Karisma Price -Conversation & Three Poems
for the series, The American Wing
curated by Carlie Hoffman and Tiffany Troy
Carlie Hoffman & Tiffany Troy: Karisma Price’s poems featured in this collection sing homage to Louisiana, pre- and post-hurricane Katrina, as her speaker defends Brother John’s depiction of a Black Jesus next to her little cousin’s desire to be God without being dead. The poems that follow, “The Month Before Your Father Goes to Prison” and “My Phone Autocorrects ‘Nigga’ to Night’” underscore the impact that the prison industrial complex and artificial intelligence bias continue to inflict harm upon the speakers’ communities.
How would you describe the origins or influences of your language and voice as a writer?
Karisma Price: The first “poets” I knew growing up were my parents. They met in the third grade and grew up a few porches away from each other. When they would tell me stories as a child, all the characters in them were their friends, who they were still in contact with in adulthood. To have all those years of memories and such a full narration of the stories made me jealous and want to create a time machine so I could grow up during the same time as them. The oral tradition is such an important form of storytelling in the Black community–dating back to Africa, then during the time of enslavement because we were not allowed to read, and present day due to the influence of the Black church and spoken word poetry. My parents’ influence has made me want to write poems that are accessible to all, and tell the emotional truths of everyday Black people–particularly Southerners–who’ve had to work for everything they have.
CH & TT: You are an accomplished poet who also writes fiction and screenplays. Which poets, writers, artists, or musicians have shaped yours?
KP: Music-wise, I love the Blues and Old School music: James Booker, Teddy Pendergrass, Stevie Wonder, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, etc. I love the poets Jericho Brown, Terrance Hayes, Natasha Trethewey, and Wanda Coleman. Films like Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (dir. The Coen Brothers, La ciénaga (dir. Lucrecia Martel), and In the Mood For Love (dir. Wong Kar-Wai) show me the importance of voice, tone, and visual style a director has and the tools they use to make those craft choices visible to the viewer. As an artist, I want my voice and personal style to be seen so the reader is aware of what I stand for and the ways I use poetry to write about the people and places I love and critique the systems that harm them.
CH & TT: What can poetry offer people today? What personal meaning does poetry hold for you?
KP: Poetry allows me to check in with myself and exist in a world where I get to explore my emotions without seeking permission from others. I grew up as a very shy child who looked for approval and was always on my best behavior. Poetry allows me to say what is necessary and experiment with the many ways my imagination takes shape. I believe poetry can offer people moments of meditation and self-discovery. Technology occupies our minds often and I think it’s messed with our attention spans in such a horrible way. Writing poetry allows us to slow down and really think about what we mean and how to properly articulate our feelings in both word and form.
CH & TT: Is there a poem or poetry collection you believe everyone should read at least once—and why?
KP: I’d suggest reading “I’m Explaining a Few Things” by Pablo Neruda. I first read that poem in my 7th grade creative writing class (the poem’s a bit dark—maybe I shouldn’t’ve been reading it that young) when we had a unit about writers writing about war. Neruda is describing the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and there’s a line that shocked me when I first read it: “and the blood of children ran through the streets/without fuss, like children’s blood.” I didn’t know you could compare a thing to itself. This was my first creative writing class and we were learning about metaphors and similes and I was always taught to compare something to another thing. Because the war was so violent and severe, Neruda witnessed something so horrible that he didn’t have anything to compare it to. This was also the year after my family moved back to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and I felt like I had survived something so devastating, and because I was only 11, I had nothing else to compare it to.
CH & TT: Your poem sings of two sides of America. In “The Month Before Your Father Goes to Prison,” you write of the young child, “the rest of America still calls you / a refugee.” In “My Phone Corrects ‘Nigga’ to ‘Night,’” you write that “My nights live in America to remind you of me.” What are some of your hopes for the future of American poetry and its place in our culture, which you hope to express through your poems and in your life’s work?
KP: I hope that more people actively seek out poems and poetry collections by writers of color. Poetry is such a hybrid and experimental form that is not limited to constraints, but many people do not respect the form or only read fiction. I think there is space for fiction, poetry, nonfiction, etc., and I hope people learn that poetry isn’t just silly language describing flowers. Don’t get me wrong, I think poetry can be that if you want it to be, but I think people have a preconceived notion about what poetry is and underestimate the amount of craft that writers use to build worlds. Personally, I hope someone reads my work and wants to read it again. That they slow down and use time from their day to learn about New Orleans, the value of kinship, and reevaluate what “American” means to them.
IN DEFENSE OF BROTHER JOHN (1971)
In Louisiana,
my little cousin asks if
God controls the fireworks
while he, with his small hands,
controls the soap bubbles
floating up and down the porch
like the house’s heartbeat.
In the summer, hurricanes
tumble the wind like children
unfolding from a womb
into a world who will not want them.
But right now, it is spring and a
tornado invades the land like
the bodies of possums and pink ladies
and I am propped on the bed
watching Sidney Poitier play
Jesus, but he’s black so,
they view him as death anyway.
Hauntology, I’m learning,
is a Black study. One that blueses
its own refrain: John Kane, Black Jesus,
Mr. Death, surprisingly Sidney’s least
magical role yet. Mr. Death
arrives at the hour of his sister’s. He loved
his sister so we close in on his eyes.
Often, I wonder, what I will conjure
when time has multiplied my dead. I practice it,
daily in my head. What I’m saying is devastation
is the only language I speak. What else can be
taught in the school of my country?
Not trying to turn into God
is the study of Black behavior. My cousin
blows more bubbles to give breath a body. Death is
as beautiful as Sidney. A man running out
of time. A man who gets out of his blue wagon,
beats every breathing bully without a blot
of blood haunting his lapel. I learn everyday
that I’ve taught myself
how to hide. I should’ve
made more friends, sat in more places
where I didn’t know myself. I too returned
home with a suitcase full of notebooks
that should’ve documented my travels.
It’s no fun knowing there might not be love
without death, so the pages have stayed blank.
Not trying to turn into God is a study
on Black behavior. I don’t want to be Black
enough for a repast. No salt-filled manifestations
of our ending. Look at him shapeshifting:
Death as filling as spare ribs
as Georgia Jetsons’ melon relish
as a deacon singing “His Eye is on the Sparrow”
when the world guarantees ravens.
I hope my cousin never hears this music.
A melody is only hopeful because you know
an ending is coming.
The wind tumbles around us like a child
unfolding from a womb into a world
who will not want it. When John Kane left
Hackley, Alabama, the wind swelled the land
like a balloon. In this land, the soap stings
my cousin’s eyes and he asks if I can take him to a pool.
But you can’t swim, I tell him.
Ugh, being a human is so hard.
I wish I was God.
I laugh. What would you do as God?
I’d walk on water. But then, he sighs.
I’d have to be dead.
The following two poems are provided as a PDF to preserve their layout.
About the Author:
A native New Orleanian, Karisma Price is an assistant professor of English at Tulane University. A poet and screenwriter, she is the author of I’m Always So Serious (Sarabande Books, 2023) which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice Pick. Her work has appeared in publications including Poetry, Indiana Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, and elsewhere. Her honors include a 2026 Writing Freedom Fellowship from Haymarket Books and The Mellon Foundation, a 2025 Whiting Award in Poetry, a Cave Canem Fellowship, and the 2023 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from the American Poetry Review. She holds an MFA in poetry from New York University.
https://www.karismaprice.com/
