Alexandria poet: Be committed, unapologetic about what you write

Spoken word poet, author and songwriter Jerrica “Jae” Franklin has a rule for writing poetry. She uses a pen because ink is permanent. And just like life, what has been written can be rewritten, but not erased.

“With a pencil you can erase what you did,” the Rapides Parish Library’s June Author of the Month told participants at an adult poetry workshop held at the Main Library in downtown Alexandria. “If you are writing in pen, you are committing to say what you said. And be unapologetic about it.”

There are no hesitations, inhibitions, boundaries or barriers in poetry.

“It’s all your truth. So, at this moment, you should be able to establish your truth in pen,” she said.

During one of the writing exercises, she catches someone scratching something out and she reminds them of her rule.

“You write in pen you are intentional,” she tells them. “You said what you said.”

She carries a bag filled with her of all the poetry she has written going back to when she was 8 years old. All written in pen.

“Those are the sacred pieces I will probably never read or publish,” she said.

She never wanted to be anything else but a poet. There has never been a Plan B to fall back on.

She calls writing her “superpower," explaining to her class that everyone has a superpower.

“I wasn’t of those students in school who had a ball in their hands. However, I could write,” said Franklin who graduated from Tioga High School in 2012.

Franklin speaks with a quiet but strong eloquence as she engages with others in the workshop, but speaking as she does now was\ not always easy for her.

“As a little girl I had a speech impediment called cluttering. It’s where the words come to your mind, but they don’t come to your mouth and deliver the same,” she explained. “But for some reason, whenever I do poetry, it goes away. That’s why I call it my ‘superpower.’”

Then she asked if anyone knew the story of Moses, who also had a speech impediment. She said, “When God directed him to go, the Scriptures said he was hesitant because, he told God, ‘I am slow of tongue.’”

Her speech impediment made her extremely hesitant early in her spoken word poetry career because the thought of her speech impediment would be running through the back of her mind. It made her self-conscious and she never liked to read aloud in class.

The reason she told them the story of her speech impediment is so they could understand her poem, “Kind of Like Moses,” poem for a youth workshop she taught for the Fine Arts Academy of Cenla. The poem is about how she persevered with cluttering and embraced her “superpower.”

“From there I realized that if we have nothing else in common, we all have fear,” she said. “We all are afraid of something. We’re all insecure about something.”

When she teaches children, she likes to start them off with writing something they absolutely love about themselves. But for this adult workshop, she gave them two choices of what they could write about. Something about themselves that they are proud of or one of their insecurities.

“But whatever it is, let it be something that moves you,” she said.

Franklin instructs them to write down the word “irony.” The reason is because she wants them to write why their topic is ironic for them.

She gives them five minutes to write and at the end, if they feel comfortable, they can stand up and read aloud what they wrote.

Franklin then picks up their papers and hands them to others. In this next exercise, they write on that person’s topic.

“Write this person’s story in the most poetic form that you know,” Franklin told them, and to think about descriptive language. “If this were you and this was your story, how would you write?”

Sometimes other poets can write the very thing the original poet can’t say but feel, she explained.

“Every story that we write is not always our story. It’s just that we have the platform to tell it. We have the ability to poetically articulate the things your soul says. It comes out of our mouths. And that’s what makes poets superheroes,” she said. “And after today, I hope you discover the poet in you.”

Poems don’t have to rhyme. They just have to flow, said Franklin.

Everyone got a copy of her poem “Toast & Tea” so they could see an example of her rhyme scheme but added that they shouldn’t try to write using her rhyme scheme or flow, but make their own. She read the poem aloud so they could hear her cadence, study her rhythm and see how her stanzas and poetry are formed.

One student asks if she writes all her thoughts down then puts them in stanza form.

Franklin does not, though she encourages others to do so.

“One of my special powers is I can write a poem in about 20-30 minutes,” she said. “It comes out this way and it just goes stanza by stanza. I think, and what I think, I write, and it comes out in that flow and in that rhythm.”

Towards the end of the workshop, she asked her friend and spoken word artist Abby Taylor, who came to support Franklin as she taught the workshop, to bless the class by reading her poem “Goddly.”

Franklin likes to shine the light on other spoken word artists like Taylor.

“As a poet and a person, she means so much to me,” said Franklin, adding that when you really listen to people's stories, you learn to have a new respect for them.

“And sometimes in those people, you get to see a certain version of yourself. And again, that’s how other poets are born," she said.

There’s freedom in writing, said Franklin, and she encouraged workshop participants to take the time to write. Many times adults get consumed with their roles as parents, workers or spouses.

She ended the workshop by saying that “if you don’t write for any other reason, write just because you matter. Write because your feelings may not matter to everyone else but you know what? Paper always listens.”

Franklin’s books can be purchased on Amazon.com

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Alexandria poet teaches workshop at Rapides Parish Library