.Writers.on.Writing.
Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.
W.o.W. #52
brooklyn baggett
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Editing is gold. Embrace it. Edit. Edit. Edit.
Describe an early experience where you learned that language has power.
I grew up in the deep south. My grandfather was a minister. Watching the congregation hang on his every word stuck with me as a young child.
What does your inner writing voice tell you?
As Bahnu Kapil taught me, write what you burn to say.
What are you currently working on (even nonwriting things)?
I was accepted to the Sundress Academy for the Arts Summer Residency. I’ll be working on anew manuscript that explores the liminal spaces of trans experience as they manifest in all areas, specifically the internal conflict and very real consequences of being exiled from my homeland of the deep south.
brooklyn baggett (she/her) is a trans poet and artist living in New York City. She holds an MFA from Goddard College and teaches workshops on tactile poetry and rejecting binary, cishet norms in writing. Her work has appeared in Impossible Archetype, The Pitkin Review, Big Muddy, and River Styx, among others. brooklyn is dedicated to the radical act of being herself and lifting the voices of trans poets, including her own. Her work often explores liminal spaces of being trans, the complexities of sexualization, and somatic trauma. brooklyn was recently accepted to Sundress Academy for the Arts Summer Residency.
You can find brooklyn’s poem “Prayer to Trans Women” in Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VIII, No. 1 KINDLING. brooklyn’s chapbook, we cast shadows & other true stories (August 2023), is available now from Bottlecap Press. Learn more about brooklyn on Instagram @brooklyn_baggett and Facebook @brooklynbaggettpoet.