It was in the air somehow. That ownership of bigotry. I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid.
ADRIAN MATEJKAIt was in the air somehow. That ownership of bigotry. I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI was always casting about for role models as a kid and the Star Trek was always available via reruns and also full of possibilities.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI was a poor, geeky black kid in Indianapolis. There is nothing mythological about that.
ADRIAN MATEJKAYou should check out William Shatner’s album The Transformed Man.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI was fortunate enough to get a job at my alma mater, which brought me back to Indiana after being gone for twenty years.
ADRIAN MATEJKABut fortunately there are also really excellent human beings all over the place, too. So it’s about perception and balance sometimes I think.
ADRIAN MATEJKAThe 1990s were also when a bunch of the soft-shoe language for race, gender, and class became paramount.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI learned a new language for it all in the 90s. Which in some ways isn’t bad.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI never thought I would type that I learned how to emote in poems from watching Star Trek but there it is.
ADRIAN MATEJKAThe contrasts between the haves and have-nots is so complicated.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI wanted to be like Spock because he was unflappable.
ADRIAN MATEJKAThe day after the president Trump election, I remember feeling like it was 1984 again.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI was just thinking about not getting picked on for being black and not being hungry.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI had to find a way to be more honest about what happened. And it wasn’t fun to write, even though the poems aren’t 100% autobiographical.
ADRIAN MATEJKASo while I loved not being hungry and having new gear, etc. I missed the sounds of my neighbors and the kind of generosity people who are struggling together often show.
ADRIAN MATEJKAI mean getting people to think about what language actually means before they use it is a good thing.
ADRIAN MATEJKA