Brandon Melendez: Finding & Preserving Narratives
In his debut collection, Gold That Frames the Mirror, Mexican-American poet Brandon Melendez weaves together narratives about his family, his cultural, as well as themes such as trauma, mental illness, and music. He bares his heart and soul on every single page creating a rollercoaster ride of grief and joy. But through it all there's an underlying current of gratitude and hope. If being a National Poetry Slam finalist, two-time Rustbelt Poetry Slam finalist, and two-time Berkeley Grand Slam Champion wasn’t enough to show why Brandon is someone to watch, this collection certainly will.
So I’ve read this collection twice since you sent a week ago—and I’m probably going to read it again. It’s amazing!
Really? Thank you!
What’re you up to now? Are you working on any new projects?
Well, I just graduated from MFA at Emerson.
Congrats!
Thanks! Yeah, I’m actually not working on anything though. I’m taking a bit of a break and gearing up for my tour in August.
Time off is definitely a good thing—especially since, you know, you just wrote a whole book. How did this collection come about?
I actually didn’t expect this book to happen. When I got this book deal I didn’t really have a book. I come out of the Slam and spoken word scene, right? So what I always valued was my voice, my progress as a performer, and what big stages I was getting on. None of it had anything to do with where I was being published. I think there’s a number of spoken word poets bridging the two worlds now, but it was something I just didn’t know much about so I’d never submitted anything. But when I got to my MFA my friends encouraged me to start submitting individual poems and collections.
I had Write Bloody on my mind from the start because they’ve published some books that just mean the world to me. So I submitted to them first and the way their contest works is you only have to submit 25 poems. I picked some of my favorites, sent it to them, and the next thing I knew I had a book deal! But then I had to turn in a 40-poem book to them a year later aaaand none of the 25 poems I originally submitted are in this collection. So I basically spent this past year writing 40 poems and it was stupid difficult.
But you did it!
Haha! Yeah!
Where are you going for this tour?
It’s a national tour. So I’m flying out to Los Angeles at the beginning of the month and I’ve got shows up and down California, in Oregon, Seattle, Vancouver, Boise, Minnesota, Chicago, upstate New York, and then I'll be finishing up in New York City. It's going to be super fun! I was raised in California, so I have hella love for that and I’m excited to be doing shows all over there. I’ve done a national tour before, but it wasn’t nearly this big. For this one I’m doing about a show a day for the month of August.
For a whole month?
Yup!
Alright, I've got some rapid fire questions for you.
Nice!
What’s the weirdest difference between SoCal and Boston?
How people measure time! People understand and measure time in their lives so differently on the east coast. I never thought about myself moving through space and time seasonally. Like it seems obvious now, but before I moved to Boston I never felt like chapters of my life began and ended with different seasons.
Are the winters as gnarly in Boston as they?
Yeah, but hear me out: I LOVE the winter. Even after three years it still feels magical.
Also, you have to talk to me about the scene in 10 Things I Hate About You where Heath Ledger is serenading Julia Stiles. You mentioned this in your twitter pitch and that was the moment I knew I had see if you'd be willing to chat.
Really? That's so funny! It’s one of my favorite scenes in that movie—I really like how it was put together because it complicates the relationship between those two characters in an interesting way.
And yeah, I always think about that scene in relation to Heath Ledger’s career arc. That scene solidified him as the dreamy, pretty boy, and even though there were a bunch of rom-coms like that coming out at that time that scene stuck out and that’s what he was known for—and he hated that.
Wait, really? Whenever I think of him, I think of A Knight’s Tale.
That’s one of my all-time favorites! But yeah, people do! After that movie he specifically chose not to accept roles like that anymore and went only for serious roles. I mean at first they were kind of terrible movies, but eventually all those choices led to big movies like The Dark Knight.
It’s interesting you’re mentioning how that scene impacts the relationship between those two characters and Heath Ledger’s relationship with acting. This kind of segues nicely into one of the questions I had about your collection. Family and relationships are big in this. Was that intentional? Or did that happen organically?
I always try to speak my truth and what I know. So I think that what makes sense is a lot of themes that were threaded through this exist as they are rather than flat out deliberate. I knew family was going to show up in this though because it's my way to preserve and tell the stories that are being lost--particularly on the father-side of my family--as people pass, as language fades—basically as assimilation happens.
What about music? Was that something you expected?
The music was completely organic. That was something I didn’t expect and I only realized once I put the whole manuscript together. That’s when I noticed it was this intense underlying motif and I’m totally not mad about. It’s a testament to the way music defines the way I move through the world. It shows how I connect with my family and the way I understand myself and this country. Did you read the acknowledgements all the way to the end?
I did.
So you saw the Blink 182 quote?
Dude I GEEKED when I saw the Blink 182 quote. Is your love for music and spoken word the reason you got into Slam?
When I was a kid I was always writing song lyrics and then that turned into writing poems. But I didn’t have a community. It wasn’t something that I talked to anyone about. But then when I was at UC Irvine I was like: I want to join some clubs and meet people. The club I found was called Uncultivated Rabbits and instantly felt connected to that community. Everything down to the writing workshops was about community building. The open-mics were a time to affirm each other’s experiences and for people to be like “I hear you, I see you. Let me know how I can support you.”
Then when I transferred to UC Berkeley they had a Slam team—Slam is competitive spoken word—and that was the place I really learned the power of using personal narratives to not only make space for yourself and the people that you love, but also complicate and dismantle preconceived ideas of what is true, and being able to flesh out and unpack your identity on your own terms—again, with the support of a community.
When you go on this tour are you staying with friends you’ve met through Slam?
Yup, yup! About 70% of my tour is going to be in Slam spaces. There’s nothing like going into one of those spaces. There’s just so much energy! And then on the flips side I’ll get to cheer on new-comers and people who’re just arriving, and discover new voices. It’s always been about the people for me. Some of the people who are dearest to me in this world I’ve met through Slam. And I’ve met people from all over the country and the world. It’s such a vibrant, wonderful space and it’s incredibly interactional. It’s awesome to have such a wide grassroots community that can provide such a vast network.
Do you make a distinction between your pieces? Like when you sit down to write, do you make a decision that a poem is meant to be performed? Or are your writing under the assumption that every poem you write could potentially be performed?
That’s a good question… I feel like if you ask different poets who both write and do spoken word you’ll get different answers. Personally, I think my voice has split. None of the poems in my book—save one or two—are poems I’ve ever performed or ever would perform. I thought so much about how each poem was functioning on the page, and was super conscious of my reader and how they were going to move through space on the page. Meanwhile when I’m writing a spoken word poem I’m thinking more about how I’ll move my body, my tone, my inflection, all that stuff to create a performance.
You’re one of the coaches for Emerson’s Slam team too, right?
I’m one of the co-coaches. It’s great to have a bunch of coaches because there’s so many different kinds of performers and identities. So having a bunch of different perspectives is always a positive thing when it comes to coaching. I always want to work with as many people as possible. It’s honestly just as collaborative as writing or performing.
Does coaching impact your approach to writing at all?
It keeps me thinking about what’s important to me and why I do this. Why do I write? Why am I here? For me coaching is the most important thing that I do every year. Getting to be a mentor for these up-and-coming voices is by far the most fulfilling thing to me. So when I come back to my own writing I just think about all the people that were that role for me. I continue to challenge myself and my voice and demand the same expectations of myself as the folks on my team. That’s what I take away from it.
What do you hope people take away from this collection?
Oh gosh! That’s a really good question…
I know, I'm kind of putting you on the spot.
Ha! No, no I appreciate it. I just did a show in Worcester and there was another Latinx person—like the only other Latinx person in the space—sitting in the first row and I could see their visual reactions to the poems—especially the ones about culture, heritage, and language. They came up to me after the show and were like, “It’s refreshing to hear another voice that has a similar story to mine because I don’t hear that all the time.”
And having interactions like that, having people who’ve had similar experiences with family, culture, and identity to feel seen and heard by the work I’m doing—and being able to build a community through the connections I make when people do come up to me and being like “Yo, I felt that”—that what I hope happens.
For people who don’t fit that specific mold….
I put so much of my hurt, so much of my joy, and what it felt like to grow up into this book. This book in many ways is like an exhale and represents who I am. I think after reading it people can get a better understanding of who I am as a person, why I am the way that I am, and why I move through the world the way that I do.
Also, I very much wanted to leave off in gratitude as I neared toward the end of the book. Like when I think of my legacy as a person on this planet—like to get hella macrocosmic for a sec—I want it to be about finding ways to move through the world with gratitude. So I wanted this book to be a testament to what it took to get this point.
Any advice for poets to reach this level of authenticity?
When I was in Slam one of my coaches had several "rules" and one of them was “Know thyself.” As small and corny as that sounds I think it’s fundamental to being able to write earnestly. Asking yourself about what are the things you need to sit down and produce material. For me it’s freewriting liberally. Anytime you’re on a train or a bus or whatever and you have an idea write that shit down! No matter how big or small all those ideas start to be become synaptic connections over time.
The other component to this is always being honest about what things you can write about that nobody else can. Asking yourself: What kinds of stories do I have? What makes me, me? And just constantly keep that in the back of your head. Finding ways to manifest these things and put them into words will give it that authenticity that’s specific to you.
Okay, micro drop we’re done.
Hahaha!
Ha! I do have two final questions for you though.
Sure!
Waffles, pancakes, or crepes?
Hear me out: neither.
Okay. What're you going with?
Omelettes.
What's the dream omelette?
The dream omelette has hella cheese, bell peppers, mushrooms, and jalapeños—for some kick.
Alright, last question. You’re heading to a deserted island. You can have one gadget, one snack or drink, and one person to bring along. What and who are you bringing?
Can it be a fictional person?
Let’s hear it!
Okay. The gadget would be an iPod with ear buds. It would be dead in two days, but the first two days I would have music. I’d bring as much seltzer water as I’m allowed to bring because I have a problem. I’d never really had seltzer before moving to the east coast and now I’m obsessed with it. So I would bring it to a desert island because it’s hydrating—I think. And then I would bring Ron Swanson because that man would find a way off that island and also probably find a way to charge my iPod so we could jam the whole time.
About Brandon Melendez
Brandon Melendez is a Mexican-American poet from California. He is the author of Gold That Frames The Mirror (Write Bloody Publishing, 2019). He is a National Poetry Slam finalist and two-time Berkeley Grand Slam Champion. A recipient of the the 2018 Djanikian Scholarship from the Adroit Journal, as well as the 2018 and 2019 Academy of American Poets Award, his poems are in Black Warrior Review, Muzzle Magazine, Ninth Letter, The Journal, PANK, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Boston where he received his MFA from Emerson College. You can find him on Twitter at @onbrandbrandonn.
