Performing the Spoken Word with Tyran Saffold Jr

Tyran:
Spoken word to me is I personify it as being a woman, a woman that does not want to settle down with one person, a woman that that gets me to open up and talk about whatever I need to get off my chest. And she doesn't judge me for it. I can completely be naked in front of her with my words. And she'll listen.

Introduction:
Welcome to the Become a Writer Today Podcast with Bryan Collins. Here you'll find practical advice and interviews for all kinds of writers.

Bryan:
Have you ever performed your work in front of other people? Hi there, my name is Bryan Collins, and welcome to the Become a Writer Today Podcast. The spoken word is the topic for this week's podcast episode.

Bryan:
Now a couple of years ago, I was in a creative writing class in the Irish Writers' Center in Dublin. And we workshopped each other's pieces every week in the class. Basically, we'd all turn up and give our pieces to everybody else to read, and when somebody was critiquing your piece or when somebody was critiquing my piece, I wasn't allowed to say anything. I had to just sit there and listen to them debate the different merits, the pros and cons about worked and what didn't work. It's a bit disconcerting to hear people talk about your story, but you're not actually able to say anything in return. But the way the instructor explained it is that when somebody is reading the book of an author or a novelist, the author isn't sitting behind a reader and saying, "No, no, no, this is what I meant by this sentence" or "Did you see the clever thing I did with this twist in the story?"

Bryan:
And that's what he wanted us to see, that the reader experiences things separately from how the writer writes them. So we did this for a couple of weeks. We got our pieces into a state that we were relatively happy with based on all the feedback we got from the writing workshops. But at the end of it all, we did actually have an opportunity to perform our work in front of other people and not other people, because our instructor said that we should invite friends and family to a recital. Basically, you booked a spare room at the back of a large bar in Dublin, and one Wednesday evening, all of our friends and family got together for drinks and nibbles and snacks. And we all got up and read out for two or three minutes from something that we worked on over the past few months.

Bryan:
Some people read poetry. Some people read chapters from their book. I read a personal essay about a time I spent in Brazil in South America. It was interesting reading my work out loud. I'm not really somebody who's ever had a huge fear of public speaking, but when I was reading it aloud, firstly, it got me to hear bits of the piece that weren't working, and after it was all over, I went back and reworked those pieces. There was also a couple of sections in the essay that I thought were funny, which didn't get a laugh, so I went back and fixed them. And there was also bits maybe I should have elaborated on, because I could tell the people were interested in them. So yeah, it was really interesting to perform my work in front of other people. And so a few of people that was in the class which had the same reaction, a couple of months later, we went down to the Kerry Listowel Writers' Festival.

Bryan:
It's basically a week-long festival for writers and people all over the world travel to, even the United States. And you get to hear a famous novelists like John Boyne and John Banville talk about their work, but there's also kind of an informal side to it as well, because we go out for drinks after dinner in the nighttime and normally in the pub somebody, because it's west of Ireland, will get up and play music or sing. But because this was a writer's festival, people also got up and they would perform bits of their work. They'd perform poetry, and they'd perform or read out chapters of their book or a little bit of the rest. It was all very informal. It's not like a public space that you have to prepare for. But I guess I kind of came away from that thing realizing that Ireland has a long history of people performing the spoken word.

Bryan:
Now it's not possible to perform the spoken word at the moment because I'm recording this episode in the middle of March. We're still in lockdown. So it's one thing to enjoy spending time writing. But it's quite another thing to be told that you can't leave the house because of a pandemic. But hopefully when this crisis comes to an end, we'll be able to leave the house again and connect with other writers. And I guess the spoken word is something that I'd like to explore. While the podcast is a great way of connecting with other writers, it's also good to get some feedback from people in the real world, which I'm sure you can empathize with if you are in lockdown wherever you are.

Bryan:
Now one man who knows a lot about the spoken word and poetry in particular, is Tyran Saffold. He's based in Dallas, Texas. He spends a lot of time reading and reciting his work and poetry that he writes. And he also runs a spoken word magazine as well as a podcast. I recently had the chance to catch up with Tyran, and I wanted to ask him all about the spoken word and how he performs his pieces and even gets them ready for a recital.

Bryan:
But before we get over to this week's interview with Tyran, just a quick update. So I've set up a Patreon for the show. Basically it takes me about two to three hours to record, research, edit, and interview and produce an episode like this. Now I do have the help of an audio engineer and a virtual assistant who will put the whole thing together for me. But if you sponsor the show from $3 a month, it would help me create more episodes.

Bryan:
Because I'd like to increase the amount of episodes I'm publishing each month of the Become a Writer Today Podcast. If you support the show, I can give you a discount for Grammarly, which is one of my writing tools of choice. I've got three different tiers. So if you support us for the silver tier, I can also give you access to a monthly AMA or ask me anything. And if you opt for the VIP tier, you have my eternal gratitude, but I'll also give you all of the other bonuses and my writing books as well. If you're interested, check out patreon.com forward slash Become a Writer Today. And I'll put the link in the show notes. Now with that, let's go over to this week's interview with Tyran.

Tyran:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate you connecting with me. Glad to be here.

Bryan:
Could you give listeners a flavor for who you are?

Tyran:
Absolutely. My name is Tyran, but I go by Gods Ink. G-O-D-S I-N-K. And that basically means God is deployed, and I'm the ink. Spoken word artist out of Dallas, Texas.

Bryan:
And how long have you been writing poetry and spoken word for?

Tyran:
Yeah, I've been writing poetry for about, well, I started writing maybe in high school, so 2001ish, but yeah, I didn't start performing until a few years later. So maybe like 2008 or '09, that's when I started performing poetry.

Bryan:
Okay. Okay. So what would you describe spoken word as maybe for people who aren't too familiar with it?

Tyran:
Well, I think spoken word has a lot of different meanings for different people. For me personally, spoken word is being able to express your emotions and your vulnerabilities on stage. Spoken word to me is I personify it as being a woman, a woman that does not want to settle down with one person, a woman that gets me to open up and talk about whatever I need to get off my chest. And she doesn't judge me for it. I can completely be naked in front of her with my words. And she'll listen. And she'll encourage me. Or she'll rebuke me when I'm wrong. She just keeps it real with me, and that's why I love her. I wish I could marry her, but I can't. Because like I said, she's not made for one person. A lot of people are with poetry, and I have to understand that.

Bryan:
I like, I like that. So correct me if I'm wrong here, but my understanding of it is, or at least in Ireland, you will go to a gathering with others writers and people who are interested in the arts, could be in Ireland normally be in a pub or a bar, and you'd stand up with your mic, or if it's a small room, you'd just stand up in front of everyone and you would read from a piece that you've written previously. Is that what you do, or is your experience different?

Tyran:
No, that's exactly how it is. There aren't any poetry clubs per se here. So a lot of the bars and the nightclubs are turned into, they have spoken-word nights, certain nights per week, designated for spoken word. And so that's when it takes place. But yeah, you're standing in front of a room of however many people, and then you're performing on stage. That's exactly what it is.

Bryan:
So when you're getting ready to perform on stage, do you write out your piece in advance?

Tyran:
Because I can't really freestyle poetry, it's not my gift, so I got to memorize it and then go up there and recite it after that.

Bryan:
So how much poetry would you write out in advance?

Tyran:
Oh, it'll span across a few pages. I have about four minutes of time up there. So I think two or three pages of material will cover that span.

Bryan:
How did you get into spoken word?

Tyran:
I kind of just transitioned into it. Like back in high school, I used to write little, I guess, raps to try to get the girls. Because that's what the thing was in high school: You wanted to impress the girls. So I used to write it just to impress them, and then I started to understand that I had a gift. Then, I started nurturing it a little more and taking it more seriously. And then by the time I got to college, that's when it really started to form and shape into spoken word. That's when I started to grow that love for it.

Bryan:
What type of spoken word or poetry are you writing? Is there a particular genre or topic that you return to regularly?

Tyran:
There's always spiritual undertones in most of my work. I love playing chess, so I pull a lot of life similarities from that game, and I will transform it into poetry. I'll deal with social issues as well. Not really political, because I don't really like to dive into it, but I'll touch upon political issues every now and then. But most of my work does have spiritual undertones to them.

Bryan:
What type of bars are you performing in or what type of venues are you performing your spoken word in?

Tyran:
Mostly it's a bar called Heroes out here in Dallas, Texas. It's another spot, I can't think of it, it's the Doc Bookshop in Fort Worth, Texas. There are a few places, but a lot of those places are shut down now because of COVID. So it's not like it used to be. Primarily, I do online, virtual streams. I'll hop on the open mic on Instagram or something like that to get the words off my chest until the stage has opened up regularly again.

Bryan:
So you mentioned about when you were writing spoken word and poetry as a teenager in college that you wanted to impress other people and by rhyming. Does spoken word have to rhyme?

Tyran:
No, no, no. Not at all. You can go through a whole poem and not rhyme. The most important part is the impact and the words that you speak. Just as long as you resonate, you don't have to resonate with everyone, but if your words resonate with one or two people, then that's all that matters. And it doesn't have to rhyme to do that. You just speak from a point of passion, your experience, and that's all you need.

Bryan:
When you're writing spoken words, do you read it out loud to yourself several times first to get an ear for what it sounds like, or what way do you approach editing your work?

Tyran:
Yeah, I just read it out loud, and I'll go through it a number of times and just take out or erase or rearrange. My notebooks looks like a bunch of scribble-scrabble, because I have lines pointing everywhere and I have numbers to show when one line ends where I'm supposed to go to the next line, because the next line could be like way on top of the page because I'm running out of space to write. And so it's crazy. It's all crazy. But I'll read through that and have it memorized. But yeah, that's the process.

Bryan:
It sounds like you make some changes as you're speaking it on stage?

Tyran:
Well, it's hard for me to make the changes on stage because my mind, it's in line. In my mind, I can see the words on paper, and so I can't move them too much while I'm speaking. Any changes that I make will come before I go on stage. Because if I try to change it in the middle of my poem, I'm going to mess up. I'm going to derail, and then I'm going to forget everything. So I can't do it all on stage.

Bryan:
So would you sometimes read a piece and then say to yourself, "I need to make some changes to that." And then the next time you perform it, you have a different version?

Tyran:
Oh yeah, that happens. That happens, because things that I say, the audience, it might hit the audience in a way that I didn't expect. And so they might say oohs and ahhs, and then I'll pause. I'll have to know to pause next time to give the audience a chance to react to my words. Or maybe I want to put something else after their oohs and ahhs just to drive my point home a little more. So yeah, it definitely can change from one performance to the next.

Bryan:
Of course, you just don't perform spoken word in bars. You also have a podcast where you perform it as well, and you mentioned on Instagram.

Tyran:
Yes. The Words I Never Said is the podcast; it's specifically for poets. I don't do any of my work on there, but I'll invite other poets on and they'll do some of their work. Usually in the beginning of the show, I'll have a poet, just a random poet off YouTube or something, and I'll play their performance so the audience can hear it. But you'll get doses of poetry when you listen to The Words I Never Said from other poets.

Bryan:
Do you think it's possible for poets to make an income or earn any money from poetry today?

Tyran:
Yeah. Yeah. It's difficult, though. It's kind of like when you're younger and you say, "I want to go to the NFL or the NBA." That's a great dream to have, but the reality of getting there is, the statistics are small. And the statistics of you making a real living income off of poetry are small. It's happening. There are people out there doing it, well-known poets that are teaching poetry or performing across the world in different areas. And they're making a lot of money, but that's rare. In my opinion, it's rare.

Bryan:
When we were talking before the show, you said you have an unusual way of interviewing deceased posts. Would you be able to describe what that is?

Tyran:
Yeah, so the magazine that I produce, Ink Magazine, it has a section in there called From the Grave. And during that interview, I'll ask, I had Shakespeare one month, and so what I would do is I would go and look at some of his sonnets, read some of his sonnets, or pull lines from some of his sonnets, or look at his biography and read about him, other people's biographies that they've written about him. And I'll just pull all that information. From there, I'll garner questions like okay, he says "A good man is molded by his faults." That's one of his quotes. And so I'll find a question to which and that answer will suffice. I will create a question that makes it seem like his quote or his answer was directly for that question. Does that make sense?

Bryan:
It does. It does. So would you then perform a piece of the person you were quoting or the poet you're quoting as well?

Tyran:
No, it's all written. They just read the interview. I had a guest writer once where she actually was creative enough to collaborate with one of the deceased poets. And so that was interesting. Like she had, I forgot who she interviewed, it was a while ago, but she had some of that poet's lines and then she combined some of her lines. So it seemed like they were collaborating in real time, on paper of course. But it was interesting how she put it together.

Bryan:
What particular types of poets or spoken word artists have informed your work?

Tyran:
Henry Dumas has been an inspiration. Of course, William Shakespeare. I think he's my favorite of all time. I can't think, his name is escaping. I have his book right here. Kahlil Gibran. He has inspired me as well, but mostly outside of that, I think a lot of my inspiration came from rappers like Nas. He's an East coast rapper out of Brooklyn, New York. Common. He's a rapper from Chicago, Illinois. Those type of guys have really influenced me in the beginning because I didn't really read Shakespeare or Gibran in the beginning. But those rappers, they spoke and they were able to paint pictures with their words so clearly, and I loved it. And I wanted to do it. So that's where the inspiration came from.

Bryan:
You also write fiction. You've written a novel.

Tyran:
Yes. I write fiction. One book that I just released is called the Will of Jada. It's an urban Christian fiction book, but I'm starting to dive into mystery and thrillers. Because I love keeping readers on edge. Like, what's going to happen? What is he thinking? What is she thinking? So I like that, and in the coming months I'll be leaning towards that.

Bryan:
And do you find the writing process is much different from writing spoken word and poetry to writing fiction and novels and trailers?

Tyran:
Yes, it is different. The process was, I think I'm a lot harder on myself with spoken word because it's like I've been doing it for so long, and so people have an expectation. And I don't feel like I can go below that expectation. So I'm a lot harder on myself, and I'm editing things a lot more and driving myself crazy, trying to get the perfect version of it. But it's different from writing a book. I think writing a novel, it kind of feels more natural. It feels like I'm more at peace. I'm not as stressed. It's more relaxing for me.

Bryan:
Yeah. I also wanted to ask you about the Ink Mag as well. Is this an online publication or do you also have print versions too?

Tyran:
It's online, but you can also get it in print. It's both.

Bryan:
Okay. Okay. Do you collaborate with many writers to put it together?

Tyran:
Just a few. I've had it for about a year, and I've been carrying majority of the load. But I have started to get inquiries about, "Hey, can I help? Hey, can I write this? Hey, can I?" So the help is coming.

Bryan:
Yeah.

Tyran:
And I need it, to be honest.

Bryan:
I can imagine, because it's a lot of work to put together a magazine. I used to work as a journalist, so I was involved in doing feature inserts in newspapers. It's a lot of work.

Tyran:
Yeah. It is. It's a lot of heavy lifting. I didn't know anything about layout, and I had to learn all of that.

Bryan:
Yeah. That's specifically what I was thinking of was the layout.

Tyran:
That is a beast. I'll leave it, but I want to pull my hair out sometimes with that.

Bryan:
What was it that made you set up the Ink Magazine in the first place?

Tyran:
It was COVID. We couldn't go anywhere. Couldn't do anything, and I'm just sitting around at home, like, okay, twiddling my thumbs. And then I was like, okay, I'm not sitting here anymore. And I started thinking about what ways I could have shined light on spoken word. And then I thought of the magazine. The magazine was something that it was in my mind about eight, nine years ago, but I just didn't have the time. And then it came back, and I was like, now you have the time. And so that's what I did. I started the magazine, and I didn't know what it was going to turn into. I didn't know what it was going to do. I was just like, I want to do something. And now we're here a year later, and I'm still going.

Bryan:
Yeah. So you were describing how you interview deceased poets. So are you using that in the podcast and the magazine or just the magazine?

Tyran:
No, it's just the magazine. I want to transition into making those interviews available through video, but I'm looking for voice actors right now, so they can imitate the voices from the other poets.

Bryan:
Yeah. Could do well on YouTube. I could imagine how that will be popular. What about Instagram? You mentioned that you perform some of your work on Instagram. Is it like a case of you going live with your phone or do you have some other way of doing it?

Tyran:
Yeah, other people, they'll go live, and then I'll just join it. Request to join in and then get on there's and perform.

Bryan:
Okay. And do you get much interaction or engagement with followers from doing that?

Tyran:
Yes. Yeah. A lot of people, not everybody of course, but those that like what you say, they'll connect with you. They'll follow you, and hopefully you'll follow them back and then make a connection. And that may lead to more connections. So that's generally the process with that.

Bryan:
Yeah. Yeah. Instagram seems to lend itself quite well to poetry because you can take a picture of a poem and put it on Instagram.

Tyran:
Yeah. You can do that. You can do videos. You can do Instagram. You can go crazy with it. They've opened the door to a lot of different things.

Bryan:
So do you think in a way things are a little bit easier for poets today than maybe 20 or 30 years ago?

Tyran:
Oh yeah. The internet changed everything. Social media changed the game. Like right now, if the internet wasn't around or anything, we wouldn't even be able to connect. So we're connecting with people in different countries, and it's just a great thing. It's definitely for spoken-word artists now than it was even 20 years ago.

Bryan:
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Even 15 years ago, 10 years ago. What about the actual writing process for poetry and spoken word itself? So I've been writing a book recently, and I want you to put some haiku in the book. Now I normally write using like an app, like Scrivener, but I found it was impossible to write any sort of poetry in a writing app. So I just got pen and paper and wrote it that way. But what does your actual writing process look like?

Tyran:
Yes. I need that pen and paper. I'm old school. I can jot down a few notes in my phone or on a computer, but it's something about that connection with your pen or pencil hitting a paper. It's something about that that makes it more personal for me. And so I prefer that route. I have notebook. I'm looking at four or five notebooks in my office right now waiting to be written on. So yeah, that's my go-to process.

Bryan:
Do you have a set time each day to just sit down to write or do you wait until you have an idea for something to write about?

Tyran:
The morning I feel like is the best time. My mind is fresh. Later, there's no use. Like I'm done. I'm not going to get words out.

Bryan:
Particularly if you've been working as well, I find creative work is easier in the morning. How long would it take you to write a piece?

Tyran:
It didn't take as long before, because now I have children. My time is not like it used to be. And so now writing a poem can span over a week now, when before it was just like a day or two. [inaudible 00:22:25] But yeah, so it's a little tougher. It's a little tougher to crank them out now and then memorize them as a whole. Memorizing them as a whole another hurdle to jump after that. But yeah, it's a longer process now.

Bryan:
So would you sit down and work on one specific poem for like an hour or do you move on to something else and come back to it?

Tyran:
Yeah, I'll work on it and then come back to it, because my attention span is trash. So I can only give it maybe like 20-30 minutes at a time before my mind starts wandering, like, "What happened on the Walking Dead?" Or, "What happened on this show?" It's trash.

Bryan:
I stopped watching after Rick went off in a helicopter.

Tyran:
Oh, you did? Yeah, that was a tough one. It did go downhill a little bit after that, I'll be honest.

Bryan:
Yeah. I was nine seasons in, so I felt like I'd had my fill of zombies. And have you ever considered putting all of your spoken word into a collection and publishing it, as like a book?

Tyran:
Yeah, I'm working on that on now. I actually have three projects that I'm working on as far as recording it. And I am working on a book to also put that work inside. I'm doing three recorded projects, but those three recorded projects would just be one book.

Bryan:
Yeah. So when you say recorded project, do you mean an audio book or the book will be based on your recorded project? Could you elaborate a little bit more on what it means?

Tyran:
Yeah. So it's just something that you would hear, like my spoken word, you'll be able to go on iTunes or something like that and download it and listen to it. Yeah.

Bryan:
And then you'll take the transcript or, well, your piece that you've performed and put that into a book that you'll put on Amazon as well?

Tyran:
Absolutely. Exactly the process.

Bryan:
Okay. And do you think spoken word would work as an audio book on a service like Audible?

Tyran:
Oh yeah, absolutely. Spoken word is, I believe it's meant to be heard. So on paper is great, but if you can actually hear it, because there's nothing that can replace that passion that people hear when you're speaking it. So poetry as an audio book is gold. I think it's gold. I think it's necessary too.

Bryan:
Yeah. Because you can hear the artists performing their own work as well. So I've got a couple of emails from aspiring poets, like over the past month or two. And sometimes they seem quite frustrated because they can't sell their poetry or they can't earn a living from it. I'm not like somebody who earns money from poetry either. So what would you say to somebody who likes to write poetry but is getting a bit frustrated?

Tyran:
If it's your passion, then stick with it. I know the end game is that you want to write poetry for a living, and that's a great thing. It's a great thing to aspire for. But even if you don't get to that plateau, there are so many other things that spoken word can prepare you for. You can be a public speaker. You can use that gift and turn it to a public speaking, or you can use that spoken-word gift and turn it into copywriting, because copywriting is grabbing people's attention really quick in words, and if you're writing spoken word, you're grabbing people's attention right off the bat.

Tyran:
So that that's an easy transition into copywriting. That's what I did. I'm copywriting. I knew I wasn't going to make it as a full-time poet. And so I'm like, okay, what else did spoken word prepare me for? Oh, copywriting. Oh, content writing. Oh, teaching spoken word. There's so many other things that you can do with it. So don't get discouraged.

Bryan:
Podcasting as well.

Tyran:
Absolutely, podcasting. Like it's so many other things that you can do. So don't get discouraged if you shot for the moon and didn't make it, because there are still so many other stars up there that you can grab. There's so many other stars, so don't be discouraged. Just keep pushing.

Bryan:
Yeah. I'm glad you said that about copywriting. I actually worked as a copywriter for many years, and I suppose my take on it is some things you do because you need to earn a living and support your family and then other things you do because you just really enjoy it or you really love it. So if somebody loves writing and spoken words, perhaps they could just do it for the love of the craft rather than as a means to an end.

Tyran:
Yeah. Copywriting is fun. It's fun.

Bryan:
Yeah. Yeah. Copyrighting is fun, but it's normally to sell a product or a service.

Tyran:
Right, right.

Bryan:
Just out of interest, what type of copy do you write?

Tyran:
Just advertising copy mostly. Yeah. That's where my bread and butter is at, with that.

Bryan:
Yeah. I used to write a copy for a software company on accounting software. So do you have like a playbook of copywriting hooks and formula that you use or swipe file or anything like that?

Tyran:
No, I had to learn it. This is another skill that I learned during COVID. And so I went on Udemy and I took a few classes to understand the basic concepts of it. And then I went from there, but I don't really have a formula. I've only been doing it for maybe like six or seven months now. So I'm still kind of new to it. I'm still learning.

Bryan:
Okay. The American Writers and Artists Institute has a really good copywriting course, if anybody's interested in learning how to become a copywriter. I think it's $400 or $500, which I found was quite good. Focuses on sales letters. But some of the form you apply to other types of copy too.

Tyran:
Yeah. I'm writing that one down.

Bryan:
Yeah, it's worth checking out. Or a good copywriting book either. There's plenty of those. So Tyran, where can people find more information about you or where can they hear your spoken word if they're not in Dallas?

Tyran:
On Instagram. I am under G-O-D-S, underscore INK, I-N-K, underscore spoken word, Gods Ink Spoken Word. And I put my spoken word clips and stuff on there. And on YouTube, you can find me under GodsInk1. And that's all one word.

Bryan:
Well, it's very nice to talk to you today about your journey as a poet and the spoken-word artists, and also how you're balancing it with copywriting, which is probably the other end of the spectrum to spoken word.

Tyran:
I appreciate you for having me on. I realize it's so much space between us, like as far as land and water, and to be selected to come onto your podcast, I really appreciate you giving me the nod. Yeah, no, we remain connected.

Bryan:
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