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Spoken Word Poet Afra Atiq on Finding Your Voice

Afra Atiq was named Best Performer for 2015-16 by Rooftop Rhythms, and won the 2017 ADMAF Creativity Awards. She proudly gives back to her community through mentorships and workshops with Untitled Chapters (a thriving hub for Emirati women writers). As a scholar, Afra has recently been published in the International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences and conducted social research pertaining to literature and education.

During our conversation we discussed the challenges of public speaking and practical tips to overcome them (spoiler alert: “winging it” doesn’t work). We looked at the creative process and how living in a cultural melting pot like Dubai can feed it. Afra shared why everyone’s unique story counts, and must be told in your authentic voice.

We finish this episode with a live studio performance of one of Afra’s favourite poems.

If you would like to follow Afra Atiq on social media, you can do so on Twitter @a_afra and Instagram @afraatiq.

Read the Transcript

Note: While When Women Win is produced as an audio recording, we are delighted to produce transcripts for those who are unable to hear. Kindly note that these are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Media is encouraged to check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

Rana Nawas:

[00:00] Hello ladies and gentlemen. I am so excited to welcome today’s guest onto my show. She’s an Emirati award winning spoken word poet. Afra Atiq has performed on several platforms across the globe, was named best performer for 2015-2016 by rooftop rhythms, won the 2017 ADMAF Creativity Award, and has won multiple poetry slams and competitions over the years. She proudly gives back to her community through mentorships and workshops with untitled chapters, a thriving hub for Emirati women writers. As a scholar, Afra has recently been published in the International Journal of Research and Humanities and Social Sciences and conducted social research pertaining to literature and education. During our conversation, we discuss the challenges of public speaking and how to overcome them, the creative process and what inspires it, finding one’s authentic voice and telling your story. We also discussed some practical tips to nurture somebody’s talent or interest in spoken word poetry and we finished today’s episode with Afra Atiq doing a live performance of one of her favorite poems. So let’s get into it. Afra, thank you so much for coming out to When Women Win. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.

 

Afra Atiq:

[01:25] I’m glad, thank you for having me.

 

Rana Nawas:

[01:26] So you are a spoken word poet and the obvious first question is what exactly is a spoken word poet?

 

Afra Atiq:

[01:35] Spoken word poetry is poetry that’s meant to be experienced and so it’s performance and poetry and I’m told I’m really dramatic so theatrics and all of that stuff to create this kind of holistic experience, to actually experience poetry, to feel the words and the performance altogether.

 

Rana Nawas:

[01:53] Now you’re born and bred in Dubai, Emirati dad, Japanese-American mom. Dubai is known for many awesome things but hasn’t traditionally been a hotbed for poetry so how did you get into this?

 

Afra Atiq:

[02:07] I like to think that poetry chose me. I don’t think I had one of those Aha moments where I knew exactly that this is what I was gonna do and this is how it was going to be but I will say this, particularly, you know, within the region and particularly in the Emirates, we do have a really long proud tradition of poetry and poets who would recite their poetry so it’s not really that far off. I feel like I’m just very very blessed to be part of that tradition and part of that legacy. Being in Dubai there’s so many things going on. It’s amazing to see the art community and how it’s been growing and what’s coming up and it means that there’s constant inspiration and that’s what I love. There are so many people from so many different backgrounds, from so many different places with so many different stories and I think at the end of the day it’s about stories. It’s about hearing those stories and being inspired by different elements, it can be some very random thing that someone says to you, you know, when you are standing in the same line at a coffee shop to get your morning coffee or whatever it is. So it’s about those moments and I love that Dubai provides those moments. I think it’s incredible.

 

Rana Nawas:

[03:11] Obviously I was going to ask you that question. What inspires you? I mean, are you inspired by people, events, experiences?

 

Afra Atiq:

[03:18] So many things. I mean generally you don’t know where inspiration is going to come from and so it’s everywhere. It can come from conversations, it can come from thinking about something, hearing a podcast, for example.

 

Rana Nawas:

[03:33] Great.

 

Afra Atiq:

[03:33] But also meeting people and I think that’s really important. Especially, you know, Dubai has always been this meeting place where people from different cultures and different backgrounds, different stories, different walks of life meet. And so I think it’s in those moments, a lot of it comes from interaction, but sometimes it comes from other places. I really don’t know where it’s gonna come from and I wish that I had a formula. Like I wish that I knew, okay, this is what’s going to inspire me to do something. I have ideas that I run with and that I think, oh, this will make a really cool poem. We were talking about the questions earlier and I said, oh, that’s a, that’s a good idea. So you never know where it’s going to come from.

 

Rana Nawas:

[04:09] Yeah. But I do want to ask you why you do what you do? What drives you to do spoken word poetry?

 

Afra Atiq:

[04:16] I love it. I love being on stage. I love telling my story. I love watching people’s faces when they laugh and cry in the same poem. I think it’s incredible and that’s, you know, part of why I do what I do, but another reason is because I’ve found the thing that I enjoy doing the most and I hope that it also inspires other people to, it doesn’t have to be poetry, but to know that you can go after the things that you want. To pursue what you want to pursue relentlessly and unapologetically and I think it’s about that and it’s about knowing that you have that option because I think a lot of the times we get caught up in our lives and our jobs and whatever it is and we kind of forget about us and what do we want. And so I make it a point to a talk at schools and universities. Just, I mean, I think we need more poetry in our classrooms anyway but to let them know that you have options. You can decide that you want to be a poet. You can decide that you want to be a writer. You can decide that you want to be an engineer or a lawyer or a doctor, but you decide for you.

 

Rana Nawas:

[05:24] But you did want to be a doctor at some point, right?

 

Afra Atiq:

[05:27] Yes. I still want to be a doctor. I mean, I think about it was the childhood dream. Become a doctor, which I didn’t become a doctor. Medical doctor, I should clarify. I kind of think about it in terms of function and I think about, I really wanted to help people. I wanted to help heal people and I think that’s kind of what I do with poetry and I’ve seen how it can heal people. I’ve seen the impact that words have. I’ve seen how performances and experience of spoken word poetry can help people and you know, it’s incredible. So I think in a philosophical sense, I think I’m kind of on the right track.

 

Rana Nawas:

[06:06] Great. Now you perform and you perform original content. Now you know this I’m sure research shows that people are more Afra id of public speaking than they are of death, right? So to all the listeners out there who are terrified of public speaking, could you perhaps give us a few tips on how to overcome, for example, the four stages of fear? So let’s go through these. So there’s an emotional, emotional barrier. So the feeling nervous or stressed and worried. There’s a barrier of thought so forgetting your words or losing concentration. There’s the behavioral one, which is like trembling and fidgeting and then there’s the physiology, you know, the fast breathing and the heartbeat. Do you experience any of these when you perform?

 

Afra Atiq:

[06:56] Sometimes all at the same time. You know, a lot of people look at what I do and they think I don’t get nervous. I do get nervous, but I don’t have a fear of public speaking. I love being on stage. So I think that a lot of people are worried about looking ridiculous or they’re worried about that the audience is not going to be accepting of what they say or they’re going to forget. I constantly worry that I’m going to forget my words on stage but something magical happens on stage and it’s just once you get past that barrier and you live in the moment and you realize this is me, my words matter, what I’m saying matters. The message on carrying matters. I think that you kind of realize, okay, this is not so bad.

 

Rana Nawas:

[07:38] Is it something magical or have you practiced that poem a thousand times?

 

Afra Atiq:

[07:43] Well I do practice, but I do think that’s something magical clicks when you realize that. I think one of the main things I would say is deep breathing. It helps a lot. I think that to know your content, I think a lot of people approach this in terms of, okay, I know this, I can wing it and let me say this. I’ve been performing for several years and winging it doesn’t usually work. And so you might be the expert in your field. You might know exactly what you’re saying, but you need to have some kind of a structure. You need to have some kind of a something because the fear of forgetting your words or forgetting your ideas, if you have prepared and you have something with you, whether it’s note cards or an ipad or whatever it is, it’s kind of like a security blanket kind of thing so you know that you can just go back to it. And one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is to just keep going. You forget what you’re supposed to say. It’s fine. Just take a deep breath. The audience probably doesn’t know this and just keep going. But I’m very lucky with poetry because I can take long, dramatic pauses. I’m giving away my trade secrets.

 

Rana Nawas:

[08:49] It’s great, this is what the listeners want.

 

Afra Atiq:

[08:52] It’s just, I used to, you know, sometimes I would forget something and I’d be like, oh my gosh, I forgot this and I would think that I’m saying it to myself when in reality I’m saying it out loud and you don’t want to do that. So just pause, take a breath and just keep going. And I mean, nobody’s gonna tell you to stop breathing while you’re on stage, so just take a deep breath, compose yourself, you know, for a couple of seconds, and then just get on with it. You know, it is about taking it forward. I think that sometimes things go wrong. You can’t control how a performance is going to go. You can’t control how your speech is going to go or how your presentation is going to go but you can control what you do with it. So definitely just take that pause, regroup, and just keep going. And most likely the audience probably hasn’t even noticed.

 

Rana Nawas:

[09:44] But you said you do get nervous.

 

Afra Atiq:

[09:45] Yes.

 

Rana Nawas:

[09:47] Do you have any tips on how to deal with those nerves? How do you calm yourself down? For example, just before a poetry slam.

 

Afra Atiq:

[09:55] I remind myself why I’m doing this and I’ve learned to channel that energy into the performance and so the nervousness actually reminds me that I love what I’m doing and it reminds me why I’m doing this and you have to be very clear about why you’re doing this. It’s all about, it’s all about owning it basically. It’s owning your content, it’s owning, finding your voice is so important. A lot of the times, especially if it’s like a corporate presentation, you kind of feel like it’s, they’re not your words, you feel like it’s not you and you can make it, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a poem or it’s corporate content. You can use your voice to bring it out and so once you take ownership of that, it kind of, it calms me down. So I hope it calms it calms everyone else down.

 

Rana Nawas:

[10:45] And would you say to learned skill like that got better over time?

 

Afra Atiq:

[10:49] Yeah, definitely, definitely. I usually drink water before I go onstage. I know that it might be difficult for people that get really nervous and maybe they’ll feel like they can’t eat or drink anything, but it’s really just because you take that time to drink the water. So I kind of calm down and realize why you’re doing it and realizing that you are, your words are valid and your ideas are valid and you can do this. And I always tell people, just try it. Just go in there and just try it. There are people that are, no, no, no, no, I can’t, I can’t speak in public. You can speak in public. There are tips, there are tricks, there are things that you can do. It’s about the way that you carry yourself. You can’t be slouched over when you’re standing on stage. You need to be, you know, you need to stand up as straight as you can or at least project that you own this. And I think it’s really interesting because people gravitate to other people who look like they own it. Who know they look like they know what they’re doing. They know that they’re supposed to be there in that moment in time.

 

Rana Nawas:

[11:51] Well, let’s talk about your original content because that must be, I mean, that’s quite, that must be a challenge to keep on producing original content all the time. What does your creative process look like?

 

Afra Atiq:

[12:05] So a lot of people don’t know this but I actually have a mathematical way that I choose words and I bring up this example because I think there’s this idea that arts and math and science are kind of separate, but I think they’re best friends. And so I use this probability equation to look at the different combinations of words. I write for the stage and not for the page mostly so it’s about the way that word sound, the way that words can interact with each other and how are people going to hear this? How are people going to see this? And it’s different than reading something on a page. I do the probability, I look at the different word combinations. Sometimes I do mind maps and I just, I just run with it. A lot of the times we’ll just record me saying whatever it is that I need to be saying in the poem, and then — I try to write them in one stream of consciousness. Sometimes it doesn’t work and I have to go back and edit and fix and do things like that, but I think it starts out as a mathematical process and then it kind of evolves into what you see on stage.

 

Rana Nawas:

[13:07] I didn’t realize you used analytical tools to do spoken word poetry. That’s awesome. Do you ever experience writer’s block?

 

Afra Atiq:

[13:15] I think everyone experiences writer’s block. I do experience writer’s block and I think it’s a part of the process. I think you have to accept that there are going to be times where you can’t just be producing content all the time and it’s just about how you deal with it, you know, whether it’s like a change of scenery or I usually bounce ideas off of my friends and, you know, we come up with things together because sometimes you just can’t think about something. You don’t get the idea, you don’t get the inspiration, but you also have to consciously be looking for it. I get performer’s block sometimes.

 

Rana Nawas:

[13:46] What does that mean?

 

Afra Atiq:

[13:47] Performers block, for me at least, it’s when you go through like, in the summer or when things are kind of slowing down and there aren’t a lot of events or opportunities to be doing performances, it depresses me a lot. So I kind of feel like I get performers block more than I get writer’s block in terms of bringing out content, but I write, you know, when I can, where I can. I feel like writing is just something that comes with the performance, which is the part of it that I love.

 

Rana Nawas:

[14:20] How do you overcome performer’s block or writer’s block?

 

Afra Atiq:

[14:24] I mean, the thing with performer’s block with me is, I kind of, if I go through a period of time where I’m not performing, I kind of feel like I am going to be losing my superpowers. I kind of start to question, which I think is the natural progression of things, and I just have to remind myself that opportunities will come. Performances will happen. Content inevitably shows up. And the thing is writer’s block is not, for me it’s not, I know that it’s not permanent. I know that it’s okay. It’s, you know, a certain period of time and then there’s going to be something that comes up so I can help that along the way. I can, you know, go out and meet people and look for inspiration in different things. One thing that I will say is when you have writer’s block, start thinking about the issues or the things in the world that you would like to change and there’s so much content that comes out of it and I mean, sometimes, it’s the things that anger you that you feel like you need to talk about or you need to bring up in a creative content. Sometimes you can do it in reverse and think about the things that you’re grateful for. Gratitude is incredibly, incredibly powerful and so you always have those fall backs. We’ll always have those things that you can go to.

 

Rana Nawas:

[15:37] Yeah. I like the one that, you know, remind yourself that it’s finite because that’s how I get through pregnancy. It’s just another few months and then they’ll be out, you know. But it’s interesting what you talked about. Your instinct was, think about something that makes you angry and that’ll trigger.

 

Afra Atiq:

[15:58] Yeah. In terms of global issues or things, you know, within your community. I mean, I don’t.

 

Rana Nawas:

[16:05] Yeah.

 

Afra Atiq:

[16:05] I think that you can channel anger into creative things specifically.

 

Rana Nawas:

[16:10] For me, it’s interesting when you say, you know, your instinct was think about something you’d like to change in the world to free up the writer’s block. A lot of poetry is driven from pain and anger, rather than joy and gratitude. Do you see that? Do you experience that?

 

Afra Atiq:

[16:28] I do see it and I think it is because you talk about the things that you’re passionate about and the things that you see in the world that you would like to change and I do see that drive to put it into your content, but there are things that drive — I think joy is really underrated. I know that good writing can come out of struggle and good performances can come out of pain and I understand that, but I also think that the joy side of things, I feel like it’s an untapped market.

 

Rana Nawas:

[17:00] I agree because, I mean, in my high school education, when they were teaching us poetry, it was all like, it was miserable. I mean everybody, it was Sylvia Plath and First and Second World War. People dying. I mean, it was just, it felt like poetry was made from pain.

 

Afra Atiq:

[17:18] There is some phenomenal poetry that’s come from pain. I think we need to acknowledge this, but I think that there’s also poetry that comes out of love. There’s poetry that comes out of theaters. Poetry that comes out of joy. And I mean, one of the poems that I absolutely love and it’s a poem called Sharah, maybe we can talk about that later. It’s a poem that reminds people to dream and I think it’s important because I think it’s that drive and it’s that joy that comes from it and that joy of knowing that you’re going after something. So I think that good poetry can also come out of joy. I mean, you don’t have to be miserable but tell your story and this is the thing. Find your authentic voice and tell your story. So many times you look at the big picture, you look at the big, all the big issues in the world. And I actually kind of did that when I, you know, in the beginning, and I was talking about all of these big issues, and all these things I was going to change with the world and I reached a point where I realized, okay, that’s great, we need to talk about this, but where are you, where is your voice in this? And I always say this to, you know, especially to students, find your voice and tell your story. If we don’t tell our story as individuals or as a collective or whatever it is, if we don’t tell our story, then someone else was going to come along and they’re going to tell our story and it’s not going to be the same. And I cannot emphasize that enough. So find your authentic voice.

 

Rana Nawas:

[18:43] You mentioned one of your favorite poems. Can you tell us a few more?

 

Afra Atiq:

[18:47] Of my favorite poems?

 

Rana Nawas:

[18:48] Yeah.

 

Afra Atiq:

[18:49] I think there are my favorite poems and then there are the crowd favorite poems. So, I love Shurah. I love that poem. I have a poem called “Bint al Nowkhada.” It’s about my grandfather and he was a pearl diver and it’s talking about his story. That one is very close to my heart. So there’s “Bint al Nowkhada.” There is an open letter to cancer, it’s a poem about my grandmother as well. That poem is one of the poems that I love for so many reasons. One, because it’s so personal and you don’t realize how much things affect you until you start to explore them creatively. I think, at least in my case. And so I didn’t, with that poem, I didn’t realize that I didn’t grieve her death until I wrote that poem. And so it’s personal in that respect, but it’s also a poem that I think reaches a lot of people and it’s a poem that a lot of people relate to and I’m so grateful and so blessed to have been able to write that poem, to be that poet, to write that poem. But also because that poem won the 2017 Abu-Dhabi Music and Art Foundation Creativity Award. And it was, for me, it was that acknowledgement. It was that this is real and my story is valid and my words are valid. And it was just, it was incredible.

 

Rana Nawas:

[20:20] Well, I saw you perform this poem at the Women in Leadership Forum and of course everybody was crying because, I mean myself, my dad died of cancer and I’m sure everyone in the room knows somebody. So yeah, it’s very relatable. What about poems by other people? Or are your poems your favorites?

 

Afra Atiq:

[20:38] It’s always important to support the work of other artists. It’s important to read their work, to share their work as well, to experience it. I think that there are so many poets out there and let me just talk for a second about Untitled Chapters. So on Untitled Chapters is a group of phenomenal, incredible, talented Emirati women. And I’m blessed with part of that group and they’re all, you know, we’re all writers. And so some of my favorite poets are actually from that group and not because they’re, you know, my soul sisters, which they are, but because there are so incredibly talented and so I think when we think about poets that make a difference or poets that inspire, I think we also need to look closer to home. I think it’s important. I think every community has talent. Everyone has something to offer anyways. But I think we need to look a closer to home sometimes.

 

Rana Nawas:

[21:44] And do these ladies at Untitled Chapters, do they write and perform in English and Arabic?

 

Afra Atiq:

[21:49] English, Arabic, and French.

 

Rana Nawas:

[21:50] and French also? Wow. So it’s pan-regional.

 

Afra Atiq:

[21:54] Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of writers that write. I mean, there’s Amed Tahlawi. She’s incredible. She writes in Arabic. Hasla writes in English and Arabic. Shahad writes words in English. She’s phenomenal as well and where we all write in different genres and this is the thing about poetry, this is the thing about writing that I love is it, it really brings people together and so we’ve got people that write contemporary Emirati romance. We’ve got people that write historical romance, we have people who write horror stories, we’ve got people who write poetry. We’ve got people who do performance. I mean, it’s incredible and so I think when we think about people who inspire us, we should look a little bit closer to home.

 

Rana Nawas:

[22:30] I love that. The homegrown talent and yeah.

 

Afra Atiq:

[22:34] I think a lot of the times we hear this so much. We hear this “support homegrown talent.” I mean it’s almost like you hear it at everything and a lot of people talk the talk and very few people walk the walk and I think it’s important to especially to support artists and support writers because what we do, it’s the preservation of now and after we’re gone. These are the things that are going to be left. It’s going to be the stories, it’s going to be the poems, it’s going to be a sculpture, is the artwork, the museums, the libraries. That’s what is going to be left.

 

Rana Nawas:

[23:07] And how does one support homegrown talent? I guess at a government level or private level, at an individual level?

 

Afra Atiq:

[23:14] On an individual level, it’s really important to, if you can buy their work, go to their shows. Leave reviews on their pages, whether it’s goodreads or Amazon. One of our friends self published a book, it’s called “Constellations of Home” and the book was actually born out of, Asma did a 100 days of writing challenge and so that’s how the ball started rolling and so it’s important to review things, to show up to post and repost. I can’t tell you how important it is to post and repost and to just let them know that you appreciate their work. You don’t have to love it. That’s the thing. You don’t have to be somebody’s biggest fan. If you’re somebody’s biggest fan, that’s great, but show up, support them, let them know that you appreciate their work.

 

Rana Nawas:

[24:05] Okay so, show up to their shows, leave reviews, buy their work, post and repost. Even if it’s not your cup of tea.

 

Afra Atiq:

[24:14] Buy us cake.

 

Rana Nawas:

[24:15] Buy cake, buy cake. Awesome. So what practical advice would you give parents who have kids who are gifted or interested in spoken word poetry? How can they nurture that talent or interest? It might not be talent, they might just be interested.

 

Afra Atiq:

[24:30] I love when I see parents at poetry events. I love when people show up with their parents and I think it’s important for parents to let their kids know, in whatever way they do, to let them know that it’s okay and that they support them and that it’s okay to try it out and, again, you don’t have to love it, but it’s okay to try it out. Go. Write a poem. Perform a poem, see how it goes. I mean, you kind of, I’m not a parent so I can’t really speak on behalf of parents, but I would assume that it is important for you to let them try out these things, especially like creative endeavors. Also, you know, just encourage them often writing and performing, you know, sometimes it gets really lonely because you’re sitting there trying to create your content or your poems or whatever and you are confused about, do I want to say this to the world, do I not want to say this to the world? How is this going to go? You know, what are people going to think? And so it gets really, you get caught up in that and sometimes it gets really lonely. And so it’s really encourage them, you know, and realize their potential. That’s so important because everyone has, everyone has potential. It doesn’t have to be with, again, doesn’t have to be with poetry or writing or performance, but realize that they have this potential and let them go out and take it into the world.

 

Rana Nawas:

[25:55] And advice to kids?

 

Afra Atiq:

[25:56] Try it out. Find your voice. I think that the number one thing I can say is try it out, you know.

 

Rana Nawas:

[26:03] Can adults try it out?

 

Afra Atiq:

[26:03] Of course.

 

Rana Nawas:

[26:03] Or are we too old? Am I too old now? Tell me the truth.

 

Afra Atiq:

[26:06] No, you should definitely write a poem. Write a poem and there really aren’t any rules. You know, so I can’t tell you, okay well, you have to do one, two, three, four and then this is the way it’s going to go. I mean sometimes you can do a list poem. Things I love about podcasts. One, two, three, four, five, you know. Things that make me want to get up in the morning and list poems and so I think that’s actually a really good place to start.

 

Rana Nawas:

[26:29] List poems. I’ve never heard of list poems.

 

Afra Atiq:

[26:32] List poems. It’s basically a list of things, you know, one, you know, x, y, and z, two.

 

Rana Nawas:

[26:38] And that works.

 

Afra Atiq:

[26:40] It works because it gets you thinking about things and you also draw connections between different things and it doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to rhyme, it doesn’t have to be overly flowery. You don’t have to use fancy vocabulary. You can just, I mean, I have a poem that is literally about food.

 

Rana Nawas:

[27:00] I’ve heard this one too and I love it.

 

Afra Atiq:

[27:01] You know, there are different things that you can, you can talk about and you can think about and just try it.

 

Rana Nawas:

[27:11] Tell me about your high school education.

 

Afra Atiq:

[27:15] Oh, high school. Yeah. That was, it’s always a strange, strange time. Hormones are all over the place and you don’t really know, it’s kind of transient, you know, it’s kind of, you don’t know what’s coming after it, you understand what happened before it and you don’t understand how the before led to the now and so you’re kind of confused all of the time and actually I wanted to go. Someone asked me if I would go back to be at that age and I’m like, no.

 

Rana Nawas:

[27:43] I think it’s a painful time for most.

 

Afra Atiq:

[27:46] It is. It is. And I think it’s so confusing because you really don’t know and there are all these expectations, there are all of these things and you’re never comfortable in your own skin and you never think about, okay, well how, where am I going to be in 10 years time? And then they expect you to go off to college and you’re supposed to know what it is that you’re supposed to do and it’s just, it’s exhausting when you think about it.

 

Rana Nawas:

[28:07] How was it from an education point of view?

 

Afra Atiq:

[28:09] I didn’t really think very much of myself and I don’t think that anyone else did as well. I think I was never the person that you look at and think, oh, that person’s going to do something incredible, that person’s going to change the world, that person’s going to be a mover and shaker. And so —

 

Rana Nawas:

[28:26] So not the A student?

 

Afra Atiq:

[28:27] No and I think that’s partially why I didn’t become a medical doctor but I also think that it was a time when I look at things, and I look back and I think, you know what? I wasted so much time thinking that I wasn’t gonna do anything and now look, you know. Al Hamdullah, it’s been incredible and I think that we definitely need more poetry in classrooms, whether it’s a school or university. I think that I was — I wasn’t that person that knew what they were going to do and that knew how things were going to go and I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t one of the artistic kids, I wasn’t one of the popular kids. I was just kind of there and I think a lot of us are, we’re just kind of, we don’t know where we are, we’re just kind of there. We’re like, okay, can this be over now?

 

Rana Nawas:

[29:19] I think in one of your poems you mentioned that, was it a teacher or teachers had kind of given up on you making anything of your life?

 

Afra Atiq:

[29:30] Yeah, there were times when I knew that they were kind of thinking, wow, she’s not going to get anywhere. She’s not going to do anything and I think it was a painful realization down the line. I think when you’re in it, you kind of just hate everything and okay, well this teacher doesn’t like me and that’s their issue. But when you get older and you start to think about these things in retrospect, you kind of realize, oh no, that’s what they were doing and so I would hope that if any of them listen to this podcast, they would know that I’ve actually managed to make something of myself, but I went from that to getting, you know, when I went to college, I graduated with a 3.9, when I graduated my masters, I graduated with a 4. So my essential message is this, nobody can tell you that you cannot do it and look at myself as an example. To go from somebody who maybe people didn’t think that she was going to do anything, to actually pursuing a PHD and to getting a 4.0 along the way and to be the person that gets asked to come and speak at schools. I think that nobody can tell you that you can’t make a difference because you can. There’s a poem right there, this is good.

 

Rana Nawas:

[30:58] Great, and so tell us a bit about your PHD.

 

Afra Atiq:

[31:02] Oh, so my PHD is in mass communication. Surprise, surprise. And I think it’s, I love the prospect of being called Dr. Poet. I’m not gonna lie, I like that prospect. But I so think that academia and what I do as a performer and a poet go hand in hand. I think that this research informs content and content informs research and it is something that is going to help me down the line. But it’s also really strange to me. I never thought I was going to be doing a PHD. It never even crossed my mind. I knew I wanted to be a medical doctor and that didn’t work out. I’m kind of, I’m okay with that, but I never thought I would be doing a PHD. I mean, did you know when you were in school what you were going to be doing?

 

Rana Nawas:

[31:54] No and it makes me laugh now in the corporate world when they ask you, so where do you see yourself in five years? Like, you don’t even know what jobs are going to exist in five years. I mean, you are not going to be here, you’re gonna be replaced by robots. So these questions are ridiculous at every facet of life.

 

Afra Atiq:

[32:10] Yes, but I think it’s, coming from a family of teachers, I think it’s not a stretch that I’m doing a PHD. But it’s just for me, on an individual level, I never thought that I would be doing it. I never thought I would get an academic paper published in a journal.

 

Rana Nawas:

[32:26] It’s a huge accomplishment.

 

Afra Atiq:

[32:27] It’s a huge accomplishment because normally I think to myself, do I want to write a poetry book? So this was incredible. But again, it’s the two areas of my life have kind of overlapped. When I first started doing my PHD and I was doing research, I found that a lot of it was, not a lot of it, some of it was misinformed, some of it was biased and I went to one of my professors and I said I can’t, I can’t. This is biased information, they’re not getting it right. And she said, okay well, if you want to disprove it you need to write a paper disproving it and I thought to myself, I’ve just added extra work to my workload and I thought, no, I’m not going to write a paper. I’m going to do what I do and so I wrote a poem about it, it’s called “Academic Punch”. It’s about that and so I think that the different areas of our lives inform other areas and you end up, I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m almost coming up to 30. I think it’s life realization, but you really end up in your life where you need to be when you need to be there and you don’t need to understand why you’re there. That comes later. It’ll always come. So I’m just kind of, okay, this is where I need to be and I’m exactly in the moment when I need to be here.

 

Rana Nawas:

[33:47] Wow, what comfort that must give you.

 

Afra Atiq:

[33:50] You would think, but not really.

 

Rana Nawas:

[33:50] Well okay, I’m just going to ask this question about routines because some people have these routines to help them get their creative juices going. Do you have a morning or an evening ritual or routine?

 

Afra Atiq:

[34:07] I mean, it’s not really a routine but I started unplugging when I go to bed. I don’t turn off my phone but I turn off the wifi so I don’t get any notifications and stuff when I wake up and I look at my phone in the morning I don’t have like a thousand things I need to do. But before I go to bed I have a very detailed calendar, like everything from call so and so to go get my hair done to — everything goes in the calendar. If it goes in the calendar, I’m probably not going to remember to do it and so I look at that at night, and so I kind of have a visualization of what I need to do the next day and I think it makes things more manageable for me. So yeah, that’s kind of my, calming.

 

Rana Nawas:

[34:47] I love it.

 

Afra Atiq:

[34:48] It just, it makes me feel more on top of things.

 

Rana Nawas:

[34:50] Yeah, more in control because you’ve mapped it out already. Yeah, love it. Great. Finally, is there a question you wish people would ask you more often?

 

Afra Atiq:

[35:00] Not really a question. I mean, I do get asked a couple of repetitive questions and I don’t have any issues at answering them, but I wish that we would ask why not instead of why, you know. A lot of the times I get, what made you do this? Where did it come from? When did you know you wanted to be a poet or why is this happening or what? I wish that people would kind of look at it with the mindset of why not?

 

Rana Nawas:

[35:21] Why not, then opens a world of opportunity. Afra, if you don’t mind before you go, a little request, would you kindly perform something for the listeners of When Women Win?

 

Afra Atiq:

[35:34] Sure.

 

Rana Nawas:

[35:34] Yay, fabulous. Before we go there, how can listeners find you to learn more about your poetry?

 

Afra Atiq:

[35:41] They can find me, I’m googleable. I’ve recently found out that you can google me. So just, if you do a google search, my website comes up so there’s that. I’m also on instagram and twitter mostly. So it’s just @AfraAtiq — everywhere, basically.

 

Rana Nawas:

[36:05] Lovely, okay. Well, we’ll put that in the show notes. Thank you so much. You are an absolute delight and I can’t wait to hear what you’re about to perform.

 

Afra Atiq:

[36:17] So this is a poem called “Shara.” Shara is the Arabic word for sail, like sail of a boat and it’s about the importance of dreaming and the importance of realizing that you need to dream and so it’s part song for the underdogs and part remember to dream. The fastest way to kill a poetry performance is to be generic. The fastest way to kill a dream is to suffocate it. Squeeze out every last breath. Wedge it between the words realistic and unattainable. Wrap it in blankets of self doubt and tell it has no place here. Ostracize and outcast until no one recognizes its faced or speaks its name. Kill off passion. Make sure that if the dream ever dares to show its face here again, the dream has no friends and no where to stay. So when they tell you you can be anything you want to be, they mean something within reason, within the constructs of a society that dictates what is acceptable. Find a job that is acceptable. Silence your passion. Watch your dreams like a silent movie on repeat. When I tell them I’m a poet, when I tell them I am a poet, they look at me like a failed business venture. Sorry, we can’t meet with you. Call us back when you have a stronger proposal. Poets and entrepreneurs both know convention is just convenience we use to convince ourselves that our dreams are worthless. That we are worth less than this customary convicting us with no judge and a fact lacking jury, your honor, I move to dismiss the motion of the notion of the continuous quote status quo. You can’t coil my concern. Yes, you can direct quote me on that. Let’s recap. They say they like my flow, but I know that it means that we object to this rejection. Let the record show we know it is never about the final destination. It is about how badly we want to get there. This is for people who want to get there. The underdogs. Who know they can beat the odds when the deck is clearly stacked against them. These are people who know what can happen when muggles believe in magic. They look to new horizons like Frodo leaving the shy or scared, but determined they’re not misfits. They’re perfectly placed apostrophes. The difference between y o u apostrophe r e and your. This is about survivors like a skin grown thick like armor riding through life like a battlefield where knuckles bruised from knocking on doors that said they’d never open because our ideas were never good enough, but the same people rejecting us. The same people rejecting us are the same people who use the flower crown filter and forget that snapchat was a startup. Those who stuffed the makers of chains like monsters and boxes and bedtime stories forced to roam around under cover of darkness. The ones who forgot how sleep feels because their dreams are more important than rest. No wonder they say 2am was made for the artists. We know this is not the quickest way to become famous. It is about looking at what is and figuring out how to change it. It is about life slapping you across the face of you screaming back, I got this. This is me, this is me being asked to spell the word unnecessary in the sixth grade spelling bee, replacing a c with an s, two s with a c, tripping over my words, not seeing what I was saying, stuttering off the stage and shame coming back, a slam queen. This is for him. Who knows this app can revolutionize the way we see business. Saves his allowance because investors won’t take a chance on someone armed with just a dream and a business plan under the age of 19. This is for her, the passion that can outshine the stars in a voice like an anthem. We’ve lost too many stars. This life’s brutal clenched fist. This is not a motivational speech. This is a call to create communities of creators, engineers of ideas. It is knowing that no amount of training and social conditioning can change what you believe in. So open your arms, leave your hearts out like a welcome mat. Turn on the porch lights. It’s been a star starless night for far too long but the dreams know, it’s time to come home.

 

Rana Nawas:

[40:01] I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can check out show notes and more episodes at Rana Nawas nawas.com/win or search When Women Win on Itunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. I’d also love to hear your feedback and ideas for who I should bring on the show. You can find me on instagram @Rananawas. Thanks and have a great day.

 

 

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