VS Season 6 Episode 5

Lupe Mendez vs. Reverence

Transcription by: Akilah Muhammad

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

Hi, my name is Ajanaé Dawkins, and my current obsession is revisiting my favorite 2000s alternative books.

Brittany Rogers

My name is Brittany Rogers, and I am welcoming all tips on how to stop buying on airplanes, cause truly (inaudible).

Ajanaé Dawkins

She do, I can confirm (laughs). And you're listening to VS the podcast where poets confront the ideas that move them. And today we'll be interviewing Texas poet laureate, Lupe Mendez.

Brittany Rogers

So we hope you enjoy chatting with Lupe about familiar responsibility, archival and mass community.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Okay, best, so before we get into this interview, I want to ask you what was your family's response to you seriously pursuing poetry?

Brittany Rogers

Do they know I'm seriously pursuing poetry? (Laughing) I’m just sayin’.

Ajanaé Dawkins

You the type of person that text yo mama one day like, by the way, I don't know if I mentioned I wrote a book, it won the Pulitzer, thanks.

Brittany Rogers

It dropped, thanks moms. Yeah, I think that there's still a huge part of me that really tries to keep that part of my life separate. So I have a Facebook life so that my family can see what I'm up to. So I think they see the things that I post. I don't know that honestly they know what that means if we're being real. I do remember there was one thing that I got awarded and my mom was like, okay, what does this mean before I start sharing it? Because, you know, I can't be endorsing just any and everything (laughs). I was like, mom, what you think I'm doing (laughs)? And then she was like, you know, don’t answer that. I do remember, there was a little bit of tension when I first started traveling a lot for poetry. When my mom had me, she really kind of really did the I'm a mom, and I gotta work thing. And I love her. And I saw how much of a sacrifice that was. And also, I think how much it shifted her concept of herself as a person. And I kind of was like, yeah, I'm not doing that, respectfully. That's not what I'm going to be doing. So I remember there being a few conversations about wow, so you're really traveling again, huh? And it was kind of like, you know, I remember you did that in high school and in college, but now you had the kids, and I was like, yeah, and that was, I think the summation of the conversation. And I think now she's kind of settled into it more, but it's still not, I don't think it's a thing we actively discuss.

Ajanaé Dawkins

That's so interesting. I also think that makes a lot of sense.

Brittany Rogers

You know the vibes over here (laughs).

Ajanaé Dawkins

I do know the vibes over here. I think, for me, because I started poetry so young, like my family was super supportive the way they were about everything. You know, they had me playing an instruments, I was in music lessons, I was so it was like one of the hobbies. And then I quit band and basketball for it. And they were like, okay, well band is what's gonna get you the scholarship. And then they were like, well, what are you going to major in, in college? And I was like, creative writing, poems. And they were like, okay, well, something practical, because everybody in my family is like, they’re educators, they’re, my mom's an accountant, she works for banks. So they were just like, poems do not pay the bills, Ajanaé. Like this was a very cute hobby; poems do not pay the bills, like we need you to get it together. And then I got a scholarship for poems, and they didn't believe me. 

Brittany Rogers

(Laughs).

Ajanaé Dawkins

Like, they literally did not. They were buying me paraphernalia for Howard, because they did not believe that UW Madison gave me a scholarship for poems (laughing). 

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers