“Every simple thing matters”: Blackshop talks poetry, pedagogy, activism (and cuisine) with Sarah Gambito

Most of the time when Nina and I know someone, I’ve met them through Nina, or Nina met them through me, but Sarah Gambito is one of those few longtime friends we both met independently before getting to know each other. Nina met Sarah over ten years ago at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. While Nina was the Programs Director, she collaborated with Sarah on joint AAWW/Kundiman events and even when there was no event, Sarah was a friend to AAWW and Nina too.

And while this is in no way a competition, I think I win this one because I met Sarah as the teacher in my very first undergraduate poetry workshop. As a grad student herself, Sarah was not that much older than anyone in her class, yet she instantly commanded our attention and respect. Within the span of a semester, she offered us new perspective, taking the time to walk us through entire collections of experimental poetics; she energized our writing, often ending her detailed critiques of our work with a simple but encouraging “Go for it!”; but most of all she built community and turned the classroom into a space where we could be feel safe to experiment with language in a seemingly unsafe way.

As it turns out this was a small sign of things to come. In the years since the workshop Sarah has continued building communities through co-founding Kundiman, co-directing the Poetic Justice Institute, and starting up Kindred. She also, as the Director of Creative Writing at Fordham University, continues to teach workshops were the students are “creating together, imagining together…” Oh, and in her spare time Sarah wrote three books of poetry: Matadora (Alice James Books 2004), Delivered (Persea Books 2009), and her most recent Loves You (Persea Books 2019).

Blackshop spoke with Sarah just as the 2020–2021 academic year was wrapping up.

- Quincy Scott Jones

Blackshop: You have never shied away from expressions of identity in your work. The description of your first book, Matadora, reads in part as a text that “challenges traditional Filipina gender norms, beginning with the title which feminizes a word and profession traditionally masculine.” Loves You seems to place culture and identity much more predominately in the forefront than your previous two books. From interweaving history, politics, and food (what’s more culturally significant than food?) to the frequent use of “I” and “My” that inspires a semi-autobiographical read, Love You seems to be making a statement about immigration, fetishism, double consciousness, and othering. Can you talk about how your approach to poetry has changed over the years, especially when it comes to culture and identity?

Sarah Gambito: Over the years, I’ve become interested in poetry for people of color explicitly designed to be immediate and actionable — doable, edible. I wanted to feed the ones that I love and honor the histories that sustain us. At the same time, I wanted to challenge and denounce those voices that seek to silence and hold us back. In these last dark years, the recipe, as a poetic form, felt like a container where I could pour celebration, schematic, a way to move forward.

Blackshop: Rereading Matadora reminded me of an early lesson of yours. At Brown you gave us all personal assignments. A semester later, you turned one of the assignments into a poem. In doing so, you showed us the relationship between poetry and pedagogy, not as day-job vs. artistic passion, but as the interchange of ideas. At Fordham, you are the co-director of the Poetic Justice Institute, showing us the relationship between poetry and pedagogy also includes community and activism. I know first-hand how this pandemic has taken a psychological toll on teachers as we navigate education in this new reality. Could you talk about how you have handled these last fourteen-fifteen months and how this pandemic has effected your teaching, your writing, and your activism?

Sarah Gambito: The pandemic has surely has sped my work into a few questions I’ve had for many years. How tech can meaningfully expand and democratize possibilities for writers of color? How can we move beyond the chiclet videoconference squares and activate online spaces that feel daring and do the alchemical work of deeply connecting folks across space? In addition to workshop and close reading in a class, I’ve brought in yoga principles, Reiki and other embodied forms of practice to build community and set the stage of creative communion.

Blackshop: You have created meaningful, enduring spaces for BIPOC artists in myriad ways, be it within higher ed or through non-profit work. To call them spaces even feels like too poor a word. I’m thinking of Pharrell’s lyric in “Happy,” a “room without a roof” — that’s what it feels like you create, a space without limits or one that challenges those which marginalized people may otherwise feel in mainstream artistic environments.

In 2004 with Joseph O. Legaspi you co-founded Kundiman, a national nonprofit that “creates a space where Asian Americans can explore, through art, the unique challenges that face the new and ever changing diaspora.” According to the website, Kundiman’s annual retreat is modeled in part after Cave Canem and its dedication to African American poetry and poets from the Black diaspora. Since 2004 Kundiman has frequently partnered Cave Canem, CantoMundo, VONA, and other organizations in order to give a platform to voices from the margins.

You are currently the co-director of the Poetic Justice Institute, an organization that grew out of Poets Out Loud and dedicates itself to providing opportunities for the creation, dissemination, and enjoyment of poetry…” and “[t]apping the transformative power of poetry for diverse communities…”

And you recently founded Kindred, an Accelerator for BIPOC artists, alongside acupuncturist Rona Luo. This space feels driven by challenging preconceived limits of what a learning space can be, in its mind-body approach, in its emphasis on horizontal learning, in its emphasis on being not merely a space of production but reparation for BIPOC artists and lastly in its virtual design. What inspired Kindred and how do you see it inspiring others?

Sarah Gambito: Rona and I wanted to build a BIPOC creative writing coalitional space where we centered a number of values: the wisdom of the body, service to one another and explicit guidance on what takes to sustain an artistic life that is not separate from bills, rent, health insurance, child-rearing. In addition, we wanted offer teaching specific to the concerns of writers of color. How does historical trauma impact creativity? What are the origins of the racial wealth gap and how this impacts writers? How do we call in manifestation and mindful ritual to uplevel as a creative community? So much becomes possible in coalition-building. I’m looking forward to what other spaces will take root in the next number of years.

Blackshop: In 2020 and 2021 we have seen a steep increase in horrific hate crimes against Asian Americans. We have also seen renewed attention paid to the violent and all too often deadly treatment of Black and Brown bodies at the hands of the police. We have seen legislation to address these attacks on BIPOC communities both raised and struck down on the state and federal level.

Even though they have been working with the community for decades without the fanfare of national media, in this time of changing diaspora, this time of spotlight, what can organizations like Kundiman, Cave Canem, the Poetic Justice Institute, Kindred do to support the greater BIPOC community? What can these and other organizations from the margins and/or invested in diversity do to support each other? And most importantly, what can the rest of us do help?

Sarah Gambito:

• Ask for what you need and, at the same time, give what you have to offer. Never question your kindness. Never question that everything redoubles back to you and your beloved community.
• Cultivate antiracist practice within your own domains. I’m actively trying to implement antiracist pedagogy in my creative writing events and workshops.
• Take initiative where you are moved. As well as donating funds to grassroots artistic organizations, ask what you can do to help. The staff of these organizations is often too encumbered to ask for help. If you notice a gap in what might be possible, offer yourself — your expertise, your contacts, your faith. Even just emailing and saying, “Thank you for what you do.” Every simple thing matters.

Blackshop: In 25 words or less, how we gonna come up?

Sarah Gambito: Dare to drink at the river of our own abundance.

“Every simple thing matters”: Blackshop talks poetry, pedagogy, activism (and cuisine) with Sarah… was originally published in ANMLY on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.