Are you ready for the next episode of Mic Drop? If not, get ready. This week we feature the talented student-poet, Davonte Sanders. You may have seen him drop his piece with Manilyn Gumapas, but this week, Sanders will be performing a few more poems from his own work. Sanders recently gave a speech at the TEDx event in Meiley-Swallow Hall back in March titled “The Grounding of Black Bodies.” Tonight, be ready to be inspired by his powerful messages. Here is a quick interview with Sanders.
Stella Fanega: When did you start writing poetry?
Davonte Sanders: I started writing when I was a junior in high school. I have a really good friend who I rap with and all of a sudden he decided one day to write poetry, so I followed. It’s really funny because without him, his flow and ability to finesse words in rhythm, I don’t think I would have gotten into writing poetry.
SF: What gets you fired up when writing poems?
DS: What gets me fired up when writing poems is when I can visualize myself performing a piece and it helping someone in the audience that are going through the same things I’m talking about. I love being able to connect to people and share common experiences we all have but sometimes don’t know about.
SF: What are most of your poems about and why did you choose to write about it?
DS: Most of my poems are about a romantic love. I feel like I choose to write about this love because it is something that I cherish and want out of life. I want to have this love that is real in both tangible and intangible ways. I grew up not experiencing this love or having it be cut off and then restarted. It’s the consistency and realness that I am looking for but just haven’t found yet.
SF: You recently gave a speech at TEDx. Can you tell me why you chose to speak?
DS: One reason is that the topic of mental illness in black communities isn’t widely talked about enough. Yes Chance the Rapper, Kid Cudi, and Kanye (in some ways) bring light to the issue, but it kind of died out, became a trend if you will. I want to disrupt this trend sequence and keep this problem in the forefront of our conscious so we as a community can deal with it and stop seeing mental illness as a weakness, a white person’s disease, a break in black resiliency, or just something the church solves like magic.
SF: How long does it usually take you to finalize a piece?
DS: It usually takes me about a week to finalize a piece, but I would say a piece is never final to me. There may be multiple iterations depending on how a story progresses or if I come up with a cooler way to deliver a poem. So no poem is ever final, but in terms of performance readiness, one week.
Don’t forget to tune in tonight at 8 on The Chronicle/NCCLinked Facebook page.
