Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Bonus： A Little Dash of Comfort with Kate Baer

00:00:01.000 Hungry now.

00:00:04.000 Now.

00:00:07.000 What about now?

00:00:09.000 Whenever it hits you, wherever you are,

00:00:11.000 grab an O'Henry bar to satisfy your hunger.

00:00:15.000 With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts

00:00:19.000 covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating.

00:00:24.000 Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today.

00:00:27.000 O'Hungry O'Henry.

00:00:30.960 Hello, hello, hello. So much of this season has been about the doom and gloom of the socials.

00:00:38.440 But one thing I don't want to lose track of is that there is pure joy to be found online.

00:00:44.600 There are brilliant people, there are beautiful things, and there's some good reasons that we're

00:00:50.240 so addicted to our phones, because they still can be a place of discovery. And as human beings,

00:00:55.720 we are naturally curious. Right now, Emily, Glynnis, and I are hard at work on the second

00:01:00.980 half of our mental health episode. And because I'm always honest with you guys, I want to say

00:01:05.900 it's just, it's taken some twists and turns that we didn't expect. And I wanted to give it just a

00:01:11.520 little more time to report and to marinate. So this week, I just want to bring you a little joy

00:01:18.200 and comfort. Because we had so much to fill you in on in the first mental health episode,

00:01:22.880 we didn't get to go deeper on one thing, comfort creators. I feel like I should whisper that

00:01:28.840 comfort creators. Everybody, as far back as there's been media, I would say people have

00:01:37.140 watched media to consumed it, read books, looked at cave paintings, whatever, to feel

00:01:42.880 some sense of comfort, to feel some sense of like, take your mind off your own problems,

00:01:48.080 relax, enjoy a story, whatever. Enjoy someone talking about themselves. Enjoy someone telling

00:01:54.540 you a story. And so a comfort creator is that sort of broad concept ported over into the

00:02:00.480 contemporary world of digital, kind of digital first creators on YouTube, on Twitch,

00:02:07.560 on cross-platform personalities. That's Ezra Marcus. Remember him? He's the reporter for

00:02:13.420 the New York Times who recently defined the term comfort creator in an article for the

00:02:17.780 newspaper. So today I'm bringing you my anybody, my comfort creator. This is the Instagram account

00:02:26.260 that I often turn to when I feel like complete shit. It's the account that truly helped me find 0.98

00:02:32.180 my sanity again during those black as fuck postpartum days with my second kid B. Not all

00:02:38.640 comfort creators are mental health influencers or self-help gurus. Mine is a poet. And she is a poet

00:02:47.560 that I probably wouldn't have discovered if it weren't for Instagram. Frankly, I'm so, so happy

00:02:54.940 that I did. I think about this one poem of hers. It's called Deleted Sentences. Literally every

00:03:03.100 time I'm alone with one of my children. And I want to read you a quick excerpt here. Also,

00:03:08.960 my poem voice is not beautiful. So it starts, all right, this is going to poem mojo.

00:03:14.600 What time will you be home? What time do you think you may be home? What time should we

00:03:21.780 wait for you outside on the lawn while the pasta boils over and the baby cries because he misses

00:03:26.260 you? Oh, before I go, what time will you be home? Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you died

00:03:33.260 and I had to write a eulogy while lost in my grief. What would I say? And who would take out

00:03:38.880 the trash bins on dark Sunday nights or hold our children while they cried through fever dreams?

00:03:44.600 what time will you be home? I love that. I love it so much. I love giving books as gifts and I gift

00:03:54.960 both of Kate Bear's books, What Kind of Woman, and I hope this finds you well, to all of my new mom 0.99

00:04:01.540 and new dad friends because dads need this shit too. Kate Bear is a treasure and I will be forever 0.97

00:04:07.940 grateful that I discovered her work because of Instagram. I'm also very grateful that she didn't

00:04:13.740 think I was a weird stalkery freak when I called to tell her all this.

00:04:22.120 You, for so much of my early babying period, were my comfort creator. So I just wanted to call you

00:04:31.820 and talk to you about that because your poems about motherhood and marriage and really just 0.99

00:04:40.460 being a woman in this really messed up world. They spoke to me in a way I am not a poet. I'm

00:04:48.540 not a poetry person. I'm much more like narrative fiction. But yours are the first poems that ever

00:04:56.640 spoke to me that way. And they got me through what I think I had a lot of postpartum anxiety.

00:05:01.300 And I just I didn't know who the hell I was for a while. And it was so nice to read them and

00:05:06.920 realize that someone else was was going through that was that was that your intention when you

00:05:11.900 started writing these so when I started talking about motherhood I certainly yeah hoped that

00:05:17.360 people would read it I didn't have an audience like I do now but I I did hope that someone would

00:05:23.720 read it although I think I was more doing it for my own my own benefit kind of just processing

00:05:30.380 what it was like to turn from woman to mother.

00:05:34.140 That's Kate, the New York Times bestselling poet Kate Baer.

00:05:39.060 Sometimes Kate gets referred to as an Instagram poet in profiles of her,

00:05:44.540 which I think is pretty degrading.

00:05:47.960 Yes, she happened to gain a very large following by posting her poems about motherhood

00:05:52.820 and being a woman in the world on the Instagram.

00:05:55.120 but that does not lessen what she does, or how she writes, or how wonderful she is.

00:06:02.940 Kate is a poet who also happens to have a lot of followers on Instagram.

00:06:07.260 We would never call a man an Instagram poet. Never.

00:06:11.320 And during the pandemic, Instagram is where a lot of us were at, staring at our fucking phones, 0.99

00:06:17.920 staring at the Instagram. And it's just one of the reasons that Kate's poems really got 0.97

00:06:23.480 all of the attention that they deserved back in 2020. And what was your own transition like from

00:06:28.960 from woman? I guess we don't really have a good word for woman without children to mother. But

00:06:35.260 what was what was that transition like for you? Well, I'd always wanted to be a mom. And so it

00:06:40.440 was like, I think it is for a lot of people really amazing and wonderful. While also being, of course,

00:06:47.840 horrifying physically and emotionally mentally i think that's a pretty common experience and at the

00:06:54.960 time this was 10 years ago the internet looked very different there there were certainly mom

00:07:00.900 blogs but their instagram wasn't really a thing yet and there wasn't we didn't consume motherhood

00:07:07.840 the same way we do now and i felt very alone in how i was feeling and i think that is what

00:07:15.000 initially grabbed readers was that I you know was talking about kind of the gritty parts of

00:07:21.060 motherhood which I think you know I don't know about you but when I had when I had my first

00:07:26.540 babies I didn't have a ton of friends with kids and so I was like you know WTF I didn't realize 0.96

00:07:32.660 x was going to happen I didn't realize it was going to be so hard to take a shit after I give 0.96

00:07:37.580 birth no one's talking about this and so when I talked about it people were like oh okay someone 0.95

00:07:44.220 else is talking about this. Now, it's so different now. But 10 years ago, it felt like it felt

00:07:51.560 different. Yeah, because of what because it was different. Even five years ago, when I had my

00:07:56.140 first baby, I don't think people were talking about it as much. And even now, I think now,

00:08:01.540 we know where to find it if we want it, but it's still not mainstream.

00:08:05.140 Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I do. I mean, I do think people have taken, there have been steps as far

00:08:10.900 as like in books and media and tv shows and movies to portray portray real motherhood but

00:08:16.500 it's such a slow moving wheel that any any time we can kind of advance the the realities of

00:08:23.300 motherhood i think it's a great step

00:08:25.560 i think that poetry i mean your poetry in particular was so

00:08:39.520 what worked for me one because you were posting your poems on Instagram and that's where I was

00:08:45.480 I wasn't gonna pick up any book I couldn't hold a book I was holding a baby but I was gonna hold

00:08:51.060 I was gonna hold my phone for better or worse and you were right there you were where I was

00:08:56.520 and just the fact that I could consume your poems on this device when all I had to work with was a

00:09:04.180 thumb to scroll. It was freaking magical at the time. And I'm just I'm so I'm so happy you chose

00:09:12.080 that medium to put them up there. And why did you why did you choose to put them on the on

00:09:16.940 the Instagram? Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of different trajectories you can take with

00:09:22.840 with your writing specifically poetry, a lot of poetry people kind of turn their noses at putting

00:09:29.420 it on Instagram I think part of it is like you're putting your work out there for free I I call it

00:09:35.560 good marketing um so I don't know I was happy to share it I a lot of times people will ask me

00:09:44.000 to they'll say oh I saw one of your pieces on Instagram but now it's not there can you send

00:09:50.120 it to me and I just send them a link to my book because uh I I you can buy the book but I I do

00:09:58.620 use Instagram to share it because like you said I think it helps it helps people get a taste of

00:10:04.020 what they will get in a book and it also maybe allows people who don't normally read poetry

00:10:08.920 to consume it and realize that um everyone can enjoy poetry it might not be mine um but that

00:10:17.540 there you have a chance to read it and that this is for them that you know i it's true i whatever

00:10:24.860 i would post half of my book online if our if my publisher would let me but every time we post an

00:10:30.760 excerpt of it it just gets us more readers because people want to know what they're buying books are

00:10:35.500 expensive and it's a big investment and i think that what you've done by posting your poems on

00:10:41.640 Instagram. One, you helped save my sanity. So part of this call is to thank you. And just just to

00:10:48.340 express my gratitude to you. But also, you're freaking fierce and smart in how you've marketed

00:10:55.660 your poems, your poetry, your books, and, you know, the trajectory of your career. I think

00:11:00.840 that you're brilliant by putting these on Instagram and fuck those fingers. 1.00

00:11:04.700 Thanks. I don't care either way what people say, as far as Instagram poet or not, that's, 0.99

00:11:10.620 that has nothing to do with me. So I really let that go.

00:11:14.400 I think it's, I do. I don't think anyone would ever call a man an Instagram poet.

00:11:18.860 Although they do exist, but yeah, I don't know.

00:11:21.860 Right. They do exist. Yeah, exactly. You know, the other thing that, so yes, like I said,

00:11:28.500 this is just, this is just a big old freaking thank you. Thank you for being you and being

00:11:33.140 great and choosing to put them on Instagram. But also I want to talk a little bit about,

00:11:38.080 I hope this finds you well, and how you turned, we had a whole episode in season one about how

00:11:44.480 much hate women get on Instagram, on the internet, any woman that happens to live in a public space, 1.00

00:11:52.020 people will throw, essentially throw flaming shit at her. And I love that you have turned some of 1.00

00:11:59.080 these hateful messages and comments into beautiful poems. Can you just tell me the quick and dirty

00:12:05.500 version of the genesis for doing that? Sure. Yeah. So I was not super familiar with erasure

00:12:11.780 poetry. Before I wasn't like reading it and thinking, Oh, I should try to do this. It was

00:12:17.700 really just on a whim. I George Floyd had just been murdered. And people were talking about

00:12:23.860 police reform, I was posting about police reform, and kind of trying to start discussions on how we

00:12:29.440 can do this differently and accountability for the police. Also, of course, for white people in 0.84

00:12:35.620 general. And I had someone write back to me, you know, kind of upset with this take, which is

00:12:41.820 obviously super normal on a day in the internet. It wasn't like that was abnormal. And I was kind

00:12:47.860 of looking through those messages, deleting them. I don't typically write back to those just because

00:12:52.880 I don't find Instagram messaging a productive place for that kind of conversation. I wasn't

00:12:59.080 mad at her for sending me that message I just didn't find that conversation was going to go

00:13:05.400 anywhere but I was looking at it before I deleted it and the words just kind of stuck out to me in

00:13:10.800 a different form and so I took a screenshot I hid her identity and made a poem out of it

00:13:16.120 which is it really truly had no forethought I wasn't like thinking I was going to start doing

00:13:22.520 this. But I did that. I posted it. People had a pretty strong reaction to that, which I think

00:13:29.360 just proves, you know, there are a lot of people at odds with other people on the Internet. And of

00:13:34.940 course, with people they actually know. Yeah, so that's how it started. And then because of that

00:13:42.440 response, I was like, okay, I kind of felt like a party trick. You know, I started to look at spam

00:13:47.460 emails and bulletin boards and all sorts of things I was like oh you can I could kind of

00:13:53.960 make poetry out of a lot of things and and then my publisher asked if I would do a whole book of

00:13:59.400 them and I said absolutely not when they asked me again and I said no it's so depressing and then

00:14:03.940 they kept asking me um and I I obviously did relent it was a terrible writing experience to

00:14:12.640 be honest the result i i'm happy with but to write it was it was depressing a lot of the time

00:14:20.580 um i'm happy to be done with it i don't plan to write any more of them i don't it's not like when

00:14:27.740 i paged through it and upset i i really am happy with the result and i think i'm happy with it it

00:14:32.820 just the actual writing of it was was hard and not just because of the content but because

00:14:38.240 writing erasure poetry is a very frustrating experience because you don't have necessarily

00:14:45.760 the the nouns and verbs that you want and so there's a lot of a lot of the process is throwing

00:14:53.700 things out which is just very frustrating right right and there's there's like the first level

00:14:58.920 of like this obviously sucks that someone is so hateful and then the second level of

00:15:03.200 i'd really like a uh preposition exactly that would be awesome exactly yeah what are like what

00:15:09.420 is some of the kinds of hate comments that that you get that you did end up turning into poetry

00:15:13.240 for people who haven't read the book yet yeah so there's a lot of messages in there that are just

00:15:17.620 personal to me and and like what i look like and how i talk about things and then there are ones

00:15:24.400 that are pretty focused on politics like my politics or specific things that i've supported

00:15:31.740 or not supported and then there are also excerpts from articles and court transcripts and um things

00:15:40.260 that people have said like there there are a few about trump and now i'm kind of i can't quite

00:15:47.420 recall what they are but they want i think one of them is the pussy comment and then the other one

00:15:53.420 is i i believe right before he left office so there are also those things too they're not all

00:16:01.280 to me uh that just felt like too much not not like that's too much that's too much well i felt

00:16:08.820 it was uninteresting to not include other things there's also positive messaging which was a big

00:16:15.800 conversation on whether or not to include i did not want to include it because it felt braggy

00:16:20.580 but we landed on the fact we landed on the idea that it might be too depressing for them all to

00:16:27.540 be negative and so we included positive ones as well also to illustrate the point that they're

00:16:32.960 also wonderful interactions and uh things right on the internet people people like you on the

00:16:38.640 internet what do you follow on instagram to give you comfort i follow an account called poetry is

00:16:44.760 not a luxury which is a line from an essay by audrey lord it's again poetry is not a luxury

00:16:52.900 and they post poems from all sorts of people from all sorts of different eras,

00:17:00.340 but they really give a nice scope if you're not super familiar with poetry

00:17:04.700 or comfortable or even just desire to check out any poetry books

00:17:09.120 because I think part of the problem is that a lot of people identify

00:17:12.400 with one or two pieces from someone and they don't want to buy a full book.

00:17:15.840 But she gives, I think it's a she, gives a great array of different poets

00:17:20.580 So I found it to be really comforting to read all sorts of different poetry from all around the world, all different eras, and kind of connect with what people were feeling maybe in the 60s or the 70s.

00:17:33.500 She also posts contemporary poets, and I really like the breadth and the depth of what she chooses to post in.

00:17:43.260 So I recommend that to anyone who says they don't like poetry, or people, I have a lot of people who reach out to me and say,

00:17:50.320 oh I loved your work who else should I read and I'm happy to give lists of other women which I do

00:17:57.100 have there are plenty of them but this is a great account to follow to get a wider range to see what

00:18:03.840 you connect with I love that all right well let's let's have everyone follow them now everyone

00:18:10.040 listens listens to the podcast tell it to us again poetry is not a luxury is the account

00:18:15.560 I love the name of the account. Cool. That is all that I have. Go back, get back to writing.

00:18:21.100 Write us another wonderful book. I'm so happy that we got to talk.

00:18:25.260 Same. Thank you so much for having me.

00:18:28.640 If you guys want to hear more of Kate's very comforting and very beautiful poems,

00:18:33.680 please pick up both her books, What Kind of Woman, and I Hope This Finds You Well.

00:18:38.440 They're sold in all of the bookselling places. And that's it. I do hope that this was a breath

00:18:45.440 of fresh air before we dive back into the Instagram and all of the insanity that comes

00:18:50.380 with it. Our second episode on mental health gets a little dark, but dark in a way that I think

00:18:56.220 we all really need to talk about. We've got way more on mental health influencers next week.

00:19:02.780 In the meantime, be good to yourself.

00:19:15.440 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 10, 2022

Bonus： A Little Dash of Comfort with Kate Baer

Episode Stats

Transcript