'Stay Brave' with Regan Good
‘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?"
Do not be intimidated, do not be silenced, do not be silent for selfish reasons.
As a woman-identifying writer, what are the ways that you “stay brave” in your life?
I try to pay attention, and think about other people...that helps me stay brave.
Who is someone in your life who models “staying brave” for you?
Currently, Francesca P. Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories embodies bravery for me. In addition to Francesca, in the political realm, I honestly think of Martin Luther King Jr. a lot. He was my father’s hero, and so also mine. To have lived through the humiliating, belittling, and criminal hatreds that he did, and to lead people to a fairer world, my God, yes, that is bravery. He died for it. He knew that there was a good chance he would be killed, and yet he never stopped. He died helping facilitate a strike for sanitation workers; he cared for the most vulnerable always. We all should.
What writers, artists, and/or musicians do you look to to foster a sense of “bravery?”
David Bowie, a fearless artist, he flung himself into the world beautifully. Agnes Martin and her patience seem like bravery to me. Emily Dickinson was scary brave. I also think of Hilma af Klint, as well. Her utterly original work, and the massive scale of it. She was in her own world, her studio (like all studios) became a world. And there she forged work from her interest in Being, life, seeds, flowers, geometry, invisible lines, what holds this insane mash-up together. Her and Emily Dickinson, especially as women in a man’s world, who just said fuck it, and wrote and painted the most gorgeous and lasting work. The bravery is living through the misunderstandings, the being ignored, the knowledge that they were better than the male and female poets and painters of their day, the being condescended to, and probably lied to, as well. They buoyed their lives with their work and didn’t care who liked it. I guess you would say they had rich internal lives, and so maybe that is the strength. Jorie used to say one has to be “fearless and focused” when writing and I keep that in mind.
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?
Do not look to others to validate your work, ever.
Can you remember a time in your life where you realized your own bravery? How did you use it to propel you forward?
My own bravery…I can recall moments when I should have been afraid, but wasn’t. But I haven’t lived a day in Gaza, for example. My own bravery is like everyone else’s, go forward in the face of grief, depression, fear, betrayal, disappointment, frustration, whatever, and know that there will be another poem or painting in the future that will fill you again, temporarily. Maybe art is how I am brave, like others; I make it in the face of indifference and lots of data I shouldn’t. But I do. So, fuck it.
What do you do when you aren’t feeling brave? What inspires you or motivates you?
I think of the great people in the world, the true heroes, like Tank Man, for example, and Rachel Corrie. Those are people with principles that they were willing to die for. Both of these people stood up to tanks, strangely. Corrie was tragically killed by an Israeli tank as it bull-dozed a Palestinian home. Tank Man kills me, he stops the tank holding his groceries, stops it again when it tries to go around him, and then climbs on top of it to get to the men inside. One body against a faceless terrifying military machine. He won, though of course, we don’t know who he was or what happened to him. I think of him a lot.
In what ways would you like to be more brave in your creative life?
Allowing for more mistakes, more wildness, but without indulgence and just writing sloppily and poorly.
What is your proudest moment of bravery?
I do not really think of myself as brave; if I have been brave it’s been out of necessity.
What are you currently working on?
Paintings, some poems, finishing a memoir that has taken way too much time.
Thank you, Regan!
"Little Deer" - oil on paper by Regan Good
Regan Good is a poet living in Brooklyn, New York. She attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the early 90s. She has published two books of poetry, The Atlantic House and The Needle. Currently, she teaches at the Pratt Institute in the School of Architecture.
Leah Umansky is a poet, writer, curator, writing coach, artist and teacher. Her new collection of poems is OF TYRANT out now with Word Works Books. She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and has curated and hosted The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC since 2011. Her creative work can be found in such places as PBS’ ‘Story in the Public Square,’ The New York Times, POETRY, Bennington Review, American Poetry Review, The Slowdown Podcast, The Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day and elsewhere. She is a writing coach who has taught workshops to all ages at such places as Poets House, Hudson Valley Writers Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering and elsewhere. She is working on a fourth collection of poems ORDINARY SPLENDOR, on wonder, joy and love and a hybrid-memoir on infertility in the eye of a global pandemic, DELICATE MACHINE. She can be found at www.leahumansky.com or @leah.umansky on IG.
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