Core Memories: DeeSoul Carson
We believe the origin of our work as creators is important to consider and hold. In CORE MEMORIES, we ask artists and writers about their own creative beginnings. What led them to operate in their genre of choice? Was it a specific moment, an errant thought, a movement? Was it an insight, a person, a place? Years into their work, does it continue to resonate?
In this edition, we interview DeeSoul Carson
DeeSoul Carson (He/They) is a poet, performer, and educator from San Diego, CA. His work is featured or forthcoming in Voicemail Poems, Narrative Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Offing, and elsewhere. A Stanford University alum, DeeSoul has received fellowships from The Watering Hole and New York University, where he is an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program. Find more of his work at deesoulpoetry.com and through social media channels at linktr.ee/deesoulpoetry.
What is your CORE MEMORY?
I always say I first fell into poetry in 6th grade. We had a long-term sub, Mr. Magic (not his real name), who we used to drive absolutely insane. I don’t think typically of myself ever as a bad student, but we were quite an excitable group, and we were good at pushing his buttons. One day, as a consequence of being so talkative, he assigned us poetry writing. I groaned at first, but when I did it, something clicked for me. I had always enjoyed writing somewhat, but this assignment opened up language for me in a way I couldn’t access before. It was exciting to me as a kid who often felt unchallenged in class to have something that I wasn’t quantifiably good at. It was a new kind of puzzle to solve. I wrote many terrible poems that I was so proud of writing. I wrote a poem about a conversation between a salmon and a grizzly bear trying to eat him. I wrote a forest fire poem as a metaphor for how I felt in my, at that time, very complicated home life. It afforded me honesty where I was too afraid to face it head-on.
How has that moment impacted your current work or current artistic practice?
That love for poetry in middle school helped me find theater and performance poetry in high school. I found communities of folk who continue to uplift my work and inspire me to write better each day (to varying results). My friends are some of the best poets I know. From them, I learned how to use language more efficiently; I’m forever grateful for that. I still see poetry as a puzzle. I have always been very logic-driven in my thinking, which helps me find patterns or sounds in my work. I follow the music of a poem. I also still aim for honesty while making my metaphors much less opaque. Poetry is a place that allows me to figure myself out, to work through what’s happening in my life or the lives of the people I love. I don’t go to poetry necessarily for answers but to get better at asking questions that push us forward.