VS

Today on VS, Brittany and Ajanaé commemorate their final VS episode by answering audience questions! Join them as they discuss their favorite VS moments, how their friendship has deepened over the course of the show, their role as curators and archivists, and looking toward the next adventure. 
Writing Prompt: 
Write a poem setting intentions for the next season of your life. What will you pursue even with fear? How will you love yourself and your neighbor more deeply? What dreams will you court? Who will you study? What will you revere? What, from this season, will you carry with you? 

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Today on VS, Brittany and Ajanae record their penultimate episode with aja monet! Join them as they discuss the role of anger and passion as poets and people, identity as a type of performance, the significance of feeling the poem in the body, poetry as a spiritual practice, and navigating the language, ethics, and the care that we give to people vs. causes. 
Until Next Time:
Here is some media to accompany your experience of the episode and a writing prompt to tide you over until we meet again!
Ntozake Shange - Ntozake Shange preserves Black history and culture through literature (1989 interview)
Robin D. G. Kelley - “Freedom Dreams”: Historian Robin D. G. Kelley on 20th Anniversary of His Book & Movements Mattering
Bessie Smith - How Bessie Smith Influenced A Century Of Popular Music : NPR
Writing Prompt
Consider a poem from a poet who came before you that made you feel less alone. Write an ode to the persistence of the shared emotion you both explore in your writing. 

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Today on VS, Brittany and Ajanae are in conversation with Shaina Phenix. Listen in as they discuss the literary universes of Black femme characters, the process of unlearning for eldest daughters, waywardness, audacity, and the ways that we learn to name and rename ourselves. 
Until Next Time:
Here is some media to accompany your experience of the episode and a writing prompt to tide you over until we meet again!
Lucille Clifton - Remembering Her Memories: Lucille Clifton’s Generations in Our Time - JSTOR Daily
Lil Kim - Lil' Kim's Iconic Interview on Her Illustrious Career, The Notorious B.I.G., Women in Hip-Hop
Wanda Coleman - Wanda Coleman - Poetry.LA Interview Series
Writing Prompt
Choose a character from your favorite literary universe and write a poem where you put yourself in conversation with that character. 

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Today on VS, Brittany and Ajanae interview Khadijah Queen. Listen in as they discuss their love for their hometowns, approaching non-linear form across genres, navigating projects with long life spans, the importance of leaning into intuition and curiosity, and revisiting past projects and eras in our writing.
Until Next Time:
Here is some media to accompany your experience of the episode and a writing prompt to tide you over until we meet again!
Fernando Pessoa - Fernando Pessoa & His Heteronyms
Lucille Clifton - Lucille Clifton talks of her books of poems, including “Good Times”
Toni Morrison - Toni Morrison: The Life of a Literary Giant | The Dig at Howard University
Writing Prompt
Revisit some of your oldest poems. Write an ode to that era of your life—that version of yourself. 

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On today’s episode of VS, Brittany and Ajanae interview Rachel Eliza Griffiths; join them as they discuss forthcoming projects, their evolving concepts of home and privacy, approaching photography as a poet, writing for the ones that come after us, and the importance of curiosity.
Until Next Time: 
John Coltrane - A Deep Dive into John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ by His Biographer, Lewis Porter (Pt. 1) | WBGO Jazz
Toni Morrison - Toni Morrison’s Recipe for Love, Life, and the Perfect Boiled Egg
Joan Mitchell - Four Decades of the Abstract Impressionist Joan Mitchell | Expert Voices | Sotheby’s
James Baldwin - James Baldwin at 100
Writing Prompt
Write a manifesto of commitments for the politics of loving and protecting yourself. 

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