Liberation is Lit Podcast

Poem Art Protest (with Marla Taviano)

• Tayler Simon • Season 2 • Episode 3

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In this episode of the Liberation is Lit podcast, we chat with returning guest Marla Taviano about our upcoming course, 'Poet to Publish,’ during National Poetry Month. We discuss the importance of self-publishing poetry, the personal and social impact of creative expression, and our efforts to combat book censorship. The conversation covers Marla's recent projects, including her unique poem art therapy and the influence of storytelling on social change. We use creativity as a tool for protest, connection, and transformation!


00:00 Welcome to Season Two

00:47 Catching Up with Marla Taviano

02:37 The Power of Poetry and Protest

06:14 Book Censorship and Marginalized Voices

09:52 Creativity as a Form of Protest

17:48 Introducing Poet to Publish

20:30 Success Stories from Poet to Publish

35:59 The Anti-Capitalist Nature of Art

40:29 Closing Thoughts and Call to Action


Poet to Published

April Cohort

Self-Guided

Marla’s Books

Unbelieve

Jaded

Whole

Please Cut Up My Poems

Poem Art Therapy

What Makes You Fart

Poet to Published Graduates

Until Now by Kerri Link

Honest Faith by Jeff Lewis

Surviving Child by L Carson Woody

Love and Other Forms of Heartbreak by Tayler Simon

Where to Find Marla

https://substack.com/@marlataviano

https://www.instagram.com/marlataviano/

https://www.instagram.com/whitegirllearning/

https://www.threads.net/@marlataviano

Thank you for being part of the Liberation is Lit podcast! If you have stories to share, want to suggest topics, or just want to connect, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @liberationislit or visit our website at liberationislit.com. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider leaving a review! Remember, your voice matters, and together, through the lens of stories, we're making a difference in the world.

Tayler Simon:

Hey y'all, welcome back to season two of the Liberation is Lit podcast. I'm your host, Tayler Simon, and welcome to the podcast where the power of storytelling meets the force of social change. So I am super excited to welcome back my good friend, Marla Taviano. We are going to be talking about our course that we have coming up again for National Poetry Month, Poet to Publish, Self Publish Your Book of Poetry in 30 Days, and Why You Should Self Publish Your Book of Poetry. So, hey Marla, welcome back.

marlataviano:

Hey, Tayler. Thank you.

Tayler Simon:

So before we get into talking about Poet to Publish and why people should self publish their poetry, tell us what you've been up to in the last year since we've heard from you on the podcast at first.

marlataviano:

Oh, wow. You know what? I was just talking to my kids about how 2024 is a blur to me, but I guess 2020 on is a blur, but I was actually on an airplane. I hadn't been on a plane since October 2023, so I didn't fly at all in 2024. And just a couple of days ago, Saturday, this is Monday. I was on a plane and. I was listening to podcasts, but my ears were kind of clogged. And so I couldn't even hear the podcast and I didn't have a book with me. And I thought, what am I going to do? So I decided to start looking through photos. January 2024, just to delete some and to remember what I had done. And I went through and went through it forever. And then I realized I was only on like January 11th. I take so many photos and screenshots and book photos and all this stuff. So I know what I did like the first two weeks of January in 2024, but I have been busy. I'm a single mom busy with that and my kids and writing books and my cats and making poem art is a big thing that I've been doing and protest art. And since the inauguration, inauguration weekend, I was really struggling, like, just. because I was just feeling sick to my stomach and instead of taking frog and toad and putting my poems on these illustrations, I just put the word fuck like on frog and toad. And then I made a whole bunch of stuff like that. Cause I thought, I don't even know what to say. This is just the, the only word that is coming to mind right now. So I am. Filled with anxiety a lot of the time, even, last night, I, I wake up usually around four o'clock and I can't go back to sleep, but everything's churning and spiraling, but I'm also feeling hope and I'm really excited to talk about poet to published because I feel like this is really, really the time for so many people. To get their words out into the world, finally, and it doesn't matter what those words are, as long as they come from your heart. We don't have to all be protesting injustice every second of the day. We can also talk about things that we care about. We can, be with friends and family and. So trying to find that balance right now between resting and working and fighting and laughing. It's hard. But I feel like I've been doing it for a while. So it's, it's not, it's not too bad.

Tayler Simon:

You skipped over like something that's so important that happened

marlataviano:

Oh, no.

Tayler Simon:

episode. You re released your book, What Makes You Fart? Tell us about,

marlataviano:

Oh, my gosh.

Tayler Simon:

for what you said about people, finding what they're passionate about, what they care about. Talk about how your book, What Makes You Fart, falls into all of that.

marlataviano:

Yeah. Okay. So, first of all, I think you have sold more copies of that book for me than I have. And yes, it's called What Makes You Fart. And the subtitle is Find Your Passion and Figure Out Your Life. By the time you finish reading this book, it's a little bit tongue in cheek. You may not be able to do that. But basically the premise of the book is when you are relaxed and happy, your body. Let's down its guard and you'll often fart like I fart in bookstores in libraries. I love books. It's something about it It's just I'm so happy there and it's actually a phenomena. It's on Wikipedia. They don't explain why people fart in bookstores It's like they can't figure it out or something, but I know it's because we love books So I I talk about in the book using your body as a way to help you figure out what you are passionate about and I'm also You really passionate about telling people, having them look back to their past when they were a kid. What did you love when you were a kid? And it doesn't always translate exactly. I mean, some of us have interests that, that fade away and we don't ever pursue them again. But I started reading when I was four. I always had a stack of books on my shelf. I made a library for my siblings to come check books out of in my bedroom. So books have always been my thing. And, so yeah, I just want people to find what they are passionate about and find ways to explore that and you can do it just for fun for yourself, but also. Change the world.

Tayler Simon:

Exactly, and I feel like that goes hand in hand with the work that we've been doing around just empowering people to, Get in touch with their creativity and their creative side and using art as a form of protest. But also I, I think we both have been doing work with. Not just talking about like, oh, everything that's bad with the world, but using imagination to talk about, like, what we want to see in the future where we, how are we imagining liberation for the future? And I think that work is so important, too, and that goes into sharing our stories. And I know both Marla and I have been doing a lot around book censorship and things like that. The way that books by marginalized people, specifically people of color and, LGBTQ plus people, their stories are being systematically erased and discredited and equated to pornography and hate and racism, even though talking about racism isn't racist. So we are really doing a lot of work to champion these stories when the powers that be try to limit so much access and we need more of these stories and with these book censorship, it's doing a disservice to writers where they feel like, oh, well, my book is going to get banned or censored and I'm not even going to try. So that's why our stories are so important now more than ever before. So, I want to talk to you real quick before we get into poet to publish how you have been using creativity as a form of protest.

marlataviano:

Yeah. Okay. So everything you just said about that. So I have an Instagram account called white girl learning that I started in 2017. I think we talked about this last time, but, I read books by black authors, indigenous authors, other authors of color, and, That changed my whole life it just changed my life in such an amazing way, excuse me, and we can go like I could go into all the people that I've gotten to meet like just this week in Vegas, I, got to meet in real life. My friend Tyler Merritt, who has a new book out called This Changes Everything. He is a black man. Actor, writer, Jimmy Kimmel wrote the foreword for his first book. And we met through Bookstagram and then got to meet in real life. So there's been all of these things, but what I, am always saying to people who feel like they cannot make a difference is that you absolutely can. If we, when we each say that, I think about this past election and how many people did not vote and for whatever reason they didn't vote, but many of them thought probably I can't make a difference. My one vote can't make a difference. And then those, those votes add up to millions of people who, who don't. Don't vote and then we're in this situation. We find ourselves and now but thinking I don't have the time or I don't have the money Right now if you are online or even if you're not if you're in real life You can buy a book get a book from the library Just share a photo of the book online show people that you're reading this book and that's how we can get The, the word out, that's how we can, like, we, what we share matters. I, I called my representative and my senators today to talk about Elon Musk. One little thing we can all, it all adds up. And when you and I are together at Soda City, at the market here in Columbia, South Carolina, selling books and, and all the people that come up to you and say like, Oh, I love that you're doing this banned book thing. Or they're so excited, or they see Parable of the Sower. Like, I see in real life, you are changing, like, just by being there in that tent. You are changing people who come in. And we might think, well, it's, we live in the south, or we live in a red state, or what can I do? And there's just so much. And you don't have to do 50 things. You can do one thing or two things. Anyway, I just wanted to say all that, but your question was about the creativity. Yeah, so for me right now, it really is the art that I make. I will share my poems, which is also a form of creativity, and people will resonate with those. But then there's something really, I don't know, really catching about putting the words on an illustration, especially frog and toad or Care Bears or strawberry shortcake, things that that people resonate with. And I love that we. Since we're each so unique, we sometimes share words and other people think, Oh, I thought that too, but they didn't have the words for it. That happens to me all the time. I'll see something and I'll be like, yes, that, I mean, that's why we share things, right? We see that we see something that's like, Oh, that's how I'm feeling. That's what I'm. I didn't know how to say it. This person does. So I share this. And again, I just keep coming back to, there are so many of us that the people in power, they have a lot of power. They're breaking rules. They have a ton. They have all the money in the world, but there are so many of us and they need us. They need us to do their work. They need us to buy their stuff. And so we have. We have a lot of power if we can do it all together. Like one person boycotting Amazon isn't going to matter, but 000, like all of us together, we can do that. So I, I, just encourage people, if you're not a writer or you're not an artist, you, whatever it is that you can do, If you make something or you call a friend, text a friend, like encourage somebody, let them know that you're thinking of them, that you're with them. Listen to them. We're in for a long time of hard stuff and we, we need to be there for each other.

Tayler Simon:

I totally agree. And I know for myself, like I was For the longest time , it's like, how's that contributing anything, but like you've said, Marla, like, I've been connected to so many amazing people and had so many amazing conversations and even people who are readers who are not that politically engaged or vice versa, people who are politically engaged, but not as big of a reader. Like, I've been able to connect with people. To all of these communities. And it's been so great. And just seeing you, how the community that you've put together through your journey of being vulnerable and vocal about deconstructing from evangelical Christianity. I just see so many people who are just like, Oh my gosh, does this work? And it's so inspiring. And like, something that I've been noticing is when we. Are vulnerable about the journeys that we're going through ourselves. We give permission to other people. And that's why poetry is so revolutionary because we do often put to words a lot of people's feelings and when they're able to recognize those feelings, they're able to work through and deconstruct and find that power and empowerment to know that. Their story matters and what they do matters and how we're all figuring it out and nobody's perfect. But as long as we are working together, how powerful we can be.

marlataviano:

Yeah, I have a story that just happened this week that is exactly what you're saying. So when I went, , I went out to Las Vegas to stay with a friend and that's when I went to Tyler Merritt's book signing event and got to hang out with him during the day. And it was, it was so much fun, but we, the doors opened at 5 p. m, but you couldn't get in to the thing until six. And so we were helping out with the event, my friend and I, and, A black man came in who was probably, I'm not quite sure how old he was, I'm 49, he was probably in his 50s. And we just started talking and he told me that he was an art teacher. And we stood there and talked for the, the entire hour before we went in to see Tyler. He told me all about his family, his wife is a writer like I am, and his, what his kids are doing, and his daughter. It was anyways, it's really cool stuff. And then he told me about his Crohn's disease and he's giving me all this in depth stuff. We, I learned so much of this stranger, this man's story. And I thought to myself afterward, the reason that he probably felt comfortable opening up to me, like some random white woman he doesn't know. is we were both there to see Tyler and Tyler's book is about his battle with cancer. And he's so open and so honest and so vulnerable. And it just felt like Tyler had given, me and Ken the permission to also be vulnerable and share our stories. And so I was able to tell Tyler that later. Thank you for helping us share our truth and share the hard things so that we can encourage other people. And that's, that's hard to do, but once you do it, it gets easier. And think of how much healthier and happier we would all be anyway, if we could get that out, if we could express the things that we want to express, and then not feel alone. You feel alone until You hear someone else share something that you're also going through. It's not like we have to be out there sharing all of our business all of the time. I mean, we can be careful about that, but just knowing that someone else was brave, someone else is imperfect. Someone else is struggling. That's, that's a really, really empowering thing to be able to share that and then have other people resonate. And I wouldn't change that for the world. I, I used to wish that my story was easier and better. And I was like coming at everybody with this. I'm so amazing. Instead of like, I'm struggling, but I feel like you can connect on a deeper level with people when they're struggle and no, we don't, I'm not glorifying struggling. I don't want any of us to struggle, but life is what it is. And we do struggle. And we can get through it together and just knowing that other people are also feeling it. And that's what I'm kind of feeling right now in the midst of all this anxiety over the new administration. Yes, it's hard. And yes, it's scary. But we're, we're in this together. I'm seeing these protesters against ICE in all these cities around the country. When you and I were at Soda City, there was like 12 or 15 people were marching down the street with their signs against billionaires and all this stuff. And so. This, this kind of hardship does bring us together in a way that we don't always get together when times are easier. It's easier than to be complacent.

Tayler Simon:

And exactly. And I feel like what we do through our poetry specifically is kind of like what you were talking about with Tyler is Creating that container for people to get connected to get permission to be vulnerable to tell their own stories. And, I know we both enjoy the creator. Oh, gosh, is it inspired to write Amy who runs that account? Yes. So I know we both love. That account and how she's so unapologetic about sharing your art and making terrible art and I feel like as writers we feel extra sensitive because it's a level of vulnerability of putting so much of ourselves into our art and our stories and if people don't like it we take it personal as a personal rejection, but how Part of Poet to Publish and the work we do is all about empowering people to just, be vulnerable, feel empowered to share their stories and their poetry about this. So I want you to kind of talk about, and I'll talk about my perspective too, but why do you think Poet to Publish is so important for poets?

marlataviano:

Yeah. Okay. So let me explain a little bit about what it is and we can get into more details too. So Tayler and I got this idea. I can't remember if it was your idea or my idea. I think we both had a similar idea and then we decided to join forces. But, the month of April is national poetry month every year. And so this workshop runs from April 1st to April 30th.. We had an hour long zoom call and it was like informational meeting where we would go over certain parts of the publishing process each time, and then people could ask questions. And then on Saturday morning, like 11 a. m., we had an hour long free right where we would all right together and then if people wanted to share they could and then throughout the week. So all 30 days we're in this Facebook group together and we have sometimes poetry prompts. People would share their poems. They would ask for feedback, the tell the kind of feedback that they want asked for ideas like, do you think this is enough poems? What kind of, should I, how should I categorize my poems? What do you think I should title my book? Like, does this synopsis sound good? And then Tayler and I also have connections, where we can put you in touch with editors, cover designers, you know, all these people at different price levels where you can get this done. So it's not a guarantee that you come to Poet to Publish April 1st and April 30th if you're holding your book in your hands. It's more of a jump start, but we did have several people who did complete their book either in the 30 days or soon after, and I'm going to share a few of those. But what I recommend, I've been talking to people already, about getting, getting those poems written now. Like get a big head start. They can be shitty poems. It doesn't matter. Just get something there. Because what ideally you would come with a bunch of poems and then you could spend that time. Revising them, refining them, arranging them, deciding how you want it to be. And again, there's no pressure. You don't have to publish this book on April 30th, but we just want to show you that it's possible that you can do it and that it does not need to be perfect. That's really the thing that holds so many people back. They want to wait until it's perfect. It's never, ever going to be perfect. I've published a lot of books. None of them are perfect. Like they're not perfect, but it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Of course you want it to be the best that it can be, but it doesn't. It does not have to be perfect. So let me show you, I think Kerrie Link was the first person in our group to publish her book called Until Now. And we actually connected through a mutual friend who I had edited for. And Kerrie came to me and asked me to help edit her book of poetry before Poet to Publish started. And I gave her some ideas. She was so scared. She was so worried that this isn't good enough. I shouldn't be bringing it to an editor yet. And I said, listen, I'll tell you if you have a lot more work to do or if you don't. But it was, she had a, it was in really, really good shape. So we talked about breaking some into shorter sections or making this, this, or you repeat too much here. And And then she was really, ready to go and her book is super vulnerable and super hard. There's a lot of abuse and a lot of things that she talks about and it's written so well. And then, Leigha Carson Woody, their book, Surviving Child, also a deconstructing story like mine., but Leigha is queer and non binary and, This story is again, really vulnerable, really powerful. It's going to change a whole bunch of people's lives. So Leigha is also here in Columbia. I met them at actually my book signing and then they signed up for poet to published. And so that's been a fun friendship. Jeff Lewis, Honest Faith was Jeff. I think Jeff was the only guy in our the only man in our, in our group. Yeah.

And it's called Honest Faith:

Separating Jesus from Tradition. And I'm super proud of Jeff who also, is deconstructing, but is more of a, it's still as a Christian, whereas I wouldn't consider myself a Christian anymore, but is really writing. I just wish everybody. Who called themselves a Christian could read Jeff's book about what it really means to love people because I think that's I mean, that's part of why I left evangelical Christianity because I was seeing hatred more than love for all the people. So Jeff's book is so good. Tayler wrote a book of poetry, Love and Other Forms of Heartbreak. Actually, I have all of Tayler's books here writing our trees. and phases. And that was fun, Tayler, for you to be there, at the beginning of your writing journey when you started your poetry and how, so I won't speak for Tayler, but I do know that a lot of the books in, I mean, a lot of the poems in your first book, at least, were poems that you had already written in the past. And you went through and pulled the best ones and the ones that that fit together and people could do that too. I wrote poems in first grade and then not again until my 40s. So I didn't really have anything to pull from initially. But if you've been writing poems, if you've been writing anything, I, my poetry, A lot of it comes from pages and pages that I've written. And then I just pull some words out and make a poem. Like I carve out the poem, which I always encourage people to do. And last but not least, I think this is the one that's most recent Awake

to Wonder:

Musings Along the Journey to Freedom and Joy by Deb Haken. Deb is a personal friend of mine that I met on the internet. She lives in Pennsylvania. Then she and her husband were in South Carolina. A few years ago, and we met in person and then she and her husband, Paul, they're in their 70s. They just took me to the beach in South Carolina in September to help Deb finish up this book. I highly recommend taking your editor to the beach with you and paying for her week. But Deb gives me so much hope because She was a missionary to a couple of countries in Africa. Paul was a pastor. They deconstructed their faith, woke up to a lot of injustice and write about that. So there are people in my life who were in their seventies who I would really, really love for them to read this book because Deb gets it. She was there. And now she's changed her mind, and it gives me hope that people aren't so set in their ways. Well, many of them are, but not all of them. They can change their mind. But for Deb, I mean, she's 73 years old, and we figured out together how to publish this book of poetry. If technology is holding you back, or you're afraid you don't know things, or you don't know how to format things, all of that can be figured out, and we can figure it out in an affordable way. And I don't think we've talked about price, but the, the Poet to Published for the month is 299, dollars and we're going to open it up for registration March 1st. In that 1st week of March, you'll get, a $50 discount I think it's going to be 50 if you sign up that first week of March and then we'll start the Poet to Publish on April 1st and all of these people that we just, that I just talked about, will all be in the group. I mean, they may not be participating all the time, or they might be. Some of them are writing their second and third books of poetry, but they're great people to have in their, their experience. They love to share their expertise. There were 16 of us total, so. There are some that still have not published their books of poetry yet. They're still working on those. But, I I just, it was so much fun to be in there together. And I know Tayler and I both get a lot of people asking us for advice and questions and we, we can't, we sometimes can do it like we can answer those questions, but we don't really have unlimited time to do that. So this is a space where. You pay this one fee and then you can just use us as much as you want in that month. And then we continued it to this day, like on, in February, if people said something in the group, we would still see that and we could respond as we have time. So we're building a community and accountability and like a critique partners. If you want that feedback, it's really worth way more than you'll have to pay for it.

Tayler Simon:

Yes, and for those who aren't quite ready for April or don't feel ready for April, we also have a self guided version and it's a little cheaper since it's not access to you still get access to the Facebook group, but you just have the recordings from our sessions and all of the knowledge that we shared there for 49 99 on Podia I will link. Yeah. All of the books from the participants, all of our books and, when to sign up, again, it won't be open till March, but I'll, I'll post a little teaser link or how to get to the link and then update that. So, the actual link, we'll figure that part out and the link to the self self guided course and. Like Marla was saying, you don't have to write a whole book of poetry in 30 days, but, start writing your poetry now and go through your old journals. And I do similarly to Marla and I take portions of my journals and turn them into poems, so you probably have written a ton more than you realize. Being feeling empowered to put yourself out there and get this book published will open so much doors for you. I know, with my book that I self published during poet to publish. It was just going to be all of my love poems that I had collected and then I've lost a really good friend. actually during the same time of Poet to Publish. So I've been writing a lot of grief poems and friendship poems and that other side of love. And so you may think you already know exactly how many book poems you want to like, including your book, you may know exactly the direction you want to go in. And then as you're going through the process, it completely changes. And that is okay. That is the beauty of creativity and creating in community. And you have, we have lots of options for you, but we want you to publish your book. So that is the main part. And Marla didn't talk about the book she published. So she published her second Please Put Up My Poem book, Poem Art Therapy. Tell us a little bit about that book.

marlataviano:

Yeah, so I wrote, prose for most of my life. Like I said, poems in first grade. And then, when we moved back, I moved back from Cambodia in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. And then my husband left and all this stuff was happening in the world, as we all know. And I was trying to write my story of deconstructing from an evangelical Christian faith and I couldn't figure out how exactly to do it. It just felt too long, too boring. My mind was changing all the time and I was reading another book at the time and they talked about poetry and just kind of hit me. I want, I'm going to try to write poetry. So I am not a poet. I don't have training in being a poet. I didn't take classes to be a poet and my poetry is a little bit unconventional. It's definitely not hard to understand. It's, it's straightforward. There's no mystery or you're trying to figure out what does she mean here? I just say it. So when you're talking about using prose and turning into poetry, you can also just use an Instagram post or something. You can make that into, into poems. So then I had, speaking of imperfections, I had a few copies of my books. I ended up doing a poetry trilogy, Unbelieved, Jaded, and Whole. And I would have some copies that were messed up, like the cover was messed up or something was messed up. And instead of going through the whole hassle of returning it to Ingram or Amazon. It only cost me like 4 for the book. So I just started tearing out the poems and gluing them onto kids book illustrations. So then my first cut up poem book, Please Cut Up My Poems, I didn't put any poems on the back because any time Well, I was cutting out from the other books. There were always poems on the back that I couldn't really use. So I just specifically made small poems. I got some poems from my friends to, they contributed to the book. And the whole idea is please cut up these poems and make your own art. However you want to do it. And then Poem Art Therapy, the subtitle is Cathartic Word Crafting After Infidelity and Divorce. So all of those poems are all about my ex husband cheating, leaving, divorce, heartbreak, it goes through, the, the chapters are called real, like R E E L, feel, deal, peel, feel some more, heal, reveal, and zeal. So it's this, like, all of the, a cycle of grief, like, that's not a linear kind of thing. But the idea there is, all the hurt and all the anger and the bitterness that I have inside of me and getting that out onto the page and then getting it out some more when I cut up these poems and pair them with, angry faces on the illustrations and stuff. It's another layer of, of healing. And it's also cool to spend time with my poems. My other poetry books have like 200 poems in each of the books, and sometimes I don't remember the poems, I don't know where to find them, but when I'm cutting them up and making art out of them, it's like I get to spend time again with my own writing, and I can use the same poem on 10 different illustrations, and it just gives it a new little twist. So, I think I want to do more of that. of that. And those actually, I know, at least at the markets that you have, those sell better than my other books because they're smaller, they seem more accessible and, and it's inspired other people then to, to also make that art. And you and I were at a library conference here in South Carolina, back in October. And there were quite a few librarians who said to me, Oh, this would be great for our, for our kids or for our teenagers at the library, just a way to get them. Expressing themselves. I do a lot of collage art to word art, like cutting out of magazines and There's just something about that, especially for me. I can't draw or paint or do any of those things that feel super, artistic and creative to me, but I love words. I love letters, and I love putting them together. And it, you really don't need any skills, like you don't need special skills. I've been shocked when people have said, I can't make my poem art look as good as you do. And I was like, wait, I'm just gluing words. And they said, I know, but you do it in some sort of, so maybe I've gotten better at, I don't know. But it's been really, really fun to have this hands on part. That's not just the writing and reading, using your head and your, your eyes and your ears, but also being able to use my hands. And then to see people look through my art and laugh or show their friends or, or something like that, or share it has been, it's really affirming and it just feels really good that someone else sees either, They resonate or they see the value or it makes them laugh. Like I've always loved making people laugh. So when I'm able to do that, it's like an extra bonus.

Tayler Simon:

So, if you don't take anything away from this episode, I just want you to take away that creativity is okay, and you should find ways to be creative, even if that means because I'm really into collage, too, because I cannot draw or paint or. Unless it's paint by numbers, that's really relaxing for me. But collage art is something I love to do. And it's just so nostalgic, just like picking up stuff and like cutting and pasting and just bringing out that inner child. But also putting and pasting your own words together and making something new, from what you already have. And every, anybody can be a poet. I love writing poetry and I Like when people talk about craft and this and that, I'm like, I know it sounds good. I know it feels good. I know how to put words together to convey a certain feeling. And that's what makes you a poet. You don't have to get an MFA or do creative writing in school or study craft. You can be a poet without all of those things. If you have all those things, great, but you don't have to. And just. feeling empowered to create whatever lane and how can you use that creativity in the fight, whether that's, I love making food and putting together meal, packs and, volunteering at the soup kitchen. I love sewing and crocheting, like putting together, scarves and hats for people who are homeless. especially in like the winter months, or putting together masks for, mask blocks and people who, are immunocompromised. There's so many ways that you can get involved with your creativity and make a difference. And again, we would love to have you for Poets Up Published and join us in this poetry community to self publish your book of poetry. And who knows, maybe you'll make your own poem art. Book if you want. Anything else you want to share with us today, Marla?

marlataviano:

Yes. One last thing I was just thinking recently and I thought this before, but it seems even more important. Now, how anti capitalistic it is when you are making your own words and making your own art and supporting other artists. And specifically when I think about collage art and poem art, I am finding, these are discarded magazines that people don't want. These are discarded books that are ripped up. these are books that I get from the library because they were damaged and I'm making them into something new. And when we, like you said, when we crochet, when we make something that's not, we don't have to buy it from a big corporation. We put our love and our heart and our soul into it. It might not cost us very much money to make. We're using things that we've found. And it, it really is this protest against capitalism. We don't need capitalism. To buy, I mean, we need to buy some of your stuff, but we don't need to buy all your big stuff with these, your big money and your big everything, we're gonna, we're gonna go Local and personal and handmade. And I'm seeing that trend. I mean, that trend has been happening for quite a while now that people love things that are, that are, unique and handmade and, and all of that. But I just hope that it explodes and that we find ways like I, I've been making these bookmarks and I recently made a bookmarks there like. Illustrations of Jesus from like 1968 and it says fuck this shit on it because I don't think I don't know what I believe about Jesus these days, but I know the Jesus in the Bible that I've read about would not be up for any of this stuff that is happening like that. Jesus cared for the poor. He was healing people. He was loving people that other people had said. You don't belong here. He wanted the kids to come to him when other people are telling them to shut up. So. There was a woman who, , she had just self published a book of poetry. She met, we met through my sub stack. She really wanted a bookmark. And I said, Hey, I'll trade you a bookmark for your, book of poetry. And so we did that and I just got it in the mail. And so there are ways that we can barter and trade and do things for each other, that we can just bypass the capitalism, bypass these, These billionaires and figure out ways to do this on our own. And last thing, speaking of Substack, Tayler and I both have a Substack and that's another place where we can share our writing that is not a platform owned by Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. I'm at marla. taviano. substack. com. And Tayler, what is yours?

Tayler Simon:

Taylersimon. substack. com.

marlataviano:

you go. So that's, I've been trying to find ways. I'm working on my website right now. I'm working on a Shopify store. Tayler said she would help me out if I couldn't figure it out. Try to sell my stuff there. But little, just move forward, move in the direction, like little bits at a time, little steps, write every day. If you can write a poem every day, reach out to somebody. Get a black authors book at the library. This is Black History Month right now. And while we should be celebrating black authors every month, I just feel like the momentum, if we could all just pour it on in this month and they can see whoever they are, they can see, oh, oh, wow, these, these people are serious. We can't sweep stuff under the rug. We can't erase things because there are too many people who care. And that's the thing. We have to care, and we have to let people know we care. Like, if you just care by yourself, and you don't tell anyone that you care, I mean, yeah, I guess you could just care by yourself, but you don't have to share every single thing. But it really does make a big, big difference. Sharing someone's book, sharing their words, sharing their posts, doing whatever little things you can. Even from your couch or your chair, if we all just chip in together, we can do this. And we are on the right side of history. That's, that's the thing. That's what we We want to do the right thing. We want to help mobilize people, help those that are marginalized, help people who don't have the resources they need to help themselves. And, I think there's a lot of hope, a lot of scary things, a lot of anxiety, but knowing that we're in this together makes a huge difference.

Tayler Simon:

Exactly just being intentional about how you move through the world makes all the difference and is a form of resistance in itself. So thank you so much for being a returning guest on the Liberation is Lit podcast, Marla. If any of you listeners have stories you want to share, want to suggest any topics, or just want to connect, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at Liberation is Lit, or you can visit liberationislit. com. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider leaving your review. And remember, your voice matters. And together, through the lens of stories, we're going to make a difference in the world. Until next time.