Next Man Up, Poetry in Motion

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NV studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Donavan LeDean 0:14
Here we go. Here we go. Move it. Move it. Move it. You Yeah, beautiful, next man up, Dave.

Donavan LeDean 0:41
Hello and welcome to the show. I am your host, Donna Billy Dean, actor, author and inspirational rhythmic poet. Get out. Tuned in to next man up, poetry in motion, where the mission is to promote good mental health for everyone. This poetry show will motivate, educate and inspire you with spoken word, through cultural expression, we got a special treat for y'all today the Chelsea more is in the building, a spoken word artist from Los Angeles, California, now residing in Las Vegas, Nevada as a poet. Her pen is blazing, and she is in high demand spitting poetry at venues around the Vegas valley. Chelsea queen, thank you for being

Chelsea Maraee 1:24
here. Thank you for having me so.

Donavan LeDean 1:28
You've recently performed at Amazon's Black History poetry slam, along with other phenomenal spoken word artists such as just flow and Yaya. And you got more venues coming up, having the opportunity to perform on stage, telling your story, as well as others. How has that experience been for you?

Chelsea Maraee 1:53
It's been a pretty interesting experience. I usually second guess myself a lot, so being able to just be picked randomly off of, you know, just a random social media site from someone who runs certain programs for, you know, Amazon and stuff like that. And thinking my work is good enough to be there was pretty it was pretty cool, phenomenal.

Donavan LeDean 2:17
And what inspired you to pick up the pen and again, writing poetry.

Chelsea Maraee 2:21
What inspired me to write was just growing up where I did not feeling like I had a voice, not feeling like it was safe to speak my feelings and emotions, picking up a pen and writing my feelings down, gave it, gave my words a safe place to just kind of express myself, not feel judged or being told it's wrong. So Right?

Donavan LeDean 2:45
Yeah, I had the pleasure of having Jess Flo on the show talking about her mental health journey raising an autistic child, and she mentioned about the importance of first having patients, as well as joining other autistic mothers who are going through a similar journey to prevent isolation and to gain strength and to also maintain good mental health, you've mentioned that you're also a mother who's raising an autistic son? Elaborate on your mental health journey as a mother raising an autistic child,

Chelsea Maraee 3:29
who um just definitely giving myself that grace as well and taking care of my my just showering myself with love, that way I can make sure that I could wake up every day and show up for him as well, having a lot of patience, because you don't really know what the day is going to bring. So just being open to also learn him and just yeah,

Donavan LeDean 3:58
just does poetry help you find a good space as well.

Chelsea Maraee 4:02
Yeah, because that's part of taking care of myself as well. Okay, so, yeah, if you can't, if you can't, you know, be in the right headspace or anything like that, it's almost impossible to show up for your child and be able to give them that love and that, you know,

Donavan LeDean 4:18
during your childhood, adolescence, you've mentioned that your mother was in prison for a period, yet through the tribulations, you and her were very close. The love you had you two had for each other was undeniable, unbreakable. However, sadly, your mother passed away in September of 2022, this show is dedicated to mental health, and for that, in your own words, elaborate on the history and relationship you had with your mother.

Chelsea Maraee 4:54
Well, it was very layered. We she was my mother, obviously, but she was also. Just my partner, you know, she also helped me raise my son. So she was like the other parent, and then still, like, I have a line in one of my poems that I say, you know, I'm still learning how to be a mother without the safety net of being someone's child. She taught me everything, just how to be patient with him, how to, you know, just the basic things of, you know, like schooling and, you know, doctor's appointments and stuff like that. But our relationship, we grouped together really, you know, she's, she was a very interesting woman. She had been through almost every phase, crazy, phase, good phase in life. So we grew together, and it was, it was a beautiful experience to watch her grow into a grandmother and then the mother that I've always like wanted for real out of her, because we had a pretty rough start.

Donavan LeDean 5:57
Well, I share my condolences, and I I do appreciate as far as your drive and resilience and longevity and being able to continue to keep doing what you're doing, and you're doing a phenomenal job with poetry and just a mother, you know. So we appreciate you. Thank you so much before we let you go, I would like for you to share a poem for us. You ready? Yes, I am ready. Gwen, talk to her.

Chelsea Maraee 6:29
My name is Chelsea Murray. I like roses, not because they're delicate or anything, but because you can bleed when you touch them. The petals are soft and the thorns are honest, contradiction with roots that refuse to apologize. Just like me, my favorite color is pink. I'm from LA where sirens harmonize with swaying palm trees, and I'm usually always the woman who speaks when people demand silence. I was taught to swallow my pain like communion on a Sunday morning, I like coffee in any form. Actually, I daydream a lot. I daydream about wanting to walk freely at night, barefoot on gravel or lying down in an open field where stars burn like stubborn lanterns and nobody asks if my body is safe. I want the river to claim me. Its cold mouth opening at my knees, its tilted tongue pressing against my calves, its weeds combing my ankles like fingers. Sometimes I just want to slip into the water like the person I once dreamed of being. Sometimes, my whole life just feels like an act of letting go. I have a son, and I love him so much, but most of the time I parent strictly from instinct or sometimes from the ache of wanting to call my own mama up and ask her, am I doing this right? So I sit with grief often between bedtime routines and morning rushes, I'm still learning how to be a mother without the safety net of being somebody's child. I'm tired, and not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. I mean bone deep, history, heavy, inheritance. Level, tired. I'm tired of watching myself through other people's eyes, checking my posture, my face and my words, and asking myself silently if it's safe to be myself here. I'm tired of mistakes sticking to me longer than they stick to anybody else, knowing I could do everything right and still be questioned. I hate leaving my house. I love bumping oldies and dread ordering my food at a drive through window and stay shouting poems in my four walls of a home. I got a lot of bad habits, and I think my worst one is loving men who don't even care enough about me measuring myself in replies, or how long my name lingers on his tongue, or whether I'm needed or merely convenient. I'm still learning how to live in this body like it belongs to me, learning how to teach my heart how to unclench its fist, and loving myself these days feels like learning a new language, but maybe loving myself right now doesn't look like confidence. It might look a little like patience, because some days I look in the mirror and I see everything I've been through before, seeing who I am, and I'm not my worst day. I'm not what hurt me. I'm becoming so if you see me taking my time these days, I'm just learning my name again and loving myself in pieces instead of all at once. And I think out of all things I've done in life, I think this one is the hardest. My name is Chelsea Murray, and I'm still here. Thank you, beautiful.

Donavan LeDean 9:26
Chelsea Moray, thank you for your time. The poets that will be featured on our playlist today are Chelsea Moray, Luna shymoro, the unknown oldest, Sheldon, Alex Sebastian, Liz Prince, Stephon, Pettway, Amira, Donna, Van Lee, ding, Jess Flo Jenny, you Dean and Zachary Gutierrez. Now let's get on with the show. This is next man up. Poetry in motion. Here we go. Here we go. Next man up.

Donavan LeDean 10:20
Thrive from other body land the best you can best you can.

Donavan LeDean 10:33
Never we need a leader. You with vision, your paramount to move the world impact the next generation of a young boy and a girl. Terror is on a rise. Punish headlines throughout the land. We're in despair. Yet I'm on a peace mission, lending a helping hand. I'm a novice in territory accompanied by corruption, life, peace, joy, taking it once the great abduction I'm taking on a fight. Follow me lead, and you lead the way. Boost humanity is on us For a brighter day. Drive, drive,

Donavan LeDean 11:33
right from other body land. Keep doing the best you

Donavan LeDean 11:42
can now. Face the boy no demands. Keep doing the best you can Dave.

Donavan LeDean 12:11
Next man up, before we go, I would like for you to share more for us.

Amira 12:25
Amira, I am 16, not grown, but let me tell you what's got me messed up. I've met tons of adults who tell me to stay in my place and treated me like I was grown before I had the capacity to know it was wrong teachers that told me about their life struggles when all I wanted to do was get to the next page of the book. This isn't a poem. I'm telling you my grievances. I was in middle school when people talked to me like I was an adult, then told me to watch my tone. And I appreciate the transparency, but I wish they wouldn't shut up. They were grown. Who do you think you are? Telling me what you think all the other students have if you're not licensed, you shouldn't diagnose and no offense, I don't care if you're depressed when I'm trying to learn equations and want to go home. Keep it professional. A middle schooler doesn't need to know what you've got going on at home. It's insensitive, I know. But do you feel my anger? An adult told me that I remind him of his brother days later in a conversation, just to find out that man hates the same person he compared me to. So what was he really trying to tell me and excuse my lack of grace, but I'm done playing nice. A lot of people thought it meant that they could share things with me, and just because I was listening does not mean I wanted to be there. I was too young to know how to say I'm uncomfortable just because I am concise does not mean I am free. Therapy. Communication is key so you forget there are limits to what you can share with me. For every adult that crossed my boundaries, get a grip and let me be clear with you, figure it out yourself. I am no longer playing games with you, ask your psychiatrist for a remedy or just do your job. Are you incompetent or pushing limits on purpose? You may think I'm disrespectful, but I'm not talking out of the side of my neck. If I'm supposed to stay in a child's place, you stay in the dolls and let that line be set.

Donavan LeDean 14:43
My people, I present to you the lovely, sensational poet, Chelsea Moray Queen tautua, here we

Donavan LeDean 14:52
go. Here we go. Next man up. We

Chelsea Maraee 14:55
were born where sirens sang lullabies. We're cracked so. Sidewalks raised us like tired elders and bullets whispered prayers in the night. The corner store became our church, neon lights glowing like stained glass while mamas bent their backs like sacred Psalms just to keep the lights on. We learned early, but survival was an art form. The unwritten code don't run when the blue lights flash. Keep your hands where the world can see and learn how to laugh in silence. That way, Joy doesn't sound too much like a threat. The rules black folks memorize. Y'all know, ladies to walk home alive. Keys between fingers, smile, soft. Voice steady and keep our rage swallowed. I carry the hood in my chest. I've seen eviction notices taped to doors like warning labels on our futures. I've seen brothers disappear into cells before their voices even finished cracking, and our mother's prayers was the only bruise that didn't leak when the world rained down on us every day was survival, math. How many blocks can I walk without colors claiming? How many times can I smile polite enough to prove that I am a threat? I learned to keep my eyes wide open, because danger doesn't knock it kicks the door in I came up with street lights preach curfews, where police cruisers stalked like hungry wolves. I am every black child the hood tried to swallow, every miracle the concrete could not crush. So when you see me know this truth, I am proof that beauty could bleed through asphalt, and that divinity survives even in the shadows, and then we black, unbroken, unforgotten, are roses made by the sacred struggle. Our roots are stubborn and holy. Drink from the ache of our ancestors who bent but did not break seed. God plants us in soil. The World discards seed. God plants us in the soil the world discards, yet still we prosper, dreams painted on brick walls, spirit as strong as gospel thunder. We are not defined by the cracks. We are the light pushing through them. So when you see me, know this, I am proof that you can bloom in the hardest of places, and that beauty belongs even in the broken, and that every black child from the hood is a miracle the world wasn't ready for

Donavan LeDean 17:31
next man up, Dave,

Speaker 5 17:33
where do we go now? This is a forest wide out in the open air with plenty place to hide and many more to seek. This is discovery. So many go alone, but will you go with me? I mean, to journey on as many dare to do, is such a place to be, but better off with you and better off with us on the unwritten path. Let's make it worth the risk and all the aftermath. You the

Speaker 6 18:03
next man up, be delusional. Be delusional like skyscrapers, dreaming they can scrape the sky like rivers, thinking they can drown the tide like seeds in the cracks of sidewalks that believe they'll become forests despite concrete lies be so bold that logic takes a backseat, like shoes with no souls, still running these streets like hunger, gnawing at the bones of defeat, but still feasting on the thought that destiny can taste sweet they'll call You crazy. Say you're building castles on quicksand, say you're chasing shadows with open hands, but tell them the moon only lights up the night because it's stubborn enough to steal the sun's spot. Be delusional, like poets who think words can change the world, laugh in the face of practicality, like fireflies flirting with eternity, like gravity, trying to hold down the wings to the ground, but the wings just laugh and keep on flapping around like hope, screaming louder than doubt, like fear knocked out by a dream too stubborn to sit down be delusional like stars that refuse to fall, like soldiers training in snow, sleet, rain, because they're too insane to believe that obstacles means stop speak your visions out loud, like prophets with no followers, but stories got endless crowds. They'll say it's impossible, but impossibility is just a dare thrown down by reality to see if you care, to see if you're bold or fight. So be delusional. Be the Phoenix before the flame, the lion before the roar, the champion even when bruised. Soar. Be the impossible, the improbable. The reckless soul broke through the mold just to prove that some stories can't.

Donavan LeDean 20:14
Here we go. Here we go. Next man up.

Unknown Speaker 20:18
Let me get ready.

Speaker 4 20:22
I'm let me get ready.

Speaker 7 20:29
I don't clock in. I lock in, tapped into frequencies. Most folks don't even notice I'm bilingual in meltdown plus motion fluid and silence and devotion. They see tantrum. I see sensory overload. They see picky eater. I see protecting peace from chaos on the plate. They see non verbal I see a universe of thoughts The world ain't even earned the privilege to translate. They try to speak for him, instead of letting him speak as him. They assume silence means confused, like I just choose words for him. Stop seeing disability. Start seeing possibilities. Autism isn't a misprint. It's a difference. Girl against I'm the translator, interpreter, advocate, navigator, therapist, teacher, researcher, educator, appointments on calendars, patience and stamina, balancing meltdowns, holding space, holding stamina. IEP meetings where they judge what he's lacking while I subtract their assumptions and multiply backing, proving daily that growth ain't measured in talking. Some babies speak words. MAN SPEAKS energy when they walking. His silence ain't empty. It's full, full of galaxies and meaning, full of brilliance. They keep missing, full of everything. They don't need permission. They label my baby. Don't label my fight. Don't label the journey. When you can't handle the light. The ancestors didn't sign us to be easy. He assigned us to be legendary, believe me, thank you.

Speaker 8 21:45
Next man up, sonnet 34 the discontent for C, dedicated to j, m, W, tunnel I long for the deep joy of contentment on the Edenic coastlines lost in time now, waves flood ceaselessly with the current bending the hull, treading the cell with brine, the sea spray slashes across the groaning mass that I'm tied to as a witness and exile. The vessel of story oak cutting fast, is bound to sink near to an unknown Isle, but I won't drown out my affections now, for there's glory and beauty beholden to not a single eye and at the prow the sun sets, dreaming to rise all golden through the blue vapors revealing islands to climb the mist blanketed islands. Poem,

Donavan LeDean 22:58
next man up, presents, shymuro Quaid tauto, Tom. Here we go. Here we go. Next man up.

Cheyenne 23:06
Hello everyone. My name is Cheyenne chargalof. My friends and family called me Shai. Thank you for having me. Today, I'm going to read my poetry. This one is called my mirror. You Mirror, mirror on the wall. Why did I hate you before I was so tired of seeing the reflection of what I felt myself, insecure. Mira, how can one ever love you when you don't love themselves? I couldn't I had to face myself. I had to face you mirror. You're broken from being punched. I no longer see myself, but yet I still see you, empty, black space, pathetic you, I believe, to dance and too long, but to meet you again me, but in love of you. I love myself. I want you my mirror to drop colors onto my skin like melted crayons. I want you my mirror to caress down your words my poetry. Hold the words that create you, to hold you up and to be strong my mirror and to look at myself. I know I'm strong and that I'm an art and that I want to love myself my mirror, I order. You can find me on Instagram.

Donavan LeDean 24:33
Next man up, presents, Luna Queen tall tour. Here we go. Here we go. Next man up,

Luna 24:41
self doubt once appeared to be a prison I couldn't escape from, like being trapped in the labyrinth of my mind with only the echo of my fears repeating every lie I told myself repeating in an endless loop of suffering with every challenge and waited a. In my chest, I carried all this pain and knowing how to release so I carried it all until it became so undeniable that loving myself was no longer optional. Instead, it showed me where I needed love the most, reminding myself that I was capable of so much more than my fears allowed me to see my mind is a weapon, but I no longer turn it against myself. I let pain instruct me without defining me. Growth did not feel gentle, and discomfort became my teacher. That is how I learned to grow when love is louder than my wounds.

Donavan LeDean 25:43
Next man up, I came here, deadweiler, Daddy's little stranger.

Donavan LeDean 25:52
Share an example of your story versions that covers the topic of mental health.

Acamea Deadwiler 25:59
It was I said, the biggest part is, there's the situation and there's the story. The situation is the facts. It's what happened. And that's where we can get into trouble with assigning labels if we don't add meaning to what we're sharing and then and to the readers. And that's how we reduce people to their mental health struggles, rather than creating, you know, full characters, and it's important to do that. So one example, if I were to say she was paranoid, she thought people were watching us through the windows. She thought the food was poisoned so she didn't feed us. She thought the floor was poisoned so we couldn't walk on it. Those are facts. That is the situation. But what is the story? And this is the story version that reflects those same facts. I remember too much, but also forgot a lot. I forgot how my mother and I were before our love was interrupted by tragedy. I forgot she'd always taken care of us, until one day she didn't, and even on that day, convinced our floor was contaminated to the point of untouchable, she lowered to her hands and knees and crawled with us on her back. She touched the poison wood so her children wouldn't have to that's an excerpt from my memoir Daddy's little stranger. It frames an entire story where even in that state of psychosis, even in that challenge she was experiencing, she was loving us, she was mothering us the best way she knew how, with the tools that she had. And that really helped me tell that story in a way that didn't disparage someone that I truly care about and still put her in a positive light, because it was a mental health crisis. It wasn't, you know, this, this terrible thing that that she'd done. It was, you know, it was a health issue. I came here dead while Daddy's little stranger.

Donavan LeDean 27:41
Before we go, I would like to conclude with a power message. It's a message about making the switch the time is now to do what is necessary to elevate your life. Take the necessary steps to get that job you always wanted, or to become your own boss. Change your diet instead of falling victim to sugar cravings, take that trip you always wanted to go on. Tomorrow is not promised. It seems harder to do the right thing. Instead, you frequently take shortcuts, doing the wrong things. Yet shortcuts are just an illusion, leading you back to where you started, never getting to the finish line. So what are you waiting for? Let's get it done now. Thanks for tuning in to next man up poetry motion. I am your host, Donna Valley D. To see my inspirational and poetry reels, you can go to YouTube at Donna Valley D. Also you can find my poetry books, children's books and coloring books on Amazon under my name, Donovan Lee D for actor or poets. Bookings, you can contact me, DV media, one zero@gmail.com Special thanks to my guest spoken word artist Chelsea Murray for stopping by discussing poetry autism and her mental health journey. I am Donna Billy Dean, actor, author and Inspirational, rhythmic poet until next time. Peace. Dave, you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai