What the Daughter Knows with Jodi M. Savage

[00:00:00] And that's how I knew when I was done with an essay. After I had a good cry, then I was like, okay, I can move on. I can move on. It was a very emotional process. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black & Published on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. Bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds.

[00:00:25] Today's guest is Jodi M. Savage, author of the book The Death of a Jaybird, Essays on Mothers and Daughters and the Things They Leave Behind. It's a collection that reckons with Jodi's grief before and after the deaths of her mother and grandmother and how she found comfort in the space a blank page provided. Writing is, it's the one place where I am completely honest with myself.

[00:00:53] It is the place where I'm honest. It's the place where I feel closest to God, where I feel closest to Granny. Like, it is my place. Like, that is the one place where I know I belong when I'm writing. Jodi is an attorney by trade, but has known writing was to be her life's work since she was a child. How she processed her life in real time and turned it into a book. Plus, why she believes forgiveness and grief go hand in hand.

[00:01:23] And, how she let go of the concern about not having enough social media followers and why those numbers really don't matter. That and more is next when Black & Published continues. All right, so Jodi, when did you know that you were a writer?

[00:01:54] I knew I was a writer in the sixth grade when I wrote a poem called Confidence in Mrs. Steinberg's class. It was the first poem I had ever written for someone other than my grandmother. And I was like, this is good. I think I want to be a poet. And I wrote poetry for years and short stories.

[00:02:21] And, but that's where it all started. Mrs. Steinberg's class. So sixth grade, Mrs. Steinberg's class, you're about what, like 11, 12 years old? Mm-hmm. So then, the decision then has clearly carried you well. How have you charted your path to becoming the author that you are today from that confidence in sixth grade? You know what? I lost that confidence.

[00:02:49] I had to get back to that sixth grade Jodi. Because, you know, along the way, I was like, I need to do something more practical. I didn't know how one became a writer. I, you know, had never met any published authors. And so in college, I decided, well, I think I'll go to law school because that's nice and, you know, practical.

[00:03:13] And I can take care of myself and take care of Granny and it looks good and everyone will clap for me. And so I did not write again until my late 20s when Granny was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And I used to blog. I blogged anonymously, first a live journal, taking it all the way back, and then WordPress.

[00:03:39] But I started blogging because it was just a way for me to process everything that was happening, process all of the anticipatory grief of caring for Granny, because it's not something I could talk to my 20-something-year-old friends about. And then eventually, one of my friends, Aaliyah, she said to me, she said, Jodi, your blog posts are really long. You should think about publishing essays. So I started taking some essay writing classes.

[00:04:08] And then in my, I would say, sort of like mid-30s, I published my first essay, which actually is the first essay in the book, What Ifs on Black Lives and Mental Health. And that sort of came about out of necessity, like because at that point, there was a man named Alfred Alango who had been killed by police. But yeah, that was pretty much, you know, how I sort of morphed into this writer. One essay led to another, led to another, led to a book.

[00:04:38] I hear the thread that brings you to the page after sixth grade, when you decided to go the practical route and be a lawyer, like so many of the guests on Black and Published have done, is that you were trying to process, as you said, your new caregiver status, as well as anticipatory grief into the book that we have today, which is very much a memoir of grief about losing your mother and your grandmother

[00:05:05] to different health illnesses, and also losing yourself a bit and having to come back to you. Do you find that writing is the only place where you can really process what it is that you're feeling to move those feelings out of your body? And so that's why you keep coming back to the page versus some other impetus for creativity. Absolutely.

[00:05:30] Writing is, it's the one place where I am completely honest with myself. It is the place where I'm honest. It's the place where I feel closest to God, where I feel closest to Granny. Like, it is my place. Like, that is the one place where I know I belong when I'm writing. And so that's typically how I sort of process everything, whether it's, you know, in my journal, and then eventually, you know, for public writing.

[00:06:01] And that is actually how my writing improved over the years, processing and being vulnerable in public as well as private. So you said that it's the place where you feel closest to God. And as I've read in the book, you were a church child. I thought I was a church child. You were a church child in the Pentecostal church in New York. You know, you know. Baby.

[00:06:29] So I know you don't prescribe to all of the religiosity that you grew up with, but it is still very much in you. So how do you square that spiritual connection that you learn through corporate worship with the innate sense of, like, knowing God that you, I'm assuming you feel when you approach the page?

[00:06:55] You take what you can and you leave the rest. You know, one of the things I write about in The Death of a Jaybird is that church was such an integral part of who I was that to love and honor Granny, you had to understand her religious faith.

[00:07:17] And it is, it's such a deep part of who I am from, you know, the type of music I listen to. I still have my tambourines at home. I will bust out a tambourine to some Mary J. Blige. I don't care. We mixing it up. I love it. I love it. I love it. Look, it is just, so even though I don't go to church, you know, it was the first place where I found community.

[00:07:45] My grandmother's community of women. My first friends were kids I went to church with. It's just so a part of who I am that even though I don't prescribe to most of the things that I was taught in church, to love and to grieve and to mourn the people we love and to embrace all of who we are, that's just such an important part of it.

[00:08:09] Even the way we, we mourn and grieve even home going deeply religious deeply, you know, Christian practice that sort of spans our culture, whether we are religious or not. It's just embedded in who we are.

[00:08:27] In having such a spiritual practice to your writing, and it also being the place where you are processing real time, your feelings around the life that you are living, active and present and current.

[00:08:42] What was it like for you to begin to confront the publishing industry, which is very much systematic and based on validation and that is not always necessitated upon talent when trying to get your poetry and short stories and essays published that really were so very personal?

[00:09:04] You have to be very clear about what your purpose is, what your writing is supposed to be and who your audience is. And I've definitely faced those challenges. I remember when I was pitching the essay, How to Attend a Black Funeral, I pitched it to a few literary journals and one editor in particular told me, I don't really get this homegoing black funeral thing.

[00:09:33] I don't really get it. But, you know, if you, maybe if you write it in a traditional format, then maybe we'll consider publishing it. And I was like, thank you very kindly, but it's a hard no. You know, because the fact that she didn't even sort of stop to think and really embrace and look at a culture that was different from her own was so problematic.

[00:09:59] But also I was very clear that that essay needed to be written in a certain way. So the essay is written in a numbered form, a list of common practices within, you know, black funerals, black homegoings. If it were written in a sort of traditional narrative, it would have been such a different essay. And I knew that. And I knew that it was a blackety black essay. It's not, you know, which is what a lot of my work is. It is blackety black.

[00:10:27] Like you can't substitute me for, you know, a white woman and it be the same work. And so I've just been really clear about what I want my work to look like. And thankfully, I have an agent who, Mariah Stovall, who, you know, saw my vision and was like, okay, yes, this needs to be an essay collection, not a memoir. This is what we're going to go with. And who's just always been really clear about seeing my vision.

[00:10:56] So I think it's really important to partner with someone who also gets it so you can have that partnership and that advocate. So then let's lean in there because I think so many writers, self-included, when you're trying to professionalize your work, you know, the first step you need to take is to find an agent.

[00:11:15] And how to go about that and choosing the agent that is right for you is not as talked about as is the process of how to make yourself stand out to get their attention. How did you know in choosing to work with Mariah and moving forward in the process with her, with your collection of essays, that this was the person that was going to champion you and your work, whether you were in the room or not?

[00:11:44] I actually found Mariah on Twitter. Like, that is how I found my literary agent. Of all places. Me too. You said? Oh my goodness. You got to tell me the story. So I found her on Twitter because she had posted about her very first book deal. She was a very new agent. She had just sold the book called Post Traumatic.

[00:12:09] And I read the description and then I saw that it was a black woman who had written the book. And I was like, okay, I want to read that book. And I wonder if she's accepting new clients. And I looked at her website and, you know, looked at what she was looking for. And I was like, that is me. And me is that. And we belong together. And, but it's also really important too. I had 50 11 questions.

[00:12:38] You know, when you're talking to an agent to see whether you're going to work together. I had a bunch of questions because I'd heard, you know, experiences from, you know, other black folk and their agents. So after talking to her and looking at the kind of work that she was interested in and what she thought about my work, it's like, this is my person. This is my person.

[00:13:02] And I also remember being very hesitant or anxious because everyone always says you have to have this huge platform, which for a lot of people translates into, you know, tens of thousands of social media followers. Which, you know, I did not have and still don't have. And I remember Mariah saying to me, your job is to write and to write well, and you can do that and everything else will work itself out.

[00:13:31] And so she is also not focused on the bells and whistles that so many people are focused on in this industry.

[00:13:40] In having the pressure removed from you about, you know, those bells and whistles and being able to focus on just writing well, what did that do for you when it did come time for you to finish the proposal and go on submission to editors who will be interested in acquiring your work?

[00:14:03] It was so freeing because I could just be as weird and authentic and experimental as I wanted to be. And it was understood and it was okay. And even when we went on submission, you know, even for editors who said no, the answer was never, you don't have enough social media followers.

[00:14:26] It was usually, well, you know, can't you make this into a traditional memoir versus essay collection or, you know, so there was never that focus. And so it was just so freeing. And the one thing that I have realized from talking to a lot of author friends is that whether, you know, people have 700 Instagram followers or 70,000, we still go through a lot of the same hurdles as Black authors.

[00:14:56] And so you really need a team and a partnership with, you know, your agents and your writing community to really make your book successful. We go through the same challenges. And they've even shown that, you know, I think there was a Times article some time ago that said that social media followers don't even necessarily translate into book sales. So what is we doing?

[00:15:26] So you said that Mariah was very clear when she approached your work and saw that it was an essay collection, not a traditional memoir, even though some of the feedback from the industry was like, why didn't you make this a memoir? And the essays are very memoir-esque. Yes.

[00:15:44] So I'm going to ask the question, did you ever consider writing a more traditional memoir and breaking down the essay structures that you have so that it's a more linear read and not just a thematic read? I did. And, you know, what's really funny is that depending on which publishing website you look at, this book is called a memoir in essays.

[00:16:12] And so people just switch up labels however and whenever they want to. But yeah, I actually did. So I initially tried to write some version of this book in 2008. I found an outline from 2008 where I was initially going to write a memoir about Alzheimer's and caring for my grandmother because there were so few memoirs about Black people's experience with Alzheimer's.

[00:16:39] And I tried to write a memoir. And I tried to write a traditional linear memoir and I worked on it for years and have like a full manuscript in my drawer to show for it. And it just, it was not working. It still ended up being essays. I was just still drawn to particular themes.

[00:17:05] And the thing about essays is that you can play around more with form and structure in a way that it's harder to do with just traditional memoir. And I just felt so restricted by it. And so finally I said, well, you know, I think I want to write a book about grief. And then it sort of expanded to include, you know, my mother and breast cancer. So then I said, you know what? I'm going to just do essays. The chips will fall where they may. We'll just see what happens.

[00:17:33] Yeah, you saying that you have an outline and a draft from 2008. And we're about to be in the year of our Lord 2025. Okay. It's just wow. And so in that time span, you lived a lot of life and then also dealt with a lot of the subject matter that makes up the crux of this book. Yes. Were you prepared to write the essays that you did when you did?

[00:18:00] Or was it a tussle for you talking about your mother after losing her, your own battle with breast cancer after being diagnosed, steel reeling from the death of your grandmother, who was your steady caregiver all of your life? Yeah. Like, were you okay in the writing? Are you okay now? Was I okay in the writing? No, because I cried and used a lot of Kleenex.

[00:18:25] And I think I should get a brand deal with Kleenex because I went through a whole lot of tissue and cried a lot. And that's when I knew what I was done with an essay. After I had a good cry, then I was like, okay, I can move on. I can move on. It was a very emotional process. And then there are some essays.

[00:18:47] So there were a few essays that were already published when I got the agent and started working on my proposal. But then there are some essays, like the essay, I'm Too Pretty to Die Tonight, where I was writing it as I was going through radiation. As my mother was dying, I was, you know, taking notes and talking to my parents and recording that in real time.

[00:19:14] So I was processing a lot of that stuff as I was going through it. And there was one particular essay, The Things She Left Behind, was the absolute hardest essay for me to write in the book. I had to call friends and talk about it. I had to journal about it. One of my friends gave me writing prompts to try to, like, get me through it. Like, for a few of them, there was still some processing.

[00:19:41] But the one thing I tell myself is this is one book. It's not my only book. You know, I'm writing essays now about breast cancer, sort of the aftermath and further processing and looking at those events from different perspectives and through a different lens. And so we can always go back and revise and add to. And so that's what I tell myself, that, you know, this is the book that I could do then.

[00:20:11] And, you know, there'll be more opportunities. With some distance from the actual events happening in your life, I mean, your mother has passed, your grandmother has passed, you are in remission, and the book is out. How do you feel about the body of work that you produced that started in your 20s? I am proud.

[00:20:34] I am proud because we live in a world that often tells us our stories don't matter, that they are not universal enough. If we're not famous, then our stories don't matter. If we don't have an MFA, our stories don't matter. And if we are not full-time writers, our stories don't matter. And I wrote this book while I was working full-time.

[00:21:04] But it's something that I kept at because I said I wanted to do it. Even when people did not validate me. Even when people tried to shoot me down. Like, I remember going to a literary conference, and I was there to sit on a panel. And you know how they have those meetings where you can meet the literary agents, and they can look at your query letter and give you feedback. So I decided to do that since I was there.

[00:21:29] And the agent said to me, well, you know, if you're really serious about writing, you know, keep writing. You know, publish some more essays. And, oh, go attend this really expensive, you know, retreat. You're really serious about writing, right? Like, this idea that because I didn't have a certain pedigree, a certain resume, that I was not, you know, really serious about writing. And despite all of that, I was like, no, I want to write.

[00:21:56] I'm going to write about grief and Alzheimer's and Black women and whatever else I want to write about. And that's just what it is. And so, yeah, I'm proud that I kept going. And now the book is here, The Death of a Jaybird, Essays on Mothers and Daughters and the Things They Leave Behind. Can you read something from this collection so that I can ask you a whole bunch of personal and inappropriate questions? No!

[00:22:22] The Death of a Jaybird, Essays on Mothers and Daughters and the Things They Leave Behind by Jodi M. Savage, is a collection of Jodi's active grief and mourning of her grandmother who was diagnosed and ultimately died from Alzheimer's. Her mother, whose lifelong addiction prevented a true relationship until she and Jodi were both diagnosed with the same kind of cancer.

[00:22:44] And how these intimate family stories full of secrets and supposed shame are just a microcosm of the larger Black experience. Here's Jodi. So, since we're going with the, you know, me growing up in the church, I am going to read an excerpt from the essay, A Laying On of Hands.

[00:23:09] My fear of Granny dying always lurked when each of her many illnesses reared its ugly head. My earliest memory of Granny's ill health was when I was around nine or so. Her stomach was in so much pain one night that she rubbed it as she rolled around on the red, shaggy carpet of her bedroom. Oh, Lordy, have mercy on my soul, she kept saying.

[00:23:37] I had seen Granny pray for and anoint people with blessed oil many times. She consecrated bottles of Goya extra virgin olive oil by praying over them and letting them sit on her altar for 21 days. Her altar, which she covered with a white lace cloth, was on top of an old floor model's television that stopped working when I was a kid after I stuck a penny in it.

[00:24:05] In addition to the Goya bottles of oil, Granny's altar contains a large open Bible, a mounted pair of brown ceramic hands with their palms open, pictures of family members, and a few rosaries. Although we weren't Catholic, Granny collected rosaries and often recited the Hail Mary prayer.

[00:24:29] After the 21 days were up, Granny then poured the oil into smaller bottles and distributed them to people so that they could anoint themselves. She also kept some for herself. If this oil had the power to heal others, then maybe it could heal Granny.

[00:24:49] I grabbed a bottle of blessed oil, poured some into my small hand, and rubbed it on her bare stomach. I then prayed for her. I imagine that I uttered the same words of prayer Granny frequently used. Lord, stretch out your nail-scarred hands and heal your child. You never lost a battle, and I know that you never will.

[00:25:19] I'll tell dying men and women of your goodness everywhere. These and all the many blessings I ask in your name. Amen. After I pulled her shirt down, I opened a Bible to the 23rd Psalm and placed it face down on her stomach. Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me.

[00:25:47] Thou anointest my head with oil. During the school year, Granny usually restricted my TV time. On this night, however, she attempted to distract me. If I let you watch TV, do you promise to be a good girl? Yes. I turned the television on and changed the channel to Hill Street Blues, but I couldn't concentrate on the show.

[00:26:15] Instead, I attempted to bargain with God. It was the first time I offered to give God something in exchange for granting me a miracle. God, I promise to be good if you make my granny all right, I silently prayed. I would make this deal with God many more times throughout my life.

[00:26:39] No matter how fervent our prayers and sincere our hearts, we eventually run out of bargaining chips. Thank you. In the margin, I wrote, The prayers that we pray of what we're willing to give when negotiating with God. Bebe. And at the time, we'd be lying. Because, you know, I'm afraid that, you know, I go to church every Sunday. If you do this, knowing good, well.

[00:27:07] And God know we be lying, too, bruh. God know we be, God be like, stop playing in my face. Stop playing in my face. Are you holding up the prayer line? Oh, my goodness. But before that section, you have a line that says, Pastors laid hands on us. Granny laid hands on me. But all touch ain't created equal.

[00:27:32] And in addition to writing about your grandmother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's, your mother who battled with addiction, your own breast cancer diagnosis, there's also the undertone of abuse, specifically sexual abuse, and family secrets. Yes. That, you know, we're trying to keep everything inside. And yet you wrote a whole book and told everybody's business. Everybody.

[00:28:01] Do you perceive your book as a way to lay hands on readers who may have gone through some similar things but are still sitting in the cone of family silence? I love the way you put that. Yes, absolutely. Because it creates a conversation for people. Like, I've had writers email me and say that they appreciated me telling their story.

[00:28:29] Or that the same things have happened in their family or to them. And then telling me their whole life story. So it's been good because it creates a conversation. And also, people know that they're not alone. Like, these are the things that we often don't talk about, you know, that everyone knows. Like, everyone knew that there was, you know, sexual abuse happening.

[00:28:57] You know, that my grandmother had been sexually abused by her stepfather. But until after she passed away, people still acted as if she was crazy and she was a liar and, you know, just tried to discredit her. And so that is often what happens in families. And I'm so glad that I'm willing to say, no, we need to talk about this. Let's stop playing. Let's get honest and get free.

[00:29:24] And even in talking about that and trying to get free, you mentioned in the book that you were like your grandmother's makeup daughter. Because your mother, her daughter was essentially stolen from her by the family. And we haven't talked much about your mother. She is not a character or a caricature, but she is my favorite. But she's so spicy. Cheryl is spicy, honey. Exactly, Cheryl. As you mentioned about the chapter, I'm Too Pretty to Die Tonight, that's something that she said. Yes.

[00:29:52] So can you talk more about, because I've been following you for a while. And you mentioned wrestling with your feelings of forgiveness and grief and anger and all of these things. And it's apparent in the book.

[00:30:06] Can you talk about what it's been like to reckon with wanting your mother to mother you better than she could, and yet having to give her the grace to realize that she was doing the best that she could, and her best was giving you to her mother? Absolutely. I, you know, for a lot of years, I resented my mother tremendously.

[00:30:34] Resented her because she had been addicted to drugs. I mean, pretty much from shortly after I was born until the day she died. I mean, when she died, we found crack rocks in her purse in hospice. So she struggled with, yeah, struggled with- Like, I don't want to laugh, but I'm like, I read in the book, I'm like, it tracks. Like, it tracks. Like, my brother was going through her purse, and like, after they, like, took her body away, and we were just like, what is this? What is this?

[00:31:04] Like, so it's really resentful because she just was not there. And then I was resentful because then, you know, in my 20s, when I felt like I should have been living my best life, I was caring for granny, and she could not help. So I was angry about that. And for a long time, my mother was blocked. Like, her phone number was blocked.

[00:31:30] I told my family that if they gave her my phone number, I would stop talking to them and block them too, and they knew I was serious. So they did not give her my phone number. And then I think the thing that really allowed me to have grace for her was family archives. I am a big fan of going through your big mama's, going through my dear stuff, and getting all up in the business. As you did.

[00:31:59] As I did, and wrote about it. And so after my grandmother passed away, I found this plastic bag full of stuff. And it was papers. It was my grandmother's fifth grade report card. It was pictures of my grandmother and her twin brother when they were kids. But I also found letters. Letters my mother wrote shortly after she had me when she was a freshman at Bethune-Cookman College.

[00:32:28] And letters that she had written when she was in jail, when I was in high school. And I also found my grandmother's diary from 1969 to 1970. I found letters that my aunt, my grandmother's sister, had written to granny. So I started looking through all of these documents. And I remember I found a letter my mother wrote to my grandmother when she was 11 years old.

[00:32:55] And she was living in Florida with my aunt. And granny was living in Brooklyn. And my mother said in the letter, why can't I come home? I could get a job and help you, you know. Just this idea that this 11-year-old child is so desperate to come home to her mother that she is willing to try to get a job. And that's when it hit me.

[00:33:20] My mother was still that 11-year-old girl wanting to come home to her mother. And so it really kind of like shaped how I viewed her. Not just as my mother. Not just as some mother who didn't take responsibility in some wayward person. But she was a daughter. She was a little girl. And I also found letters where, yeah, my aunt told my grandmother the letter.

[00:33:47] If you want your daughter, you're going to have to come down here and sue me to get her back. And I could see like in my grandmother's journal, like I tracked granny selling all of her stuff. And getting a train ticket at Amtrak to go down to Florida to confront my aunt. And so with all of that, all of those secrets kind of swirling, I was like, you know, there's so much more to my mother and so much more to my family that I don't know.

[00:34:16] And the gag of it all is that my mother didn't even know this stuff. So a few months before she died, I was, you know, talking to her about what I had found. And she said, really? Like she had no idea. And so I think I was able to give her some peace that, no, your mother didn't give you up. She loved you. Like she didn't abandon you. It's so much more complex.

[00:34:46] And so that allowed me to have more grace for her. And then, of course, you know, when I was diagnosed with cancer, we got closer because she also had breast cancer at that point. And that was the point in my life when she mothered me the most. The point when I think I needed it the most. When I felt the most alone. And so for that, I'm really grateful. And correct me if I'm wrong, you all had the same type of breast cancer, correct? The same type of breast cancer. Yeah.

[00:35:17] And yeah, both on the left side too. Like just wild. The church in me says, you know, that was God's orchestration to bring y'all together. That part. Yes. To bridge that gap before he called her home. Yep. Yeah. What has writing this book taught you about forgiveness? It is messy. Forgiveness is messy. Messy. Boundaries are okay.

[00:35:42] You know, a lot of times, you know, people in my family just looked at me sideways when I said I wasn't going to talk to my mama. How are you not going to talk to your mama? Don't worry about it. That's what was important and necessary for my healing. And so you've got to take a forgiveness journey that makes the most sense and is most comfortable for you and in your own time. And I also learned that, you know, sometimes stuff just ain't that deep.

[00:36:10] You know, I would have loved for my mother to have been a different type of mother, but she just wasn't going to ever be that. And I had to be okay with that and just be okay with the Cheryl who was more like my dysfunctional sister. And that allowed her to have an easier transition and for us to spend more time together when it counted most.

[00:36:38] In addition to writing such personal essays, you also, as you mentioned, touch on more thematic stories, including Black Lives Matter, mental health, the Black funeral, being slut shamed, and all of these different things. Why was it important for you to touch some of those broader themes that exist within the Black American community that are often not discussed? Because it is all connected.

[00:37:07] You know, I remember whenever I would hear of a new police shooting, I would always think, what if that were Granny who could not obey direction? Like, whose sense of reality was very different from everybody else around her with all her invisible friends? Like, what if that were her? And so all of these things just, you know, just really are connected.

[00:37:34] Even something like, you know, when my mother was in hospice, the Derek Chauvin trial was going on, which is the former officer who killed George Floyd. And even that was connected because one of the witnesses was talking about how he heard George Floyd calling out for his dead mother.

[00:37:56] And just what that means to call out for your mother and how that opens up a wound for Black America. And it's just another form of Black grief. It is all connected as I'm leaving my hotel room to go see my mother who's dying. Even my aunt's attitudes about why they thought they would make a better mother to my mother than my grandmother. You know, that was around the time of the Moynihan Report in the 60s.

[00:38:25] And attitudes about Black single mothers and poor mothers and poverty in cities. All connected, you know. So yes, it's grief, it's cancer, it's Alzheimer's. But it's all within this microcosm.

[00:38:42] You can't even talk about getting my grandmother help for Alzheimer's for her hallucinations without talking about Black people's anxieties around mental health and health care disparities and medical racism, which all played a part. And so I talk about all these issues because they are just interconnected in our daily life in so many ways.

[00:39:09] Because you mentioned the chapter, the things she left behind. I believe that's the one about where you having to pack up your grandmother's house that you lived in all of your life and selling it and all of the things because drama. What did you keep? I kept a lot of stuff. Plural. Which is the whole, you know, that's like book number two. That could be its own book. But the things that are closest to me, I kept her robes that she preached in because she was a preacher.

[00:39:37] I kept her Bibles. I kept her church hats because, you know, she was stylish, honey. I also kept like her favorite. She had these sweaters that she would always wear. And so I keep them and still wear them around the house. And I have a copy of Acts of Faith. In 1992, I gave her a copy of Iyana Van Zandt's Acts of Faith.

[00:40:06] And she has, it has like her notes. She even annotated it where she wrote my name for like sections that she thought applied to me. Like there was a section about knowing when to keep your mouth shut that she wrote Jodi in. And I was like, really? I'm being heady from the grave. Heady from the grave. Because you did not keep your mouth shut in this book. I did not keep my mouth shut. Will not, cannot.

[00:40:31] But yeah, those were some of, yeah, my favorite things that I kept of hers. And what has this book taught you about yourself? It has taught me the power of pushing through to talk about the things I'd rather not talk about. Because there are essays in the book where, you know, I wrote them and I was like, okay, I'm done. And then I read them back to myself.

[00:40:59] And I was like, Jodi, why are you playing? You're not being, why are you lying to yourself? Girl, you're not finished. What you doing? Like I would have to snatch my own edges and then go back. And so it's really taught me the importance of being honest, being honest with myself and being honest on the page. And also has helped me to evolve into who I say I am on the page.

[00:41:29] So I think it's really helped with my development as well. All right, so now I want to switch to the game and the speed round. Uh-oh. Speed round first. What is your favorite book? Heavy by Kiesi Layman. Who is your favorite author? Edwidge Dancercats. Who is your favorite poet? I've got a few. Give them to me. Top five. Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

[00:41:58] Jericho Brown. Nikki Giovanni. May she rest in peace. May she rest in peace. Those are my faves. All right. What's the difference between poetry and spoken word, if you think there's a difference? I think spoken word is a type of poetry. Anything could be spoken word. Yeah, I don't think there's a difference. If money were no object, where would you go, what would you do, and where would you live?

[00:42:27] I would write and research full time. I would go hang out in Australia for a long time. I love Sydney, Australia. And I also would live somewhere where it's quiet, where I don't have to take trains, where there's really nice sunny weather, which is, you know, sounds like Florida, but not Florida.

[00:42:56] Like it's giving the American South. Right. It's giving the American South. Yes. Name three things on your bucket list. This is mad boring to take a pottery class. It's so boring, but it's on my bucket list to go to Ghana and to go to a Janet Jackson concert. I've never been to a Janet Jackson concert.

[00:43:25] Don't take my black people card. Don't take my black people. Are you, are you Janet Jackson seeing? I am. I'm, I'm seeing her on New Year's Eve. Okay. I'm going to move on. Yes. What brings you joy? Music I can dance to and sunflowers. What brings you peace? Candles and incense books. I feel like I might know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask you anyway. What is your favorite sound?

[00:43:56] Rain. The fall of rain. I thought you were going to say silence. That's a second. That is a close second. That is a close second. Yes. All right. Our game is called rewriting the classics. Classic is however you define it. Okay. Name one book you wish you would have written. Seeing the Body by Rachel Eliza Griffin. If I were a poet, that is the book I would have. She is the poet version of me.

[00:44:25] I feel like there's a poetry collection in you that we have yet to receive. It's untapped. I'm going to dig into it. Name one book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it? One book where I'd want to change the ending. Can I do a pass one? You sure can. You might pass this next one, but I'm going to try anyway. That's a messy question. Name a book that you think is overrated or overtaught and why?

[00:44:54] I don't have a particular book, but I have particular authors who you see on every creative writing syllabus. And it's like, can we bring it into the 2024? Can we just modernize? Modernize the canon. Modernize the canon. Which is so diverse. Syllabi are not very diverse. All right. And my final question for you today.

[00:45:23] When you are dead and gone and among the ancestors with Sherrilyn Green, what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you left behind? I would like for people to write that I captured what it means to love people before they are gone.

[00:45:46] And that I captured what it means to love and mourn and honor the people who came before us. Big thank you to Jodi M. Savage for being here today on Black & Published. You can follow Jodi on the socials at Jodi M. Savage on Twitter and Instagram. And Jodi is J-O-D-I. And make sure you check out The Death of a Jaybird, out now from Harper Perennial.

[00:46:13] You can get a copy of the essay collection from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase using code BLACKPUB at checkout. And that's B-L-K-P-U-B. That's our show for the week. If you like this episode and want more Black & Published, head to our Instagram page. It's at Black & Published, and that's B-L-K-And Published.

[00:46:39] There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Jodi about the essay she's working on next. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll highlight y'all next week when our guest will be Olufunke Grace Benkole, author of The Edge of Water. There is no amount of horror that I describe in the book that actually matches up to the real-life horrors that people experience.

[00:47:05] And the Superdome was one of those places where some of the very worst things happen. And it sort of became a symbol for the lack of preparation and care for the humanity of so many people. That's next week on Black & Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace.