'Stay Brave' with Ama Codjoe
‘Stay Brave’ is an interview series by woman-identifying creatives for woman-identifying creatives to inspire bravery in the creative life. [Created and curated by Leah Umansky]
How do you interpret the phrase, "Stay Brave?"
"Stay Brave" conjures movement and stillness. Depending on the context, either may be considered brave. Staying brave means staying with whatever feelings arise and honoring them with right action.
As a woman-identifying writer, what are the ways that you “stay brave” in your life?
I “stay brave” by listening to my body and honoring what it needs. This usually means slowing down, resting, saying “no,” saying “yes,” taking a long walk, or savoring that which brings me pleasure (a cup of tea, a hot bath, a piece of dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt). “Staying brave” also means being a good friend to myself when I am experiencing grief, overwhelm, or sadness. I stay brave when I speak my truth even when, as Audre Lorde says, it may be misunderstood. There’s a vulnerability in the way bravery shows up in my life.
Who is someone in your life who models “staying brave” for you?
This can be someone you know personally, or someone you never met in real life.
My best friend models “staying brave” in the way of truth-telling. She is a fierce advocate and a wise counselor. One of the qualities of our friendship we both prize is our ability to be honest and authentic with each other and to coach each other into bringing our full, messy, and brilliant selves into the many rooms of our lives. She holds my feet to the fire and makes me a better person. She gives me an “amen” or a “not so fast” just when I need to hear it.
What writers, artists, and/or musicians do you look to to foster a sense of “bravery?”
Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, June Jordan, Lucille Clifton, Vievee Francis, Sharon Olds, Donika Kelly, Simone Leigh, Lorraine O’Grady, Lizz Wright, Toshi Reagon–I could go on.
What’s a piece of advice you would pass on to your younger self about “staying brave?” What’s something you know now, that you didn’t know in the past?
It’s okay to be afraid, let your feelings guide you into a better knowledge of yourself. I didn’t know when I was younger that I could invent the life I wanted to live.
Can you remember a time in your life where you realized your own bravery? How did you use it to propel you forward?
Maybe realizing my own bravery begins with recognizing my own fear or trepidation. Fear can be a kind of energy that propels me into doing something different. If anything, the hope is I can move through a fearful state into another state of being. This restlessness or frenetic energy drives me towards wanting peace, and by acknowledging my fear I’m able to do the hard thing: to have a difficult conversation; to say something hurt me; to ask for more.
What do you do when you aren’t feeling brave? What inspires you or motivates you?
My inner compass, my aim for integrity, my conscience.
In what ways would you like to be more brave in your creative life?
I’d love to branch out into other genres and forms. I’m not sure what will stick, but I’d like to be brave enough to sincerely experiment.
What is your proudest moment of bravery?
I’m proud of the way I’ve learned to interrupt injustice in my interpersonal exchanges with others. This has been a decades-long practice; I haven’t always said what I wanted to say “in the moment,” but I’ve gotten better and better at being brave and calling a spade a spade.
What are you currently working on?
I am sharing poems in person from Bluest Nude with readers and it’s been a joy to experience poetry readings again–they offer such a luscious intimate exchange. That is the work of my now
Thank you to Ama Codjoe
Ama Codjoe is the author of Bluest Nude, out now with Milkweed Editions.
Leah Umansky is the author of three books of poems, most recently OF TYRANT, forthcoming with The Word Works in 2024. She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and has curated and hosted The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC since 2011. Her work has been widely published in such places as The New York Times, POETRY, American Poetry Review. The Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day, Guesthouse, and Pleiades.