How Creativity Heals Communities

An interview with Amanda Shea

As an multi-hyphenate artist and activist, Amanda Shea’s work has built empathy through local avenues—like open mics, public education, and community festivals—and global platforms from Netflix to BBC to Prime Video. “I think artists are the painters of that narrative,” she says in this interview. “We're able to speak to people in a language that they can understand, but also empathize with.”

First, we’d love to learn about your journey. When did you know you wanted to pursue art, and spoken word specifically?

It started when I moved to the city of Boston in 2006. I was always creative as a child—always writing poetry, reading. Books were literally my best friends before I had friends. While I was also athletic, doing track and gymnastics, on the other side I was indoors and introverted, constantly creating music, poetry, writing, and journaling.

Then unfortunately, because of my childhood and teenage years, my life went towards a different trajectory and I abandoned my artistic side for a while. But once I started at Roxbury Community College, later transferring over to UMass Boston, I met a beautiful collective of amazing people that I can still say are my family today.

We've known each other for almost 18 years, and they were the ones who pulled me out of my shell. If it wasn't for Kwasi, Desiree, Mike, Curtis, Tim, my cousin Cristal, Nelly, I would not be the performer that you see today.

As they opened me back up to my artistic self, we started throwing open mics at Dudley Cafe in 2016. Then, they pulled me in as a host. I was always encouraging other people to go up and share, and they were like, Amanda, don't you kind of feel like a hypocrite? You’re always encouraging folks, but you never perform yourself.

I realized then that I needed to step more into my own art and that performance would help me do that.

In 2018, I went on tour for the first time, but I still wasn't calling myself an artist whatsoever. It was the first time I ever had to memorize my work and perform new material with a short preparation time. That was the most challenging part of my career, but it shaped me into who I am today and I've been a full-time artist ever since.

You use the beautiful word “artivist” in your self-description. Can you tell us more about this blended term and how both art and activism fuel one another?

I believe that activism and artistry go together real bad—without one, you don't have the other.

In order for us to step truly into activism, we have to experience the world. And as the great Nina Simone has said, it's our duty as artists to reflect the times in which we live.

If you're paying attention to the outside world, you will see the boxes, the labels, the discrimination, the systematic institutions that are set up for people to be disadvantaged and impoverished.

Here in the city of Boston, it’s hard to not pay attention to what's going on considering we have food scarcity, inflation, and gentrification. We have budget cuts to education which I’ve seen as an educator in the public schools.

As a black queer woman, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about my experiences and what I see my community facing around me.

The personal is political—it’s not a thin line. It's hard to not choose a side: these things have been happening since early in the city’s history, and we have to do something about it.

I think artists are the painters of that narrative. We're able to speak to people in a language that they can understand, but also empathize with.

In your work, art acts as both an internal and external transistor: facilitating healing within both the self and the community. How do you see poetry specifically as a mediator?

I think once we heal ourselves, we are also healing our community as we become better people within it. We're understanding that other people are also hurting, facing trauma and adversities in the same ways that we have.

I don't think artists go around thinking, I'm doing this work for everyone else all the time. Instead, that’s a happenstance if you're truly doing the work. And when I say truly doing the work, I'm not saying that poetry has to be about larger issues all the time. However, going back to the idea of the personal as political, when you're paying attention to how outside factors affect you internally, you start to realize how we're really one in the same. 

Poetry is really about sharing knowledge: it’s an education full of wisdom and healing mechanisms. Poets are able to articulate feelings, and at their minimum, emotions are something anybody can relate to no matter their race, gender identification—no matter who you are in this world. The one thing that’s for certain is everyone has emotions: anyone can understand what rage feels, what sadness feels, what despair feels like.

So discussing those emotions and taking the personal out of it in a sense, where it's not a blame game or you should or telling people what to do, it's giving people an invitation to experience what you felt to trigger or hopefully ignite something in them that allows them to feel the same way and or at the same time, dig deep into something that they might have repressed.

When you perform, you jump between spoken word and song. At the Napkin, we’ve explored the evolutionary roots both art forms share—going back to our earliest means of oral storytelling. What do you see as strengths of each, and how can they complement each other?

I think poetry complements anything and everything, from dance to yoga. Poetry can be a sound bath for folks just by tone of voice and any affirmations that you may be saying within your piece.

When people think about poetry, it's so siloed into the poet being acapella on the mic.

But poets and writers are storytellers, and there are so many ways to tell a story—music included. It's all about presentation. With an instrument or even a quick line of call and response, a poem can touch people on an even deeper emotional level.

Throughout your career, you’ve extended your platform to help spotlight early-career and rising artists. What advice do you have to help people navigate moments of self-doubt?

Mentorship is really important. Even now, I have several mentors, and not all of them are older than me.

Because we're ever evolving, as is society, younger mentors can help us stay attached not only to our inner child, but also to our older selves, our elder selves who are the next ancestors.

What are we bringing to the table and how are we coming forth in that?

So find someone in the community that you admire, from their work to the way that they move. Someone that you can resonate with, who it just feels good to have a conversation with. Invite them for a meal. It doesn't have to necessarily be a business transaction, build a relationship you both can enjoy. 

The second piece of advice I would give to folks is to perform at open mics. We're all nervous, we all get scared, we're all second-guessing ourselves and that's okay—but do it anyway, do it scared even when you're trembling in your shoes and you're wondering “is this poem good enough?” Go to an open mic and don't be afraid to be vulnerable. Open mics, well not all but most, are understanding to these emotions and encourage folks to respect the mic. 

And again, vulnerability creates understanding and compassion within people because the people who are watching you might not have the courage to get up there and they'll be applauding you just for that. 

Live out loud and unapologetically—there's no one stopping you from being you but you. Who cares what it looks like from the outside? If it feels good to your spirit, do it unapologetically. Now, I’ve learned to run into fear. Anything that I feel scared of, I run towards.

Because anything you fear will manifest. So the thing that you are afraid of will come to fruition because you are thinking about it, because you are fearing it.

Nine times out of 10, the thing that we're the most fearful of is what leads to a breakthrough.