REWIND: Rapid Fire Feature: Alphabetty

Hey Everyone! In honor of National Poetry Month, I wanted to throw back to my very first Rapid Fire Feature interview with the fabulous Lauren Russell, otherwise known by her poetess moniker as Alphabetty. 

On this episode, I chat with Lauren about how she fell in love with poetry, using poetry as a means to heal, as well as all the happenings within her Poetry Corner Community!

Takeaways

• Vulnerability can be a powerful tool for connection.
• Art can serve as a form of therapy and self-discovery.
• Sharing stories can empower others to share their own.
• The importance of accountability in personal narratives.
• Compassion towards others is crucial in understanding their pain.
• Artistic expression can change over time as one heals.

If you would like to be featured, or would like to recommend someone for a feature, send an email or DM for more details!

Check Alphabetty out here:
@alphabettyboop and @thepoetrycornerjawn on IG

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Transcript

Okay, well hello everyone. I hope that you've had a wonderful week. I hope that you have given much thought to making home a place you want to be, that you're implementing some change, and just overall are feeling lighter, freer, and indulging in some luxuries in the comfort of your own home. As you can see, we are switching things up a bit today. I...

Well, maybe you can see actually, you probably can't. We are currently recording over zoom, but if you're listening, we have a special guest today. Our very first guest for our rapid fire feature series where we chat with women from our village and tell just a bit of their story. So today I am joined by my friend from the womb and

I referred to her as that because our moms were literally pregnant together and they also were best friends growing up. So we have a long living connection even beyond us. But Lauren Russell is joining us today, also known as Alphabetti, and I'm excited for her to share a bit about her journey today. So welcome, Lauren.

Thanks for having me friend be excited.

Speaker 2 (01:25.614)
I'm very excited and thank you for being our very first guest ever. so in the spirit of rapid fire, I'm going to try to keep it brief. Y'all know I am a little bit long-winded and I get off track sometimes, but hopefully that's one of the things you like about listening to our podcast. Cause you know, we're going to go off script. but Lauren, how would you describe yourself in 30 seconds or less?

All right, well, like you said, your guests may or may not be able to see this, but I am wearing a shirt that perfectly sums up my personality is taking actually from one of the lines in my poems, she be and it says a pretty pretty viscerally outspoken mommy never pleading the fifth. And I would have to say that I am passionately and outspoken, very opinionated.

woman who advocates for her community and village. And I love her.

Awesome sauce. I love that. And how did you come up with the name Alphabetti?

So great question, which I'm often asked. When I endeavored to start this journey in poetry, I felt like I needed a stage name or Miss No More or Monica, a pseudonym to go by and not just Lauren. And let it be as encompassing of my art as it possibly could. So I have been a fan of like Betty Boop. I'm very girly and feminine. However, I also embody alpha female tendencies as well. I'm in...

Speaker 1 (03:00.746)
I juggle the alphabet for sport. So, alphabetti, who she became. And she's down to just alphabetti now. Cool.

So this love for poetry, when did that start? Like where did it come from initially?

I've always been in love with language. I've been in love with reading and storytelling. So I think that I fell in love with it when a lot of our culture fell in love with it as well. When we were introduced to spoken word and poetry back in late nineties, early 2000s, when it was big in Philadelphia on the scene. But I think Love Jones made me fall in love with it.

Mm-hmm. I think we are in that boat together. and if I remember correctly, we went to see it in the movies together. We did it. Literally my favorite movie of all time. all right. And so, yes, there was a love for poetry. you loved indulging in listening, to the poets of that time. You love to be immersed in that culture, but what actually prompted you to start writing?

We did, I'm quite certain.

Speaker 2 (04:11.084)
and just step out of the listening field there.

Hmm, pain prompted poetry. So as I started to go through some things, know, becoming a woman, we start to have growing pains. For me, writing was a way for me to get those things out. It was a tool that I used to really get in touch with my feelings and emotions and be able to get them out in a very recreational but constructive way.

So I wanted to tell my story and to maybe help some other women as well.

and help some other women indeed, I might add. Because when I think of your poetry, I really think of like art therapy because it's so personal and so vulnerable. Did you find that you had to gain the courage to start sharing on larger platforms or did you naturally feel empowered to just get out there and share your story?

I would have to say it was natural in the most humblest way, just given my upbringing and the environment that I grew up in. My mother very open about feelings and having an open door for me. And we never was the ones to like shy away from honesty and truth. because I am the child of two recovering addicts, I spent a lot of time in a meeting. So that's what I saw, and it worked for them.

Speaker 1 (05:46.988)
You know, so I never had a problem with sharing my story, being very honest about the things that I was going through. think that it served as a superpower in a sense, you know what mean? So vulnerability, no, I don't have any issue with being very free and the things that I've been through, am going through and sharing it on a large platform. It's a part of who I am.

Yes, yes, I can definitely say we both grew up in very open, transparent environments, just outspoken folks. you know, before therapy was a thing, there was transparency in our households. And I do believe that that helped to mold us into the people that we are today. So, And so how has your poetry evolved over time? You know, I know that I can look and see

some of the growth and how you, you while always having been transparent, there's like a deeper level now of, you know, just really digging in, dealing with issues, sharing in a way that is full of wisdom to help push other women forward. But like in your own words, how would you say your poetry has evolved over time? I would say.

that yesterday's pain is not today's pain. So because of that, you can see lots of evolution in my poetry. I no longer talk about the traumas and the things that started the work, but as I work through those traumas and the misunderstandings and the resentments, all of those things, hence my poetry evolved with me into more understanding.

I was healing, less blame, less ranting, but I began to hold my own self accountable and was seeking solution. And now I just live in where I am today. This is where I rest. So now I feel like my poetry now is speaking more on love and acceptance and what I want in the future. Now taking accountability for the woman who I am today and not charging anyone that came before. It's my responsibility.

Speaker 2 (07:53.922)
Yes. Well, can we put yesterday's pain is not today's pain on a shirt. That is really a word right there. Okay. We should all just kind of channel that. I feel like we all would be a bit happier. And just to piggyback off of what you said in that, you know, it allows you to free not only yourself, but other people from the burden of what, you know, the impact they met may have had on your life.

start to see people for who they are and their own pain that they may be carrying with them and how they have to navigate that. And knowing that, you know, maybe something that was done to you, obviously, most of the time when people hurt us, it's not intentional, right? But they don't necessarily, they're working through how to process as well. So we're all growing together no matter the age, no matter the relationship.

And just learning how to navigate that with grace and showing compassion to other people is so important and and being able to speak freely about that I feel like definitely is a way to You know share that with the world

For sure. insight follows, compassion follows insight.

Yes, absolutely. So we want to end with some poetry, right? So I just want to ask before we even get to that, what's next for Alphabetti?

Speaker 1 (09:10.518)
Betty has some things up her sleeves. Let's see. I am preparing to do a rebranding and a relaunching of the Poetry Corner, which is going to take place by way of our first in-person official event that's taking place in June titled Brunch and Bars. So we're going to be serving up lots of bars on the Poetry Corner.

accompanied by brunch for the eats and the belly. I'm excited. And also Alpha is finally working on a self-titled project.

yes. Now for the people, can you let them know what the poetry corner is before we move on?

Absolutely. The Poetry Corner is a very small community of poets within my own small religious organization that we cater to artists who are in love with, you know, poetry or music. But we use this platform really to develop artists by way of workshops and also to put others' talent on display and use it as just like a central hub.

for all of the poets in our community and, you know, do shows and pop-ups and just giving other artists like myself who may not be as comfortable with sharing the courage and, excuse me, the encouragement to get out there and really share their art and let it allow it to be used as therapy as it has been for me. So that's what the Poetry Corner does for those in our community.

Speaker 2 (10:53.94)
Lovely, lovely. And I'm sure that after the Village hears a snippet of what you have to share, they'll all be heading over to the Poetry Corner to learn more about not only you, but other artists. you know, again, we know that this a, this podcast space even is a platform for sharing and uplifting others. And that's the same thing you do over in the Poetry Corner. So I would hope that others would.

you know, go support those artists as well. So on that note, can you share a bit of poetry with us?

Awesome. So in light of the theme of evolving as a poet, right? Poet evolved. This piece is entitled Blue Jeans. Blue G-E-N-E-S. And this was dedicated to my mother. And this is super therapeutic for her and also myself. So some self-awareness is happening here. This piece is entitled again, Blue Jeans, dedicated to my mother. My mother had no clue of how beautiful she really was.

So all she could do was recruit broken mirrors to look through. Seven years turn eternity. She spent a semi-century with numbered bibs, a track star running from her escape reality, skin tagged by addictions. High off daddy's pipe dreams, you see. The truth is there isn't much difference between sugar cane, cocaine, and brand names. Identical in their styles designed to get and keep you addicted. I do not envy the fashionista. I pray for them.

They might just be fashion victim if the only time mother loved was during mall runs and shopping sprees, please forgive them for they know not what they did. Passing down hashtags, she struck out the X's and the O's love can be a losing game. Your currency at the bottom of department store baggage, this would become a learned love language. Gifts and men would take on a different meaning, meaning if you beat me, then buy me. It doesn't mean bribery.

Speaker 1 (12:49.174)
It means in that you do love me, meaning you will gorge me with golden diabetes, breeding gluttony. This is what food porn looks like. Grappling with ancestral defects, unknowingly is not giving self-awareness. It is very much giving self-load. Instead of self-care, self-care flirts dangerously with self-ish. Self-ish invites self-betrayal and addiction. Thank God for mindset shifts and wardrobe changes. Mine has been revamped with printstripe blouses so that I can write out my maladdictions.

I am learning how to button up ignorance. I adorn truth as shock collar so that crochet cliches can suffocate my ambition. This started out as Lady Sings the Blues, but when I think about him, my hymns, they hit different. Poem.

That was so wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that. I cannot wait for the project to come out. I cannot wait for brunch and bars. And I cannot wait for the villagers to be able to check out the poetry corner. Thank you for spending this time with me today. I don't have any closing quotes for you all today because Alphabetie has given you all you need to hear. So thanks so much for joining us this week.

don't forget to share, review, and rate the podcast. And, I can't wait to chat with you all again next week. Take care until then.