Photo by Molly O'Keeffe.
aja monet is a Surrealist Blues poet. Her 2023 debut poetry album, when the poems do what they do, was nominated for the Best Spoken Word Poetry Album Grammy. Before sitting on the panel for the Zócalo/Kinsey Collection event, “Can a Football Stadium Be a Black History Museum?,” she sat down in the green room at SoFi Stadium to talk poems, parks, and words that could “slice a demon.”
What did you want to be as a kid?
A poet.
What was one of the first creative works that surprised you?
Go Ask Alice. It was wild. It was shocking as a child to read the intimate thoughts of a young person. And I don’t even know if it was real or made up. And then I really loved Judy Blume. And Langston Hughes. Langston was a big part of my childhood.
You grew up in New York City. Did you have a favorite place to go?
When I was in middle school, I used to go by the river a lot, by the FDR. For lunch, I would go and sit by the water. I really loved that. Public parks were a big part of my childhood. It’s like the one spot you get nature in a big ass city.
Poet Amiri Baraka talks about a poem being urgent, as urgent as eating bread or a sweater in the winter. What is an urgent poem for you right now?
There’s a poem by Refaat Alareer, a Gazan poet, called “If I Must Die.”
You moved to L.A. during COVID. What has surprised you about the city?
The vast diversity of the terrain. The ability to still find pockets where you feel like you’re in a city but then to be where you can be among hills and mountains and hike, the ocean is also not far, and the desert. The range of your experience with the land is a lot more diverse than most places. Also the cost of living and houselessness is ridiculous and a shame. And must be addressed.
You once said you recognized the power of words from listening to sermons at church and conversations in your family. (“Their words would slice a demon.”) What’s a word that would “slice a demon”?
I think it’s less about the word but the intent in the word. It’s the energy that you and the tone that you bring to a word that can heal or harm.