocates and there was a lot of language given to me. Reading those transcripts was rough. It was intense. I am survivor of incest. I am third generation survivor in my family and there are probably many many more with my blood who are survivors. Having this outlet if you will, poetry, taking P for P, it all aligned and gave me this opportunity to write. It was prime time for it to come out. Before I knew it, I had 60 poems. Flowers.
SH: One of the things that stood out to me reading your collection was how graphic some of the images were. You mentioned that writing it and reading those transcripts from which some of the poetry was inspired was very difficult. How did you choose the flower imagery to carry this content? Was it a conscious choice or was it something you unearthed as you were writing.
TM: You know, I think it is the Sagittarius in me because I can be graphic. It isn’t necessarily for shock value. That is not the intention. I think it mirrors how I talk in terms of impact – like let’s say it for what it is. I can almost go on a tangent on the impact of euphemisms because we want to be polite. That perpetuates everything from structural sexism to racism to homophobia because we just want to be polite and dance around the brim. So much about breaking silence, breaking stigma, is about going in, being real, and being graphic sometimes. So for the flowers, in terms of how it came to be, was utilizing nature as medicine and more so how flowers are often seen as fragile. They simultaneously hold fragility and resiliency. They are often given as gifts. They are seen as submissive. You can easily kill them. In many ways they are children. They have so much beauty and power. They come back when we die. They remain on our graves.
SH: I think it is so powerful how you were unafraid to name a thing for what it is and to avoid euphemism. One particularly brave element of your collection is that multiple poems are dedicated to individual family members that have caused you some significant pain or harm. What was this process like for you? Was it healing or did you feel in any way that it was triggering?
TM: This book was not triggering to write because it required enough work on my end to get to this point to be able to write these poems. It wasn’t premature for me. Writing as an act of healing is absolutely beneficial and crucial, but I was ready. It wasn’t alarming for me to pull from the vault experiences that I had as a child. I was at a place where I could recall without being triggered and I think that is important for anyone who is going to incorporate such personal experience in their craft because the last thing I would want to do is engage in self-harm and be more violent to myself. Writing this book was healing, in many ways it was cathartic, especially as I’ve had the opportunity to read these poems aloud. In terms of dedicating and having it be like letters ⸺ it’s interesting ⸺ my grandfather has been dead and I wouldn’t say [I was] dedicating for him but dedicating to him. I am saying this to him. In a sense though, it is an offering. So much of this collection, as a black feminist, as a survivor, as an activist is to break silence, break stigma and at the same time create space to cultivate compassion, resiliency, and power. These poems were reminding me of my own power. They were testifying and validating my experience. I read aloud my poem Hydrangea to my mother who is also a survivor. She was silent. She nodded. She was like “Yeah. You were right.” That was really healing.
SH: So much of the work in this collection, particularly in the second half Annual, feels so relevant to what we are seeing today with the Black Lives Matter movement and it feels as if it was written exactly in this moment. What sort of role do you think artists, and particularly writers, have in revolution?
TM: Yes, the responsibility of the artist! Art is so powerful because it holds the universal language of humanity. Art is soul. We all have it, so art can tap into and bypass so much of the shit that we accumulate through systems and interactions and people. It just pierces right through all of it and goes straight to the heart, to the mind, to the gut. Where you feel it. Where you can have questions and newfound thoughts emerge. There is something to be said about poetry’s ability to illustrate the unseen and cultivate empathy. Policy can’t induce empathy. Art can. Art is the mirror of reality.
SH: Some writers are feeling called to action in these times to write while others are struggling to put their pen to the page. What advice do you have for writers who are struggling to write?
TM: Well, where is the pressure coming from, right? Living under this hyper-capitalistic society where you are what you do and if you’re not being productive then you’re a waste of existence it’s a pretty harsh. For me, I’ve been really working on [asking] how can I be kind and gentle with myself in this time. Accepting where I am at and where I have been has been really crucial to give me the space to rest and the stamina to show up where I am now. There are many ways to engage with the craft. It doesn’t necessarily just mean writing always. Sometimes me not writing is a form of me gaining new consciousness.
SH: What is your own personal process like? Who are some writers that have shifted your consciousness as a writer.
TM: So many. Initially June Jordan and Audre Lorde. As someone who has been active in the SF Bay Area Literary Arts’ Community I have listened to so many poets. It was like my main fix for listening to how people delivered poetry. As I have gotten older and matured as a writer, the works of Jericho Brown have been absolutely phenomenal. Danez Smith, Bob Kaufman, Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni – reading their works definitely elevated me to a whole other level. Right now though, Jericho Brown is a poet that I am just watching and trying to learn from.
SH: As someone who is so involved in the Bay Area’s writing community, how important do you think it is for a writer, especially a poet, to have a writing community?
A: Crucial! In the fall I will be attending NYU to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Poetry and that is part of my pursuit for mentorship and to expand my community. We are social creatures as humans and as artists it is imperative that we get to know each other, support each other, listen to each other’s work, and learn from each other. The more community we have the more inclusive we are and the more diverse we can be.
SH: I know that your role in the poetry community played a part in the publication of Unearth [The Flowers]. What was the process of working with a small press and getting it published like for you?
TH: So it started when I was at UC Berkeley and then of course became something bigger. It kept going even after I graduated. Working with poets that I trusted, the Poetician, who is this underground poet who I have just have the absolute love and affection for, who helped me with the language in the beginning stages. I attended Tin House’s Poetry Workshop last year and took classes and manuscript consultations with Samia Bashir. With that there was a strong interrogation of the work and I was reminded that it is important to have intentionality in the book. It took me back to the drawing board to rework the book. I was already connected with Red Light Lit Press because it is also a curated series. It is a small press that started in San Francisco. Woman-led. I love Jennifer Lewis. I met my editor, Jessie Carver when we were both part of one of Red Light Lit’s shows. I was starting to express that I was pitching this book to multiple small presses and publishers, creating my excel spreadsheet and racking up my rejections. Jennifer expressed interest, and that’s where you know something is right ⸺ when it feels that effortless.
SH: When we first got on the call you mentioned that you were in rush this morning to submit a new manuscript for consideration to be published. Do you mind sharing a bit about it and what you are turning your focus to next?
TM: (Grim)e (pronounced Grim/Grime). That is what the book is tentatively titled. It is a collection. The common thread between (Grim)e and [Unearth] The Flowers is survival. Unearth is beautiful in the sense of resiliency whereas with (Grim)e, I am taking more of a dystopic angle of the grim/grime nature of survival. It becomes much more political, [Unearth] is also political, the personal is political, but the discourse of (Grim)e has to deal with gentrification, colonialism, houselessness, homelessness, addiction. It is bringing to light what often can go unseen ⸺ what often wants to be shoved out of people’s minds because it is such a horrendous scene.
Born and raised in San Francisco, California, Thea Matthews is a queer black feminist activist, poet, educator, and author. She is AfroLatinx with Black, Indigenous, Mexican blood who writes on the complexities of humanity, grief, and resiliency. She earned her BA in Sociology at UC Berkeley where she studied and taught June Jordan’s program Poetry for the People directed by Black feminist author Aya de Leon. Currently, Thea is a public health researcher and an MFA candidate for Creative Writing at New York University. She is the poetry editor for For Women Who Roar™. And, she has work in the Atlanta Review, The Rumpus, The Acentos Review, Foglifter Journal, and others.
About Shelby Hinte
Shelby Hinte is a writer and educator living in the Bay Area. She received her MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University where she was the recipient of the 2019 Distinguished Graduate award. She has been a contributing food and beverage writer for Edible Santa Fe. Her fiction has appeared in Witness Magazine, Hobart, Quiet Lightning's Sparkle + Blink, decomP magazinE, and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a novel about women and vortexes in the desert. You can follow her @shelbyhinte_ and read her work at www.shelbyhinte.com
