Join Jasmine Mans, a queer Black American slam poet and performance artist from Newark, New Jersey for an intimate and empowering Salon. She’ll perform three poems from her latest collection, Black Girl, Call Home, and offer prompts grounded in love, justice, mourning, wonder and glory.
What’s in store:
- Activate the senses to recall personal moments and memories
- Freewrite an ode and a list poem
- Discover a thematic thread for a future poetry collection
- Writing tips from Jasmine—including her method for getting through writer’s block
“Someone else’s experience does not hold more value than your own. Your story belongs in the canon.”
Jasmine Mans
Prompt #1: (An Ode) – In Celebration
Write a love letter to your home. Things to consider for specificity: time, location, color, texture, street names, voice
Prompt #2: (A List Poem) – A Listing
Write Yourself home. Give yourself directions on how to get home. List 10 different directions to get yourself home. (directions should be both abstract, and concrete)
Q&A with Jasmine Mans
Who inspires you?
Toni Morrison, some of the work of Dr. Seuss (that isn’t racist), Carol Walker (who is a visual artist)… there are just so many people that inspire me. Ocean Wong is both a novelist and poet, and his book, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, really inspired me to honor home and my own mother. If you’re looking for text that acknowledges the mother-child relationship and immigration—that is a beautiful dynamic story.
Young people inspire me! I watched my 6-year-old cousin build Legos the other day and he built them so much better than I did. I was trying to figure out why and it’s because his imagination is more thorough. I realized that children should always be around because they have a stronger imagination than we do. We need to hold true to our youthful imaginations.
How has your style of poetry transformed?
When you know more, you do more, act better and do better. The things I learn make it into my work. When you learn more, you want to share more of what you’ve learned. When you become more disciplined, you become a sharper individual in order to publicly share and create things, and be accountable.
How do you edit a poem?
I edit differently based on the poem. There’s one I wrote recently that took me four months to edit because I was really nervous on the topic. It was about a particular time that happened in Black history—I didn’t want to mess it up. Iwas doing a lot of research, so that editing process was very different from some of the poems I’ve written about love. Those have just been based on my own emotional capacity of the time.
The editing of a poem is very much connected to the kind of poem you are writing. Oftentimes, I’ll sit with friends in virtual writing workshops and we’ll build our own workshops where we ask questions about each other’s work.
How do you get over writer’s block and what’s your writing inspiration?
The way to get over writer’s block is to not force yourself to write. I like to use the metaphor of cooking. When you’re hungry, you don’t just walk up to the stove. You first think about what you want to eat and then you go into the refrigerator. Then, you think about the things you need to cook, pull out the ingredients and you prepare. If you don’t have the ingredients, you have to go to the store to buy them. There’s a preparation that goes in before you actually walk up to the stove.
When we put pen to pad, that’s us walking up to the stove and the question is, did we do the preparation? Did we gather the tools and ingredients? Often, when we want to walk up to the stove we ask, why are we not cooking? Well, it’s because you didn’t actually gather your ingredients and prep them. You have to spend time chopping the onions fine enough for the dish you’re cooking. That’s the level of detail we conspire around when we’re building a poem. Search for detail.
I may not be inspired by anything but, what if I write about my hair? How long does it take my hair to grow? When did I start disliking my hair? Why is other people’s hair different from mine? Now you have questions and things to research. They may not have been things that were pressing on your heart but they’re things that allow you to be exploratory. Being a student of your craft is being able to explore and find things that you love or that you didn’t think you cared about.
When you really have writer’s block, my shortened answer to getting over it is to go on Netflix and watch films about the ocean or animals. What happens in the ocean seems to be the most poetic thing ever.
This event was originally recorded on April 2, 2021.
Teaching Artist
Jasmine Mans
Jasmine Mans is a queer Black American slam poet and performance artist from Newark, New Jersey. Jasmine’s poetry book, Black Girl, Call Home (Penguin Random House) has been named one of Oprah Magazine’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books. The book is now available. Her work has been featured in Elle, Oprah Magazine and many others. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison with a B.A. in African American Studies. She has opened shows for Mos Def, Janelle Monae, and Goapele, and performed at the Kennedy Center, Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theater, the Wisconsin Governor’s Mansion and the Sundance Film Festival. Mans also participated in Brave New Voices, an 8-episode poetry documentary on HBO. Jasmine has written for and performed voiceover work for a number of campaigns including Secret, PANGAIA, and Nowness, to name a few. She can currently be heard as the voice of Ulta Beauty’s national Muse campaign. Her debut collection of poetry, Chalk Outlines of Snow Angels, was published in 2012. Mans is the resident poet at the Newark Public Library. Jasmine also led Newark Symphony Hall’s #EmbraceNewark initiative, which featured writings, footage and photography from local Black artists documenting their pandemic experience.
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Jasmine Mans
Jasmine Mans is a queer Black American slam poet and performance artist from Newark, New Jersey. Jasmine’s poetry book, Black Girl, Call Home (Penguin Random House) has been named one of Oprah Magazine’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books. The book is now available. Her work has been featured in Elle, Oprah Magazine and many others. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison with a B.A. in African American Studies. She has opened shows for Mos Def, Janelle Monae, and Goapele, and performed at the Kennedy Center, Broadway's New Amsterdam Theater, the Wisconsin Governor’s Mansion and the Sundance Film Festival. Mans also participated in Brave New Voices, an 8-episode poetry documentary on HBO. Jasmine has written for and performed voiceover work for a number of campaigns including Secret, PANGAIA, and Nowness, to name a few. She can currently be heard as the voice of Ulta Beauty’s national Muse campaign. Her debut collection of poetry, Chalk Outlines of Snow Angels, was published in 2012. Mans is the resident poet at the Newark Public Library. Jasmine also led Newark Symphony Hall’s #EmbraceNewark initiative, which featured writings, footage and photography from local Black artists documenting their pandemic experience.