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Quote by Adrian Matejka

“I was always casting about for role models as a kid and the Star Trek was always available via reruns and also full of possibilities. I wanted to be like Spock because he was unflappable. I wanted to be like Kirk because he had magnetism and the ladies loved him. Bones was a grouch but he was sympathetic. The show worked like a boy band in that way... it had characters who embodied different psychic or emotional positions and that allowed me to see a great range of things.”

Quote by Adrian Matejka

Author

Adrian Matejka is an American poet born on September 5, 1971. His work is known for exploring issues of race, class, and identity, and has received acclaim from readers and critics alike. more

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“One of the things I took from the show was emotional possibility. I never thought I would type that I learned how to emote in poems from watching Star Trek but there it is.”

Possibility Emotional

Author:Adrian Matejka

“You should check out William Shatner's album The Transformed Man. It will alter the way you hear poetry forever. And not in a good way.”

Author:Adrian Matejka

“One of the hardest things for me to do is be fully open in a poem. By that I mean, honest and not trying to amplify some mythological version of myself. I was a poor, geeky black kid in Indianapolis. There is nothing mythological about that. So to try to truly render the kind of economic and racial inequity I grew up in, I had to find a way to be more honest about what happened. And it wasn't fun to write, even though the poems aren't 100% autobiographical.”

Writing Trying Kind Mean Kids Fun Black Poor Economic Honest

Author:Adrian Matejka

“The 1990s were also when a bunch of the soft-shoe language for race, gender, and class became paramount. Because before that I wasn't thinking about systems or food insecurity or whatever. I was just thinking about not getting picked on for being black and not being hungry.”

Thinking Language Black Gender Hungry Insecurity

Author:Adrian Matejka

“I learned a new language for it all in the 90s. Which in some ways isn't bad... I mean getting people to think about what language actually means before they use it is a good thing. But it's become very clear the past nine years that some Americans truly resent thinking before they speak.”

People Thinking Mean Past Speak Language Good Things Resent

Author:Adrian Matejka

“The day after the president Trump election, I remember feeling like it was 1984 again. It was in the air somehow. That ownership of bigotry. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid. It made me want to change the kinds of poems I was writing, but I'm terrible at writing overtly political poems.”

Writing Kind Feelings Kids Remember Political President Terrible Election Bigotry Ownership

Author:Adrian Matejka

“Bigotry doesn't care about state or regional lines. It's all over the place. But fortunately there are also really excellent human beings all over the place, too. So it's about perception and balance sometimes I think.”

Thinking Sometimes Care Balance Perception Excellent Bigotry

Author:Adrian Matejka

“That was one of things that surprised me so much when I was writing the poems. The contrasts between the haves and have-nots is so complicated. It's financial of course, but it's also the lifestyle choices. The more money people have the further away from each other they often want to be. So while I loved not being hungry and having new gear, etc. I missed the sounds of my neighbors and the kind of generosity people who are struggling together often show.”

People Writing Kind Together Choices Struggle Financial Complicated Neighbor Lifestyle Hungry Generosity Contrast

Author:Adrian Matejka

“I was fortunate enough to get a job at my alma mater, which brought me back to Indiana after being gone for twenty years. There is no way I would have written these poems had I not come back. They are 100% the product of the circumstances that led me home.”

Enough Home Circumstances

Author:Adrian Matejka

“If I can quote myself, I explained whatever it is I'm doing once for No Tell Motel, and I still think it's the clearest I've ever been about this: "I don't write free verse poems - mostly because I can't. But I am interested in the musical effects achievable with free verse."”

Thinking Writing Musical Verses

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