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Welcome to B2B boots to books, the show where we explore the journeys of veterans and military connected students as they navigate their paths from service to the classroom and beyond. I'm Dustin Abrego.

And I'm Kyle Jacob, your hosts. Each week, we will dive into powerful stories of resilience, determination, and success.

Whether you're a veteran yourself, a military family member, or simply inspired by the strength of those who serve, you're in the right place.

Turn the page and start this incredible journey together.

Hello. Welcome back to B2B. I'm Dustin Abrego. This week I am joined by Courtney Kemp. Hi, Courtney. How's it going?

I'm doing well, thank you. How are you, Dustin?

Good. We're recording this in the morning, so if we seem a little slow to the start the joke earlier, you're making about it as being decaffeinated. Is that right? That it was okay? Yeah. So I'm about there too as well. So tell us a little bit about you, what you do. We work in the same office together. You work as a student?

Work study. It's a relation with the va. Works with students who are enrolled in college in at least three quarter time. It allows for 25 hours a week to work in this situation. I work for the veterans military connected Student Services here at lcc. It's a great opportunity for myself, but it's allowing me to continue my education and work towards that. I have retired from the military in 2023, officially. So then I started going to college after that as kind of a point to push my teenager and help point him in the right direction, to kind of encourage him in education. He is a freshman in college this year.

Where's he at?

He is at Grand Valley.

Okay, cool.

He is living his best life. Okay.

Okay.

He is enjoying his time there. That is for sure.

Okay.

He's still trying to figure it out, I'm sure. As. As we all were when we were 18 years old.

How long did you serve for then?

I started my military career in 2002 in October.

Wow. Okay.

So officially it ended running about 21 years, I guess, total time when they finally.

All right, you're done.

Yeah, you're done. Thanks for playing.

Yeah, yeah. So doing the work study, why did you choose to do that? Because you could just use your benefits, right. And then just go to class and stuff. Why were you like, I'm also going to work on campus because I feel like people kind of, you know, you say work study, student and it's like, oh, it's just Some like wet behind the ears, 18 year old. Like someone that doesn't know what they're doing. Like, what about it for you has always been good?

Well, like I'm 100% online now, so I don't actually go to any classes anymore.

But physically.

Physically, okay, yeah, yeah, right, correct. I do lots of class. I think online classes is more challenging sometimes than being in person.

Sure.

But I always like my internal me says help a veteran at all. So here's a way. Through this work study with, with the college that I can help veterans or at least a military connected student, it allows me to help somebody. I've always tried to find at least one person per semester that I've really kind of tried to take under my wing and try to push them in the right direction. It doesn't always expand out and work out, but for the most part I think it has.

Okay, why do you try to do that? What about that is like, was that part of inherently like who you are, of just trying to help people? Something that you're like, oh, this is important to me. Did that have a crossover because of your experience in the military, that you did that within your role in service? Or what is it about helping people for you that you like?

So when you become a leader and you're always trying to mentor the younger troops and helping them and point them in the right direction, but at the same time, I can now see the relation between them in college and my child. So as I try to mentor my child who doesn't always like what he has to hear, but at the same time it allows me to do that with other students here. And I inherently, I feel that like I've owed it to them to make sure they know there's this available to them out there. Hey, there's this benefit or hey, you might want to look at. Doing it this way is something that really gives me personal joy.

Did you have someone that kind of did that for you and that's you passing it on? Because I would say from my own story of like college stuff, like I'm the first my family to go, right what that looks like. I had people that helped me, especially when I tripped and like made choices that like, academically weren't the best, especially my first year being in college, I don't want to say like, I need to pay it forward, but like, I think it has an aspect of like the drive of why I do this. And I think it's fun. Is that, did you have someone like

that for you or I did Have a mentor through the military that kind of helped me along my career in going and hey pointed me in the right direction and the way I would do things. And then in an aspect to college, I just, I didn't necessarily have anyone pointing me in the right direction because I am older. So I don't necessarily have a mentor to point me in the right direction. When I would go to college, my wife pushed me in a lot of the right directions.

Sure.

That's. Yeah.

She has always been my anchor and rock. So she keeps me grounded a lot of the time.

And she is going to school too. Right.

She is a full time college student as well. She is at Kendall in Grand Rapids. She's working on interior design.

Nice.

Which is what she wants to do. And I think that's a great thing. You know, do what you want to do. Right. They say you don't ever really work a day if you do what you want to do.

Yeah. I mean I feel like the aspect of college allows you to pick stuff that is not just an immediate availability around you. You know, we could probably all apply to work at a grocery store. Apply to work. And not that those jobs aren't important, but is that going to bring you fulfillment and will you get the paycheck that you want? Type deal?

Correct.

What are you going to school for?

So I am a student at Ferris State University. I am enrolled in their business administration program. So I am working on my first official semester there. But I will be done in December of 26.

Nice. How do you think that translate from maybe military experience? Does some of the stuff seem similar? Because like in our previous talks. Because we've talked a lot over the course when you were full time here at lcc multiple times. And we're at least twice a week when I'm there, we chat quite a bit. Logistics type stuff. Does this stuff kind of just click for you and that's why you're like business sounds good or was it still deciding? Business is like. It's a wide swath of different stuff you could do.

Right. So business is a good wide swath for me. And I'm not 100% sure where I want to end. I know that for me I want to do something that involves helping veterans and that's just who I am at this point. I'm not sure where in business that puts me, but I think it opens a lot of doors. Completing an education, what do you think

was pivoting a bit? What do you think was maybe a hard transition for you? Was it hard of transitioning to college and stuff. Sometimes when I've worked with veterans and you have as well, that if they're like fresh out, sometimes the pivot to civilian life and not that there's still people, there's still students and other things, but moving into that is something that they haven't done in a minute or like, was that hard for you or.

So I think there is a harder pivot leaving the military life after you've been in it for so long, the transition to the more free time. Because in the military it's very structured, there's not a lot of downtime, like you always have something to do. And I think their concept there is that the more we give you to do, the less time you have to get in trouble. Because idle hands are the devil's playpen, essentially. So, yeah, you know, if you have less downtime, you will get in less trouble. But I think the struggle for a veteran transitioning into the college life and a civilian world is more along the lines of making sure that your deadlines are met and there's no one going to be standing over top of you to make sure it gets done. It's on you.

Do you feel that those that need that driving force, I mean, I've seen it in offhand. I don't know because I'm not teaching them in their classes. Right, right. That they needed that motivator and they weren't aware that that like, hey, I'm going to tell you and then be on you about that. Was that something that you needed when you transitioned or what was it for you? That was maybe.

So when I got out and started going to class, it was really, it was kind of a struggle and I'm going back through that again now that I've gone online and transitioned out of in person classes.

Sure.

Where I've got to learn to be that self motivator more than I was previously. And that's just, I don't know, I feel the. With an in person class, you have the, hey, I gotta get this stuff done. I've got a class deadline. I knew, right? As opposed to an online class where it just seems like everything's due by Sunday at midnight. And it's like, yeah, I can get that done tomorrow.

But really you just do all of it until Sunday. Yeah.

And it's more of a challenge being as old as I am now between balancing a college life and a home work life where you've got home responsibilities and you've got children to take care of. And it brings Another element to the more than just college life.

What do you think about being a parent and doing this and then also seeing like your son, like starting as well is the challenge of like the balance for stuff. A lot of times I feel, at least when I talk to students that are parents that have young ones, I openly say, like, I know you don't get to choose not to be mom or dad when someone calls your name. I know that. Right. Or I'm aware of that. But at least when kids are older, how do you go about still balancing that? Because I imagine like, yes, the kids aren't gonna, they're not gonna put a fork in the socket, but they need to be at different places. There's more involvements, there's more higher level discussions. There's more like socially making sure that they're making good choices in that way.

Well, I think a lot of that goes back to the way they're raised and make sure they kind of. I would like to think that if he has some major concerns or questions that he would call and ask, but at this point he's graduated from high school and he's moved on. So you kind of got to let him have a little more ledge to work on and make his own decisions. And it's not like he's gonna have a major crisis incident. I mean, I would hope not. Right.

As a parent.

As a parent.

Right.

So I think he wants to work in the right direction. And if he has something major, I would hope that he knows that he can always reach out.

Sure.

But I want him to start spreading his wings essentially. Right, right. And becoming his own him.

Yeah. I imagine that's kind of hard to be supportive, but also like, what is the distance that like you're off the training wheels. I let go of you on the bike and you kind of like, what is the appropriate. And I imagine that's an everyday. You deciding thing, or up till that point, till we left, he was.

Maybe there's a lot of growth that happens and it just seems like it's like, like a hard drop when they leave the house and go off to college. But it's a struggle there. But at the same time you're proud of them because they are doing their

own thing and that's the thing you

wanted them to do and make their own decisions. Right. So it's a struggle there. But at the same time you just. They're your kids, so you want to make sure they do well and they don't have any issues in life going forward. He is Blessed to be able to have a GI Bill benefit passed down to him for. From my spouse. So he has the benefit there for him. And then my wife is using a separate benefit from the VA to pay for her college.

Sure.

So it's a real blessing that the VA has been able to provide that for us as a family. I think the benefits are great from the va. Everyone complains, but I haven't heard a lot. Me personally never ran into an issue.

Okay.

Like any government agency, you jump through more hoops with the va, but. Right. I mean, I guess the military life has prepared you. Jump.

I was going to say, is that way people are like, why aren't they just doing it? I had a discussion with a student the other day that, oh, well, like the bill hasn't updated. And I was like, would it have updated if you were still in? They're like, no, it would have taken weeks. And I go, we're like, we're large institute, like for a community college. You know, we have 10,000 students. Like, we're. We're not just instant. It's not Venmo, PayPal. Things don't update instantly. They're digital, they're very good and they move fast. But it's still the speed at which government moves sometimes because there's a lot of stuff. Right.

Right. Well, even just like Ferris, I had to change my major from a business administration to another brand of business administration to address a small issue with a minor directed elective, which I'm choosing not to do in my career through college. But yeah, again, the discussion with my advisor has happened weeks ago and yet, yeah, my major has not updated in their degree plan. Again, it's one of those. Yes. It works at the speed of bureaucracy, I guess.

What are things that maybe now, knowing what you see, do you wish that maybe. And this isn't a critique of LCC because, I mean, would you have liked to have seen for people getting out or other things like other support systems that you're like, this actually would have been nice. Or if I had known X at this date, that would have completely changed. Like, so I think. And even if it's the exit process too, like other things that you think could be.

I think there are several things that military members don't know getting out of the military.

Okay.

That there's benefits or something is available for them and they just don't know it exists. I think that I would love to speak to him in the office about it.

Sure.

And help point them in the right direction. And there are Things coming into the educational world that I didn't know about. And maybe I would have done a little differently as I just kind of winged it and went on my own and said, all right, I need to start going to college. And then I got to set a plan for my counselor with the VA through the program I'm using. And I didn't know that I could just. I needed to get certain classes done and then. And then move on. I think I kind of hindered myself there, so I slowed my educational process down. But I think at the same time, that's a good. You know, I've learned from that. So. Okay, I would like to be able to spread that knowledge on. You know what I mean? And I think that military members have an opportunity to learn from their ones that came before them. So they don't kind of like teaching my kid that, you know, don't do this. Well, we've learned going on that, hey, here's an opportunity. Hey, I did that previously. Here's what I would do if I was you and try to help others in the right direction. And I think we've started to see some more foot traffic over in our veteran center in the lounge area. And I think that provides the veterans that are there a great resource. Right. To be able to liaison and network with other veterans and then. And it provides that good help and point in the right direction.

Yeah. You've hinted on like mentorship of both your own because you think it's important. Do you think that's something that exiting out of the military? They should be providing more. Is that. Do you think schools should have more mentorship programs? Obviously, based off the amount of people, if they want to be involved in stuff. Do you think that would be like if LCC tomorrow started offering like a mentorship thing? If we had the capacity and stuff, do you think that would be valuable or you would have used that getting out, you think? Or not?

So I think the military does a good job, but there's no consistency on their exit when someone's getting out. What they do at one post may be something completely different at another post.

Really?

Yeah, there's just. There's.

For all the regimented aspects of things. That's surprising, I guess, to hear, yes,

they still check all the boxes, but sure. The stuff that gets, hey, I get it. These are what I have to do. But hey, I'm going to make sure all these guys know this. Whereas you go somewhere else and they just check the boxes and didn't. And it's no fault of theirs. They just didn't know.

Sure, sure, I got you.

And you can't fault them for there's. They've obviously been given a checklist from their hires and all the way up the DOD says you need to do a, B and C. Right. So I'm sure a, B and C get done.

Right.

And it's just through people having gone through it, they know already that, hey, we need to talk about that too. I think coming into lcc, would it be beneficial? And I believe that we've started setting up appointment meetings as a new intake meetings for all veterans and military connected student services over there. They've started doing intake meetings to make sure they are getting pointed in the right direction so they know what they want to do. A mentorship program that may be something to explore down the road. And I know, I think Kyle has previously discussed that about doing that and pairing with new incoming work studies with our students coming in just to try to help them mentor. And that's got to be something that a student's got to be interested in as well, I think.

And that's my real thing is you say, like that would have been important and helpful, but would you have done that? Or if we were just like, you get this, do you think that that would need to occur in your opinion?

Obviously, I'm not sure that I would have been 100% on board doing that. Honestly.

Sure.

No.

Yeah. Because I know that once we're in and you're adapted to this environment, you get it now. But when people come out, sometimes they still have the previous mindset of stuff and they haven't transitioned to this. So should it be a voluntary thing, do you think they should be more like, hey, we know that you need this. Like, this is what's happening. So in your opinion?

In my personal opinion, I. Well, see, it's a struggle. I'm not a traditional age college student. I didn't start till I was 43.

Sure.

So saying that I wouldn't have done it doesn't necessarily mean that that's not necessarily a good thing. That something that someone that's in their mid-20s or 30s, more traditional age college student would prefer to do or. And maybe they don't even prefer to do it, but they don't know and they'll grow great from it again. We've talked just a little bit ago about trauma bonding.

Yeah.

Because, you know, and that's what we all don't miss about the military services is not maybe not necessarily all the things that we had to do. But the people that we work with, for the most part, you enjoy being around. So it. Trauma bonds you. You have some relatable experience. It doesn't matter what branch of service you were in, you will always have some sort of relatable because you have that veteran status that allows you to have someone to talk to. But I think that that's a great thing to have and it's a great ability. So potentially mentoring new incoming students would be a good thing at lcc.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think, I mean, I need to talk to Andrew and figure out what that would look like, because making sure that the mentors are set up and what are the expectations and stuff, and if people even want to do it, you know, if it makes sense. What do you think was maybe the biggest surprise or. Oh, that's what it's like being in college.

So I think there's a lot of, I don't know, in the military you get it's, yes, ma', am, no, ma', am, yes, sir, no, sir. And it's, I think a lot of your faculty, staff and the teachers actually appreciate that. And I'm sure they appreciate that in elementary school and K through 12. But at the same time, it's really shocking to see a lot of our student population is, I don't know, I've grown southern, so it's.

Yeah, Southern, Yeah.

I'm a fan of the be respectful. These people are trying to educate. You don't. Yeah.

So the other students that are not veterans, it's been jarring and interesting to

see that integrating with non veteran students. So I think there's a bit of a barrier there. And it's not that it's a good or bad barrier, it's just different. It's just different. So it's kind of been a shock integrating back into that civilian culture world. But when I came back from Iraq the first time, I wouldn't go to a mall. Like, it's just part of my trauma that I had to deal with.

Like, oh, sure, okay.

Too many moving people for me. And it's just, you know, they all weren't wearing my, my outfit.

Right.

So there was a struggle for me personally going through that. But as far as integrating back into the civilian here in college, I think yes, there is a minor barrier. Understanding that, you know, in the military you're kind of all taught one way.

Right.

And there's a bunch of different ways to get things done, and those are all. Okay, sure. So I think you have to understand that there's a bunch of ways to get things done, and as long as it gets done at the end of the day, I think that's what you're learning here.

That's a really good way to put it. It's funny you say that. I usually value that when I look for a career, the next job, whatever the thing. That's why I like, I have a set of parameters that I have to hit of trying to help students and stuff, but how I go about doing that in each person, that's why I like what I do. Which is really interesting for you to say that. My only example that I have a reference point for is if you go over to a friend's house when you're young and you hear them mouth off to your parent and your mouth just drops like, I didn't. Yes, sir. No, ma'. Am. All those things to my parents. But I was very respectful to when I went over, and that's how my parents taught me. And then you'd see some people that would just mouth off and my mouth would hit the floor. I'd be like, you can't do that. It was like this weird, weird awakening. Is that kind of what you felt?

It was like, yeah. Very similar.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's just that transition from the military back to the civilian world where you're trying to integrate back in and coming back into a college educational experience is another experience where you've got. So you integrate back into the civilian world from being in the military, and then you've got to integrate into a educational arena as well. So it provides another culture shock where you've got to make some adjustments that you weren't necessarily used to doing previously, for sure.

What would you tell other military connected students, what they should do? Advice, things you've learned at this point, like what would be something you'd want to leave us with?

I would say we don't want to be afraid to ask questions.

Okay, how do I do that? To put you on the spot? How do I do that? As a working professional here, how do

you make sure that they ask questions? I think that for a student at lcc, I think the important thing is to make sure in a veteran situation, they know where that resource center is and they know that we are available for contact. Okay, yeah, I'm there three out of the five days a week working, and I try to make sure that everyone, like, I really do try to make everyone feel welcome and make sure that they're fully answered questions and know they can contact me whenever they need to at the office.

Do you have to, like, really push that on them for them to get.

I'm not sure it's sinking in yet, but yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I really like, hey, like, even on phone calls they're asking questions like, look, any more questions, please call me. Like, I'm here. Like, I want to make sure your questions are answered and I want to make sure your your needs are met. Because I sometimes I can imagine. I know. I felt like as a veteran that I didn't necessarily they were, but I didn't know that they were. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So I want to make sure that they know they have an option there and there's a place that they can go sit and hang out. And there's people that have gone through similar experiences, not necessarily the same experience, but they can relate to them. So it allows you to have that camaraderie still that allows you to feel more comfortable in a college environment.

Sure. Awesome. Thank you, Courtney for joining us.

Well, thank you for having me on here.

Yeah, You've been listening to B2B boots to books.

Thank you for joining us on this journey through the inspiring stories of veterans and military connected students.

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Washington Square. On air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review. Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing. Hey there. This is Melissa Ford Luckin, editor for the Washington Square Review. I'm here today with Lorcan Black, whose poem Sweetbread will be in our Summer 24 issue. Hey there, Lorcan.

Hey.

So you're in London?

I am in London, yes. I've been here for 11 years. Somehow they've let me stay.

All right, good. That's good news. So tell us about your poem. How did you come to write it?

Sweetbread was. Well, I mean. Oh, God, this is probably very complicated. I'll try and keep it.

Well, we have 30 minutes.

But I mean, well, I'm Irish, so we're a peacekeeping country. And I grew up around people who were peacekeepers. And so a lot of my childhood, like, because of, like, a lot of the jobs that my dad had when he was growing up, we spent a lot of time during the summers, kind of like traveling around Europe, basically, and, like, getting to know different countries. And it was sort of like a thing of. He sort of traveled everywhere. By the time That I was, like, old enough to read, really, like. So it was one of those things of, like, we'll pick a country, we'll go there, we'll spend two weeks. And it was that kind of thing, which is. Which is a privilege. I thought that everybody did that. Didn't realize that. Not the case.

No, they don't.

But in Europe, that's not that difficult to do, and it's not that expensive to do when you're European anyway. So that's, like, kind of pretty normal. And we were never there. But as I got older, and maybe I was in my teenage years, a lot of Eastern European people started coming into Ireland. Like, they were the people that were emigrating to us, which is interesting for an Irish person, because we're usually the emigres.

What time is that? What roughly what years are you talking about?

Oh, you're talking about, like, 2000, like, after the. The financial crash of 2007, 2008.

Okay.

A lot of European people started coming into the country, into Ireland, and we were trying to leave. So it was like, sort of a weird mixture of things. But I ended up going to school with, like, a lot of people. Like, I mean, I left high, what you guys would call probably high school in about, like, 2004. So before that, there was a lot of an influx of particularly Eastern European people into, like, certainly my hometown, which people don't really associate Ireland generally with a place that, like, other people emigrate to. But it is. And it was really nice to grow up in a town, especially when you're a teenager, where there's a lot of a mixture of different cultures and a mixture of different people that you'd never normally. No otherwise, unless you've been out of the country.

Where did you grow up? What was your hometown?

So I grew up in Newbridge, which is. In which. Not a very original town. In Irish. It's called Drohidnoa, which literally means the new bridge. But it's in the county of Kildare, which is right next to Dublin, so we're not that far from the east coast. But it was an interesting place to grow up when you're a teenager, when you have that influx of immigrants, which kind of like sort of changes the dynamic of where you've sort of lived. And it's sort of been a kind of a sleepy town. But it would. I mean, I always think of it as a sleepy town. It probably wasn't all that much. I just. That was my impression of it. And then you have, like, so much more culture happening you go out to a bar when you're old enough to go out to a bar and you're hearing completely different languages. And to me now, it's really nice when I go back and visit because it's not just English on the street. There's Russian, there's Ukrainian, there's Latvian, there's Polish. You're hearing so many different things, and everybody just gets on with it, like, it's nice. And I remember moving to London and everybody kind of. When I first moved here 11 years ago, they were like. Because. Not in a bad way, but I think that British people have, like, maybe the wrong idea of Ireland, where they think, oh, it's. So how did you find moving to London? It's so multicultural. And I'm like, I could literally walk down the street in my hometown and not hear English. Like, so it's not. This is not a shock to me.

That's. That's really interesting that they. Given the close proximity of the two countries, that.

But Ireland was quite closed off for a very long time until, you know, the mid-90s, really, to be honest. So where this poem came from, I mean, I went to school with guys who were from Ukraine or were Russian or Eastern European or Polish. And one of my best, one of my closest friends, Rusty, I'll call him by his nickname. I won't call him by his real name, but he. We were really close to each other for a period of time while he was still living there and he was from Ukraine and his family is still in Ukraine. And I mean, for any European, I think it's very. Maybe. I don't know. Tell me if I'm wrong. I think for an American, it's probably quite difficult to understand why the invasion of Ukraine seems so important to the rest of Europe, because it really does seem that important. It is as important as Poland in World War II. It's a step in the wrong direction, and if it goes too far, he can't be allowed to go too far. That's the thing. He can't be. Georgia was a shock to everybody in what was a 20. I'm going to get this wrong, but I think it was 2010, something like that. That was a shock, but that was a practice, and it was a practice for Ukraine. And if anybody thinks any differently, you're not paying attention to politics. He's not going to stop with this. And so there's a fear in Europe of if Ukraine loses, then, well, what does that mean?

So it feels a lot very uncertain and threatening.

It does feel A bit uncertain. I mean, it doesn't feel uncertain for the rest of us in Europe necessarily, I suppose, but it feels very uncertain for the Baltic States, I think, for sure. For Latvia, Lithuania, countries like that, like. Absolutely. It feels unsure. Yes.

So the poem. Talk a little bit about the poem in terms of this uncertainty. And whose voice is speaking in the poem, do you think?

This poem. I just kind of. This was from a news article, so it's fact with. Obviously, it's poetry. It's not completely, but there was a news article that I remember reading, and I think. I think it was both reported on the BBC, but it was also reported in the New York Times about this Russian soldier who was about 21, 22, and he broke down in a car park and. Because I think he was on his own and he couldn't figure out where everybody else was, and he just didn't know why he was there. And this Ukrainian girl and her, I believe, her husband. I hope I'm not getting this wrong, but I think it was her husband. And I'm sorry about the traffic outside, but it's really hot here, so can't close the windows. She. They were. And this girl. I don't know who the other person was, but they were filming us and they were just trying to help him. And this was. I would say, I think it was a week into the war. I don't think it was even that far in. And he just did not know why he was there. And he was clearly super traumatized by the whole experience. And they were just trying to help him because this is the thing that maybe not everybody gets. But a lot of Ukrainians have Russian family, and a lot of Russians have Ukrainian family. These things were not seen as separate. They were not seen as separatists things until the invasion happened. And then it. If you don't have Ukrainian family, I guess you don't give it. I mean, I guess that's what it is. I don't know. It's. It's hard to kind of. I can't get my head around it. And I'm from Ireland, you know, I mean, I grew up in the 19. The late 1980s, 1990s, where separatism was the thing that I heard about. I didn't experience it because I was in the Republic and further south, so. But it's not unusual to me, the idea of us. And I guess it just struck me, the fact that they were trying to help this kid who they really didn't have to.

Right.

You know, if he'd been Older. He might have shot them. It's like. But, you know, I mean, I don't know. We grew up in Europe. There's so many wars. There's Bosnia. Had he been older.

Yeah. It would have been.

Gotten that kindness.

When we first were talking, you said that Ireland is a peacekeeping country. So I'm wondering, how does that influence you culturally and maybe how did that enter into the poem, the writing of the poem?

Well, I never really thought that I'd ever be writing anything political because it's not really.

I hear what you're saying, but it's not my personality.

But it's very hard to kind of watch this stuff happen. And then I think it's. I think it's part of getting a bit older as well. You kind of start to kind of realize that the stuff that's happening around you does affect you, and it does change who you are, and it does change your opinions, and it does, you know, you are what you come from. I mean, effectively, really, at the end of the day. And if you're going to be a poet eventually, sometimes you kind of have to go into uncomfortable areas and write about things that maybe aren't your comfort zone.

Is this the first political poem that you've written?

No.

Okay.

Well, how do you. When you think about how it stands out from your other poems, is it more than the political aspect? Is there something else about it that that makes it stand out?

I think it feels more personal in terms of. Just because, like, I mean, I do live in London. I didn't vote for Brexit. Very strongly European. I think all Irish people think of themselves. Most Irish people think of themselves as Irish people first and European second. And I think a lot of Europeans would say that we're a big family and that's important. And I think we don't always have to agree with everyone. Everything politically, that the European Parliament decides. That's why you vote. Like, it's, you know, that's why the French Revolution happens. That's why the American Revolution happened. It's. There's reasons for this stuff. Do I believe in it? Yes. And I think everybody thought of Ukraine as part of Europe, whether or not they were officially part of NATO or whatever, Whatever else. But, you know, they're one of those countries that you do think, yeah, it's Europe. And to have that happen kind of on your back doorstep is terrifying.

Right. I wonder.

It's not like we didn't politically know that it might happen, but still a shock.

It sounds to me, listening to you describe the experience of writing the poem, it sounds like it was one of the poems where you let yourself be emotionally vulnerable and a little more open maybe to other people's, like, experiences in an extreme way, you know, because as you describe the situation, the article, that is not something anyone ever expects to experience. And you kind of put yourself into it factually and emotionally at the same time.

I mean, I'll be honest, like, if I didn't have a friend who is from Ukraine, probably wouldn't have felt the same way about. I mean, I mean, I would, because I know other people from Ukraine. But, like, the fact that, like, I knew his situation and that I knew that it wasn't a black and white. Because war is never black and white. And European wars historically have never been black and white. So it's always been a complex sort of issue. And I think that probably came a lot into it. And then thinking, is it similar to Ireland? Is it similar to. I mean, there are a lot of similarities in all of the wars in Europe that you. You can kind of sort. I'm not saying you can interchange them, but you can. The emotion is pretty much the same. There's always a bit of emotional conflict in any war that happens in Europe. And this one kind of particularly so because I think no one really thought that they were actually going to do it. Like, it just. It seems so insane. But yet here we are. So I don't know. There are throwbacks to. I mean, I don't want to say the Second World War that much because it's. It's not quite the same thing. Obviously. I'm not saying that at all. Just in terms of. They're not really going to go into Poland, are they? And then they do, and it's like, but they're not really going to go into Ukraine. But then they do, because of course they did, because Georgia was a perfect practice ground. He will push it as fast and hard as he can push it. We all know that. It's what he's been doing for the last 30 years. And I really don't want to get, like, too political about it because I'm not really a political person. But it's not exactly a shock to everybody. It's just why

I think, again, when I was listening to you talk about the experience, it sounded like you were really looking at the humanity of the situation. Not so much the political part, which obviously is important, but to you, it was the humanity that touched you and spoke to you. Let's talk a little bit about some of your Other poems and your other writing, do you feel like you're drawn to that humanity, ecstasy, experience in those places, too?

Yeah, I think that's the main sort of drive for me is always the emotion in something. And like. I mean, like with Sweet Bread, it. It is the emotion and it's the conflicting emotions in that poem for both sides, because they know they probably shouldn't be being kind to each other or helping each other, but what choice do they have? But that's humanity, and I think it's always about human emotion. I think whenever I write about anything, particularly some. Something difficult, I think it's always the emotion. I think that's the most important part. I mean, isn't that what poetry really is based on anyway?

Yes, I think you have a strong argument for that, for sure. Let's talk about some other areas of your life. Where do you work, and what's your work day like?

So I work in. I work in a film school that's based within a film studio, which I know sounds odd, but it's quite fun, actually. Like, I mean, my job is not that fun. I'm a coordinator, so I do like the academic classes and where students are taught and who teaches them and all that kind of, like, boring coordination stuff. But it's quite nice because I get to deal with the students a lot because if they want to book rooms or studio spaces and stuff like that, then I get to chat to them and see what they're doing. And occasionally you get to meet some Hollywood people, which is quite nice.

Anyone stand out to you that you met?

Oh, Jeffrey Rush.

Okay, what was that like?

I wanted to adopt him as my granddad. I was like, mine's dead, so please fill a space, by all means.

That sounds pretty awesome. Anyone else that comes to mind?

Oh, God. Jeffrey Rush. Who else have I met? Jack o'. Connell. Okay, delightful.

So you only meet the fun people, then? Apparently.

Sorry?

You only meet the fun people. If someone's not fun, then you don't meet them.

Oh. I mean, if you run into them by accident. Juliet Stevenson was another one. She's. She's so nice. She's really sweet.

So you're. You're surrounded all day by creatives. So obviously the students are creatives.

I'm not. No. I'm stuck in an office. And occasionally the creative people sometimes come in. Okay.

All right. Well, they're out there. They're out there in your world somewhere. All right.

Wandering around.

Tell us a little bit more about the school.

No. So it's called Met Film School. My bosses will love this. But no, it's. It's really interesting. It's really fun because all the students are really creative and they're so serious about what they're doing. And so we run like degree courses for pretty much anything you can imagine, like whether you want to be an actor, a director, producer, post production, and if you want to do mas and those things. If you've already got degrees, you can do short courses. I mean, like, it is like just a really nice place to kind of see. I want to say younger people, but they're not that much younger than me. I guess they're in their 20s. But like, because they're university age, it's not a school, it's a university. And it's just really fun to kind of see what they do. And you can kind of see how serious they are about what they're doing. And it is really, really nice.

The reason I'm asking is, I'm trying to see if I can figure out how that environment influences your own creativity and your own writing. Because one of the questions that I was asking you before we started recording was, have you written anything in addition to the poems, you've done some editorial work?

Yeah, I used to run a literary magazine for about four and a half years, Anomaly Literary Journal, which is not a limited. Not Anomaly Magazine. There's two. One of them changed their name, which sounded very similar to us at the time. But yeah, so I'm the other one. But we like disbanded after like about four and a half years. It was just, it was a lot of work. But like, I'm really proud of what we did together. We had like a lot of really, really good writers and we helped a lot of writers get on their way, which I'm really, really proud of.

Talk about that experience.

It was tough.

Yeah, it is a lot of work.

How did you get started to sift through submissions, like consistently every day? Because it's not like, obviously it's not your full time job. You're not doing it every single day, but you're still doing it every evening. You're going through the submissions, you're reading and you're scanning and you're kind of going like, okay, no, that's not for us. This is for us. This might be in the maybe pile. And you're. That. That by itself is enough work. But then there's the stress of like trying to figure out like what the artwork is going to be. Where are you going to source that from? Are they going to agree to it? Because sometimes they don't. They want to get paid for it, because sometimes they do. And then it's, you know, there's the added thing. And, like, I had this apparently genius idea to do a podcast at the same time, and I was just like. Eventually got to the point where I was like, what the hell have I done? Like, this is too much.

Why didn't it work?

It was too much for one person to do. And, like, we had extra staff. We had, like, volunteers, but they're volunteers, so it's kind of like you can't push that kind of pressure on people because obviously you're not paying them. You can't afford to pay them. You've got no investments, and so you just kind of. There's, like, two of us.

So I'm really curious. What. How did you decide to get started with a literary journal? Were you just, you know, three copy?

I was about. I was about 25, 26 or something at that point. And I've been publishing since I was, like, 17, so I was like, there's a lot of online journals out there that they'll just publish anything. And I was like, no, no. I want to do one myself, and I want to make sure that, like, every single piece that's in that issue deserves to be there. Like, I want it to be good writing. Not saying that every literary journal, because that's a horrible thing to say. That's not true. There's so many people that do great work, but it's. There is a lot of stuff that's just kind of like, that got in and that didn't get in. It's that kind of thing where I was like, no, no, let's just pick, like, the really, really good stuff. It doesn't matter who comes from. Doesn't matter if they've never been published before. Let's just pick really, really nice stuff. And that was sort of the idea that we had. And I think that we. I think. I think that we did this. I think so. But I also wanted to do it in a way where we were putting complete unknowns next to people who really did have careers, had established careers. And the only way you can do that is if you've been doing it for long enough that you can email someone and just be like, can you

do me a favor?

Do you have a poem?

Yes. Yes. Send me your poem.

Yeah, I'd like to put it next to this guy who's never been published before, if that's okay.

I think that's beautiful, though, because it makes For a more exciting read. Yeah. When you say you were looking for good, what do you think your editorial vision was? So your, your own definition of good? What made something stand out?

I don't think we had any kind of. I didn't personally have any idea. I was just like, I'll know it when I see. Doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter what the, what the theme is. It doesn't matter what they're writing about. It doesn't matter what the. If it's sexual, if it's about like seriously personal, intimate stuff, it does. It did not matter to me. I was like, if it's good writing, it goes in. That's it. There's no other reason.

Yeah. Just an intuitive kind of.

Yeah, it just has to be good.

Okay, so what did you take from that experience for your own writing? Like, what lessons did you learn?

I think it taught me to be a bit more broad minded about, like, what subjects I could write because I never really kind of thought that I had a subject. When people kind of turn around to you as a poet and they're kind of like, well, so what do you write about? You just kind of like, I don't know. Maggie Smith had this great answer to that question in a, in an interview once. Someone asked her, like, oh, how would you describe your poetry? And she was like, I don't know. Poems for adults. And I was like, yep, that's. That's the answer. That's. That's it right there. Poems for adults. I don't know. Whatever. Whatever I write about is whatever I write about. Like sweet bread. Where did that come from? I had a friend who's from Ukraine and the war is shocking, so I wrote about it. Like, where did it come from? I don't know. It's. It is what it is.

Yeah. I think sometimes you don't need to know where something comes from. But maybe, yeah, maybe you can just squeeze all the fun and joy out of it if you think too hard about work.

Exactly. Yeah. Look, just get the orange squeezer and just. Yeah, let's get rid of all the joy. Right. Have no mystery.

Right. I think sometimes as an author, it's better not to deconstruct yourself.

I think it's unhealthy.

Yeah, I think so.

I think you shouldn't look too hard at what you're doing. I think most of. Because I do honestly feel like when you're writing a poem and you're sort of in the middle of it, like, I mean, I don't know how anybody else does it, but I have a best friend, Crystal Stone, who's an American poet, and she. We always say the same thing to each other. We talk to each other every day. It's. We're super, super tied into each other, I guess, as artists. But she. We always say the same thing is like, we start with an image or maybe one line of something, and that's where the poem comes from. And what comes out of that one image or whatever comes out of that one line. It's a completely subconscious thing. Like, I may have had something rolling around back there for a couple of weeks that maybe I've been thinking about, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to start it. But all it takes is an image or a line, and after that, I. I don't know what I'm doing while I'm writing anything. I literally do not know. I'm not there. I'm not present. And when I'm done, I'm done. And then I'll edit it later. And usually for me, I edit it while I'm doing it, which I know is super unusual, but it's just the process. And I can't change it.

Right.

If it works where it comes from, I don't know. Right.

Yeah. And like we said, if you dig into it too deep, you'll just freak yourself out.

Oh, you ruin it.

Yeah. Yeah. It is really exciting as a writer, when you write something and then you go back the next day and read it, you're like, all right, I wrote that.

Well, is it? I usually kind of go, what's that bit? I don't know what that is.

I guess the joy of discovery. So what kind of stuff are you working on now?

I'm actually kind of taking a bit of a break, which I know I probably shouldn't be because it takes, like, you know, generally like a year to two years to get from acceptance at a publisher to, like, actual publication. But I just kind of felt like I just been looking at this for so long that I need, like, maybe at least a year to just not think too much. But it's like an old habit that you just can't stop. It's like an old itch. You can't stop scratching. So it's like I'm sort of getting to the point now where I'm, like, starting to read poetry again, and I'm starting to kind of, like, think about, like, that's a nice line. Like, maybe I should write that down. It sucks you back in. You can't stop yourself.

For sure. Yeah. You'll wake up one morning and just start writing and that will be the day.

Yeah. And that'll be it for the next year and a half of my life.

Oh, that's awesome. So if readers or listeners would like to find you online, you said that all your social media is under your same handle. Yep. Okay. Which platforms are you most active on?

To be honest, probably like Instagram. TikTok.

Okay. All right.

I have a Twitter. I don't necessarily use it. Yeah. Okay.

So maybe people, if they're interested in following, should look for you on Instagram or TikTok.

I would definitely say either one of those two. Yeah, you can always add me on Facebook as well, but I don't tend to use it that much.

Cool.

Well, thank you and thanks for joining us today. It's been fun talking to you.

It has been an absolute delight. And thank you so much for talking to me.

Sure thing. See ya.

Take it easy, Melissa. Bye bye.

Thanks for stopping by the audio town square of the Washington Square Review. Until next time, this has been Washington Square on air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about our writers, community and literary journal, visit lcc. Edu WP us up. Writing is messy, but do it anyway.

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