Joel McKerrow - A Poet’s Guide to Professional Growth

0:03 Oh, captain, my captain, welcome to I think Therefore I Slam, the podcast bringing you the best slam poetry and spoken word artists from Australia and beyond. I am giddy today, people, because my guest today has probably been name dropped on this podcast more than any single person. And long time listeners will know that there's a certain magic in that that people tend to gravitate towards the show after that happens. He's also the very first slam pod that I ever saw doing his thing, and for years, you know when I thought of the definition of slam poet, my guest face appeared. From the Sydney Opera House to Nashville Shermerhorn Symphony Centre to the Metropolis in Montreal, my guest has spent the last 15 years on global stages captivating hundreds of thousands of people with his passionate performative style and highly inspiring keynotes. He is simply one of Australia's most successful performance poets, having represented the country at the individual World Poetry Slam Championships, as well as being the Victorian Tasmanian Vice President of Professional Speakers Australia. He has published 7 poetry slash music albums and is now transitioned into a children's author with the first book in a new trilogy out now through Penguin Random House. When I first met him he had a lovely hair of dreadlocks, but they are a thing of the past.

1:23 We'll get into that. Joe Aquero, welcome on. It is fantastic to be here, Andrew. Thanks so much for having me. Joe, so much to talk about. I'm I'm so glad to have just a little sliver of your time in what I'm sure is an absolute packed schedule for you. You know, you're, you're, you're bouncing around the country for the book launch. How is it going? It's going really well. Yeah, really good. So Heist is for yeah, it's for teenagers. So it's not a a poetry book, but all my writing is very poetic and lyrical, even if it's kind of a commercial heist story. So it's like Mission Impossible meets Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for teenagers. And it's, it seems like it's going really well. I'm loving bringing it out into the world. Brilliant.

2:04 Like like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Does it have like a really trippy scene in the tunnel? Not quite, though I do love that scene and I do love with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that this, this old, quirky, cranky, slightly crazy man is, well, he's killing kids off right in front of their parents. They're just getting killed off 1 by 1 by 1. And and we just take that and go, oh, yeah, that's fine. They can drown in the chocolate and they can get exploded and all the kind of things. It's it's great. What a good story. Roald Dahl. Was was a madman and and certainly fuelled the the nightmare fuel of our childhood. Totally all. Right. Well, Joel, you're going to hit us with the first of your three pieces that you've you've brought with you today.

2:48 Is there anything you wanted to preamble this one with? Well, I'll just, I'll preamble it by saying, so one of the major things that I love to do, I do a lot of speaking as well, corporate speaking, keynote speaking for events and conferences is one of the major things that I do and, and also MC ING. So I love kind of integrating my poetry these days in with both keynote speaking and MC ING. So what I would say is as a, as an MC, I would come onto the stage and I would say welcome to the event or whatever it might be. But as as a poet, as a poet, I say this moment is an invitation. It is an offering, holding out its hand before you, beckoning you to slow down, exhale, Breathe into this, Lean into this. See, my fear is that you'll miss it. Blink and you'll skip it.

3:44 Disregard it, not notice. Get on with your day. Like, well, like nothing has changed. As somebody once said, is it possible that we can live our whole lives and never really meet the person who is living that life? Is it possible you've lived your whole life and never met the person who is living that life? But what if? What if right now, in the words that are spoken, in the wisdom that is shared in the stories laid bare, What if this was a moment for you to meet yourself again, greet yourself again, a seed planted again into the depth of who you are? For if something is germinating inside us, then entropy and our apathy shall not define us.

4:33 What I am saying is, if you let it, this moment may just blow the dust from your veins. It may change the way you see this world. It may give you new eyes by which you see yourself. If you let it. If you let it, this moment, the present, may be the moment that your life changes. Should you give yourself here now, when everything in life wants to take you away from here now? Come with open hands and embrace the moment like it was a lover, like it was your father, like it was your child, like it was someone who meant everything to you. This moment is an offering, and it is stirring the ache that is inside you for something more, for something else, for something bigger, for something larger than you ever thought this moment could be.

5:38 That is the offering of today. Oh, that's. What I'm talking about that is that is the Joel Mccaro MC Magic. Oh, I've got I've got goosebumps, my friend. Now. Now, Joel, I first came across your pathway way back in 2011. You were, you were lecturing or you were guest lecturing at like a theological college that I was studying at at the time. We can get a bit more to that later, but I know that you've crossed the paths of many former guests on the show. Ren Rapture spoke about you. John and Glaze also spoken about you. One of the most humbling things when when I've performed is that a friend of mine very kindly said, Hey, you kind of sound like Joe Mccaro when you.

6:28 It was very, very nice to hear. And so I'm wondering I didn't tell you I was going to do this job, but would you human me? I would love to show you my my refined impression of you. Is that OK? I would love it. I love seeing people's impression of me. That sounds crazy. OK, OK. I mean this with love. They say, you know, imitation's the sincerest form of flattery. So I'm going to do a short little excerpt from a a piece that you wrote called for tomorrow. So here's my Joel Makero, everyone. I met a man who saw the world differently so I sat cross legged at his feet and he told me remember the past but cast your eyes forward for tomorrow our hope shall be allowed a voice than our apathy.

7:13 Our apathy shall finally take a step forward and our steps forward shall lead us somewhere, mean us something. The whole demeaning like friends hold each other crying. I am crying for this world to change. Tears of empathy, sometimes apathy. I cry today for Tomulo. Even these tears shall be wiped from our faces. Lift your cheeks. Though they are wet, there is one who shall collect them. Yet hold them in his hands and call it the ocean. Beautiful my beautiful I. Think that was hilarious? I've been wanting to show you that for a while, so I thought I'd I love it. But you know what, it also speaks to the fact that for all of us and for any of your listeners who are beginning in the poetry scene and beginning to figure out their voice, the way we work out our voice, I think it's the same as like, so like identity formation in terms of how we come to know ourselves.

8:11 We come to know our own individual selves, our own identity through those who are around us. We, they are a mirror that reflect back to us who we could be in the world. And then we navigate our way out of that. And I think it's the same with the artistic voice, the poetic voice, the creative voices. You figure out your voice as mirrors with mirrors around you, the people that you're hearing, the people you are listening to and intaking. I heard a bit of in your intro, I heard a bit of Shane Koizan in there was massive for me at the beginning and guys like Anis Mujgani and a whole lot of other different poets that I absolutely emulated because I think it was my way to find my voice, my way to go.

8:51 Oh, this is the kind of sound that I want to have. So I don't think we should run away from that. I think we should embrace it all the way to When you're doing it in for Tomorrow poem that I had written many years ago. For sure. And look, you can't imitate something without it being distinct. You know what I mean? You know you and and you know you, you've just been so distinct for for so long that yeah, I thought I'd, I'd share the love there. So yes, cross paths in 2011 stuck in my head, but I'm sure there's, there's a story even before that time. So what is kind of your origin story of starting to to create and share your work on stage? Yeah, yeah.

9:33 So it's probably in two moments my my poetic origin story of just on the page. I mean, I'd written and stuff during high school and that kind of thing. But then it was a number of years. It was just a few years out of high school. It was quite a full onstroke. I was over on the border of Thailand and Burma doing some work in an orphanage for kids who have been had a kind of escaped across the border out of Myanmar, out of Burma. Many of them seen their their families killed, their tribes wiped out by the military dictatorship that happened over there. And I arrived at this orphanage the same time with a group of people, the same time as his mother arrived with a sick baby boy on her back and trying to find medical attention for that baby boy. She was from Burma.

10:15 And as she arrived, she realised that that her baby boy had just died on her back. And my obviously screaming, wailing, weeping mother, the worst moment in her life. I was given a, a shovel by the lady who runs the orphanage, lady named Mama Cat, told to walk up into the jungle and to with two of the boys, two of the orphan boys living there and to dig a grave for this baby boy. And so I went and I dug this grave and it it shattered my life. It shattered my worldview, shattered my my faith, my spirituality shouted. I got angry. I was angry at the world, angry at Western society, angry at my parents, just angry. And I remember that night is, I remember that night sitting in a little bamboo Hut on the border of Thailand and Burma and I could hear machine gunfire in the valleys beyond over in Burma.

11:02 And, and I put pen to paper and it came out as poetry. It came out. It was it was my way to take all that anger rumbling around inside and in a cathartic way, bring it out on onto the page. So that is really kind of the moment that kicked off my writing in writing in itself. And then a while later, probably a year or two later is when I first the origin story around the the performing on stage a performance poetry. A student of mine sent me a YouTube link to Annis Mojgani, a brilliant American poet, was a national poetry slam champion over there. And I was over here a number of years ago.

11:43 I got to host him, which was amazing, Beaver MC for his tour over here, which was wonderful. But I just, I had that moment. It was my fall in love with spoken word moment. Listening to this, I was like, God, this is performance and poetry. It's my thing. I would, I, I need to do this. And so randomly, a friend invited me to a, to a night in Melbourne. I kind of remember what night it was one of the poetry nights that slammed poetry nights that happened in Melbourne the week after. And I went along and Amy Bodosian was performing, who's been a staple name in, in the slam, in the poetry scene in Melbourne for many, many years. And she was performing and A and a bunch of others.

12:23 And I just fell in love with her. So the next week I got up and performed and started performing all the time and started doing, going into the competitions, doing really well, etcetera, etcetera. But yeah, they're kind of my my starting moments. Bran. Bran and like so many origin stories that have been shared, you know, the the ability to take something an experience that was obviously so dark and and such a paradigm shift for you and to turn it into something again, so distinct and and full of life. And that is being such a gift to, you know, I want to say like a whole generation of Melbourne's kind of slam poets as we as we come through and find our voices is wonderful. So so thank you for for sharing that with this job.

13:07 I'm curious, you know, we, we find ourselves in this age where attention spans, you know, they're getting shorter and us creatives, when we share stuff, we're not just kind of competing for space with other human writers, but also like machine writers. Now I'm just wondering, what do you think makes spoken word poetry like, so powerful and enduring and relevant as a medium today, even though things are changing so rapidly? Yeah, totally. I mean, even even in with all of our generative AI, we could go there as the as to what almost feels like the extreme opposite of spoken word poetry, AI generated material.

13:49 AI can write poetry. A lot of it's bad, but it's going to get better and better and better. AI can write poetry, but spoken word and human poets bring about a human authenticity that is going to be and is now and is going to be increasingly more so incredibly important in our world today as the riot. What do they reckon 90% of of social media is going to be totally AI generated within just a few short years like nearly all that we see in social media world. So much of of what we're going to be experiencing and intaking is generative AI is large language models. And so now I reckon in this age of AI more than ever, the human craft of someone getting up on stage and taking the words that they have written from their own personal story, their own feelings, their own reality, not just throwing, I don't know, Chacha BT write me a poem about hope. But but dredging out of themselves hope in the places of darkness, then bringing that onto the stage with as much embodiment, as much personality, as much authenticity as they can.

15:03 There's nothing that's gonna breakthrough more than that in our in what's gonna be our very fake world very soon. Couldn't agree more. And like a lot of creatives, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and thinking about, you know, if I know that a poem or music or whatever has been made by a machine that is not being made by human hands, minds, souls, whatever, I'm really not that interested. Like I'm not. When I look for music, I'm not just looking for background beeps and boops and noises, like I'm actually looking for a, a story. Do you know what I mean? So maybe that's not the way everyone feels about the arts. Like, I understand that, that not everyone values it in that way.

15:48 I mean, you know, big corporate certainly doesn't value it in that way. We could see a world where, you know, a, a, a seal of, you know, a seal of guarantee of like 100% human origin comes at, yeah, some kind of premium and, and, and holds extra importance within, within the creative community. Totally. I really, really agree that humanity is where it's at, and that's what spoken word has always been about, the messy, gritty, sweaty human reality. Yeah, love it. To have to have been around for for so long, Joel, and to have such a sustained time as a as a speaker and poet, I'm sure it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of kind of business savvy.

16:29 And I think we see a lot of creative struggling with the business side of things. We get a bit skittish when it comes to like, yeah, that side of things. Maybe it's not our, our, our strength or, or we think, oh, who am I to, to do this or whatever. So that tension, how have you navigated that tension between, I guess staying true to artistic vision, but also building a sustainable career and, and, and morphing and changing as you have into new fields? Yeah, great question. I think for me, a major part has that I've realized that I realized over the years that I needed to do, if this was going to become a sustainable business practice for me, is that I needed to do more than just be a slam poet performing to slam poets. And I want to honor the slam poetry scene. And it, it kicked me into my life and my career and my love and my everything that slam poetry has been for me. But if I'd stayed just doing slam poetry, there's no way that this would be a full time reality for me. And so I think it's been really important. And maybe for listeners who are wanting to take this to the next career level, it's figuring out how can you take what you do within the slam poetry world and bring it out into the wider context, whatever niche, whatever something you might be able to speak into.

17:53 Because in that place, like amongst the slam poetry scene, you are a slam poet amongst a bunch of slam poets who and you'll have nights where it'll pop and things will go off and you'll get standing ovations, etcetera. But if you can bring that same passion, that same purpose, that same professional clarity, that dedication that you bring to your craft, you bring that into. For me, it began within the kind of festival scene and the conference scene and doing lots of work for, not for profits. And I found my, a niche that was separate from the slam poetry niche.

18:37 And I brought slam poetry into that. And, and as I did that, I became the distinctive, like your career is going to take off when you are the distinctive. Some people can do that within the slam poetry scene, be incredibly distinctive, but I don't think it's, it's not large enough to to foster a career. And so when I think of the people that I know who have stepped into the full time career of it, they have found a space outside, be it sometimes within schools. I do a whole lot of schools work or conference work or or with corporates and organizations find what it is. The the other thing that kind of overlaps and crosses over with the spoken word that you bring.

19:19 And I think that's going to give you a weighing in a lot more as you do that. Then, of course, one of the is the, as my career has progressed and as I perform poetry, sometimes it's almost every day of the week I'm performing poetry, be it to corporate conferences or be it within schools. I have to, as you said, retain that that authentic love of just the writing and the craft so that I don't lose myself trying to just do poetry that makes me money or whatever. It's not even, I mean, we know it's not even about making money. That almost so strange we have these, these, these aversions to even saying the word, making money as a creative, as a poet.

20:02 But I got a family to feed and I've had to for many, many years and like bills to pay, etcetera. We all do. And so, but in the midst of that, I've made sure every day I write poetry for myself. So my creative discipline, my creative practice for the last 12 years I reckon, has been to write a poem every single day. And I have retained that. I have kept doing that. And some of those poems end up being the ones that I perform to people. Many of them don't. Many of them are junk. But the only way to write good poetry is allow yourself to write bad poetry every day. And so I show up and I write and I write and I create and I put that mirror, that self confrontative mirror that our poetry writing brings us.

20:48 I put it up in front of my face and I learn who I am through that. So I think I, I think it's incredibly important to do both. Not, not incredibly, but like you don't have to be a full time career based poet. I think there's few people who can do that. If that's what you're wanting to do, then you can head in that direction, as I said, but you can also just do it for the love of it and the craft of it. Totally. There's some rambling for you. Oh, far from rambling, that's, that's fantastic advice. I think I think it makes a lot of sense. You know, as much as the, the Melbourne and the Australian spoken word scene is, is thriving, you're right, it can be very insular. I think it's hard to get the word out about things. I think so many people I've heard say, oh, I never knew that there was this going on here. And, you know, even when there is interest. So even on our best day, I think we're we're still learning how to, I guess, how to contribute to the wider Melbourne community.

21:41 So you're saying that it's essentially, yeah, positioning yourself to take opportunities that that have some overlap or something that you can offer with that skill set. Can you tell us about one particular, you know, opportunity or or place that you got to perform at that really kind of, I don't know, broke things open for you? Or was it more of a gradual? Sure. Yeah. No, no, no, sure. And interestingly so probably one of the major events that I've ever done was story gathering conference over in Nashville, one of the one of the biggest storytelling and narrative story based professional storytellers kind of conferences in the world, right, with incredible people, Disney riders, Pixar animators, Nikes creative team, the storytelling team from NASA's, the kind of people there.

22:31 And I was there. I was there because like this is the the Lincoln in terms of picking up opportunities. I was there performing because the guy who run it, his name's Harris and Harris I got to meet a few years earlier connected to through a friend and that friend that I got connected to Harris through, they had seen me perform in a little cafe. And that little cafe that I performed in was years earlier. We literally, I was sitting around at home with some, we were in a share house at that point and was sitting around at home wondering about what we'll do on that night. Someone was like, oh, there's meant to be some creative arts night happening in Melbourne. Maybe we should go along.

23:12 And we're all pretty tired. We're like, oh, I don't know. And but then there was this tiny, tiny little spark. And, and I've, I've learnt to try to listen when a tiny, tiny little spark happens, I'm like, oh, that's there's something in there. So I, so I'm like, no, Leon, let's go, let's go. So I rock up at this night. I get to the front door. The person on the front door is like, oh, you're Joel Mccarran, you're a poet. Do you reckon you could do some poetry for us tonight? I was like, sure, I'll jump up and do a poem and took the opportunity right. Jump up, do the poem. The person who saw me in the in there in the event ran a a spoken word night. No, not a spoken word night.

23:53 The creative night that was on there. He was running in Sydney the next night said, Hey, can I fly up to Sydney to do that tomorrow? Flew up to Sydney. That person was the person who then saw me that that connected me to Harris, that connected me to to Nashville, to doing story gathering. Literally, if I hadn't listened to that tiny little spark, I wouldn't have got to. And there's a number of other kind of spin offs and things that have happened from that. If I hadn't listened to the spark and if I hadn't been open to every single opportunity and worked hard at my craft enough that someone goes, oh, could you do a poem? And I can say, yeah, of course I'll jump up and do it. What do you want it on? How do you want it? Like what's the what's the thing? Picked that up. And so then there I get to perform in Nashville. And this was the gig, I think you said before I performed at the Shermerhorn Symphony Orchestra Hall in Nashville. This was this gig to thousands and thousands of story writers. And a, a beautiful thing about this moment is I had so my job was, and this is something that conferences, corporates get me to do is to write poetry kind of on the spot in, in real time as keynote speakers are speaking, that I didn't jump up straight afterwards and perform back to the audience that are there kind of a summative poetic moment with this one. I had a they also gave me a cellist. So I had a cellist playing improv cello music as I performed back the poetry of the moment. I ended up in tears.

25:13 A lot of the audit. We had a really beautiful moment. And this lady came up afterwards and tapped me on the shoulder and she said she's kind of was in tears still. She's like, oh, that was so beautiful. Thank you so much. Like that moved me so much. I said, oh, no worries. I said, are you a writer too? She said, yeah, yeah, yeah. I write I write screenplays, scripts to become movies. I said, oh, have you had any maiden time movies? She's like, yeah, yeah. She said, oh, I'm retiring now, but I've had a a bunch of maid. I said, oh, would I know any She's like, yeah, you would. I wrote Beauty and the Beast. How's it are you? Are you Linda Wolverton? She said, yeah, I said, so she wrote, she wrote The Lion King, like Maleficent, this is Disney royalty and and we got to go and hang out then and she she's incredible, right?

25:56 We got to have luncheon and she was talking, she was sharing about just two very quick, I know this is a long rambling thing as well, but two very quick things. She said she, she goes, you know, when I wrote the character Belle from Beauty and the Beast, she said I wrote Belle as, as myself, like I took the best, the best parts of who I was and said, she said she went before the the decision makers of Disney that were old white men at that point. It's different now. But, and she said, if I'm writing this, this is not just going to be another damsel in distress who needs to be rescued by a boy. This Bell's going to be smart and autonomous and creative and independent and stubborn and brave and strong and like, and she's going to be a reader. She's going to walk around the town reading. She took all the best stuff of herself and bought it into her character.

26:42 And then she said when she wrote, when she wrote the character Mufasa Simba's dad, she said she wrote Mufasa as the dad that she never had. She said she had a horrible, a really hard childhood. And then coming out of that, though, into her teen years, that's when she found story and she would lose herself in in movies and in books and it changed her life. And then she picked up a pen and started writing her own stories. And and I'll finish this little story with this. She said that the how did she phrase it? She said what I realized is in my own writing was that that I could write a better story for myself than the one my dad had written for me, could write a better story for myself than the one my dad had written for me.

27:30 And that like, isn't that where it's at? Like that's what what all of our writing, our our poetry is about. It's about restoring ourself and naming those things parts of ourself that other people tried to steal from us and tried to dictate what our story would be. And we get to reclaim that. That was a very long answer. I can't even remember what the original question was, but there you go. That, that's incredible. You know, the people that that you run into, like, like you said, when you when you spend years refining your craft, but also building trust, you know, there was a lot of trust involved in all those exchanges. Trust and the reputation. It's really important. So, you know, Joe, you now find yourself at a point where you have so much experience speaking publicly, professionally, like you said, all kinds of different contexts. I want to talk about public speaking because, you know, public speaking is, I think, one of one of the number one or, or, or maybe the second biggest fear in the world. People really, really detest it, avoid it, fear it in a big way. Most of the world does.

28:28 Why do you think it is a fear for so many people And and how can becoming a better public speaker change people's lives? Yeah, yeah. I think it's the, in many ways, it's the fear of standing out like it's the fear of so much of our life. I think is especially in our teenage years. He's edited and we project a certain version of our self out into the world that we want the world to see us as. And we have control of that. And in a social media land as well, we have control of the version of our self that we project out that other people get to see. But when you're on stage in front of lots of people, you, you don't necessarily you have control, right? When you are a professional at that, you get a lot more when you're doing it all the time and you get a lot of reps of being on stage, then you're much better at. But to begin with, which is where most people are AT and where most people who really fear it are AT, there's a sense that you could one that you are being seen by people and as much as you want it, you do.

29:26 Obviously you're projecting as you get onto stage. For sure, no matter what, no matter what stage you are on or what stage of, of writing and creativity and performance you're at, you're still projecting. But there is a sense of vulnerability of authenticity as well. And there's also the reality that they, there's the fear that you're going to stand out, stuff up, look weird, look strange, et cetera, et cetera. And so I think that is that makes us nervous to get on stage and stops us from doing that. One of the things that I've that I've often said so one of the because I so when I grew up, I was in when I was my teenage, early teenage years, I was petrified of speaking on the stage.

30:06 I'd Chuck a sickie at school every time we'd have speaking events, I'd pretend to be sick and, and now it's the thing that I do every day. But I remember the, the change in it. I, I grew up in church world and I remember a friend invited me along when I was maybe 15 or 16 or something to speak like at their youth group to the, to the, to the young guys there. And I hated speaking, but I still had this thing inside me. At that point. I thought I was going to be a, a big mega church preacher, right? Had this thing is I knew that I was going to be out the front of people. And that was my, that was my context, because that's the world that I knew was, was church world. And so a friend invited me to speak at youth group. I, I was didn't want to do it like petrified, feeling sick, but I got up and did it.

30:50 And in the midst of the fear, I remember like afterwards, this kid came up and said, Oh, that just, I felt like you were just speaking to me like that. I didn't know anyone had my kind of story, the same story, but hearing if it, I just don't feel so alone anymore. And I couldn't have put it in these words then. But what I realized what I have to say is more important than the fear that stops me from saying it. And so though there is a whole, there was a whole lot of fear for many years there. That was the mantra I just kept on repeating, repeating not exactly in those words, but like what I the things I have to say. If I can help one kid be less lonely, isn't that worth the nerves that I'm feeling? So it's like getting over myself, choosing to step on stage and give it anyway, even in the midst of the nerves. And then you do it enough times and you and you don't get so nervous anymore and.

31:47 Maybe, yeah, part of that fear for people might come from some kind of formative experience, you know, where something went. Wrong on. Stage or they were jeered for something or whatever. I mean, we see it. We see it all the time, Yeah. Or for us Rangers. For us Rangers, our faces go red all the time and it's, and it's not because we're nervous or embarrassed, but there was a moment in like year 7 where a teacher pointed out my, I said something cheeky and a teacher points out my face going red in the class and everyone else is looking at you going, your face is going red, your face is going red. So then it goes even more red. And I've, I've learnt to embrace that over the years. That's just what, it's just what it's my genetics, That's what happens. But it's those kind of things as well. It's those moments that that really bring about the fear as well. That's such a.

32:31 Painful. Yeah. That's such a cringe, cringing memory, I should say. It's like someone's having a a physiological response to discomfort. This is the weirdo, you know? Yeah, totally. It's a shocker and and you know, I, I. I'm sure people might make assumptions about you and go, oh, you, you make it look so easy. You know, you look so relaxed. Whatever. I don't know if this is what it's like for you, but like every time I'm on stage, there's always some, there's always some butterflies going on. There's always some nerves. I wouldn't want there not to be I I would want a little bit of that to keep me sharp. Does that ever go away or, or is it still there for you as well? Look. I think for some for, I think it's different for different people.

33:12 Like I, a lot of the time it's not there. So a lot of the time these days I don't feel nervous when I'm performing. There's definitely performances when I do and it's often if it's like a big crowd or a significant moment or if I'm doing something new, if I'm whatever it might be. But because I do so much stuff, so much performing, I think kind of the normal everyday performances that I might do, whether it's at a cafe or a school or whatever, in front of 304050 people, then I don't, I don't necessarily feel nervous about. I still, I have a capacity to tap into the authenticity even though I'm not feeling nervous. And but I still, I know many, many friends who still get nervous every time they get up on stage. They've been doing it for as long as I have. I think there's just some, I have that weird kind of personality that loves the stage as, as sometimes as nerve wracking as it can be.

34:13 I love being at the front of people and sharing thoughts and ideas and and my poetry. So I think it's it's okay to be either. I think it's okay to feel nervous and it's okay to not as well, as long as you can tap in to an energy source. Or, or maybe it's because I spent many years transforming that, like intentionally transforming that nervous energy into into passion energy, like on stage passion energy. I think the more we can do that, then as soon as nerves begin to come up, I grab a hold of it and transform it again and go, no, this is passion. This is what I want to bring, not just because I'm fearful and nervous. Yeah, wonderful, wonderful. So. You know, continual continual exposure, continual professionalism and, and I think you you get there eventually. Thanks for all that, Joel.

34:59 I think we're ready for piece number 20. Sure, yeah. Sure, what I thought I would actually read out. So I I write a poem every day. So I thought I'd write my poem out yesterday from yesterday, which I have right here. No, this was not from yesterday, the day before up in Sydney. And this is the poem. This is the first draft. Remember, every first draft is meant to be shit. That's the whole idea of a first draft. And so it goes, something like this. I take myself away, dream another day, take my frail ways and write them out on paper. I'm drinking coffee. 6:00 AM on a Sydney St. in the flat white morning, bright traffic light in the line up of tired eyes at the coffee shop. He stands before me, his muscles rippling. He's been working out since 5:00 AM. I've been hurting through my heart again. These words again, these verbs are friends, are sentences, a partner until the end.

35:53 Pretend all you want, but I need a way to excavate. This pen is a shovel and the rubble is a memory. I'm digging trouble off a messy me, these frail ways, past mistakes. Like the way I shut her down without her even, without me even realizing. Like the two harsh words spoken like the broken promise, the ego trip, the ripped up note, the leaky boat. But I wrote my way, way out of those regrets, and I'll keep riding my way out of these regrets, digging deep enough for a new foundation ground made solid. This architect pen, this blueprint muscle man is gone from the line now. But the dog walkers have come. And her dog looks up at me and I wonder what it sees, how its eyes are different from mine, seeing the world in a different way, a different color, a different day.

36:39 And isn't this what I do with this pen of mine, these words written and I learning how to see different? The news this morning told me some scientists have worked out a way for us to see a totally different color, one no human has ever seen before. The smallest percentage of the color spectrum is all we can see. So why stay small? Claim I know all I need to when there's a hot, when there are new colors out there to find new life, new memories. And isn't this what I do every day? Take the world they see and remind them of the colours they do not. Plumb the depths of this reality so that normality ain't so normal anymore. So that the mundane ain't so mundane. Strain your eyes to see, lift your ears to hear. Like the dog hear this one with his satellite ears circling around, hearing a world I had no idea if an existed. Come on.

37:27 This is why I do what I do. This is why I do what I do. And as you were saying that as you were saying. That one might be just for you or it might make its way to the stage, but there's there's plenty more where that came from. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens. With that 1, I loved it. Thanks, Joel. Joel, as I mentioned before, you know, I crossed paths with you when you were lecturing, guest lecturing at a theological college. I was starting at some of your lectures, parts of them still still stick with me. I remember a certain quote from you saying that What's the effect of you can't talk about creativity without ending up talking about spirituality, and you can't talk about spirituality without ending up talking about creativity. And that's something that sounds like something. I'd say yeah, yeah, and and.

38:15 That just, I don't know, that just went off like a gong inside me at the time and and still does. And, and you were, you know, speaking about the intersection of, I guess faith and art and justice and and other things that that really light me up. So I'm wondering, how has your, I guess, spiritual journey influenced your creative expression over the years? Yeah. Great. So, so I grew up in quite conservative evangelical Christianity, black and white kind of world of a, of a Christianity had a number of experiences then, one of them actually being that that key experience of having to bury that child when my poetry began. And a number of other experiences around that time and earlier in the lead up and where the the culture that I was brought up in and the absolutes that I was told and the doctrines that I held started to the the firm foundation that they were for my childhood started to crumble and fracture and I needed a way to process through that.

39:22 And and as I said, like that way began for me on the border of Thailand and Burma, writing that poem. And then it continued has continued to be that as I've gone on the journey of trying to figure out what I believe and who I am and how my my spirituality or my faith plays out these days. Like what do I, as I figure out what do I want to leave behind from my upbringing and what are the beautiful things that I want to hold onto in my growing up years when I first kind of went, there's so much hypocrisy in the church. Screw all these, screw everything to do with it. Like and went that way, but I think learning how to hold on. To beautiful things is is really important and learning what to let go of is really important and the creative process for me has been the thing that's allowed me to articulate that it's allowed me to look at my own spirituality, my own faith, my own belief system, figure out my way forward and I suppose take the creative path that I've taken the poetry that I write. It absolutely is both my way of plumbing my own depths and plumbing the depths of something we might call God of of some spiritual creative faith.

40:43 It's still incredibly vibrant in my life looks nothing like the faith I grew up in in many ways, but it's still strong and and blossoming for want of a better word, like it's still growing and on like there's still fire there, there's still passion there just looks really different and than the creativity like that's been the thing 100% that has opened up my insides, allowed me to be present like the poem that we began with and allowed me to be present to myself, allowed me to be present to the divine, to God, allowed me to be present to the world that's around me. It's, it's been everything for me. I don't think if I hadn't have found poetry, I don't think I'd still have a.

41:30 I mean, I would of course we all have a belief system. But I don't think I'd still have as an intentional belief system, spiritual system, faith system, as I do now that I have sweated my way poetically through to come to an understanding of yeah, this is this is what I'm about. So it's it's been everything. Yeah. Beautifully said Joel and. And I appreciate that, you know, now and also in those lectures all those years ago, yeah, you, you were really giving language to, to something that hadn't really happened to me yet. And and, and now kind of has and, and is and, and so, you know, that that transition away from like my heart being into like, you know, systemic theology or whatever. And now more into poetry.

42:17 Like when I talk about these things, I think poetic language is, is more appropriate because we're talking about things, you know, beyond beyond the literal. Totally. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's what that's exactly where the poetry, why I think it's so effective is because poetry is trying to name those things that we can't name, trying to articulate the things that we can't articulate. One of my favourite theology kind of books that I read way back in the day that helped me was by Peter Rowlands called How not to Speak of God, That this, this God construct that we speak of. We can use metaphors for, we can use descriptive words for, but there's no like any word that we use is still just skimming the top of the infinite, skimming, skimming the top of the ocean. And so poetry, yeah, has allowed me to not try to define the ocean, but to to swim in that ocean that is God and faith and life.

43:17 Yeah. To swim it and enjoy it and go. I don't have to have the answers here. I can just be. And I know that you you really deep dived and explored some of these ideas through your own podcast, the the Deep Place for a long time now. I I've. Been really enjoying my listening of it but I know it's been a while since y'all have had any episodes. Is it coming back or is it has it been laid to rest? Oh, it will when I when I have. Time, No, I'd love it to. So I think it's we're up to the third, the third season and I've kind of done, it was like a season and a year gap and a season and a year gap. But now I've done another season. I've probably had a year and a half or two years gap now. Life has gotten in the way. But I do want to bring it back at some point. I think it's.

43:59 Yeah. I've really loved doing that podcast over the years. Oh, fantastic. I was. I was. Totally expecting you to say no, no, it's been, you know, it's had it's time or whatever, but now no, I'm really excited. The Great. Thank you. Thank you. Sometime I'll get back to it. I'm wondering if you had any? Perspective on this so you know myself growing up in in church world as well and being like a bit of a, a punk rock kid, I was loving, you know, my, my mute math, my anti skeptic, my my Switchfoot, whatever. I've noticed I've noticed something and maybe this isn't actually a thing. Maybe this is something that my algorithm is feeding me as some kind of narrative. That's why I need some perspective. But this concept of the the the Christian artist versus the artist who is a Christian, you know, and this this is not a new thought. But, you know, sometimes there's being like contemporary Christian music artists like, you know, back in the day, let's say Andy Grant or more more recently like Laura, Laura Daigle or, or yeah, like a Lifehouse or something. And, you know, they might have some kind of big crossover hit, right?

45:04 And they find themselves being listened to like a wider audience. And then sometimes the, the narrative changes because all of a sudden there's all these expectations that, you know, is, is there some kind of expectation that we're now expecting these artists to be some kind of mouthpiece for the church, even though, you know, they're, they're going along their own creative path. And, and I think sometimes things can get quite nasty when people go, oh, you know, this, this person's, you know, changing or, or, or whatever. Do you think there is some kind of, I don't know if you'd call that like a glass ceiling, But like, how are we going with, with like championing artists in the church without trying to, like, control what they do too much? Yeah, totally.

45:47 I mean. This is it's a it's a massive cultural question and it changes as to the culture. Like I think Australian culture is very different to American culture, especially in this regard. So many of those, so many of those that the ones that you mentioned, except for any skeptic come out of come out of like that American kind of culture, right? That is intensely, weirdly Christian right wing, like all that cultural stuff that is so much of Christianity over in America. It's quite different here in Australia. I think thankfully though, though there is leanings towards that which is scary and I hate and can't believe that. But this to say, I think, I think whenever we put the term Christian as a descriptor of music, like that's just that's more a commercialism, advertising thing, like it's trying to put them put people into a into a box so that they can sell what was in my data, what's called these days. But in my day when I used to listen to all that Christian music was called contemporary Christian music. CCM was the industry was the same. That same made a lot of money because and realise that the people who are running that scene realise they could make a lot of money if they had very stringent protective borders on who contemporary Christian music was written by. Because that scene over there,

47:19 that cultural scene has very stringent protective borders around the whole everything to do with their faith, right. I mean, I don't know, I don't know the Christian cultural scene enough at all today. I'm not part of it in any sense in that world at all. And so I don't know whether it's better or different or not. What I would say is that I think if you find an artist who's just like I, I just finished watching last night the Bob Dylan biopic, whatever the name of it was that came out, came out really recently completely unknown which had which was great. And I thought they could have done better in different parts. But anyway, this to say, I think no matter who we're listening to, I, I would never listen to someone these days and say, oh, that's a Christian artist.

48:11 Oh, that's a secular artist. Such a weird Christian culture distinction. So I think it's just embracing whoever you want to embrace and loving whatever whatever music's coming out from, whatever music you'd love to hear. Yeah, for sure. Just just. Just keeping it simple I suppose. Good stuff. Thanks, Joe. I. Appreciate you. Yeah. Just grappling with the the questions now. You nowadays, you really have turned a a creative corner. You know, you've you've dived head first into children's fiction. I know that you started with a a graphic novel of sorts through through Larrikin House Publishing. My old mate James Leighton taking care of you there. Oh, Leighton. Yeah.

48:52 Yeah, Leighton. Yeah, he was. My He was my youth pastor. Many, many few years ago. He's a, he's a good bloke. Yeah. And now of course. They're starting this new heist trilogy with a Random House, so branching into fiction, stepping up into Public Speakers Australia, a professional speakers Australia, I should say. What has it been like to start to work on new things, new endeavours, and expand what you are known for, I suppose, and what you do? Well, I mean, this is the other. This is the other thing that I that I should have said and will say now to any listeners who are wanting to continue to develop themselves both career wise and and artistically wise. Don't settle in for, don't settle for becoming called a slam poet. You are not a slam poet.

49:38 That's a part of what you do 100%. But geez you can be so much more. There is people who can 0IN on one particular thing and just slam poetry from the stage in a slam poetry mode might be their thing. But even if that's your thing, you start grabbing ideas and and creative practices and modes from other modalities, it can only enhance what you were doing on the stage in that slam poetry moment. And so I've always been someone that's pushed, pushed myself to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing. I started off within the slam poetry scene, but very quickly was like, I need some music with this. Mina Shamali, have you had Mina on the on the podcast?

50:21 Have you maybe Somali? Oh, he's, oh, he's a beautiful man who's a poet and a musician. So I got him to come alongside and then a bunch of other musicians who would come and they'd play music with my poetry. So I went into that. I went into making then the poetry videos. I started branching out, as I said, out of the poetry world and starting perform to perform and do stuff more for others who'd not part of the poetry scene. Then started writing more stuff as differently as well. Started bringing in, bringing in fiction works and writing more fiction style. Then over COVID, over COVID, I, Oh, and theatre as well.

51:02 So before COVID, I'd done it. I, I wrote and, and performed, starred in a theatre show called The People of the Sun with Anna Mcgahn, who was another big part of the poetry scene for a long time. And then started going into more the fiction stuff over COVID. Wrote these fiction stories for kids and that turned into a graphic novel series and then I was turned into Penguin. I'm writing verse novels at the moment as well with some verse novelists. I'm writing more fiction stories, fantasy stories. I'm writing poetry every day. I don't think there's any excuse for not broadening yourself out as much as you can. Even if, as I said, even if the output is going to be your 3 minutes on stage at a slam poetry event, it's going to become better because you play with improv theatre, because you play with physical theatre, because you go to, I went to a stand up comedy. I literally just walked into a stand up comedy night the other night just to be a part of.

51:56 I was walking on the street and the doors were open and said stand up comedy doesn't. And so bringing comedy, like I think, I think it's an imperative for any artist to be stretching themselves out and pushing themselves in UA's all the time. Love that. In amongst all the new stuff, is there a a project or an idea or an art form that you haven't explored yet, but that you would love to pursue given the the time, the resources? Oh, I'm sure there. Is I oh over COVID as at the start of COVID too, I was doing a lot of painting. It became my thing for a while and I brought together a bringing together poetry and painting and also etching the the drawings onto the back of skateboards and did a whole exhibition of those online exhibition at the start of COVID, which was really fun, called Human, an exploration of the inner life based all around the Enneagram.

52:53 If anyone knows the Enneagram, yes. But these these days what have I not? Well, actually I had a really great conversation the other day and was trying to hold it in with an event manager in another state and she was talking about how she a bunch of the events she does. She works with with the well in WA, She works with the WA Symphony Orchestra. And she's like, I would love you to come and do some work with an orchestra with, with WA Symphony Orchestra an event sometime. Let's work it out and inside I'm like, this has been like a dream of mine all my life. I'd love to do poetry with a Symphony Orchestra. I know there's a few of I think I think Luca lesson has done some some work with Symphony or I'd I'd that would be a rude, but I had to hold it in.

53:43 I'm like, Oh yeah, sure, I could do that. That sounds like something I could be into and my insides go, yes, please make it happen, Make it happen. So yeah, maybe, maybe doing, doing performing with a Symphony Orchestra would be next level amazing. I'd love it. I'm sure it would. So, you know, Sleeping At Last creates those songs about the Enneagram and you're out here making. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So it was a whole series on each each Enneagram type I wrote a poem for, et cetera. So what's next for you, Joel? Obviously you got your hands full with touring at the moment, but what do you, what do you see the rest of 2025 holding for you? I'm pretty booked out for 2020. 5 which is lovely. I have a number of different festival and festivals and events so I do a lot of riding, writing, festival.

54:29 I'm about to go up soon to Sydney Riders Festival. I'm hosting, speaking and hosting all the primary school days for that. And then I have another literary festival, Words on the Waves, and I've got ASLA, which is the Australian School Librarian Association. Then I'm up in Cairns for the Cairns Tropical Innovation Festival, where I'm speaking about creativity and innovation. Yeah, which will be fun. I'm heading over. Actually, I'm heading over. I just got invited back to Story Gathering. So I'm heading over to America later this year for two conferences for Promoting Passion Conference, this incredible photography creativity gathering, and then we'll stick around for a week and then go to Story Gathering in Nashville again.

55:13 So super excited to be back at that. I'm doing the Dymocks, Dymocks Children's Charity Festival. I'm doing Once Upon a Once Upon a festival as a schools literary festival in Adelaide. I'm doing tons and tons of schools. So lots, lots and lots, which is the way that I like it. I'm doing lots and I'm also writing lots. So I'm, I'm the kind of crazy person who has like 10 different projects on at the same time. I've got my own verse novel trilogy that I'm writing at the moment. I'm writing a verse novel with a wonderful verse novelist who won the CBCA, which is the Children's Book Book Council of Australia award last year, the year before for her verse novel Grace Notes.

55:57 So we're doing a, we're doing a collaborative thing together. I've got a fantasy series trilogy that I'm writing and pitching to Penguin soon. I've got another series as well. So I'm, I'm constantly all the things is the answer. I love being busy. I love creating. I love being as prolific as I can. I, I get up at 6:00 AM most mornings that I write and I write and I write and if I, if I don't have anything on that day, I'll just keep on writing until the day ends. I love it mate, it's so. Great to hear that, that you're so full of vitality and and that's, you know, success is coming your way. It's it's so well deserved.

56:41 And yeah, good on you for for getting back into Nashville. I know a lot of people are kind of opting out of going to the US at the moment, but you're. Yeah, that's a little weird. Yeah. That's doing that. No. Well, there's a part of me that's. Like, oh shit, is it gonna, is it? Will I? Hopefully it'll be fine. Who knows? Yeah, watch out for ice when you get there. You'll be right. Yeah, that's right. Now coming to kind of the pointy end of our time together, Joel and kind of back to the orchestra thing. We we have this overarching analogy for season 2 where I asked my guest if your. Creative work was an. Instrument in an orchestra. A creative work orchestra. What instrument do you think it is, Joel? I think what I. Would like it to be. I think probably what it is is I love the moment in an orchestra where the lead violinist, where the first violinist just starts to take off and separates out from kind of distinctively.

57:37 You start to hear the higher notes of that first violinist come in and plays like almost the violin solo. It's like that, that melody that just lifts above what is happening and people take notice of people. Like it's the one for me that moves me the most that when I hear the violinist start to go there, I'm like, oh, I lean into the moment. My hope is that my poetry is that kind of moment for people that all that part of my poetry are that they're hearing what I do and then I tap into to a certain way and they start leaning in and hearing those beautiful notes of the violinist. Maybe that's that's what I'd say.

58:18 Is it the violin that also? Helps the other instruments kind of tune at the start, but kind of play OneNote. They go here and that's the warm up part. Yeah, I think it could. Be Yeah, I want to go back to my orchestra friends to ask them, but I think, I think it could be the lead violinist, the first violinist who does that too, which is kind of nice too. I like that analogy for sure. For sure. Well, thank you for for being a part of our orchestra. Now you've been left a a question from my previous guests. This is the segment called the Diary of a POET. The question is from Ren Rapture. Oh, Ren. Yeah, you better. Ask it better have asked me a good question. Ren, and the question is. Joe Mccaro, what do you?

59:01 Really want to. Say oh. Yeah, that's the kind of question she would ask. Maybe for listeners. What I want to say is this. When you're on the stage, you are there to serve the people that are sitting in front of you. And what that means for me, something that I when I go to poetry events and poetry slam events, one of the things that we see too often is we see poets bleeding on the stage. And I think in other words, poets, poets going through therapy on the stage that they are bringing not.

59:44 And this is not to say don't bring your authentic story and your authentic voice, but I think it's about tell the story of your scars, not of your open wounds. If you're in the midst of an open wound kind of story, then you don't need to share that in front of 80 strangers and cause 'cause you doing that, it's actually more about you, not about you serving the people who you've come to. And we've all had those. We all know those moments at poetry nights and poetry events where. It feels like someone is trying to suck counselling energy from the stage and from the people there. And I think it does them and and the audience A disservice.

1:00:27 Again, not to say that we shouldn't show up in our vulnerabilities and our authenticity and, and talk about the hard things and the things that matter and sometimes the things that are current and present. But if we get I, I suppose what I'd say to people is that if you get down from stage and someone says, Oh yeah, well, that was an average piece of poetry. If that shatters you, then you've shared something too quickly. Like hold on to it and let it percolate. Let it be, let it be for you. Like do your writing for you and then offer it as a gift to this world. Do the the therapeutic cathartic work that that writing gives us, but don't demand your audience to be a counselor for you.

1:01:15 Absolutely. I mean that. It's very wise and it's very similar to something Johnny Glazos and myself discussed on on his episode as well. Yeah, just feeling a bit of a sense of sense of responsibility to, to care for the audience and not leave them in a space where they feel like they have to carry you, experiencing something with you or being carried. Yeah. Yeah, that's a beautiful way. Very good. And. That's that's that's my answer to Ren's question. Absolutely, it's a good one. Joe, you now have the responsibility, nay, the honor, nay, the responsibility to leave a question for the next guest sight unseen. So what do you want to ask? Oh. What should I ask? Has there been a moment where you have felt like things are falling apart or have fallen apart and it's looked dire, it's looked down, it has not looked good, whether it's in performance or in in just in life in general, and something has turned that around.

1:02:18 What was that thing? Were you able to turn around? A dark moment and and bring about a transformation of that into something beautiful. What did that look like for you? Wow. Fantastic question and I know that you've shared, you know, your own experiences of, of turning dark to light as well. Joe Macharo, if people want to find out more about you, follow what you're up to all over the world. Check out your books and and all your amazing back catalog of work. Where's the best places they can go? So Joel Mccarrow. Dot com is my website and and it will be interesting for people to check out anyway because I have specifically and purposefully pivoted that website to being a corporate speaker website, a keynote speaker website. So if you go there, you'll notice that it's quite different to maybe just a slam poets website and very intentionally so.

1:03:12 So it could be good to have a look at that. And, and in that you can see there's still the section of writing, still all my poetry videos, still connections to Spotify, to my podcast, to my albums, to my books, etcetera. I'm on Instagram and occasionally on Facebook stuff as well. LinkedIn I'm on these days as the main kind of things that I use in terms of social. So you can find me on there. But yeah, brilliant and. We'll have, you know, we'll have leaks to all of that in the episode description as normal. Joel, you got one more piece you're going to leave us with before we call curtains. Yeah, great. So maybe this this Peace of Mind is an all the piece, but I love to do it especially for poets to remind us of why we do what we do.

1:04:00 It's a piece called cartography, and it goes something like this. See, I once saw a girl empty herself out upon a napkin. Ink met tears, and the paper wept. She screwed it up, threw it down, and walked away. IA teenager. I couldn't help myself. I reached over, took her crumpled story, and I laid it gently out upon the table. You see, paper is a precious thing. It is willing, it takes in upon itself our very wounds, our very wishes, our splotch and splatter, the blood of income. Paper spilt, lyrics slack, spilt milk spilt rhythms spilt rhymes. She spilt this time.

1:04:40 So I leant over the words and studied the contours. This crumpled map of sorrow, a poetry spilt as mountain on parchment, A deep lake and the cut through river, A valley where the lonely wander and a forest too dark, guarded only by the map of ink spilt on napkin. I I found myself walking the edges of her life. You see, cartography. It is based on the premise that reality can be modelled like the stretch of a landscape laid flat out on the paper. For we writers, we are sailors, and our ships are our craft, and the ocean is our imagination, and the wind that fills our sails is something that we know but can barely even name, yet it drives us forward, a Gale that began inside us.

1:05:37 Every word is an island. Every story is a mountain. Every time I speak, I am drawing this world for you. I am setting sail and navigation. We are sailors. We are the map makers, tracing lines of a land that others cannot see, the uncharted and the unresolved. There be Dragons here. There be shadow and there'd be nightmare and there'd be wonders more beautiful than you could ever imagine in this writing, the direction, the way through. A writer and a cartographer, they are one and the same. So come sail with me, friends.

1:06:23 Be curious with me, wonder with me. See artistry where others only see ugly. And you, you go inside, sail inside. Name those parts of yourself you have been too afraid to name before. Come sailing with me, friends, come sailing with me. And as you, as you scribe your life down on paper, may that paper become the map that others need to find their way home. Offer it as a gift to this world. Come sail with me, friends.

1:07:14 Come sail with me. Wow. Joe Machiro, I am deeply, deeply grateful for your time here today and grateful for your your leadership and the fact that you have written a map for so many of us to to follow. So thank you for thinking with us and slamming with us today. Thank you so much mate. It's. Been a privilege to be get to be on your podcast. I love it. Thanks, Andrew.