Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / Stream From YA Author Aida Salazar Sharing Authentic Stories Through Verse

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Stream From YA Author Aida Salazar Sharing Authentic Stories Through Verse · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but while listening to podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: right in the middle of an interview, I'll get bored
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  Speaker 1: and I gotta go. And it's like, oh my god,
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  Speaker 1: I feel so sorry for this host, but I gotta go.
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  Speaker 1: I need a choice. I don't want to stop listening
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  Speaker 1: to podcasts. I just gotta go. That's what ero dot
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  Speaker 1: net is all about. A r r oe dot net.
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  Speaker 1: When you lose interest in the conversation and you gotta
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  Speaker 1: get something, it's right there waiting for you. And one
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  Speaker 1: of them is beyond the Calling. We're talking to the
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  Speaker 1: men and women who have served this great nation beyond
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  Speaker 1: the calling, only on arrow dot net, A r r
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  Speaker 1: oe dot net. Enjoy your exploration, Hello, and good morning.
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  Speaker 1: How are you doing today.
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing that all thank you.
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  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to share a conversation with you because
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  Speaker 1: you and I have something in common, and that is
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  Speaker 1: that common connector is verse. And my last book was
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  Speaker 1: all about verse. So I'm going to start things off
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  Speaker 1: in a really weird way. And I don't expect listeners
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  Speaker 1: to understand this, but I think you and I are
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  Speaker 1: playing on the same field here. My last book, my
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  Speaker 1: last book was fifty four pieces of poetry that just
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  Speaker 1: happened to tell a story. Is that not exactly what
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  Speaker 1: you're doing here as well? That you've got all of
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  Speaker 1: this beautiful poetry and it just happens to tell a story.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yes, yes, it's was your sequential. Do you have
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  Speaker 2: to read each poem?
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  Speaker 1: Well? I think it takes people a little bit right
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  Speaker 1: there when they jump into the beginning and they see
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  Speaker 1: that it's verse, and of course, you know, they want
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  Speaker 1: to go back to their first and second grade school
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  Speaker 1: teachers and say, ah, this isn't the kind of verse
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  Speaker 1: I learned in elementary school. No, it's not. And that's
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  Speaker 1: what I love about you is that you're not about
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  Speaker 1: rhyming and timing and make sure that everything fits in
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  Speaker 1: like this like a good classic rock song. And that's
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  Speaker 1: the thing about it is that when you go into
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  Speaker 1: it and then you embrace the oh my god, the
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  Speaker 1: texture of what poetry brings. I mean, you had to
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  Speaker 1: have felt it as well as you were writing it.
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  Speaker 1: It is in a language that is you, And that's
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  Speaker 1: what I love about it. It's you.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually it is me in different ways. I mean
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  Speaker 2: it is maybe because I'm a poet and I write
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  Speaker 2: in verse mostly, but these two characters are I was
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  Speaker 2: hoping to do something that really kind of separated them
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  Speaker 2: in voice and voice, you know, Eddio, the main character
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  Speaker 2: is the boy. Main character is really this poppy, funny, witty,
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  Speaker 2: you know, snappy kind of voice, and Silly on the
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  Speaker 2: other hand, is one that has this very lyrical and
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  Speaker 2: kind of dreamy language. And everything is tooling, and so
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  Speaker 2: I really wanted them to be distinct and one that's
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  Speaker 2: the craft of it, right, So what you're doing with
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  Speaker 2: your fifty four poems is also telling a story. But
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  Speaker 2: I just wondered, like, I want to know what were
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  Speaker 2: they about? What was your book of fellows.
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  Speaker 1: What happened was I was sitting inside a studio at iHeartRadio,
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  Speaker 1: and this piece of poetry came out of me and
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  Speaker 1: it was called this is the saddest song I've ever
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  Speaker 1: had to write. And I didn't understand where that came from.
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  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, I was walking around South
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  Speaker 1: Park Mall and I felt this gigantic urge of John
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  Speaker 1: Lennon move through me, and I didn't understand it, and
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  Speaker 1: I started watching and looking around the mall area, and
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I ended up at a mont
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  Speaker 1: Blanc store, and hidden away in boxes, locked up was
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  Speaker 1: a mont Blanc writing instrument that Yoko Ono had said
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  Speaker 1: to them. I bought the darn thing and that became
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  Speaker 1: my book. Was because it was going to be a
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  Speaker 1: it was going to be a story about John Lennon.
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  Speaker 1: And I know you had to have gone through the
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  Speaker 1: same thing because I can feel it in your writing.
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  Speaker 1: I feel realism in your writing.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, it's told through realistic lens. Both of these
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  Speaker 2: kids are contemporary characters, just like so many of us
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  Speaker 2: right now having to deal with through screen addiction and
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  Speaker 2: so but their humans. And this is I mean something
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  Speaker 2: that you understand Erro is that that poetry is a
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  Speaker 2: way of getting really inside the human expression, the emotional
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  Speaker 2: landscape of who we are, which is just have such
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  Speaker 2: a vast range and and so I really wanted to
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  Speaker 2: bring that closely. These are kind of like you know,
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  Speaker 2: imagine like a long song, right like, yes, you're thinking
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  Speaker 2: about John Lennon, but these are like long songs that
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  Speaker 2: are that are spoken inside the character's mind.
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  Speaker 1: But you know what I love about you is that
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  Speaker 1: that in reading the book, you're giving this. This to
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  Speaker 1: me is the really big message about your story, especially
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to unplugging that you're opening the door
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  Speaker 1: for students today that, oh, I'm so bored I don't
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  Speaker 1: have my phone, I don't have this. But then you're
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  Speaker 1: inviting us to write. I don't care what you write.
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  Speaker 1: Just write a piece of poetry. Do because I swear
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  Speaker 1: they're going to feel something between that writing instrument being
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  Speaker 1: pencil or a pan and that paper, and then they're
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  Speaker 1: going to realize, why do I need my smartphone. I'm unplugged.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to write.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well and org or write music or dance
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  Speaker 2: or just be in I R L. As the kids
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  Speaker 2: say in real life, it's it's something that we're forgetting.
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  Speaker 2: We're forgetting how to function, you know, and be bored.
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  Speaker 2: You know that boredom is a place where creativity is ignited.
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  Speaker 2: It is through daydreaming and and and and really kind
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  Speaker 2: of being outside of a constant flow of information in stream.
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  Speaker 2: And this book that there's like the kids are get
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  Speaker 2: in trouble for the screens and and and they are
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  Speaker 2: hurting because their parents send them to this off the
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  Speaker 2: grid run show, like where there's no running water, knowledge
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  Speaker 2: is no internet, and it's it's there that they they
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  Speaker 2: in their boredom and in their misery, discover like, wait
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  Speaker 2: a minute, what are these things we call life? And
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  Speaker 2: how do I really plug into this?
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  Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Aita Salazar coming
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  Speaker 1: up next the Name of a Book Stream. We are
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  Speaker 1: back with Aita Salazar. I want this book to become
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  Speaker 1: a musical that travels between schools. We used to have
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  Speaker 1: that when I was in school. They would have all
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  Speaker 1: these different performers to come in. Either that or it
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  Speaker 1: just needs to be some sort of something that's recorded
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  Speaker 1: and then played like they used to bring in the
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  Speaker 1: reel to reel or the actual film machine into the studio,
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  Speaker 1: the camera and the projector and watch that. Because there
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  Speaker 1: is such a great storyline here that it's got to
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  Speaker 1: get into the hands of those that don't pick up
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  Speaker 1: books because you've got a message here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love that, of course. But you know what,
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  Speaker 2: one way that actually this can sort of happen is
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  Speaker 2: through the audiobooks. The audiobook is seeing and it has
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  Speaker 2: and it has two different voices. It has two different narrators,
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  Speaker 2: female are a male narrator. And you know what, my son,
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  Speaker 2: who is a musician who's just turned eighteen, he composed
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  Speaker 2: the music for the audiobook, and we're really proud of that.
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  Speaker 1: I am so proud of you for doing that, because
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  Speaker 1: my last two books came with music. I thought I
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  Speaker 1: was the freak, the weird one, the one that goes
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  Speaker 1: over here in the corner and hides from the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the world. And now I see you're using music
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  Speaker 1: as well.
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  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
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  Speaker 1: We are so much on the same street.
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  Speaker 2: Now. You know what. That's the thing about artists, right
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  Speaker 2: that we are able to kind of you know, we're
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  Speaker 2: not constrained by poetry, we're not constrained for her music.
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  Speaker 2: We're in the service of making something beautiful and meaningful
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  Speaker 2: in the world, and so whatever forum that takes, that's
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  Speaker 2: what we got to do.
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  Speaker 1: You know what's really interesting about this journey, and I
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  Speaker 1: want listeners, especially the YA listeners to understand this, is
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  Speaker 1: that it was you know, Mark Twain who said that
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  Speaker 1: we've got to let the authors of the world have
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  Speaker 1: their own accent let them put it in their own words.
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  Speaker 1: And so when I'm paging through this book and I'm
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  Speaker 1: seeing the tiny paragraphs, I'm seeing the commas in the
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  Speaker 1: periods and the paragraphs and the sentences and I'm going,
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  Speaker 1: my god, this is her voice. This is exactly how
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  Speaker 1: she speaks, and she wants to be you know, to
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  Speaker 1: be listened to. I love that you made it about
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  Speaker 1: you and you're not You're not following somebody else in
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  Speaker 1: the way of being just like them. No, you are you?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Well you know there. It is a genre, right,
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  Speaker 2: like a verse novel is a genre genre, but it's not.
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  Speaker 2: It's not not everybody can do it because you have
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  Speaker 2: less real estate on the page. You have to have
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  Speaker 2: the precise words yes, or the exact feeling, and you
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  Speaker 2: have to cut out all the fluff and so and
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  Speaker 2: because you're making I mean, that's why we're poets, right,
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  Speaker 2: we write. It's not just about language. It's about making
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  Speaker 2: artful language, and that takes skill. But it is also
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  Speaker 2: something that kids actually and a lot of readers are
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  Speaker 2: really into right now because it doesn't require a lot
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  Speaker 2: of therity, thank god, and with our with our degrees dpens,
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  Speaker 2: it's like really difficult for kids to read right now.
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  Speaker 2: But something like this, something like a graphic novel, something
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  Speaker 2: with music, audiobooks, those those are different ways to access
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  Speaker 2: and hopefully reach the young readers and any reader really
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  Speaker 2: who is struggling with reading once again.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want school teachers to pick it up,
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  Speaker 1: and I want them to go back to the old
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  Speaker 1: fashioned days where the teacher would pick out a book
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  Speaker 1: and you might get three or four pages read by
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  Speaker 1: the teacher. That to me made me a writer, and
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  Speaker 1: that's why to this day I continue to write because
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  Speaker 1: of those school teachers that to us in class.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I know, it's one of the most lovely things.
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  Speaker 2: I read to my children a lot every single day
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  Speaker 2: because I'm a writer and interested in language in that way.
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  Speaker 2: But then at a certain points, you know, as parents do,
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  Speaker 2: I would fall asleep and the kids would just pick
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  Speaker 2: up the book and keeping reading to one another, and
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  Speaker 2: it was you know, it is a really wonderful way
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  Speaker 2: to experience the book. But also one thing that teachers
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  Speaker 2: can do is actually have different students read the book aloud,
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  Speaker 2: because there are two different voices in this book.
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  Speaker 1: In the streams I love where your heart is. Where
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  Speaker 1: can people go to find out more about you and
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  Speaker 1: really give you a lot of global love?
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  Speaker 2: Okay? Well, on social media you can find me at
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  Speaker 2: Aida Underscores write Aida Underscore right, and you can go
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  Speaker 2: to my website Ada Salazar dot com and it's spills
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  Speaker 2: A I D A Saladar s A L A v
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  Speaker 2: a r dot com and you can buy the books
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  Speaker 2: everywhere books are sold.
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  Speaker 1: I love it. You got to come back to this
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  Speaker 1: show anytime in the future. Ten minutes with you, Aida
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  Speaker 1: is just not going to be enough, and I'm praying
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  Speaker 1: that we get to talk many more times in the future.
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  Speaker 2: My pleasure. Thank you so much for this wonderful time
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  Speaker 2: with you.
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  Speaker 1: You'd be brilliant today. Okay, okay, I will thank you
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  Speaker 1: you too.