We Just Have to Keep Pushing: Conversation with El Jones
“If you have a vision, stick to your voice. Don’t let people discourage you, because that voice will come into its own. Just roll with it and take whatever opportunity you can.” - El Jones
BY: JINGSHU HELEN YAO
Photo via Poetry in Voice
When I first heard El Jones in a Zoom meeting for the UTSC Writer-in-residence writing circle, I was a little surprised by her rapid speech. I assume it is a norm for professors to talk slowly, thoughtfully, especially when they are facing students. As an ESL, I often consciously slow myself when I talk to avoid exposing the disconnection between my language competence and performance. It also gives me time to observe my audiences and consider how they receive my words. I tend to imitate the style, vocabulary, and even the pronunciation of the person I am talking to because I want to sound just like them. However, it seems to be the opposite with El Jones and her fast speech.
El Jones is a poet, best known for her spoken words that focus on the topics of social justice, feminism, anti-racism, and decolonization. She is based in Nova Scotia and was named Harlifix’s Poet Laureate between 2013 and 2015. Jones is the co-host of the educational radio program Black Power Hours, where incarcerated audiences were given a space to express their creativity. For the winter 2021 semester, El Jones is the Writer-in-residence at UTSC campus, and in charge of a variety of creative writing workshops and events.
My first impression of El Jones was retained when I went to check out her spoken words performance. Most of her performance carried her fast, passionate, strong, and straightforward speech style into the poems. These features made her poems easy to resonate with and especially impactful when she took on the voices of prisoners or indigenous people. Even in her poem “Canadian is so Polite,” where she took on an ironic voice of the ideal “Canadian,” the power of her words ran through her performance and made people willing to jump up into action. El Jones’ voice always has its magic, even when it was recorded and played in my bedroom during a pandemic.
To better understand El Jones’ work, performance, and what advice and guidance she could offer UTSC students as our writer-in-residence, I reached out to her and asked a few questions. Not to my surprise, her responses are quick, sharp, and right to the point, only leaving me nodding and trying to keep up with note-taking.
Different writers have different habits and experience different feelings when they write. What is the writing process like for you? Could you share that?
Similar to her speaking style, El Jones’ writing is done in quick motions. Jones explained that she usually writes on a deadline, for a commission, a conference, an event, or a rally. “Once I have one line or one image that sets up my rhythm then I build from there,” she said. “Not so much like sitting at my desk and having a cup of tea while I write.”
Jones’ writing focuses on the communities she works with, such as prisoners. The brainstorming and thinking for her writing are usually done while she is in conversation with others. “By the time you come to write a poem the ideas are there,” she said. “So the thinking is done in my life and put into writing.”
Social Justice is one of the main themes in your poetry, could you speak a little about that? What inspires you, how do you approach them?
Wanting to discuss social justice in writing is what inspired Jones to do spoken word. “I woke up with a poem in my head, about growing up in white neighborhoods and a kind of double standards are imposed upon us,” she said. “I talked about things like, in junior high, people would say ‘your house smells like curry’ and then in high school they say ‘can I date your brother, he’s hot.’”
The experience of working with prisoners gave Jones more faith to focus on social justice in her poetry. Writing about political topics can be hard for women and taking the form of spoken word is Jones’ way to express herself.
“There’s a burning urgency of writing about issues that people told me about,” she said. “I always say that you don’t speak for people, you're speaking with people.”
What are some challenges you faced when voicing your thoughts in your work?
El Jones was banned from many stages before she was recognized as an outspoken poet. For many years she was considered hateful, angry, and dangerous. “If people don’t like what you say, they will try to silence you, ban you. They’ll call you crazy and kick you out of the event,” she continued. “So you just have to keep pushing it.”
Jones was often questioned for getting up stage recklessly and discussing issues that may make people uncomfortable. “I am not saying it from myself but from a community,” she said. “Whenever I’m on the news, it’s the people in prison who get excited. They would call me and say, ‘that white man can’t get the best of you.’ They love it and they support that because we’re all working together for freedom.” Jones suggests that writers should understand there will always be negative comments and they may lose jobs or friends for being outspoken. “You just really have to find that resilience,” she said. “I always had something to say and my desire to say it has always been greater than my fear.”
You are known for your spoken word, how are they different from written poems (not in definition but your personal feelings)? How does it connect to your activism?
For El Jones, the biggest advantage of the spoken word is the simpleness. Facing a diverse group of audiences, she tried her best to make her work understandable to everyone. She quotes Toni Cade Bambara’s argument, the “duty of an artist representing marginalized communities is to make revolution irresistible and that also means that we need to make a porch accessible.” While the topics in Jones’ poems may be heavy, she always tries to keep the words simple, and the rhyme of spoken word also helps people to relate and understand.
Your performance is powerful and I am especially interested in your manipulation of words, intonations, and rhymes. Could you speak about the use of language in your performance?
Surprisingly, El Jones didn’t start off as a person who enjoys going on stage or is good at performing. It was what she had to learn and practice. Over the years, she learned from other poets to use gestures to express herself, to be comfortable on stage. She also practices by imagining herself saying the words. The poems themselves are written to be more suitable for performance. “I like to sustain rhyme, a lot of internal rhyming that makes a poem flow or release things,” she said. “Flipping phrases and words around can really draw people in. I used a lot of wordplay, even if the poem is very serious. I think that is a playful aspect of writing, almost like a puzzle.”
What is a piece of advice that you wish someone had told you when you first started to write?
“You really need to fight to get your point through,” Jones said. She shared the experience of meeting her undergraduate professor after many years. He remembered that even as a student, Jones always knew exactly who she was and firmly spoke her thoughts all the time. This didn’t change when Jones was banned from many stages and was recognized only by people from prison and shelter. “If you have a vision, stick to your voice,” she said. “Don’t let people discourage you, because that voice will come into its own. Just roll with it and take whatever opportunity you can.”
Do you have any suggestions for young writers, especially women and POC?
Building meaningful connections is a piece of advice Jones would like to share with young writers. A lot of students who approached her were worried and discouraged by getting rejections for publication. Jones pointed out that joining the writing community, supporting fellow writers, and encouraging each other are good ways to have access to more opportunities.
A second piece is to be patient. For young writers, especially women and POC, recognition won’t come easily. Connecting with her previous point, sticking to ones’ vision, and carrying on is the only way to make it come true. Finally, Jones said that writers shouldn’t validate themselves with other people’s words. Only a few writers would get bestsellers and be known by many. “We have to find ways to celebrate and uplift ourselves and to keep ourselves going,” she said. “I will probably never have a bestseller, but that doesn’t mean that my writing hasn’t impacted people.”
“Just keep pushing and measure your success by yourself.”
Check out some of El Jones spoken word:
Halifax (2011) https://youtu.be/xq9ppO7CzkI
Canada is so polite (2018) https://youtu.be/V7y0IkmSVTc
Still We Rise (2017) https://youtu.be/V7y0IkmSVTc
Live from the Afrikan Resistance! (2014) https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/live-from-the-afrikan-resistance
