Made From What’s Here

I always think about sampling in hip-hop. 

Some of the greatest music came from neighborhoods where music programs had disappeared. People didn’t have instruments, but they had turntables, milk crates full of records and enough imagination to make something new out of what was already there.

People like to talk about what Lansing doesn’t have. I’ve always thought that’s exactly what Lansing has going for it.

When I was a freshman in college, I got my girlfriend pregnant. 

I became a young father, which also meant I was staying in Lansing until my son turned 18. I always wanted to be some kind of writer and that dream never really left. 

First it was freestyle battling, then spoken word.

Both were freeing, and I was at a point in my life when I needed things to be free. I found poetry through the Michigan State Slam Team, and later, during my divorce, that community became everything to me.

Years later, after life had settled, I found my way back to poetry. My friends and I hit every open mic we could find—Wander’s Tea House, The Avenue and Midtown Brewery. Back then, poetry wasn’t really welcomed at open mics, but we kept showing up because we wanted to be together. Looking back, those nights shaped more than I realized.

In 2017, my friend Dylan Rogers asked if I’d host a monthly poetry open mic at the Robin Theatre. At the time I had gone back to school for computer science, and I remember thinking: it will be nice. I’ll get to see all my friends once a month.

That completely backfired. The Poetry Room slowly became my life’s work. 

Before we even started, Tim Lane told me that most open mics don’t last more than two years. Jen Sygit told me everyone celebrates you at the beginning, but the hard part is keeping it going. 

I took both to heart. I stayed connected to the MSU Poetry Club, volunteered in schools and tried to make sure there were always new poets finding their way into the room. I felt responsible. We were hosting at my friend’s theater, and I wanted it to succeed.

Along the way, people kept opening doors. Taylor Haslett invited us to Arts Night Out, introduced me to the Arts Council and quietly taught me about grants. Dennis Hinrichsen and Native Child became mentors because I kept showing up. Before I knew it, I had become Lansing Poet Laureate. 

The Poetry Room was filling seats. I was on WILX, PBS, TEDx, Button Poetry and Write About Now. None of that happened because I had some grand plan. It happened because people in Lansing kept giving me opportunities before I felt ready for them.

People still tell me what Lansing doesn’t have. They’re probably right. We don’t have the biggest arts scene or arenas bringing in Jay-Z. But maybe we’ve been measuring the wrong thing.

I think about sampling again. Nobody waited until they had the perfect studio or every instrument they wanted. They looked around, used what they had and made something original.

That’s what Lansing has always felt like to me.

I didn’t build The Poetry Room by myself. It was sampled together, friends who invited me back, mentors who answered my questions, artists who volunteered their time and audiences who kept showing up. Piece by piece, it became something bigger than any one of us could have made alone.

Maybe that’s Lansing’s greatest art form: making something worth believing in out of what’s already here.