Levi the Poet is a performance artist who shares his messages and stories through the raw form of spoken word poetry. First coming onto the scene in 2009 with his album "Werewolves," Levi's strong artistry and master of language carried him through hundreds of venues, from concerts and festivals to living rooms and churches. His latest endeavor, "Correspondence (A Fiction)," brought him into the world of fictional storytelling with the addition of music to his already powerful sound.
Levi took "Correspondence" on the road in 2015 on the Don't Sink Tour. He was accompanied by a multimedia presentation that only served to elevate the experience of the album as he performed it in full. I was overjoyed to see the show when he came to The Point in the Bronx in June during the third leg of the tour. It was an intimate show as Levi made us Left Roasters coffee, while his friend and opening act, Chris Bernstorf, sat right next to my partner and me in the front row for the performance.
I was also lucky enough to get to speak with Levi after the show. Read on to find out what we talked about.
What is the process of writing a spoken word poem?
[laughs] My process is really long and line by line [laughs] which – everybody writes line by line – but I'm horrible at drafting things, so I'll write a line, read it a hundred thousand times, get it in my brain, maybe get on to the next line. I'm pretty horrible at, like, just free-flowing my stuff – I'm trying to get better at it, but… my process is hope that I have an idea, or maybe develop one along the way. So, for the "Correspondence" story, I didn't know that girl was gonna die at the end. I started writing the thing and then eventually found out that's what the ending was gonna be, so, yeah.
You recently started sending out weekly think pieces through your e-mail list. How are you hoping that will reach people? Is there something you want people to get out of it?
Maybe – it might turn into something that's a little bit more specific. I've been doing some more, like, workshop-type sessions for writing and creativity and – I think even more specifically – a theology of creativity, so it may eventually morph into something that feels a little bit more academic, but [laughs] it's pretty arrogant for a person who dropped out of academia to strive for, so right now it's just a challenge for myself and hopefully something enjoyable for other people to read.
"Correspondence" is a story that has to do with the sea, and one of your older poems, "Herman Melville," takes its name from the author of “Moby Dick.” Is there something about the sea that you think inspired art or inspires you?
Inspires me, for sure. I love the idea of the sea. It's kinda funny, I hate – that part about hating the sand? – I hate the sand on my body, it really bugs me. But I do think that there's just something magical about it, and I just think it's a beautiful analogy for things. I resonate with – I mean, I like movies about the sea and stuff, and then I think in scripture I resonate with things – like in the Book of James, the author talks about, like, a person can be tossed to and from like the waves of a sea and always bouncing back and forth between things, and I know that that's something that I struggle with and I just think that that analogy carries itself far beyond – I just think it applies to a lot of different things, and so I try to interweave some of the beauty and the wrestling that I feel like the sea captures in the story.
Okay, this is kind of cliché, but who are your musical or poetic influences?
I don't know as far as poetry goes…there's a lot of poets in the hip hop scene right now that I really like. There's a whole crew called "Humble Beast" that's outta Portland, Oregon, and their coffee is what I was serving tonight – that "Left Roasters." And there's, you know, Propaganda, Jackie Hill-Perry, JGivens, and…Beautiful Eulogy. They're all rap. I mean, it's a hip hop label, but they do a bunch of spoken word stuff, too, and they cross in and out of it. So, I really like that. There's a guy called Buddy Wakefield, from Seattle, who's been around for quite a while and he's great. I really loved artists with deeper-lyrical-whatever. So when I was younger, I enjoyed – and still – Bright Eyes and Connor Oberst. I liked Counting Crows and The Autumns' stuff because it was always more story-driven…and so, I don't know. But then I also like really vague, weird – like Modest Mouse. Yeah, Pixies stuff, too. It really is all over the place.
Would you ever consider getting involved with like Button Poetry, or anything like that?
I mean, they're awesome. I mean if they'd take some stuff I'd love for them to host some of it, yeah. I mean, I feel like it's kinda weird because – like I mentioned this tonight too – but like I haven't done a huge amount inside of the spoken word world, and so I feel like there's an entire demographic of people whose genre I'm a part of that I've just never really interacted much with. So with Button, like, yeah, I love what they do, I've loved the stuff that they've put out, I think it's cool, and they're obviously like – like people are super into them, and I think that they're passionate about what they're about, you know. From what little I do know of them, I think it'd be great to do something with them at some point in time, yeah.
That was where I actually looked first for your work.
Yeah, well, maybe I'll hit 'em up sometime, I'm trying to do some new videos coming out soon, so we'll see, maybe they'll be into one of them.
Yeah, that'd be cool. So you just released "Harsh Men" as a music video. Do you have any other old poems lined up that you would want to do that with, or new poems lined up that are going to be done in a similar fashion?
Yeah, so I finally started writing a new album, so I'm excited about that. I don't know when that's gonna happen. Like I said, it's a slow-going process. I gotta get over this tour first, but yeah so I've got that, and then I've got another video coming out at some point in time this year for a track called "Infirmary" that's also on "Seasons" – just a piece that I've always wanted to do a video for, and so we'll see how it turns out. Hopefully should be getting some drafts over here in the next few weeks, but I'm not sure when it's gonna be released or how I'm gonna do it yet, so we'll see.
Are you going to add music to that?
There actually is a little bit of music for that one, yeah. And in the original there's not. So it's kind of like, there's a little bit more…I don't know. It's different than it was when I first recorded it, which is cool.
In “Correspondence” there's references to James Earl Jones and Shakespeare, but it also involves a whaling ship, which is not really part of modern history. But you said that including all of those things and having them exist at the same time “makes it timeless.” Do you think timelessness is important like to all of your poetry, or is it something you can look back on and say “That's in the past"?
I think it's both, actually. That's a good question. 'Cause there are times when I think, "Man, I should delete some of this old stuff that no longer represents me," but it's a part of my story. And I always value when I get to engage with people that are in different places with their stuff, and, you know, there's sometimes when I feel like, you know, as a small business or as a person who's trying to do it for a living to like keep…There's some times where it's like "OK, cool, so Kaleidoscope is like not my favorite thing to do anymore," but I still happy that it was a part of my life, and I'm happy that it still continues to be that for other people. So in that way, I think timelessness like – if you're talking about art, or whatever – I think it's cool to keep a hold of stuff and see where you've come from, and have different things be representative of places in your life. But I also like the ability to be able to move beyond those places, you know? 'Cause I do think that there's an opportunity for growth. I hope that people will be able to grow, and I think that to change means to live, and change is always gonna be hard, but I hope that it's also good as well. And I hope that the world is always changing me, too, you know. Like, I wanna know Him more, I wanna love people more – I wanna be away from, you know, dark places, and more in "light" places, and I hope that that happens, you know? And that's gonna mean change, hopefully.
