Timothy: Creates our podcast interview.
She Bonna Coyo.
Hello friend.
This is Timothy Kimo.
Brian, your head instigator for create our podcast, where I use my 30 years
of experience in the arts and education world to help you tame your inner
critic and create more than you consume.
So today I had the unique opportunity to speak with.
And I got to meet her through Podmatch.
Now, Podmatch is a program, is a community that connects podcasters with guests.
And I will have my affiliate link In the show notes for this for you.
So if, in case you're interested in becoming a guest on any kind
of podcast, it's really out there, uh, you can go ahead and sign up.
And, uh, be a guest or if you're a podcast host, you can use that service as well.
There's a great community there and I can't say enough
good things about pod match.
But today we're here to talk about, uh, Shabona and.
All the stuff that she is doing in her creative practice.
Now, a little about Shabana, uh, she's an award winning writer, performance
artist, and facilitator of workshops.
Originally she's from India and once based in New Mexico.
Uh, her work is about expressing our creativity.
To liberate us from fear and other colonizations and
to celebrate our passion.
She received a fiction fellowship from the New York foundation for the arts
and a Fulbright grant to Mongolia.
I'll have links to her website and her YouTube videos and
everything that she's involved in in the show notes there for you.
So make sure you take a look at those.
If you want to reach out and get in contact with her, like I said,
she facilitates workshops, that help you with your creativity.
No matter if you're in a big corporation, small company or wherever
you're at, definitely check her out for the workshops that she puts on.
So you're probably asking yourself, Hey, Tim, why are you, uh, why
are you having her on the show?
Well, I got a message from her in pod match.
And, uh, she'd listened to the show and, uh, had asked to be on, uh, I took a look
at her profile and I was pretty amazed with everything that she's involved in.
And then I went to her YouTube videos and, uh, as a poet myself, I really was
entranced by how she did her poetry.
Um, and, and the movement that she put into it, it wasn't
just the words on the page.
It was her embodying the entire poem.
So we hooked up and I did a, uh, did an interview.
We actually did two interviews.
The first one couldn't use cause the audio was, uh, was bad on it.
And so we did a second interview and I can't thank her enough
for being flexible to do that.
Hey, it happens, you know, modern technology, it happens sometimes.
But, uh, this is our second interview that we had done that I'm going
to be presenting to you here.
And uh, I really want you to take a listen to what she has to say about her
creativity, her inner critic, and how she has overcome a lot of challenges in
her life to bring forth her creativity and her voice in a world that, you
know, sometimes is not too kind to that.
So, enjoy the interview.
So, thank you so much for joining us here and I'd like to jump off right
off the bat with talking about the, the inner critic and what that's like
for you and how, how you want to put that, how you view the inner critic.
Is it, is it a hindrance or is it a help or how is it for you?
Shebana: The Inner Critic is connected to my writing, to my creativity, to my sense
of myself, like the origin of myself, believing in myself that I can create a
creative being, which wasn't always true.
I wasn't, as much as I wrote in a journal since I was 12 years old, it was
really in my 20s when I began writing fiction that I, Came into this identity.
You're like, Oh, I can create.
So in a way that felt to me right late in life, maybe, you know, and
I feel like what I've developed over the years, I'm 51 now is like
a repertoire, you know, because it's like a, it's like a kid or like any,
you don't know what's going to work.
And not the same thing doesn't work all the time.
Timothy: Amen to that.
Shebana: I think the biggest thing I've had to work with is the sense of should.
Writing should be like this.
Poetry should be like that.
And I was very, especially when you're starting out, you're
very vulnerable to people saying to you, this is how, To do it.
And I think it's different than there is a craft, of course, to all kinds of writing.
I work, I've worked with short stories and poetry and theater and, um, screenplays.
Um, in different ways, um, it really does help to know certain things, of course,
but in the end and also in the beginning, I feel it's all so you feel free to
choose what is really speaking with what I see, not even you, what the story wants,
what the poem wants listening into that.
So um.
I have an evolving relationship with my critic.
Timothy: That is good.
That is good to hear because one of the things here in Create Art
Podcast that we talk about is we're talking about taming that inner
critic, not necessarily throwing it out the door and getting rid of it.
But I, I, there are some benefits for it, I think.
But when it stops you from that creativity is that's when the hindrance
comes in, in my opinion, anyways.
Something that you said that I really wanted to jump on because there is that,
that other interview that we did that is lost forever and it's totally my fault,
but you were talking about the poetry and that, that was my first foray into the art
world and how poetry is supposed to be.
And I know.
When I started writing back in 1980, 88, and one of the
first poems that I read was T.
S.
Eliot's The Hollow Men, I always was taught, you know, poetry was
always taught in a, in a corner and, you know, four line stanzas have to
rhyme and, and I really hated it.
And then as I got older.
It, I, I threw out a lot of those things.
I saw a lot of other people at the Green Mill in Chicago, where I'm from, we're
doing slam poetry and performance poetry.
And something that you just said that, you know, the, the evolution of that inner
critic, how about as, as an artist for you from when you were writing, uh, as a kid
to, you know, what, what you're writing as of last week, how has that changed?
Shebana: I do feel I've cultivated ways.
In everything, I think how to be more free to let what wants to be expressed, find
its way, you know, onto a page or a stage.
So how to play, actually that word play, playful, that's
really helped my evolution.
It's been like finding ways to be more playful.
And what I also think of just not a few years ago, I came
across this story about a poet.
She's a Roma long, long, she's passed now, but she was a Polish
Roma poet and her name was Papuja.
I don't know if you know her.
And there's a really great story about her and poetry that she lived
with a community that wondered.
And every, every night, say, they would stop, say, in a forest and make
a fire and sing and dance like this.
And one day there was an anthropologist embedded with them
and he was really watching Papuza.
She was young, maybe in her 18, 18 or so.
And as she danced, she spoke, you know, things.
And so he came to her afterwards and he said, what is this?
What are you saying?
And she's like, I'm just saying things that come out of my head.
And he said, do you know what you are saying is poetry?
And she said, what is poetry?
And for me, I think of that a lot.
Yes, it's really important to understand structures and how to's,
but I love that she was expressing what came naturally under a tree
in the night, in the dark, singing.
And I tried to put myself in that place or play, you know, invite
myself to create from that space.
And that's what's changed.
Timothy: That's awesome.
Because I saw some of your YouTube videos and you were reciting and
obviously you're a cinematographer, you, you know how to work the camera.
But the thing that I really liked about it is the movement that the simple
movement that you put in your hands, just in your hands, and I was almost
more entranced by that than necessarily the words, but I got the words.
And the, the hand movements, I was just like, why don't I do this with my poetry?
Shebana: Oh, you know, I find it very heartening to hear you say that actually,
because more and more and I'm like, I love words, but I want to use them less.
And the last project that I did was called the body becomes the poem.
And maybe, so what you were seeing was that kind of some
evolution that was happening.
I didn't film those videos.
Thankfully, that was a young woman named Marga who did that in Spain.
But I think what you were seeing in my hands is where the poem wants to go.
Timothy: Absolutely.
Yeah.
It didn't in poetry.
And with most art, it goes where you want it, where it wants to go.
And you're just the vessel that puts it out into the world.
You're, it's, you know, you're like the, the super highway
of inspiration, creativity.
There was a poem that we had talked about.
That, yeah, that, yeah, that you had wrote and I definitely wanted
to, to hear you do that poem.
Do you have any, uh, handy there that you could read it for us?
Shebana: Yeah.
And it's actually, so what it is, we were talking about the body
becomes the poem, which is this, this project that I did in Ireland.
It was a response to an ancient Irish poem called the song of American
that I, That is a poem and a series of I am statements about nature.
And I've been in love with this poem for like decades.
And I, my project was to respond to it in my words, but also in my body on the
landscape where the poem is meant to be based because it's like a landscape myth.
about someone who comes a long distance and arrives onto Ireland and the land
speaks to him and he speaks this series of I am statements and his name is Amergan.
So what I did when I was in Ireland, because the other thing I'm doing is
kind of recovering this lost language, lost to me language called Urdu.
So what I'm going to read to you just And make some hand gestures,
you can imagine, but it's just Urdu translation, I just read a few lines.
The, the poem originally, like I said, it's not my poem in English.
The poem in English is an ancient Irish poem, and this version is
by an Irish poet named Paddy Bush.
So the English is Patty Bush's translation of an ancient Irish poem, and the Urdu
is me, my mother, and my two aunties, my two kalas, translating it, okay?
So, the Song of American.
Putting his right foot on the land, American said,
I am the wind on the sea.
I am wave swelling.
I am ocean's voice.
I am stag of seven clashes
Falcon on Cliff.
And then I'll go to the end, there's a whole, it goes on and
on beautifully and then it says, On whom do those stars smile?
What man, what God forms weapons?
I invoke the poet, poet of wind.
Shire is poet in Urdu.
Timothy: Oh, my goodness.
I love hearing that because, again, it takes me back to when I
was in Chicago and we had people that were speaking in Spanish.
I speak very little Spanish.
I know how to order a beer and ask where the bathroom is, you
know, the important things.
Shebana: Yeah.
Timothy: In French, I can order a pack of cigarettes, which I don't smoke anymore.
Get a coffee and where's the bathroom, you know, the important things.
But I always loved hearing something outside of English.
And now I want to study, you know, I can't even say it now, Urdu, Urdu, Urdu, okay,
Shebana: yeah, U R D U,
Timothy: Urdu.
I definitely want to study that language now because it's beautiful and I don't
necessarily understand the syntax with it, but the way in which you present
it and the way in which those people presented Spanish, French, Hungarian.
We, we had.
All languages going on in Chicago.
Um,
it takes me out of my white cis male.
Whatever label they want to throw on me, it takes me out of that mindset
and puts me into a more attentive mindset, I find, where I'm listening
to the inflection of the voice and the beauty and the music of the words.
English is An ugly language.
It's, it's ugly.
Uh, so I, I need to get on my Duolingo and learn some more French and,
and, and Urdu and, and, and do that.
So speaking about, you know, me being cis white male and all that kind of stuff.
I know that you speak a lot about colonialism in your work, not just,
you know, the writings, but everything that you do, can you talk a little
bit about how you approach that?
Because.
One of the things I really enjoy about how you approach it is you're
not pointing a finger at me and going, Tim, you're a bad person.
You, you, you, you, you bring it up in a different way.
And could, could you talk about how you do that?
Shebana: Well, it's so, so I'm originally, I was born in India.
I grew up there until I was 12 and I grew up in a household where my mother
is Muslim and my father is Catholic.
And then we moved from India to the U S when I was 12.
So it's a whole lot of hybrid.
It's a whole lot of, and my, I grew up speaking English as my first language.
And I always, In, in India, I grew up in Bombay, you, you, there's like a
lot of middle class Indians who speak English, but not maybe all of them
have English as their first language.
And what happened was just a couple of, not long ago in like 2017, 2018,
I knew, you know, the British were in India for a hundred years, everyone
you could think of came to India.
Like from Europe too, and the Dutch, the French, but the British were there
the longest and India was part of the British empire for a hundred years.
And then also a part of India, a small part of it was part of Portugal, was
a colony of Portugal for, for till 1967, Goa was a colony of, of Portugal.
And Vasco da Gama was.
You know, the big, big guy, the big Portuguese.
And my last name is a Portuguese name.
It's Coelho, which in, it's pronounced differently, but Coelho, it means rabbit.
And before the Portuguese came, my father's family were
called Prabhu, which means God.
And after the Portuguese came and.
The families were forced to become Catholic, they became rabbits.
So we went from gods to rabbits.
Timothy: There you go.
Shebana: But the thing that I found out written on a piece of paper
on a treatise, it was a record of the British time in India.
It said that they were trying to figure out how to educate Indians.
Like, did that, would we, should we, Let them learn their own language,
or should we put English on them?
And there's, they decided on this policy, which was, we're going to
create a class of Indians who are Indian in blood and color, but English
in morals and intellect and values.
And in my play, I bow as I say that, and I say, I come from that created class.
I come, it was a way to manage the chaos that was India.
And what something like that does, To someone who steps into that role, it
just fragments you all over the place, you know, and you're like, where,
what route, and you don't understand why you have certain feelings.
So like, I grew up thinking I was better than other Indians because I spoke
English so well, you know, nevermind, they spoke five, six different languages.
Like most person, a person from India will speak Hindi, Hindi, They might
speak their state language, their mother's language, you know, it's
just, and I never, I grew up with this.
This being this prejudice, this bias that I was, I grew up like thinking I
was very great that I didn't smell of masala all the time, you know, that
we were so conscious in my household.
And I was like, so what, you know, you don't want to be the smelly
Indian, you know, kind of thing.
So what I did was.
So I began to realize how much this was an insidious ripple effect of colonization
stuff that was still because I only felt good about English because I've
been told for a hundred years and more, you are better if you speak English, it
ripples through, you know, it changes how I felt about my body, whether I
thought beautiful or not, because I was brown and I was wide, you know,
in my, my view, I wasn't thin enough.
So what I, when I did this play, I did this play called The Good
Manners of Colonized Subjects.
that began, begins with a poem I wrote about inviting fear in for tea.
How every time fear arrives, I invited in for tea and I sit there frozen, frozen.
Even when the dancers come, I'm like, no, no, no, no, I cannot go.
I am sitting here having tea with fear.
And then there's this moment where this dark ant bites with the pinky and
there's a whole song and dance basically that began my journey to the stage.
But what I'm saying is like, I began to see the fear, all of this,
that colonization for me, yes, is a thing that happened in history.
That's important to know because it's really affected how a bunch
of people feel about themselves and how they see the world.
So it's important to know that and also I see it as a metaphor
for things that keep us in boxes without us knowing what they are.
What are these things made of that keep you small and stuck in a box full of
fears whose origins are known and unknown?
That you can see in that you can't see.
So that's a way I see colonization, the importance of seeing and then,
you know, finding ways to be put to playfully with a, with a body
sense, because I feel that's where things get liberated in the body.
Timothy: Like I say, every time I've, I've seen you on the, on
the YouTube, I'm 51 and I'm saying the YouTube and the Twitter.
Oh, gosh.
But every time I've seen you on YouTube and I've, I've watched a few of the
videos, I can see that movement.
Always.
And, and then just to think about you sitting on a stage having tea with fear
and not moving and, and, and just, you know, that whole, that whole shift of,
you know, word of, of, of not moving in, in, in controlling yourself like
that, not controlling yourself, but making yourself still like that is wow.
I am so glad we got to talk now twice.
Yes.
And I'm learning so much about it too, because I, I'm fairly
educated, but I did not know.
I never knew that Portugal had a colony in India.
That's something that never came through, through our history classes.
That's for sure.
And even in America, even our own history, because I'm from Chicago, but I
lived in the South, I lived in Virginia.
It was always the civil war, but I moved down here to Virginia
and they said, no, no, no.
It's the war of Northern aggression.
And then I learned about Abraham Lincoln in prisoning people on the,
on the side of the North, because they didn't want to fight in the war.
There was conscious object, uh, conscientious objectors and there's
people that didn't agree and he went and jailed them, put them in camps.
That's not something we were taught in Chicago, in the land
of Lincoln, which is Illinois.
So
Shebana: it's true.
It changes the story.
I mean, I was, I lived in Spain for two years and it, it took me to the
other side of colonization because I was in, for example, in Cadiz where
there's a plaque still in a plaza where Columbus left on his second voyage.
And it says you till this day to bring evangelization
and culture to the new world.
Timothy: Oh, my gosh.
Shebana: And that plaque was dedicated in 1993.
I'm just saying how history is taught in Spain in terms of what
colonization, it's a different story.
And I've had very interesting conversations in Spain about colonization.
Timothy: Oh my goodness.
Right.
Why?
And even in America here, we have our own colonization story and
slavery story and how one day.
Somebody listening to this podcast is going to write the correct story and
the correct history and hopefully knock on wood and they'll email us both and
they'll hire you to do the poem and.
And, uh, they'll have me do the podcast and we'll all make a million dollars.
So,
Shebana: I just, I think the story keeps depending on where you are.
I guess that's the thing where you are.
The story keeps changing.
Timothy: Yeah, that is true.
That is true.
Let's talk a little bit about your creative process.
So like, for example, you know, having, having tea with fear.
Where does that come?
How do you get that idea out of the ether to do that and to do it as a play?
Where does that come from for you?
Shebana: It was very strange, I will say, this, this poem.
I wrote it in 2016 and I was like, I, I felt very young in poetry in that year,
2014, maybe, I really, and I would get up in the mornings, like really early
and write, you know, and really just play in Freeride and sometimes use prompts.
I have, I do these workshops now where I really, maybe in some way I was
doing what I do in the workshops now, which is I was really inviting people
to playfully engage with their fear, their stuckness, their everything
is just so the words can come out.
So with that, for example, was the wildest thing that ever happened to
me because I wrote this poem, which is this whole encounter with fear where you
you're frozen and you move and there's dancers and then you Here's six years
old and then you're in, I mean all this.
And I looked at that poem and I'm like, this poem needs to be performed.
But at that time I was just beginning to dance flamenco or study it, you know?
And before that I'd worked behind the scenes in docu as a producer
and director of documentaries.
Um, So like behind the camera, I was so embarrassed to even
see photos of myself online.
So when, when I said to myself, someone needs to perform this, I went, Oh,
Timothy: I'm glad it was you because you're the originator of that.
I, you're, well, like I was saying earlier, the vessel.
From which that needs to come through and only you could do it.
Shebana: I didn't realize that at that time, how much I loved the stage.
I was terrified of it.
I mean, I grew up, my mother would tell stories of how I would cry.
If I went anywhere that looked like a stage, even, you know, so it
took me on this journey, this poem.
How things happen, you know, like I saw a notice that there was a
workshop on the source of performance energy in India using ancient texts,
like the Vedas, because there is actually a book of theater in a Veda.
Anyway, I went to India and I did this thing, this course that just
blew everything open inside of me.
And I came back and, but nothing happened for like a year.
And then one year, one February, I was like, I have to do this.
This, this poem is actually a lot, is a longer play about
the impact of colonization and art and fear and my story.
And I have to tell it.
And I borrowed money and I, for four months, I did
nothing but work on the play.
Found a dance teachers to work with and other friends to help me develop the text.
And I rented a space in Santa Fe in August of 2018 for two nights and I performed it.
And that's how it began.
It was the craziest thing, the truest thing I've ever done.
And I still don't know how it happened, but it happened.
Timothy: It's the universe coming together for you and making that happen for sure.
For sure.
Now tell me, because I've, I've done.
Performance poetry and, and I've actually been on stage to, I'm a,
I'm a theater kid from high school and I was always the backstage kid,
but when I stand in front of a crowd.
One thing that probably did for the first 10, 10 years of performing
was I would get very angry at the crowd and, and I would, I would use
that energy to fuel my performance.
And of course they would always have me playing the big dumb truck driver
or the, you know, the, the hippie hot smoking surfer dude who had this,
you know, fireball of energy to get up on the stage and do that for you.
What?
really powers your performance on the stage?
Shebana: It depends what I'm doing.
So when I first began going on the stage, I was dancing flamenco, and so
it depended on the energy of each thing.
I think what I love, Tim, is the liveness, the encounter, the
live encounter with other humans.
being there.
That's what happened.
I, I think that's the charge.
I felt, you know, that I couldn't name, but now I know it, I know it's
suddenly this happens in me, like, Mm-Hmm, , it's adrenaline for sure.
Your mouth goes dry and all that.
And then I think the, it's the sense of play.
I, I really, the sense of play, like I never ex.
I'm still like, you know, when you're really young in something and
it's play because I never expected to love it the way that I love it.
And I'm like, I think it's many things are happening.
I think like it frees you.
You get to, I get to be so many emotions.
Maybe that's what it is.
It's not one.
It's the flow.
It's like I can make myself cry.
Not because I'm trying, but because my heart is so open
to sadness when I'm on stage.
Timothy: That's a lot easier than carrying an onion with you and making yourself cry.
That's for sure.
Shebana: That's right.
You know, I could really get that.
With the same problem if someone coughs and it could throw you off too,
you know, and your sadness could go away in some phlegm, someone else's
phlegm, the sound of someone's phlegm, but I think it's the liveness and
the playfulness and the freedom to, to, to go through different emotions.
Timothy: Piggybacking off of that, for you, when, when you're going out and
looking at other people's work, maybe you're going to a play, maybe you're
going to an art gallery and you know, the tricks that you use to, you know,
maybe not tricks is the right word, but the techniques, there we go, the
techniques that you use to get to that emotional point, is the magic of the
performance or the art performance.
At that point, because you know, what's going on, is that lost for you or are
you able to easily go into the world that's being created for you in a
performance or, or, or anything like
Shebana: that?
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
I think, so I feel, I feel I'm easily swept away when, like, when something gets
me, it gets me and I'm there like, uh, I mean, I'll, I'll notice some things like.
Yeah.
For example, if something is gonna, says it's a documentary and I'm really
moved by it, but then I notice all these different camera angles, I'm like,
yeah, no, I, you know, or something, then they're like, they did this in
a couple of takes that moment, you know, things like that, my mind gets
on that, like, how did they film that?
How did it get so close?
Things like that with film.
Um, so that comes.
I mean, I think that awareness comes, but I don't know.
It only takes away if there's something dissonant, you know, if
it's like alerting me to something.
I'm just trying to imagine like I saw this film that I really loved.
It's called the four mountains.
I think you would really like it.
It's an Italian film.
It's a really beautiful film about a boy.
A city boy who goes to the country and his friendship with someone there,
but it's all connected to his father.
When his father dies, he leaves him this cabin in the mountains that he
needs to finish working with his family.
With this, and it's really about bringing the sun back into a connection with
nature, but it's such a beautifully written film, it just amazes me when
films can be so poetic and keep that.
I don't know what to say about it.
So I say, I guess I looked at that film like, Oh my God, the
work that went into filming.
You know, I was thinking about all the shots and I'm like, it amazes me.
It amazes me what goes into film to make a poetic film, even.
So I guess what I'm saying is I'm no, I'm still, I am really susceptible
if something moves me, it moves me.
And I only am jarred out of the story if something feels off, you know.
Timothy: Absolutely.
No, I, I get it.
And for me, that's still seeing it on film is still magical for me
because I don't quite understand everything that goes on behind it.
If I watch some live theater, my wife hates going to live theater with me
because I used to do light design.
So I would go, Oh, I, I can tell you what's going to happen next because
this guy's using this shade of red or this shade of blue or, you know, Oh,
you want me to look over here while something over there is going on.
So, unfortunately for me, some things, the magic, my analytical
mind gets in the way too much.
And I think I need to take a page out of your book and just
allow myself to be taken away and I'll have a much better time.
So I'll let my wife know that.
Shebana: No, but I hear you.
It is challenging.
Sometimes I can be something.
I don't like something I can.
You don't want to.
Be watching a film with me.
Timothy: Well, my wife did that.
We were, she likes these Hallmark channel, the Murder Mysteries.
And there was one about this podcaster that was a investigator
was doing a true crime podcast.
And for the first 10 minutes, I just ripped it apart because I was like,
that's not how you use that equipment.
You don't do this.
You can't do that.
And my wife was just like, listen, we're just not going to watch this.
I couldn't get into the story because there was so much
wrong technically with it.
So it's something I'm working on and I'm going to take a page
out of your book with that.
So I'd like to talk to you a little bit about your daily routine.
We've, we've, we've kind of talked A lot of big themes here with your work.
So for my, you know, for my folks out there that are brand new, I know
when you're hearing this interview, you're like, wow, I can't ever do that.
Everybody can do this.
What is your, a typical day for you?
What, what's your routine and, and how you create?
Shebana: And first I want to agree with you that yes, like everyone has their own
journey with creating and it's doesn't matter what you want to do with it.
Really, it matters first that you not matters that I just want to
encourage people to just that follow that impulse because it just takes
you places you would never imagine.
I really will tell you that I did not grow up thinking I
would ever be creating things.
I was just someone who was really moved to read and even in college.
The, the kids who created with those other creative writing kids over
there, they weren't me, you know?
And so, yeah, I, and my routine, it really varies depending cause I've,
I've freelanced, you know, I, I, it's, it's been quite a journey, I will say
since I left kind of since my thirties when I'd like left a city and said, I'm
going to go traveling in, in nature.
I, my routine has really been different depending on where I am, but what I,
and I go through seasons of writing a lot and seasons of writing very little,
but I'm not afraid of those seas of the, um, of those days now where I
don't write as much as I would like.
When I was younger, I was really afraid of not doing things like once
a day or this much and that much.
But now, because it's such a long relationship, I know that I have to
nurture it in many different ways.
So yes, to write, you have to write, but sometimes you also need to go
for a walk and you need to, you know, I get some, I, I, I like exercise.
I like to dance, you know, and if I don't do that, I, I feel my creativity.
Sometimes like, I love to get up.
I go through phases where I love to get up really, really early, like five
o'clock early and meditate and write.
Timothy: I have a clock off and that's when I was commuting,
I would be up at four o'clock.
So, but I wasn't meditating and writing.
I was catching your dream.
Oh
Shebana: yeah.
And that's different when you're, yeah.
And I used to like nights, but.
No, but I do it little by little.
It's like I'm, I'm learning to real, I'm learning the little by little,
especially when, as I've started working on bigger things now, so
I'm like working on a novel now.
And that you really have to put in a little and see it change
and stuff that you don't know.
I mean, it's just, so I guess I try to do something creative every day
and I don't even, I'm not even trying.
I must.
Timothy: It's like breathing and eating and, you know,
doing your normal bodily stuff.
You got to create something each and every day.
Shebana: Yeah.
Timothy: That's awesome to hear.
Something that you had said that I really resonated with was when you were saying
that You know, maybe you're not, you have the seasons where you're writing a
lot, where you're writing a little bit.
And when you first were writing, if you weren't writing something every
day, you know, you felt bad about that.
I was, uh, the same way I, I would try to crank out four poems a day
when I first started writing poetry.
And I can tell you right now, I haven't written a poem since April,
but I'm okay with that because I do the, uh, national global.
Poetry writing months, uh, every April and I'm okay with.
Yeah, it's been a few months since I've written poetry, but I've done
other things, you know, I've created podcast episodes and paintings and
drawings and all that kind of stuff.
But I really resonated with that, that you don't let those shit Dry seasons or
those smaller seasons really impact the overall thing, the overall creativity.
It took me 51 years to get there.
So you've got me beat.
Shebana: No, I'm 51 too.
So
Timothy: I
Shebana: guess what I would say is it's connected to maybe as you get older, but
for me, you know, different people, I don't feel, I'm asking what is it for?
Why am I creating?
I realized that for example, when I was younger, it really
mattered to me to be seen and be published in particular places.
And sometimes I'm still sending my work out to journals and literary journals.
And, and there's one, I was watching something and the question was
like, why are you doing this?
Like, what kind of journals do you want to get into?
Why are you doing this?
Because you can get into journals for community, other writers, or you want to.
You get into journals that agents read because you really want an agent.
And I do want all of those things.
But the part of me that is, that I haven't lived as maybe I haven't expressed as
much, even though I've lived it is for want of a better word is spirituality
or nature or this thing you can't name and it's, and I'm, you know, if, if I
don't have a spirit, this kind of spirit feeling, if all I'm around are writers
who only want to get published, I'm saying in a particular kind of place.
Then I realized I don't want that, you know, like that.
I appreciate that that can matter, but I don't want to write only to be published
in so and so journal, you know, there is something, there's something else that
wants to be, and so it's like, And it's changing how I think about this art.
It's making it less separate than who I am as a human.
Timothy: I used to be, uh, in some writing workshops.
And sometimes those can be really toxic.
And the one I was in was extremely toxic because, you know, we sat there with,
you know, about five bottles of whiskey and, and not much writing got done, but
we were complaining and moaning and, you know, why aren't we published here?
Why aren't we published there?
You know, and the, the establishment doesn't understand us, but
no, I, I, I kind of get it.
It's kind of who you surround yourself with.
And if you're just trying for one thing, why?
Yeah.
You know, why, why are, why do you want to just be published in the Paris Review?
It's a great magazine, great journal, but there's so many others that are out there
or better yet, publish your own, you know,
Shebana: go out and, you know, I'm playing with other ways, other ways to share.
And because really my, I feel like my mission is, that's why I really
resonate with what you're doing.
Is that like art is not only for artists, you know, you're not creativity is not
just so you can be creative as an artist.
It's for everybody.
It's like the oldest, it's a human heritage.
We were so moved all those, you know, thousands of years ago that our
hands of their own accord put paint on it and made marks on a cave wall.
You know, that impulse to be witness to, so I guess at this age, I'm just
tapping into those impulses to create.
And I'm in this time of transformation.
I'm in a time of limbo.
I feel like I don't, I feel I have to be really still.
And like, I don't know what's going to come next, but I know it
can't look like what came before
Timothy: you're adding.
Your color, your tapestry to the overall tapestry of the universe, and I don't mean
to sound spiritual woo woo there, which I'm spiritual person, but I see it as
we've had all this stuff come before us.
Now we're here today, what are we going to add to what has come before us?
Where are we going to, what direction are we going to take?
And then, cause I've got twins that are coming up right behind me.
What direction are they going to take it?
Cause that's, that's the thing that I'm excited about is seeing, you know,
one of my daughters, she's starting to write poetry now she's 10 years old.
And I'm like, where did you get this from?
You know, I haven't.
Yes, I have your read.
I have subscribed to kids poetry journals for you.
Where do you get this from?
This is fantastic.
And we just recently got her on stage.
She was scared to death, but she got up there and she did
it and she was a fantastic.
And, but yeah, I, I, I, I'm excited about what's going to happen and where, where,
where we are going to leave our mark.
For, for history and what stories they're going to tell about us in 10, 000 years.
So
Shebana: I think that's wonderful about your daughter and that it's that
it's that kind of natural feeling that your daughter, the poetry coming out
of her and the first saying, these are words that came out of my head.
What is poetry?
And it's just that I, I, I don't know.
I just want people to play and feel free.
Feel free to express who they are and see what the journey takes them.
And, because I see, like when we create, you know, we, we get to
the heart of each other so quickly.
You see right into the heart of somebody and that really disarms, it's
disarming that word, which is be like, it's like, oh, she's a disarming girl.
Or very disarming, but it's actually, it changes the world as.
One by one, all together.
Timothy: A little bit less lonely too.
I mean, being that vulnerable, being that, you know, being disarmed like that,
it opens you up to other experiences and you know, like for me, what I was taught
about history and all that, I didn't know Portugal had, you know, a colony in India.
Now I'm like, now I need to go research that.
For me, that's just like, Oh, I didn't know that.
Now I need to learn everything about it.
And that's.
For me, even if I wasn't doing paintings or poetry or podcasting or, or any of
that, that creativity, that creative spirit and being open and being
vulnerable like that has done me wonders.
It's kept me alive for 51 years and it's put me where I am today and has put me
here and in my man cave talking with you.
Who would have ever thought that, you know, you know, everything that we've
done has brought us to this point.
And I can't wait to see where we start going off tomorrow.
So,
Shebana: yeah, it's true in spite of, and because of everything that
is happening in the world, it matters more than ever to express yourself
creatively and yeah.
Timothy: And it doesn't always have to be pretty.
It doesn't always have to be a New York Times bestseller.
It's, it's just people going out there and, and, and we need everybody to
create, to make this a better world.
So speaking about writing, you said you have a, you're
working on a novel right now.
And I got to tell you, novels scare me.
I, I, I have tried 4 times now.
Yeah.
Novels for National Novel Writing Month.
For you, how are you approaching that?
Because a novel is, you know, 250, 300 pages.
A thousand pages.
That's a pretty big task.
How are you approaching it?
Shebana: If approaching it, there's a, we say, who is it?
The guy, what's I forget his, I forget the writer's name, but there's a story,
one writer visiting the other in the house of writer number one, and they're
walking around and they keep evading, like not going into the living room.
And, and then finally.
One of the writers opens the living room and sees there's just one typewriter there
on the table and the writer whose house it is says, see that typewriter on it.
I'm writing a novel every now and then I slip in type a few words and slip out.
He says, If a novel knows you are writing it, you're done for.
Timothy: I love it.
I love that story.
Shebana: Yeah.
It's a, Oh my God.
I'm totally blanking on the name.
It's the guy who wrote the book about fly fishing.
That's not about fly fishing.
He's kind of the, the book it was mentioned in is, Oh God,
I'm blanking on everything.
I will have to send it to you.
Pierre, someone is memoirs.
He's a new, he's a writer in New Mexico.
It was, so I'm approaching it.
I wrote like, You know, it's like in three sections, say, so it's called
The Village at Night, and it's about an Indian woman following what is left
of love in a small town in Portugal, and then following this musician.
And so the first two are about their encounter, but the third section of
the novel, which is the part I'm, I'm working on now is like another genre.
So the, the, the first two sections, you would call it
like literary fiction, right?
And the third section, it goes into what you might call fantasy.
Like sci fi, you know, like that kind of thing, sci fi fantasy, because
it's like a whole other, the origin of song, you know, as she sees it, a whole
different human age and things like that.
And I am so like, I'm over, I have a draft of it, but I don't know if it works.
And it's almost like.
I have to start again and get in there.
So I'm like, I haven't worked on it for a couple of months because I've been
working on other things that are easier to do, but it's there, it's there.
I feel I'm working on it even as I'm not, you know,
Timothy: or absolutely it's the typewriter is there.
Shebana: I slip in and we're not looking and I figure out the story.
So I think I, I really do.
Sometimes you do.
I don't know if your listeners know there are a network of writer's
residencies, some of which pay you and some of which at least are free.
And you just Google writer's residency.
There's residence arts.
There's so many places I, I do feel I need to kind of to jumpstart the
third section, go away somewhere.
You know, and, and, and that really helps me to, I really
like going away into nature.
Or a writer's residency or a retreat because it really helps to leave
you everyday life, even if it's for a weekend, just to, you know, be
yourself, to leave it behind, to feel like you're starting again and be
alone with it and be in a fresh place.
So I sort of feel third section needs something.
I
Timothy: think we can get you an NEA grant and have them pay to fly you out someplace
where you can go ahead and have the typewriter in a corner and sneak up on it.
We'll get working on that right away.
Shebana: Yeah, that sounds great, Tim.
I'm all for that.
Timothy: Great.
Well, I definitely want to thank you for, uh, coming, uh, onto the
show here and, and, and spreading your knowledge and your experience.
It is amazing when, when you reached out, uh, through a pod match, I was just looked
at your profile, looked at the videos.
And I said, got to have you on the show.
I definitely got to have you on the show because just your approach,
your way of doing things is it makes me want to get up and.
Take my poetry and put some movement behind it because I'm so used to
standing up there with you know with my script and Up at the Green Mill
in Chicago and just working it out at people and having that fireball of
energy going now I just want to go.
You know what?
I'm gonna drop the mic Memorize the poem and just move around the
audience and see what happened.
Shebana: Oh, Tim, Tim Yeah, I would love to see that or
Timothy: yeah after a while.
I'll get a video of it for you We'll get we'll get it shot out there to you by my
nephew is You I can say that legally now.
He owns a coffee shop and he's going to be opening it up in the
next couple of weeks and he's going to restart the poetry nights.
So when that happens, you'll be getting a video from me.
Shebana: And I would love to do works.
Oh my God.
It's very exciting.
I love that it's in all these different spaces and I, yes, go for it.
It's an experiment.
See what happens.
Cause, and I want to thank you for saying what you said about the hands
calling to you even more sometimes than the words because I really feel
that's where I got to go more into those hands, you know, into the body more.
And yeah, I'm very inspired then also.
So,
Timothy: well, it's like using another voice.
It's, it's, it's using another tool that we have, that we all have available to us.
You know, if we have hands, we can use our hands.
We have a voice.
We use our voice.
We obviously have minds.
So we're using our minds.
So
Shebana: that is true.
I just want to encourage everyone to just, liberate their voice, do what you love.
It really matters.
It seems like you're being selfish, but I think you're
really helping heal the world.
Timothy: That's how I can't end it on a better note than that.
That's awesome.
So I just want to thank you for listening to this episode and
this interview with Shibana Koiho.
It was, as you can tell, a, uh, a fun time, uh, had by both, uh, individuals.
And we got to learn a lot about each other's process.
And we got to think of a new way of doing our art.
You know, a lot of times we get stuck in a certain way of doing things.
And when we take ourselves out of the known and put ourselves into the unknown.
And maybe add something to our art that we don't normally add, such as adding
movement to poetry or maybe adding, um, a live painting to a poetry recital.
Great things can come about and you never know what's going to happen, uh, when
that happens and it's usually really good.
So I know I took a lot away.
From this conversation.
And I want to thank Shabana for the time that she's put into it.
And I want to encourage you to go out to her website.
Again, links will be in the show notes and maybe even go ahead
and, uh, hire her for a workshop.
By all means, reach out to her.
She's very approachable and she would love to help you with your creativity.
Well that's all I have for you on this episode.
Again, I want to thank you for taking a listen to our interview here today.
So I would like to put out a challenge to you, no matter
what discipline that you're in.
Let's say you're a writer like myself, put some movement into your writing,
you know, uh, drop the page, memorize the poem or memorize the short story
and perform it in front of a group.
Or if you're a dancer, write a poem that goes with your dance or
write a piece of music that goes with your dance, whatever it is.
That's your challenge.
So I just would like to, uh, remind you that we do have a newsletter,
um, that comes out once a month.
It's on substack Timothy Bryan dot substack.com.
And if you'd like to reach out to me and possibly be interviewed on the show,
or if you have ideas for the show or you'd like me to talk about something,
email me timothy@createartpodcast.com.
I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to hear your critique of the show.
What's going to make it a five star show for you?
I really want this to be a show that you can pass on to your friends.
And, uh, your colleagues and, you know, change the world
in your corner of the world.
So definitely email me, let me know what you think.
Speaking about sharing the show, I do run another show called find a
podcast about, you can find it at find a podcast about dot X, Y, Z.
And that's where I listen to other podcasts and bring them back to you.
The ones that I think are binge worthy and help you outsmart the algorithm and
find your next binge worthy podcast.
And a lot of times I even have an interview with the
podcast host themselves.
So check that show out for yourself.
It's called find a podcast about, you can find it at find a podcast about.
Dot X, Y, Z.
All right.
We're at that point in the show where it's time for you to go out
there and tame your inner critic, create more than you consume.
And as you heard Shabana talk about adding movement to your
work, it's like another tool.
It's like another muscle.
That you can go ahead and add into your work and maybe that's the thing
that breaks through to your audience.
But go out there and create some art for somebody you love, yourself.
I'll talk to you next time.