Speaker 1 00:01:30 You are listening to Right On Radio on Kfa I 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Sam on tonight's program. Liz talks with Carolyn Hayes about her memoir, A Girlhood letter to my transgender daughter. Self-Aware and intimate a girlhood asks us all to love better, not just for the sake of Hayes's child, but for children everywhere. And during injustice and prejudice, just as they begin to understand themselves. A girlhood is a call to action, an ode to community, a plea for empathy, and a hope for a better future.
Speaker 2 00:02:05 And I'm Molly Rayer. In the last part of the hour, we'll be playing one of our legendary legacy episodes. Join us as we do a deep dive in the archives to play an interview from the past, all of this and more. So stay tuned to Right On Radio.
Speaker 3 00:02:35 Hey, Liz, how are you?
Speaker 4 00:02:37 I'm pretty good. How are you?
Speaker 3 00:02:38 Doing well. Y you are on the air right now. Just wait for Carolyn to come on.
Speaker 5 00:02:44 Hi, how
Speaker 4 00:02:44 Are you? Hey, Carolyn. Hi Carolyn. Welcome to be writing on radio.
Speaker 5 00:02:50 Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 00:02:52 Great. We're looking forward to our interview here. Do you wanna start with the re We we're speaking with Carolyn Hayes, author of a girl Ha a girlhood letter to my transgender daughter. And would you start with a reading?
Speaker 5 00:03:06 I sure can. Um, I can just read from the beginning a little bit. What would you like a page?
Speaker 4 00:03:12 Uh, three to five minutes. So a page maybe two.
Speaker 5 00:03:15 Okay, great. I'll just jump in.
Speaker 4 00:03:19 Yes.
Speaker 5 00:03:20 This is not a tragedy, but it started the way so many tragedies do in a quiet and awful way. A common occurrence, a weary dailiness to it. It started with a knock at the front door. I didn't hear the knock. I was writing in the mother-in-law suite, connected to the house by what we called the Breathless Way. Your older sister answered the knock and then came to get me. This moment. This knock changed our lives forever. It created fissures that remain. This was our lives before. This was our lives after it, everything changed. There was panic and loss and a kind of fear that never really goes away. You were at its center, but we protected you from it. Your father and I, your older sister, and your two older brothers. It was a story that I finally told you when you were nine years old.
Speaker 5 00:04:05 We'd left that house by then, we'd left that southern state. We'd moved more than a thousand miles away due north. But I worried that the story might pop up in conversations unexpectedly from an aunt, a friend, someone assuming you knew about, about it because it was about you. I didn't want you to hear it from someone else. I told you a paired down version sitting on a sunny sofa in our living room. We'd moved so many times that the sunny sofa blurs in my mind from one living room to the next. Like e Each living room is a train car. Zipping past the story went like this. A man was at the door, sent from the Department of Children and Families. He was there to investigate us as parents. There had been a complaint. The complaint was about you being transgender. And we quickly learned that in this southern, southern state with Republican appointed judges, we could lose custody.
Speaker 5 00:04:54 We could lose you. This is what I tried to explain the knock of the door and what happened in the days and weeks and months that followed. When I finished, you didn't have any questions and you never asked to hear the story again. But I think you deserve to have the it in full. It belongs to you. I'm committed to telling you the brutal truths of this story. Your story. For a long time I haven't known how, but now I do. I'll also tell you the beautiful truths. This is how it should be. This is how we should prepare children for the world. I don't know how to prepare children for the world. What happened abandoned us, and yet oriented us before the knock of the door. Our idea, idea of family, of what will we do for each other in crisis was theoretical. It became manifest. What happened to us shouldn't happen to anyone, but it did. And it keeps happening, especially to families like ours. How we responded made us understand who we are, what we did for you, we suddenly understood we would do for any of us. In the end though, this is just one part of your larger story and it doesn't define you.
Speaker 4 00:06:03 That's Carolyn Hayes, author of a Girlhood letter to my transgender daughter. Um, I wanna start with the broad question that you deal with a couple well many times in the book. What is the difference between gender identity and sexuality?
Speaker 5 00:06:20 Oh, I think that usually people say quite simply, you know, um, sexual orientation is who you love. You know, who who do you fall for? You know, do you fall for men? Do you fall for women? Um, do you fall for both? Um, and then gender. I is really, um, you know who you are. Are you more of a woman inside a man, a girl, a boy? You know? Um, and then again, some people also are on that spectrum and kind of move between the two and don't really fit and are non-binary.
Speaker 4 00:06:52 I'd like to know, uh, well, perhaps if you wanna share how old your daughter is and perhaps how old you are. But, uh, in any case, what inspired you to write this book right now?
Speaker 5 00:07:04 Well, you know, I was a writer. I mean, I've always been a writer. I have a long career as a writer. Um, and so, uh, I always knew that I'd write the book. Um, I mean, I'm certainly writing other work at the time and, you know, um, but I was always taking notes. Um, so it's been, you know, over 10 years since this incident happened. Um, yeah, so I was taking notes. I always knew what I was writing was more interesting and more beautiful and complex and layered and scary and, and everything so much more to it than than the stories that I was writing at the time. Um, but I had to wait until my older, my daughter was old enough to tell me it was okay. Um, and so she's now about to turn 16. So, um, I was writing the book a while back.
Speaker 5 00:07:50 Um, and I also thought, you know, things, I thought things would get better and the book wouldn't be very necessary. That was my hope, because things were getting better across the country for a large part of my daughter's childhood. There were more laws protecting kids and trans kids and families and access to healthcare and, you know, pronouns and all that good stuff. So things were so much better. Um, and then things really took a turn. Uh, now what happened to us with that knocking the door, which seemed like just a very strange bureaucratic mix up, we're a loving family, you know, with leading experts telling, you know, talking to us in conversation, like making good decisions. Um, it's now the law in Texas. So, um, you know, the, the governor of that state decided that it is actually a mandate that if you know somebody who's supporting their transgender child, uh, you should, you know, report them to the Department of Children and Families. So that's actually become policy.
Speaker 4 00:08:51 Goodness. How old was your daughter when she knew she was a girl?
Speaker 5 00:08:59 Yeah. Um, well, so they're, they actually have these, you know, the American Academy of Pediatrics has, um, studied this. You know, they've studied it mainly with, with people like me. You know, I'm, I'm not transgender, so, you know, but in childhood development, they've looked at when at what age do it, does a kid kind of realize what gender is like, then starts to express their gender, knows who they are, then kind of knows that that gender is fixed for them, you know, by like four or five. Um, cuz they have, you know, other milestones that they're reaching. So my daughter did all of those things really quite very much on the regular old chart. Um, she just did them in the reverse of the way we expected her to. So it is not unusual to talk to, you know, adult trans people who really, some of their earliest memories are, you know, why am I getting this toy?
Speaker 5 00:09:48 Why am I not being treated, you know, as a girl when I so clearly I feel like a girl inside. Um, so she was, you know, kind of consistent, persistent and acute as soon as she could speak. Um, and was, you know, very, um, very insistent with us that we got it wrong, <laugh>, um, when and when we got it wrong. So even by like age four, um, you know, she was telling her teachers that she was a girl. She was arguing with other kids in her, her classmates, although she's a sweetheart. I mean, she doesn't argue in a, in a negative way. She's a sweetheart. But yeah, so around there, I would say,
Speaker 4 00:10:26 Yeah. Um, I don't know if you ever thought this way or not, but I know some people do. Uh, when did you understand that this was not, quote, just a phase she was going through, but that it was her truth?
Speaker 5 00:10:38 Um, well, for one thing, I wasn't afraid of the idea that she might desist. I mean, I was, I was, I was afraid that oh, we, we'd allow her to choose her pronouns and wear the clothes that she wanted do, and then she'd change her mind. But a lot of people, I mean, what w what we were modeling there was, look, you know, you can do this and, and we'll, we'll, we'll support you. And there was very specifically a moment that I will get to, but, and we'll support you. We're kind of by making that kind of smooth and, and op and being open, we also were showing like, Hey, it's no big deal if you decide to no longer identify as a girl, right? Because, so we're keeping that very open for her, that space, very open for her. Um, but I would say that, you know, there was this one time I was putting her to bed one night at my mother's house.
Speaker 5 00:11:24 We were visiting and, uh, we were saying prayers and then we were going to bed. And, um, maybe, I don't know what, but something had happened earlier in the day. And she said to me, when you say I'm beautiful, say she is beautiful, say she, and to me, you know, as, as a person of faith that felt so, um, divine, like that the, the person, like when somebody tells you what makes them beautiful <laugh> and how to respect their inner beauty, like their innermost beauty, uh, I just felt like you don't mess with that. And so that was when I really started to take it more seriously. And I felt like she had expressed herself so clearly in that moment. And it had been so consistent also for a long time, even by that point. Um, yeah. So, so that was the moment,
Speaker 4 00:12:18 You know, I was thinking, I bet you don't like this word anymore than I do the word let, allow mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, you supported her. You didn't let her, you can't let somebody be who they are. Right. It's not our, it's not our place to allow somebody to be who they are. We support. And it sounds like you, you did support her a great deal. Uh, yeah. And and your husband as well.
Speaker 5 00:12:45 Yeah. There's a great, um, there's a great, uh, quote from St. Francis de Sales, um, be who you are and be that well be who you are and be that well. And so, um, yeah, that was something that was important to us. She was who she was, you know, and she just has to just to do that. Well be authentic in in yourself. Yeah. My husband was, and you know, and when you go to the group meetings for parents, you know, who are new to this, who are struggling, who are challenged, um, it's usually women who show up. It's the moms who show up at those meetings in large part. They tend to be the ones who are more attuned and more, more leaned in and more ready to support. Um, but my husband was very much on board. I mean, he had his own, you know, mishigas to go through.
Speaker 5 00:13:31 Like he had to, you know, he have his own masculinity issues. Like, is this a reflection of me as a man? Are people gonna think of me differently? Blah, blah, blah. Uh, it was so ridiculous once he said it out loud that he was like, yeah, that's not how masculinity works. That's not, and I'm not gonna, uh, you know, make my child's life miserable because I wanna be seen more as a man. That's not actually what a good person does. Um, so he got over that quickly and then he's been a great champion. He's helped a lot of other families. He's done support groups for fathers who are struggling with this idea. Um, yeah, he's done. Well
Speaker 4 00:14:09 Talk some about the woman in the support group who said they always blame the mothers. Uh, that comes up, uh, several times and how you're feeling and what you're going through. Well, you need to talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 5 00:14:23 Yeah, I mean, well, the history of psychology in America is, is so dominated by Freud, which was definitely a blame the mother <laugh>.
Speaker 4 00:14:32 Yeah. Really
Speaker 5 00:14:33 Apologi. So, um, <laugh>. So we've gotten over that a good bit, thank goodness. But, um, but yeah, so I really came to appreciate that woman. I, there were not support groups at that time for, for parents. Um, so the only sup, at least in the town I was in, so the only group that I could go to, and they were lovely and invited me, were actually trans people themselves, you know, supporting each other in their journeys. So I show up at this meeting, um, they're so lovely to me, <laugh>. Like, I give my spiel, everybody goes around and gives their sh I give mine, and they're just so, so supportive. And then there's one woman who's kinda sitting back looking at me and she has a different take. And her take is, look, you know, I see you doing your thing, but just watch out because when this comes back and it will, they're gonna blame you.
Speaker 5 00:15:24 They always blame the mother. And I was, I was rattled by it in the moment, and the group kind of gave her a hard time, cuz it was not the nicest thing to say, you know, it was like, and I think that she had like a snarky history in the group mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, it was so helpful to me that she was honest in that moment. And when the time came and somebody did make an anonymous call and, uh, that threat was very present and I definitely felt blamed as the mother. Um, it was so much easier for me to kind of accept that, that that was happening because I'd been warned, you know? Um, and I did see that, that woman again later. Um, and I did, I got to thank her for being honest with me about her experience as a trans person and how valuable those groups are. You know what I mean? And the intergenerational groups, kind of the older L G B T Q community, talking to the younger one, talking to the younger one, passing down those lessons because it, it was easier not to take it as personally. I could see myself fitting into history, a history of, you know, they've always blamed the mother.
Speaker 4 00:16:34 Talk about the knock on the door and all the things that, uh, this is a big question I know, but, uh, what happened and how did you have to deal with it, dealing with lawyers and talking to people and getting those letters together? Talk about, uh, all that stuff, if you may.
Speaker 5 00:16:52 Yeah. Well, I think in some ways it's so funny, I'm such an upsider. Like we were lucky <laugh>, but we were lucky in that we had people, you know, in our, around us who, who, who jumped in. Um, so the next door neighbor is a lawyer. Um, certainly not his expertise at all. He is like real estate law and, you know, bankruptcy laws su such a, such a great guy. Um, and not somebody who would have supported his kids. We definitely, you know, if he had a trans kid, we definitely talked about those things. We certainly disagreed. Um, but very, you know, um, respectfully. And, um, so he got me in touch. When I told him what was going on, he immediately got me in touch with somebody who, the lawyer who was a specialty. Um, and that lawyer explained to me how, how quickly things could go badly that if the, the, the, um, the case worker would have to interview everybody in the family.
Speaker 5 00:17:41 Not everybody was there the first day, so he had to come back the next day. Um, and so if he showed up with a police officer, that meant that they were gonna take my child then. And so I had to have an address ready. Um, a friend, uh, friends of the family or family members who would be willing to immediately take the child into their home. Um, that we might be in a situation where we could choose blame. Like one, one of the two of us, my husband or I could ch choose blame, and then that parent would be taken out of the home, but the, the rest of the family would stay together and the child would be able to stay in the home. So that lawyer was incredibly frank and told me very, very clearly how I would be perceived and, and painted in a courtroom.
Speaker 5 00:18:24 And that if we got a Republican judge, as it kind of said in the beginning, we could, we could lose custody. So another friend happened to just, just be checking in, she's from very far away, but had, was raising an older trans son and was just checking in to say hi. And I told her what was going on, and she said, I'm putting you in touch with a, with an expert. So this was a woman who, um, you know, had helped other families. And so she had a, a plan, like again, we, we had to create a safe folder overnight. Um, and the safe folder had to be, um, full of letters from people who knew us as parents and could vouch for us as upright citizens, as people who <laugh>, you know, were good in the community. And so we had letters from, you know, a friend of ours who was a psychologist or friend who was, uh, a nurse.
Speaker 5 00:19:10 We had, um, the, the, the people who taught our child at school. We had a minister who wrote a letter on our behalf, um, family, you know, all these letters poured in. I mean, people really put the breaks on that night as we called them that night and let wrote these letters. And, um, and the letters from our doctor too, the pediatrician, um, and everything we could. So, uh, yes. So though it was a lot, it was a lot, it was very overwhelming <laugh>. And, um, one thing was that they, you know, even if we could prove that our house was safe and good, it never made the threat go away, because if somebody else called, we'd have to start over again. You know what I mean? So it was this, and we never knew who made the call. So, um, it just never could be lovingly, uh, like confronted and addressed and forgiven and, you know, it just was out there.
Speaker 4 00:20:06 Sounds like the investigator was a little annoyed by it that, uh, I think didn't he say something like, I I wish they'd send me two families that really had a problem.
Speaker 5 00:20:15 Yeah, and I think that's a really, really important thing to talk about right now in this country, because we're doing, a lot of people are saying that they're very concerned. A lot of Republicans and office are saying, I'm very concerned about trans kids and I'm concerned that you know about this and blah, blah. And they, they're putting all these laws out there to take away their access to healthcare and insurance and, you know, sports teams and all these things. Um, and honestly, you know, and then, then they create panic and other people too that, you know. Um, and so really your your concern is for a family like ours, you know, my daughter's thriving. She's, you know, she does really well in school. Math is a little bit of a struggle. She's in honors classes, you know, she's great and she's got sweet family and she's well fed and like, you know, uh, we're good.
Speaker 5 00:21:13 Like, you know, we're, we're, we've got great doctors, we've got great everything going on. We're, we're okay, but putting your concern on us allows you to like, kind of create a scapegoat. But meanwhile, just like that, you know, that case worker who knew that there were children who were truly in danger, who were not being fed, who are going to be hungry, who are being mistreated in their homes, or mistreated in their, in, even in in other foster placements or wherever they were, you know, there are children all over the world who actually need our active love and concern, you know, poverty by focusing negatively on these well supported, loving families of trans kids. You're putting all this, put your energy on the fact that, you know, in a country, in a, well, in a, in a state like Texas, which is bigger than many countries, at 39 million people almost, you know, address the poverty address.
Speaker 5 00:22:08 You know, the, the children who are deeply, deeply in need in your own state, um, who are crying out for help. You know, we, we are like, Hey, thanks for your concern, but please stop being concerned about us <laugh>. Um, there's truly, truly people who are, are very, very much in need. And so, um, it is a way to distract and deflect and also create, you know, hostility and have a scapegoat and, um, create dehumanize people, like families like ours, dehumanize us, and then make us something to fear, which is good sometimes for rallying a base, but it's very bad for communities and it's very bad for families. It's very Bedford children.
Speaker 4 00:22:51 Speaking of dehumanizing, you had some real problems with insurance companies and what they wanted to call this situation to get it covered?
Speaker 5 00:23:01 Yes. I was actually on the books. Um, I had a, uh, a kind of a suite representative at an insurance company I won't name. And, um, <laugh>. And it was his job to go into the, the system, um, and explain the exact reason why we were being denied coverage, which at that point was, I believe the term was psychosexual. Deviance. And, um, at that time, and again, like we are not talking about major surgeries, there was nothing. We were just getting basic care for our daughter and having conversations about how best to support her. There's nothing going on here that's actually scary or, you know, irreversible. There's nothing irreversible. Um, and at that point, our daughter was like, you know, nine years old, and my response back to him was, well, she still believes in Santa Claus. I think it's a little bit early <laugh> to, to, to label her a psychosexual deviant, right? Um, and it just felt so discriminatory. Um, it feels so discriminatory for our child that it feels equally discriminatory just for a person who, you know, a trans man or woman who wants to get, you know, healthcare, um, you know, for their own issues.
Speaker 4 00:24:17 We're speaking with Carolyn Hayes, author of a childhood letter to my transgender daughter. Uh, we've talked about the knock at the door. How did it change your life?
Speaker 5 00:24:29 Yeah, well, it changed everything. Um, I mean, it changed things on a very practical level. We, uh, you know, the case was eventually closed and, but we never had closure, you know, ourselves. Um, and so we moved, I mean, we moved back, uh, north, we, we, we looked at the whole entire country and maps and tracking laws and places that would be, you know, progressive and, and would, would have protective stuff on the books. Um, you know, it uprooted our our kids and their lives, you know, older children. We have four kids. Um, but also, I just wanna say too, that, you know, that first line is this is not a tragedy. Um, I think it made us better people. I mean, I think it made us so much more compassionate, just not just about the trans community or the L G B T Q community, although we've learned a ton about the complexity and gorgeous diversity of gender, which is all around us all the time, but we don't pay attention to. Um, but it also just expanded us as human beings. It made us so much more compassionate for all different kinds of people who, who have to live in a heightened state of fear in this country for various reasons. Um, and, um, yeah, so it, it really, I think, helped us to grow, um, kind of kicked, uh, the doors of our heart wide open.
Speaker 4 00:25:51 How did, uh, she enjoy middle school? What was good about that? It sounds like there were some good experiences for her in middle school.
Speaker 5 00:25:59 Yeah, yeah. She had a great middle school. You know, she's very soft-spoken, so we're always looking for opportunities for her to, you know, use her book, big Voice. Um, and, um, so there, she got to be much more outspoken. It was a really small school, incredibly, and they'd already had an exper, you know, experiences with trans students. So they were, they had it all together. Um, and yeah, so it was a very, it was a small, very sweet community, and she definitely got better at, you know, like giving her opinion, <laugh> she being a leader of the group, um, all of those good things. She got to practice those skills. So she kind of came, she, you know, kind of came into her own a good bit in middle school.
Speaker 4 00:26:37 And then you were looking for a high school, and one of the things you did was approach a Catholic school. Uh, why don't you talk, uh, about your experiences with the Catholic church and education?
Speaker 5 00:26:50 Yeah, so I, um, I went to Catholic school, um, and so I was actually looking at Catholic schools where I was, that I knew very well. Um, and yeah, so at first I thought, um, that we actually had a shot. I mean, I actually thought we had a shot because some of the people who, you know, that were on our side were wonderful nuns. And the monsignor who had, um, you know, baptized our daughter, they were all on board and incredible, incredible. So, um, yeah, but then we actually went and, and, and we were kind of pushed from school to school to talk to the superintendent of the Catholic schools of the diocese. The first meeting went again, like incredibly well. Um, and, you know, he got to know us as a family, and I think he got to know our daughter, although she wasn't there.
Speaker 5 00:27:40 He got to know the way we spoke about her daughter and really raised the education level. And, um, at the end of that meeting, he said, um, great, you know what I would be great is if, if you could do some work, um, to dig around and kind of give me an argument that I could bring to nuns and priests that would help give context to the students within the Catholic tradition, which, you know, that was what I, um, that was, that was what I knew. Um, and I went and did that, like a good Catholic schoolgirl, <laugh>, did my homework, <laugh>, I looked at the documents from the Vatican, which were great. Um, and, you know, made an argument, um, brought it back, and the second meeting went, was over very quickly. Um, and she was, you know, banned from, it was, yeah, banned from all the high schools in the diocese.
Speaker 5 00:28:32 Uh, well, we wait. She could have gone, you know, as, as a boy, I suppose, you know, with boy pronouns and whatnot. Butch at that point would've just been ridiculous. And, but yeah, so, um, I still try to keep in touch sometimes. Actually, I haven't reached out recently. I should, um, with the, um, the head of the diocese because I know that they have trans kids, actively have trans kids, uh, among their student body. And, um, and I still feel like there's a way to, to be within the Catholic faith very much so, and be incredibly open and loving, um, to trans people and to support them in communities.
Speaker 4 00:29:12 Carolyn, I'm afraid we have run out of time. I think that is a kind of a good way to end to talk about, uh, loving, uh, to talk about love and also dignity and respect, which I think is something that you've been talking about the whole time. So thank you so much, and thank you for being flexible. Carolyn was gonna be on at seven 30, and she, uh, decided that, uh, since we needed her at seven, she would come on at seven. So thank you for your flexibility. Absolutely. And thank you so much for joining us tonight. I loved it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Uh, bye now. Bye.
Speaker 7 00:30:01 Uh, this is a section called the Beginning. Here we are all is still, all is still silent and waiting. All is silent and calm. Hushed and empty is the womb of the sky. These are the first words. This is the first speaking. There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow canyon field, or woven forest. The broad sky is all alone. The face of the earth is not yet here. The expansive sea is all alone, along with the womb of the sky. Nothing has been gathered. All is at rest, nothing stirs, all is drowsing. Nothing stands, only the breath of water, only the tranquil. See, there is no thought of what might be all eyes dark and silent in the only night. Then came the word heart of sky arrived in the dark of the only night. Heart of sky arrived with sovereign and Kessel serpent.
Speaker 7 00:31:11 They talked together, then they pondered and wondered. They reached an accord, braiding together their words and their thoughts. They heartened one another, and it came clear. The conception of humans born beneath luminous sky. Then they conceived the generations of trees and the generations of thickets, the germination of all life in the darkness of pale dawn by heart of sky, who was called hurricane lightning. Hurricane is first newborn, thunderbolt to second sudden, lightning is third. These three gods as one are heart of sky. They came together with sovereign and kettle serpent. They're joining, conceived both light and life. How shall it be sown? They asked, when should dawn come? Who will feed these worlds? Who will sustain them? Let it be like this. Let the water clear away so the plate of earth comes toward the light. Let the land gather and level out. Then it can be sewn. Then the dawn can come. But there will be no words of praise or prayer to sing of what we frame and shape until humanity is born. Until true, people have been made. They said, when it was time to make the Earth, it only took a word to make Earth. They said earth. And there it was, sudden as a cloud or mist unfolds from the face of a mountain. So Earth was there.
Speaker 8 00:32:44 Michael Bette is the author of, you Must Remember This, which received the 2014 Linquist and Venom Prize for Poetry and the Interrogation. He is also the translator of the Vu, the first English verse translation of the Mayan creation, epic and the chat book, imaginary City. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Plowshares, the Sun, Massachusetts Review, pleas, and Best New Poets. A longtime faculty member at the Blake School. Bette has received the Bechtel Prize from Teachers and Writers Collaborative, and is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. He lives in Minneapolis. Michael, thank you so much for joining us here today.
Speaker 7 00:33:24 Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 8 00:33:26 So I, perfect. Can you first give us a general overview of the Pop vu? What are its origins? What is its story?
Speaker 7 00:33:33 Well, it's a Mayan, I call it a creation epic. Um, because in a way, the beginning and ending sections are a creation myth and embedded inside the creation myth is what's pretty a classic epic mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, to accept, you know, the only difference is that it's enacted by hero twins instead of, you know, the individual hero. That's maybe more common in, um, the sort of the Western conception. But, um, those hero twins need to basically set things right so that the creation of the world can be made complete. It's a nice intermingling. It's kind of like Genesis Gilgamesh and the Odyssey kind of rolled into one tidy package. Um, they literally traveled to the underworld to overcome the lords of death. Um, and then are reborn, which sort of establishes a cycle of, uh, regeneration, which is really linked to the agricultural cycle. They become the sun on the moon. We're all set <laugh> for the Yeah. The world to be, to be born.
Speaker 8 00:34:31 And, uh, the passage you just read was entitled The Beginning. It was, it was the beginning of the, of the creation myth. Is that right? Can you tell us a little bit about that passage?
Speaker 7 00:34:38 Uh, sure. I, um, it was actually that moment, one of the things that drew me to the project of translating it, which, you know, was kind of immense and took 10 years <laugh>. Um, but I really, um, I found that moment fascinating for a number of reasons, not the least of which is, I don't know if you notice, but it's, it's begins in the present tense. And I love that notion of the creation of the world happening as the story's unfolding, you know, and something that is ongoing. Um, I also love the fact that it comes from a conversation as opposed to, you know, with my upbringing way back in the Catholic cornfields Rochester, uh, it was all about, you know, that one single voice saying, let there be light, and things sort of happening. And I, I, I think that conception of, um, the world arising from conversations instead of a pronouncement really appealed to me. Um, and so in this particular section, it's right at the very beginning, earth is created using language. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, it really is, um, the myth has a profound sense and understanding of language as this generative tool. But what's interesting is that the test of people, once peop true humans being created, is that they need to be able to speak intelligently back to the gods who created them.
Speaker 8 00:36:01 It's a, it's a wonderful sort of cyclical, uh, phenomenon that happens. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 7 00:36:05 I'll create you and you create me.
Speaker 8 00:36:08 So, uh, let's talk a little bit, you said it took 10 years for you to translate this. Can you talk a little bit about your entry into this project and where it took you?
Speaker 7 00:36:16 Uh, sure. I, I mean, 10 years kind of from conception and fiddling with it, I think it shows me far more than I chose it. And if I'd known, I think the arc and the scope of it, it, I probably would've been a lot more daunted. Um, but it's one of the things about the, the pop vu that's so wonderful is that it is just on a service level, such a good story. I mean, you could sit down and tell a two and eight year old and they'd be enthralled. Yes, yes. You know, and that's one of the things I love about mythology. Um, it also means there's lots of tasty bite size pieces that I could try and sort of cut my teeth on a little bit. Um, and then the myth got its hooks into me, and I realized I really wanted to try and get the whole, the arc of the mythic section completed.
Speaker 7 00:37:00 Um, it started when I was, I had a sabbatical in 2007, 2008, and lived in Central Mexico at the time, and started to learn a lot about Aztec and Mayan folklore and mythology. And on the side, I was translating a lot of Spanish poetry just to help me learn Spanish. And so the project kind of accidentally came out of the convergence of me becoming fascinated with the process of translation, um, which is translation's kind of like a drug. It's wonderful, you know, you can keep returning to it. And, um, it's, you know, it's a little bit endless. Um, I was translating Neruda because there's like 15 translations of every Neruda poem in English. And then I could put mine side by side with people who knew what they they were doing. And that was really fascinating. Yeah. Um, and yeah, lo and behold, so it was born.
Speaker 8 00:37:51 And, uh, how long did the actual process of translation take? Or
Speaker 7 00:37:54 That, well, the, the body of the manuscript itself, I think, um, about five years. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, of course I have a day job. Yes.
Speaker 8 00:38:04 <laugh>. I imagine that work was just wholly rewarding and enriching. Did you find that? So,
Speaker 7 00:38:10 Yeah, in fact, I got obsessed enough that I, I ended up taking an unpaid leave from, um, the Blake school long time ago. I guess. I think it was the spring of 2011. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, for a semester, simply because once I would get the cadences of the, the poem in my head that I wanted to write, it would begin to flow. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, um, so, you know, when it would get truncated by a, a summer break and I'd have to put it away, it was, you know, then I would take a while to pick up the thread. And I just really wanted to create some, some time so I could just fully inhabit it. Cuz it's, you know, it's a big story.
Speaker 8 00:38:46 Yeah. Yes, it is. So, speaking of story, I'd like to dive in to it just a little bit. Uh, two of the main players in this story are the, the twins. Uh, let me see if I can get this right now. Oo and Shalke.
Speaker 7 00:38:58 Yeah. Huap and Lanke.
Speaker 8 00:39:00 Shalke. Uh, and they, these are twin, they're sort of trickster. Yeah. A little bit. Uh, born of the God one. Oo. Uh, what characterizes these boys? Why do you think they're so vital to this story?
Speaker 7 00:39:11 That's a great question. And it's, it's, I mean, I think the key word in what you just said besides trickster and vital, is that they're boys. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's kind of interesting that they seem eternally young. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, even though clearly there's kind of an immense amount of time that passes, especially if you account for that seven Macau section early on, it's kind of hard to locate yourself in time. Um, but their playfulness really appeals to me. Um, and the fact too that, that the center of, you know, what we would call the epic or the adventure part, um, is not founded on a hero, a individual, but a relationship. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I love that. You know, it's, it's their brothers, but their friends. One becomes the son and one becomes the moon. There's a pretty clear hierarchy, but the result of that isn't one feeling sidelined.
Speaker 7 00:40:08 It's more, um, the, the, the outcome of that is stability and balance and equilibrium. Um, they're just, and they work very well together. Um, there are a few moments, um, where Lanke kind of is the moon character, the reflecting character eclipses, you know, oo and all his glory and the sun character, um, for instance, when Oos been decapitated and, you know, Shalke needs to step up. Um, so it's just that, that wonderful, um, sort of accidental metaphor provided by the cosmos where the moon is somehow exactly the same size as the sun. From our perspective,
Speaker 8 00:40:45 My younger sister would love to hear that <laugh> <laugh> and, uh, and Lankes, uh, replaces huap poo's head with a, with a squash, which I love. It's fantastic. Yeah. They, they're definitely trickster and yet, and so, so God-like though, you know, so yeah. So, so incredibly powerful, but they never lose that innocence
Speaker 7 00:41:06 And playfulness Yeah. And playfulness, nor do the older gods, you know, I love the fact that it takes a few drafts to get humanity. Right. A God who's into revision. I'm down with Yes.
Speaker 8 00:41:15 <laugh>. Yeah. Uh, another character I absolutely loved was Lady Blood. Yeah. In, in the, in the Tale of Lady Blood in the Tree of One Hun Npu, uh, she is a maiden of the Lords of Death. Is that correct? Yeah. And she ends up conceiving these trickster twins and sort of a virgin birth. Yeah. Uh, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about Lady Blood and why you think she makes such a compelling sort of heroin.
Speaker 7 00:41:41 Wow. That's, you know, she's got a little touch of Eve mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, she's with the tree and there's some strange fruit, but she's also, in that case, if you're gonna evoke that story, and of course this predates that and wouldn't have overlapped that story overtly, although Joseph Campbell might have some things to say about that <laugh>, you know, how far back these stories go. We don't know. Um, but, so yeah, there's an echo of Eve. There is kind of, but, but also the serpent. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, she's both mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, she's the one who says, I will not die. I will not be lost. You know? Um, and Eve we separate out the temptation into the evil serpent, and we give sort of the purity, um, and elements of desire to the woman and lady blood has both mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, um, there are times too, and she reminds me a little bit of snow White having to outwit her wicked stepmother, you
Speaker 8 00:42:35 Know, there's a line I love. So the Lords of Alba, though, that's the lords of death, were defeated because of Maiden duped them blind. Yeah. I hear your voice in that as well as, as a, a little bit of that sort of playfulness again, echo of
Speaker 7 00:42:50 That. I very much, yeah. That was I, my job. I felt the metaphor I kept returning to while I was doing it as I wanted to be a bridge. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which, you know, so in the sense there's a lot of structure I was providing, and it, in some ways it's a bold move. But also one thing I love about translation is how it completely, it negates the writer and the ego. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you're really there, uh, to function as a vessel to someone else's story in words. So you really learn how to listen and read, you know, uh, as much as, right.
Speaker 8 00:43:21 Uh, as the, the myth concludes it was, it was so powerful, so emotional and moving, uh, the image of the animals kind of coming down from the mountain and the, the sea creatures rise up from the river, and they're, they're here to witness this, this new dawn, this first son. Uh, what was your relationship to the text as you kind of dived deeper as the more you got through those five years of the process? What did you, how do you feel you were changed by this translation?
Speaker 7 00:43:48 Well, that's a good question. I, I, it's interesting, you know, I did cherry pick a little bit early on, you know, for sections mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but I did that final section that you were just referencing right at the very end mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think the section where the first day actually dawns the sun and the moon come up, and all of the animals begin to cry out and roar, you know, and there's this chorus. Um, it, and I'll be honest, I found it deeply moving. Um, it was, um, uh, it, it touched me in a way that, oh, surprised me a little bit too, because there is that element in being a translator where you're somewhat of a technician. I knew the story. I knew it was coming, you know, there wasn't necessarily an element of surprise there, <laugh>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and yet at the same time when I felt it had started to find its form and cadence and rhythm in English, um, it was, uh, and it was kind of like a veil falling away. And I saw that part of the story for the first time. Um, and, uh, you know, I remember welling up a little bit and thinking, oh my God,
Speaker 8 00:45:01 I did too. <laugh>, this has happened. <laugh>.
Speaker 7 00:45:03 Well, that's wonderful.
Speaker 8 00:45:05 <laugh>. Uh, so I wanted to return back to this idea of the power of language and naming, you know, as, as someone who is also grew up in the, in the Catholic neighborhood, in the Catholic fields, <laugh>, um, you know, I think of, let There be Light, I think of this mm-hmm. <affirmative>, this declaration of presence, and then suddenly the world is, and I thought the choices of the framer and the shaper mm-hmm. <affirmative> naming the gods in that way was really interesting. Could you talk a little bit about the framer and the shaper, and did you choose those words? Was that a Transla translation? Well, they're,
Speaker 7 00:45:35 They're pretty straight translation. Pretty straight translation from pk I would say. I mean, um, a number of people have used those. There are obviously, there's many translations of this that are scholarly. This is the first one that's inverse. Right. That was the thing that set it apart. And I was also very much trying to just put foreground that really good story element. So it was lucid, basically, so someone could just lie down in a hammock and read it, and without the scholarly footnotes and having to be a may or an anthropologist or anything. Right. Um, and I think that the, um, you know, the feeling underneath that was approaching it as a reader, as a poet, but also as a teacher. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Um, does that answer your
Speaker 8 00:46:19 Question? Yeah, I think so. Uh, the, the language was so, so vivid, so eic, um, the each, each translation, you know, I, I can feel the sort of, the ancient wisdom that comes out of it, the, the sense that these words have existed for a very long time mm-hmm. <affirmative> from the, the point of origin, certainly. But, you know, who knows maybe even before that <laugh>.
Speaker 7 00:46:40 Yeah. Well, and Framer and Shaper are nice too, because they imply that there was already something there. Yeah. I think that, um, God of Genesis that you're evoking, they're, it's actually ambiguous synt, tactically if you go back and look, you know. Um, but there's no doubt that the Mayan gods were working with materials that already there. They were much more artists than the magic trick where it was something from nothing. Mm-hmm. Um, and that too, I think, resonates with anyone who is using language to cry and create a reality. There's a long legacy of that before you, and you need to kind of, you know, take that into account,
Speaker 8 00:47:20 Kind of honor it, I think. Yeah. Uh, you say in your introduction that the myth unhinges from linear progression, which is something that I've been focused on in my own writing, this idea that, uh, the story circles back on itself over and over again, each time rewriting itself just a little bit each time, adding new detail, uh, focusing more on, on emotions and these tropes. And what was it like to sort of deconstruct that, that complex narrative to, to tell it in a way, like you said, you could read it while lying on a hammock, you know, it was, it was easy to understand, and yet it was so complex at the same time.
Speaker 7 00:47:55 Yeah. It, it helps not to think about it too much.
Speaker 8 00:47:58 Yeah.
Speaker 7 00:47:58 Yeah. Uh, cuz there is that kind of, you know, sliding doors or memento element to it, where if you start to look at the linear chronology, and yet at the same time it reminded me, kind of, of the Arabian Knights, how Shaha will be into a story, and then a character inside that story will begin to tell a story. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you get interrupted and that story's nested, and then one will be nested in that. And so there's this Russian doll construction where you get into kind of the center story and then have to find your way back out. So we begin with the creation of the world, and then a few drafts of humanity, and then we get this pretender who's kind of in this dim light of a pre dawn world mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then the hero twins come in and deal with him.
Speaker 7 00:48:40 Then we're like, well, where did they come from? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then we suddenly are like, well, here are their fathers, what happened to them? And it's like, oh, and here's how the boys were born. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and, you know, we go through all of that until we come somehow out the other end of like, oh, now they've become the sun and the moon. And it's like, when did seven Mak happen? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, like, what? It's hard to tell, you know. And of course, once the sun and the moon raise and true humans are created, um, out of corn, it turns out that was the secret ingredient. I love that
Speaker 8 00:49:11 <laugh> just took a little bit of ma water,
Speaker 7 00:49:13 That's all. Um, and then true humans are made. They're able to speak intelligently and mirror back the names of their creators and their gratitude for being created. So they, they use language and the way that it's meant to be used. Um, and suddenly we're back in that first story again and it's finally finished. Yeah.
Speaker 8 00:49:34 Uh, would you like to read a couple more minutes of a passage? Sure. In the people room? Sure. Thank
Speaker 7 00:49:39 You. Uh, do you have a preference? We could look at lady blood or we
Speaker 8 00:49:44 Could just, I would love to look at lady blood. Okay. <laugh>, uh,
Speaker 7 00:49:49 This then is the story of a maiden, the daughter of the Lord named gathered blood. I do just, I'm gonna interrupt for a second, because names like gathered blood and pus and flying scab, you know, they're pretty irresistible. There's something about them too that's, that really appeals to like the 12 year old, you know, comic nerd inside. Oh,
Speaker 8 00:50:10 Absolutely. <laugh>,
Speaker 7 00:50:12 What's your dad's name? Gathered Blood
Speaker 8 00:50:15 <laugh>.
Speaker 7 00:50:16 This then is the story of a maiden. The daughter of the Lord named gathered blood. She was the daughter of a Lord and thus was known as Lady Blood. When she heard the account of the fruit tree from her father, she was astonished by the tale. Now I'm gonna interrupt here just to highlight that the fruit tree, the fruit that's hanging the tree, is this the skull, the decapitated skull of one ho npo? Can't I somehow see this tree, Tibet understand it's strangeness. I've heard that the fruit is truly delicious, she said, and she left alone to wander beneath the calabash tree at devastation ball court. Ah, what is this fruit? How could it not be delicious? The fruit born by this tree. I will not die. I will not be lost. Who would even hear if I picked one? Ask the maiden. And then the skull spoke there in the midst of the tree.
Speaker 7 00:51:11 What could you desire from this? It's just bone around things stuck in the branches, said the head of one. Oo when it, when it spoke to the maiden, you do not desire it. She was told, but I do desire it, said the maiden, then open your right hand and reach up into the branches so that I can see it said the skull. Very well said the maiden. And she stretched her right hand up to the face of the skull, and it squeezed out a little spit into her open palm. Then she looked into her hand, she wasted no time, but the skulls saliva was gone. <laugh>,
Speaker 8 00:51:52 Uh, what were those lines that I, but I do desire it, that sort of fierceness. I just, I love
Speaker 7 00:51:58 Yes. That assertion of, of desire is so wonderful.
Speaker 8 00:52:01 So in a few minutes we'll be wrapping up here, but I wanted to mention in the Adroit Journal, it recently published a reflection on writing a poem, which I love called The Epidemic. And you say, I don't know why, but this is something I think about a lot. The power of what remains unspoken, what cannot be spoken of, silence itself. All of these absences are, I think, necessary elements of poetry composing the empt emptiness that allows the little bell of the poem to chime. And my question is, there's a lot said in the popol, it's never, it never hides its attentions. But what do you think the silence between the lines, between the verses is trying to say, what remains unsaid in the Popol?
Speaker 7 00:52:40 What a lovely thought. I mean, one of the most interesting moments for me is at the very end, once the hero twins have defeated the lords of death and are victorious, one of the things they do is go to the same tree, that lady blood, you know, their mother. I mean, that's the moment of their conception. And they say to the skull of their father, you know, you know, name your eyes, name your nose, name your mouth. They, in a way want him to speak himself back into being, um, and he says nothing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and that to me is such a wonderfully resonance silence. They've defeated the lords of death, but there are things that you can't pull back. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, from the grave. And I think there is an element, that's one of the reasons I really wanted to, I mean, clearly when you hear it in the che, there's strong rhythms.
Speaker 7 00:53:36 It's incantatory, there's cadences, um, at play in it where you hear the oral tradition, you know, that gave it structure. Um, in our tradition, you know, we like to have that white space of the page for those rhythms to sort of resonate mm-hmm. <affirmative> in a way. And, um, so I also was just trying to put maybe more silence around the words using all the white space of the page mm-hmm. <affirmative> and kind of repoing it in English. Um, so that some of the unspoken spaces around that would allow what was there to, I don't know, echo a little more loudly
Speaker 8 00:54:18 When I, I look upon it on the page, you know, the, the white space, as you say, the, the sparse lining, it reminds me of like the cavern of a church. Right. You, you have, you have what is present in holy and then, but you really feel that sort of sacred space all around
Speaker 7 00:54:31 You. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How the, the name of a cathedral draws the voices and the eyes upward.
Speaker 8 00:54:36 Absolutely. <laugh>. So, uh, we're on the last minute or so. I was just wondering, uh, going back to the real world, what's, uh, coming up next for you, Michael? Do you have any projects in the worst or readings coming up? Uh,
Speaker 7 00:54:49 I, I am working on a book called The Echo Chamber right now. That's, um, half retelling, half remix of the Narcissist and Echo, uh, math. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I can't seem to get away from mythology right now. <laugh> and I also, I also have just a collection of, of poems called the Unspoken Joke book. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, where I'm kind of exploring how, right now, I feel like in a way, standup comedians can say things that no one else can, which in some ways has long been the job of poetry. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I'm kind of interested about the Venn diagram between those two worlds. So
Speaker 8 00:55:24 Absolutely fascinating. Well, we have been speaking with Michael Bette, translator of the Pop Vu. Michael, thank you so much for coming on right on radio.
Speaker 7 00:55:33 Thank you so much for having me. It was l.
