Jordan Thompson - Writing in the Age of the Endless Scroll

0:00 Slam. Poetry doesn't care if it's perfect. It's time to slam. It's the biggest poem I've got inside of She Was a thief. You love me to love a haunted house yelling. Angry blood black nothingness began to spin. This day I hate pork. Chops. I am the master of my thing. I am the captain myself. I've got my pen, my sword, my promise. Welcome to I think Therefore I Slam, the podcast bringing you the best slam poetry and spoken word artist from around Australia and around the world. My name is Andrew Rogerson.

0:40 My guest today is a 28 year old Adelaide native who has built himself a rather nice little following on poetry Instagram under the name JT Elliott. Poetry, if I do say so myself. He's drawing inspiration from music, lyrics, travelling and sunsets, and his latest collection, The Human Condition, dropped last year. Now we know that he's a counsellor, we know that he's a former teacher, we know that he's a Christian. But today we want to find out what really moves him and what makes him tick. I cannot wait. Jordan Thompson, glad to have you part of this tapestry. How are you? Yeah, good. Thank you. I'm really excited to be a part of this. I've been really excited to chat to you about it. Yeah, really happy to be here. For those who aren't already following you on socials, tell people like, what are they missing out? What is the experience of JT Elliott poetry? When people go on there?

1:27 Can you give us a snapshot? Yeah, sure. I think the experience is probably an interesting way to put it. But certainly, look, I think Instagram has its positives and negatives, but I think part of the experience is certainly, I mean part of the intro sunsets. I tried to use sunsets as I can, but it's trying to use the visual aspects of poetry and imagery and then also using the words and put them together to create some sort of artistic piece, whether it be 30 seconds long or 10 seconds long or two minutes long. We're smashing things together and and seeing what happens. That's what it's all about. Fantastic. Well, we're going to get more into depth about things like social media, how you've built your whole visual aesthetic. We want to hear some of your work, We want to hear what you've got.

2:10 You're our first representative from Adelaide, so there's a lot of pressure on this. Yeah. Did you want to jump straight in or give us an intro of the piece? Yeah, absolutely. I was asked, you know, what piece I want to share and I guess I've been running for a while and I was having a look and I'm smiling now. But I think sometimes the other things I write about can be a bit intense. So to start off with, let's start with something a little bit more intense out of my collection. And yeah, I hope you enjoy it. Remember my toil? Oh, brother, do not leave me in despair. My course is already set. I have chosen the path less fair. Pay the ferryman at the gate. Don't be fooled by his wry smile.

2:52 Just take your ticket and go. We do not have much time. I feel a death in my soul. The lifeless spirit wanes in me. I cling to branches when I fall, yet the sharp ends Pierce me completely, rupture this wasted space I take up. I'd rather not have been born. I just writhe and complain. I wither and scorn. I wait for a miracle, but I hear the piercing in my ear, not from such noise but from utter silence is clear. I tried to control the wind, to rid myself of my fears, but the weight in my chest is filled by my own tears. Oh brother, I am sorry you cannot join me on my journey. I always wanted a fresh start.

3:38 I just wish it didn't dock so early. There it is, Adelaide has entered the chat. Here we go. Lovely Jordan. I really like the piece. Almost some like in some of its language and and structure. I reckon I got a lot of curiosity about where exactly you've popped up from, Jordan. So can you tell us the origin story of how you started to create and more importantly, how you started to share, Yeah, your poetry work with the world? Look, I'm not sure where I've even popped up from, or whether if I've popped up at all. You're a mystery to yourself. I am, yeah. It's interesting. I've been thinking about that question for a while and I guess to give a bit of background, I started writing when I was 18, so I'm 28 now.

4:25 So roughly about 10 years. It first sort of started as I guess it's journaling. I think when I hear a lot of people talk about when they first started poetry, a lot of people say it is kind of just like journaling. And I remember, you know, sort of me as a 18 year old, I didn't really have much words to anything. But I found that whenever I was listening to music, I'd be able to use that sort of rhyming set in a way that all of a sudden the words became a lot easier to write. And I'd find myself sort of writing in couplets and all that sort of thing. And all of a sudden, I was putting words to how I was feeling. I first started sharing poetry in 2019.

5:07 I checked that before this on Instagram. And I guess part of that process was honestly just for feedback. You know, when you leave school, that sort of constant feedback is kind of gone. And I think as well, you have that sort of thought of like, well, I can't really show my friends poetry because I don't know what they'll think of me. Like this is quite vulnerable of me, what I'm sharing. Like, I don't know, what did they know about poetry? Would they just say it's good and and move on? So honestly, it just started out as well. If I just share it to a bunch of strangers and just see what they think, we can go from there. It started out as as just purely the written words and then over the years it's transformed into my face being there a little bit more and landscape and using the beautiful Australian landscape to show things and yeah, it's transformed into that. So it sounds like you kind of fell into it in a way. It was like a wonderful pit full of, you know, unicorns and rainbows that you.

6:08 Well, maybe not they they, you kind of fell into. Yeah. When you said that you were looking for feedback, I almost gasped because I thought, oh boy, we do go to the Internet for feedback sometimes. Did it feel risky like the first time before you made the first click? Oh, for sure. No, no, it wasn't just like I had the one thought and I was like, yeah, I'm going to post it tonight. Like this was a long, long time. Me myself, I'm probably quite neurotic, so I can be quite anxious. So it's certainly that was over a long, long time. I did eventually start talking to my friends about it and being like, you know, the ones I really trust and go, you know, should I do this? Should I share this? And they just went, what have you got to lose? So I thought, all right, I'll just do it. It's certainly a vulnerable position.

6:49 And at the start, my face was nowhere to be found. People didn't know it was me. I think I had a different name. And I just went, oh, here's some words. What do you think? It's like a muscle. I think the more that you sort of put yourself out there and you put the words on the page and you know you get good feedback, you get bad feedback. And the more that you do it, I guess the more I wouldn't say comfortable, but the easier it becomes. I'm so glad to hear that because we were talking about how I feel like I'm starting to come out of the shadows a bit more in terms of sharing a bit more of my work on on the solo episodes which people have been listening to. I want to ask you though, why do you think it does feel easier to sometimes share this stuff with strangers than those closest to us? Do you think we need some of that 6° of separation of that anonymity to get comfortable?

7:34 Like you said, like a muscle, our vulnerability muscles are so weak that we have to start with that maybe. Oh, for sure. I think the way that I look at it when I write poetry, it's kind of like a code in a way. If you share it with someone who knows you, they've already got the hints to the code. Whereas if you share it with someone who doesn't know you, they use their own imagination to come up with what it's about. There's no like event that they know that I've gone through that they can relate it to or anything like that. And I think that was really what like spurred me on was I don't really mind what people think, what I was thinking or what they think the poem's about. I was more curious what they thought the poem was about or how it related to them and their experiences.

8:18 Certainly that sort of separation. If you have a really trusted friend who said they're disappointed in you, that's going to hurt more than someone you don't know at the base value. Yeah, absolutely. And look, I've, I've been observing you and the community that you've built and I didn't see any trolls. I mean, I don't know if you've had much experience there, but it seems like people are really behaving themselves and really, really loving what you bring to the table. I'm utterly shocked, really. I, yeah, I'm very blessed. I can't believe whenever I read people just being so kind and, you know, people would say I read it like this and they point out certain things that they liked. I mean, even just to put that sort of detail in, like, yeah, I mean, look, there's certainly trolls as well, but there's, yeah, a lot more positive than negative. And yeah, I feel very lucky that that's been the case, because that's not the case for everyone. Fantastic to hear.

9:07 So your collection, The Human Condition, which dropped last year, it's out there, it's doing great, it's changing lives and I'm sure it was a labour of love for you. What I want to know is which poem in that collection was the hardest for you to finish, and what did you kind of learn about yourself in the process of getting that right and getting it to where you wanted it to be? Yeah, I've got the poem with me. I think for context, this book took about five years to put together, and that's not me. Like every night I was writing poetry. It was more like getting the confidence, getting enough work. I remember I had about 50 poems that I wrote, and I was like, yeah, I'm ready for a book.

9:52 And my friend's like, that's not enough poems. And I was like, oh, is it? And then, you know, they'd read through it and be like, you know, some of them aren't that great either. And I was like, oh, I need to write more poems. There's that feedback. Yeah. So like it was be a five year sort of process. So it it's hard to just say, Oh yeah, he was one that was hard because they all in the sense where I guess difficult in that sense because you just have to go, well, it's not just I have to write a certain amount of poems. It's out of the poems you've written, which ones are your best? And that's pretty hard. Again, we talked about the feedback, like that's a difficult process for you to actually look at and go, I don't think any of these are good or the opposite. I'm like, oh, maybe all these are good, but which ones is best?

10:36 I don't know. But yeah, answer your question. This one, I guess I'll read it out for you. Yeah. Please. I sit in my tattered peaks, crumbled castle, laid waste of fake gold and jewels as brittle as bones. Wither away, O heart, till you feel no more and my suffering becomes mute. Until then, my vision is blurry and my angst replies in a hurry to consume all its worry. I repeat to others what is relayed ringing in my head, what is heavy in my chest. If you are alive then you are lucky. Hiddenness claws grip tight and shreds away its prey to lay lifeless and dismayed.

11:18 Too reckless to say or do anything today. I sort of remember writing this and this was years ago. The idea was I kind of wanted it to be as convoluted as possible, which is not always how you want to write poetry at all, but it was like a writing exercise. What words can I use that sound the same and kind of rhyme, but also don't? Can I keep a constant theme? Can I keep people guessing as they're reading and they're going backwards? Like a piece where they could read it a few times and go, it doesn't mean this or maybe it means this. Yeah. And I think this is one that I had to keep going over. And when I maybe I'll use this word, I'll change this word. I'll change this word.

12:01 I think a lot of the time maybe I'll just like to sort of write in a passion fit. But This is why I was like, I'm going to take my time with it and use deliberate words, knowing full well it's not going to be for everyone. But for me, it was like, this is a cool exercise. And I think someone may potentially like, you know, I don't really understand this means, but I like the tone and the rhythm of it. Sounds like you made like conscious deliberate choices to give yourself, to give yourself a timeline of boundaries and say, this is what I want to try here. This is not just free verse or a free writing activity. I want to build something really, really particular here. And I think that can be really useful, you know, to to give yourself that scaffolding and then fill it in however long it takes.

12:43 Yeah, I think it's probably the teacher in me as well. Just tell me to give my give myself a writing exercise homework. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about trolls before, but I certainly remember you told me you'd done a bunch of relief teaching. I certainly remember some horror stories of my time in school, of how the sub, as we would say, would be treated. Have you got any funny stories of just or horror stories of just how things have gone when you've entered as a fresh face into a classroom? People have thought, oh, here we go. Yeah, there's certainly a lot of moments. There's a lot of moments that you walk into a classroom and you go on, oh, this is I just need to keep these kids alive. And that is my goal. Like, oh, my goal was going to be today.

13:25 And you see your relief notes. One of the killers for me was like, it was like a 2 hour session with these kids. You're 8 boys and it's like play volleyball and it's like, well, where do I get the volleyballs? Where are we playing volleyball? I don't know these kids, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I remember one time because I guess I was what was I-25 with some year twelves. I was teaching year twelves for the day and I guess that my face looks a bit young. The 1st 5 minutes, everyone was just chatting and, and whatever. And I was just sort of, there's one of those schools that you sort of didn't say anything. You have to wait for everyone to sit down and they all usually do it and no one was doing it. And I was sort of going, well, what's going on here? And eventually I was like, all right, guys, come sit down.

14:08 And they also looked at me funny. And it was like, what do you mean? I was like, I'm your teacher. It's time. Sit down. And like, oh, we just thought you were one of the one of the boys. We just thought you were a new kid. We thought you were ASA Butterfield, you know. Yeah, I was like, no, no, no. And in my head I'm like, oh, I've lost them already. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Jay, as someone who comes from a family of, of many teachers, it's a tough gig. It's a tough gig. And I think the sub is is tough as well because people might think you're a mark. But yeah, good on you for for getting out there. I think therefore our slam is brought to you by the Slam Fam on Patreon. Yes. These are the generous, beautiful, creative souls who help keep the lights on here at Podcast HQ.

14:52 And for less than the price of a coffee a month, they get access to all types of exclusive goodies, including bonus episodes, previews of upcoming content, new poems and musings from me, and much more. To become a member, you can head on over to patreon.com/I TTIS or click the link in the description. Now back to the conversation. Let's talk about Instagram as a platform because that's where you've built, you know, this community of yours. Now, when I think of Instagram, when I look at Instagram, I mean, I throw up first, but then I look back at it and I'm, I'm like, there's so much noise here. There's so much speed, There's so much brevity and instant gratification. And I feel like that is always bumping its head up against poetry and, and lingering complexities and deep questions that we might explore in our work. How on earth do you go about reconciling demand for quick engagement with that kind of more slower, deliberate pace of reading and and feeling poetry?

15:55 It's. Very tough. I wouldn't say I'm an expert at it at all, but I do think it's very easy to talk about the negatives of it, which like you said, I agree with everything you've said. But there's also, I guess part of the strength of it. This is how I've looked at it is am I able to write a short piece and have the same impact as a longer piece? Am I able to write something that's 8 lines that has the same impact as something that has 16? Or am I able to give you 4 lines that has the same impact as 1000 words? If you wanted to sound poetic, I've really lead into that. I really like that idea. OK, how can I be so concise with my writing and deliver it with words and be able to portray my story or my thoughts of what I'm trying, my purpose of what I'm trying to write here? How can someone quickly read that and go, Yep, got it, yeah, understand it, Yep or Yep, I love that line, all that sort of thing.

16:53 So I think the positive of Instagram is that it can allow for that. It can sort of train you to be more deliberate with your words and not waste your words. It's interesting what people sort of pick up as that happens. I think as well, like Instagram is quite rushed and what does well is not necessarily poetic at all. So it can sort of train your other artistic muscles. I guess for me it was like landscape and videos and how can I make a video look beautiful? How can I do editing? What music should I use? That's a really big one because there's certainly like there's certainly I'd say a market, but there's certainly a niche for people who love poetry who are on Instagram who immediately pick up a song and go, I love this song. And as they're listening to the song, they're reading the words either of the lyrics or they're reading something. There are stories playing or something like, and it captures them.

17:50 And all of a sudden I know for myself, I'll, I'll send myself like, I really like that, that poem. I really like that story or that sort of thing and I'll send it to myself. I think the goal is can you get someone to slow down and read your work without it being too gimmicky I guess. Yeah. And look, at the end of the day, you said that there's people that this will appeal to and that's because everyone is here, so to speak. Not everyone, but so many people are here and in amongst those are people who are going to appreciate what someone is doing out there. I know that there's that classic like the medium is the message quote, right. And I think about television and film and how those have been around a while now and we have what we consider to be highbrow or Classic Cinema, television, that kind of thing. The same thing in music.

18:42 I'm not sure if we're seeing that same thing kind of happen in the social media age. I mean, we look back fondly on maybe platforms like Vine and we go, oh, there's these classic Vines that became part of the lexicon. But I think maybe part of what's doing it is that real, just like my my experience, you know, we sit down and we watch a film together. We're seeing the same thing more or less, unless we're sitting in different parts. I don't know, you start bringing in the Internet and the way social media works. All of a sudden my experience of what this is is completely different to anyone else's. Again, the medium is the message. We know it's built that way to sell stuff or keep you on there.

19:25 So it's going to be really interesting to see like, is there some kind of chart out there of what is the video that the most people in the world have seen that's hosted on Insta, for example? These aren't questions we're going to be able to answer today, but I do think about it's a completely different medium and I do think we are butting our heads up against it. But that's part of the journey, you know, let's do it anyway. Let's try and find the people that can appreciate it. And I think I, I agree with what you're saying in that it's also changing so quickly. Yes, like it's not even. Oh, you know, in this decade this was the popular television show. People love dramas or whatever. It's like every year, like there's something not even every year, like every few months there's a new flavour that's all of a sudden popular and then all of a sudden it's never seen again.

20:14 If you have that sort of idea of like everyone, try and keep up with that. You'll get pretty exhausted pretty quickly. Yeah, absolutely. It reminded me of catching up with a friend recently and we were just chatting about things and, you know, we were talking about TV and he he just seemed kind of shocked that I wasn't watching all the things that that he was. And I was like that. That's just how it is. Like there is there is less and less shared cultural language. Do you know what I mean? I'm a bit old fashioned in that I love going to the cinema. I love being able to experience the same thing. I love live music. I do not record stuff on my phone very much at all. I wanna be there with the people as much as I can. So I don't know whether we can bring that to social media.

20:57 But like you said, maybe it's it's finding a way to slow someone down and get someone to to think about something. Yeah. And look, I think as well like connections really important. Again, that's why I've been really lucky is that like I've been able and I think a lot of people in that I know in like the poetry circles with an Instagram is like connection with other poets, connection with people who like your poetry, showing genuine interests. Really a bigger genuine person. It really cuts through on Instagram like people can tell if you're being genuine and if you're genuinely interested in in what you're doing and passionate about it. I guess it's like you would any like small social group, like it's showing your interests and showing your interests and the people who are interested in your things.

21:41 And look, full credit to your community. One of the things that they've done, which is is amazing, is they actually helped translate some of your work into multiple global languages. That's incredible. What? What does it mean to you to have people buy into your work so deeply that they would offer to do this? When when I first started posting in 2019, that was not what I envisioned at all. No, and it's something way greater than I could ever imagine. And even if just two people did it, you know, I remember the first person who did it, I was like, I can't believe you can even do this because poetry is sort of like its own language in itself. Like English is, I guess, hard enough for other people to learn. But I said before, like, poetry is kind of like it's got its own code.

22:26 How do you even do that? I think the best thing about that is other people's, I guess cultures certainly, but how poetry is received and written and shown in different cultures, like just how much weight it has. What's the example? Like China, It's, it's got such like so many poems are it's written completely different to how English poetry is written, yet it's got so much historical weight to it and culture. And it's like that everywhere. And unfortunately, the translations, they're really going to be as good as the original. But even just for someone to get like, oh, I sort of get what that's about and I can put that in my own language.

23:08 And that's why, again, I really like, it's like, I don't really mind what people think, what my poems about, if they're able to even create something from it and go, this is what I think it's about. This is my that I can write in my language and share it with people around me. I just think, wow, all power to you. That's awesome. What's your favorite language that it's been translated to? What what? What sounds the nicest once you've seen the the end result? Well, I, I think there's always, you know, the main ones, Portuguese and Spanish. Great, that's happened a lot that, that they sound lovely. They sound like it's just such a romantic language. It's like French. It's all just, like, beautiful. Yeah. There's Indonesian as well, Arabic as well, like Arabic.

23:51 That's really cool. And I learned so much from people from those areas, just how much importance poetry is to their culture. And I had no idea, you know, living in Australia where so far from, you know, most countries, you just don't have any idea of, you know, what poetry means to them. And it means a lot, I think Chinese as well at that. I've got another account app called Red Note that that's doing pretty well. The history with, with China and poetry is really fascinating. Certainly sounds a lot different to English, but it's the the set, the sound of it is different, but each word has way more weight and way more meaning than each one of our words.

24:33 And that's like such a cool thing to to understand. Beautiful, beautiful. Well, Jordan, let's hear your next piece, I reckon. Sure thing. Some context behind this one as well. Over the last couple years, I realized that a lot of the stuff that I would write would be quite, I guess, negative just because it's so much easier to write things that evoke strong emotions, sadness, I guess, joy, frustration. Like it's just that just comes so naturally. And I think recently I'm trying to have this way of writing. Well, I'll start with that and then can I finish off with a hopeful note? So I guess this is a poem that hopefully tries to achieve that. Whenever I consider how my light is spent, I questioned where my loyalty lies, where I choose to shine upon. They're also blindness Can pursue my eyes to illuminate the dark with a single glimpse.

25:29 I wish for any suffering to leave swiftly, yet I must trust my intuition upon which I shone, to muster courage to believe if a good deed is done. I spend so much energy at night to tame my eyes, to be still, Yet my irises crave the light of the moon. My arms covert the wood of the window seal, Though the sun creates a shade, And your shadow may be bleak, dark as the night, lurking to pray when you are weak, need not to turn around to fight. May you follow the sunshine, may you follow the light. Yeah, no, I totally felt that that journey like you said of of wanting to start in one place and end up on another.

26:14 Yeah, beautiful mate. Now a little bit of a rapid fire round if you like. Now I'm always interested in people's influences who who they've drawn upon. So can you give us 1 poet, 1 songwriter and maybe one non writer who shapes the voice behind your work and and how? Yeah, for sure. I think 1 poet. Something that I really like to do is I like to collect old poetry books. I just love how it's written and they look so beautiful. Yeah, I just love the aesthetic of them. So my first ever book that I poetry book that I ever bought was this one here, Low Lingdon Downs by John Maysfield. I remember looking and reading the words and being like, wow, this is really good.

26:59 If I could write half as good as this guy, that's what I want to try to achieve. But yeah, so certainly his work. Whenever I feel I'm in a slump, I'll read this book. I'll try to get inspiration from it. One songwriter is hard. There's so many. But I think one that's really interests me that has shown through at the moment, like also in the like, you know, Instagram and that sort of market is Sam Fender. Yeah, great. I loved his work right from the start, and he's a poet like, he is a true lyricist, like real Bruce Springsteen, like put you on a journey like. People watching is wonderful, lovely.

27:40 Yeah, yeah. And it's just like the words that he uses are incredible. What's the one? I looked at that before. It's one of his famous rainy and it's in the chorus like usually like the beautiful pieces is like somewhere scattered around in the verses. And to see him collaborate with old mate from the war on drugs, like, I just think that's a brilliant pairing to, to bring that kind of almost shoegazy aesthetic to to his work. Yeah. Big fan. Yeah, that this line, I'm working myself up to a nice warm bliss. All my memories of you ring like tinnitus. I was just like, that is such a strong chorus. Like that's such a strong line to put in the chorus. That's not catchy at all.

28:23 Like who's singing tinnitus? But it's it fits so well. It fits like the the rhyme and the rhythm of the song. And he obviously pairs it with just this beautiful musicianship. But yes, so my last 1. So it's meant to be rapid fire and I've I've gone way over, but that's fine. The non writer. I started writing when I was 18 because of a memory that I had of a teacher in Year 5. And I remember it was a we just wrote. We had to write a poem about something. And I remember writing the poem and going, oh, this is actually kind of easy. Like this is just coming a bit naturally to me. And I remember the teacher, like, pausing and saying, like, oh, Jordan, this is really good. Usually it was like, oh, yeah, Jordan, this is great with, like, most stuff.

29:07 But I remember with her being like, oh, this is great. And like, show the whole class. That memory has never escaped me. I don't remember anything else about school, but that one for some reason just like stuck with me. So I guess that just talks about the power of, I guess one compliment that you know a teacher or someone that you value can make. And was that part of your steps towards doing some of that relief teaching work later? Yeah, for sure. It certainly influenced how I spoke to the students. Like, even if I'm just here for a day, could I just give one compliment to someone that would, you know, make them think twice, like, oh, actually maybe I can do this, you know, something like that. It's weird, you know, like we all have an age where we have our first memories, right?

29:49 Like where it's usually, I mean, for me it was maybe 4 years old or something. So you've got consciousness, you've got memories. But I consider maybe the age of, oh, Gee, I'm going to say like 10 or 11 where all of a sudden like life started to have this amazing like weight to it, for better or worse. You know, maybe it's just part of growing up. And, and I certainly remember my first experience of, I don't know, stepping out on a stage for a little pantomime or, or something, and that just being like a really big deal. When I got feedback for that, I was like, wow, I when I make choices, it actually has an effect. Like I push and something moves.

30:30 You know what I mean? Like it sounds so simple, but it takes a long time for personal agency to grow as a young person, so for you to exercise that and for that to be affirmed in the classroom is huge. Yeah, I think as well. Like I guess talking to teachers, but you don't realize what something really means to a kid because the kid doesn't realize either until it's been and done. Then all of a sudden it's like, oh, actually that meant a big deal to me and the feedback I got was great. Now I'm heading in this direction for the rest of my life. Like it can be as simple as that. It's crazy to think about. It's awesome too. Hey, quick pep talk. If you're enjoying the episode, I'd love it if you could leave a rating review, comment or like wherever you're listening right now. You know how this works.

31:16 Every little bit of digital interaction helps people to find the show and keeps the poetry flowing. And if you want to do something extra special, please share the episode with someone who you think will vibe with it. That also helps with all of the above. Thanks so much for listening. And now back to our guest. Let's talk a bit about your particular, what I'm going to call your visual aesthetic because I reckon there are a lot of writers out there who have trouble with the how of sharing their work digitally. I'm certainly one of them. Like, I am trying to figure out how do I represent something, which is typically an audio experience for me in a way that is appealing and at the very least watchable.

31:59 You know? Do you have any like processes or tips that you use to create a visual aesthetic? I mean, it seems like you're in a perpetual golden hour when you're recording stuff, mate. So do you go and research locations and be like, Oh yeah, this is where I'll do my thing? Or is it just your backyard? Just. Blessed live in Australia really the the sunsets are beautiful. I'm obsessed with some sun. It's the moment, so it's just appearing and everything and it always looks good on camera. But again, I won't say I'm an expert in this. It's very difficult and I think it's sort of you need to access all parts of your artistic brain. Like it's not just, I refuse to believe if someone can write a poem that that's all they can do.

32:41 You'll be surprised what else you can actually do even visually. And I think it's taking inspiration. You don't need to start off as an expert. Certainly when I first started, I would just experiment with different photos, different visuals. And I look at that, you know, there's some of the stuff I posted years ago. I'm going that does not look good at all. What was I thinking? But that's OK. Like it's just, you know, you really have to squash that perfectionism and just sort of like I said, you've got to grow that muscle and be like, I'm just going to try it. I don't think anyone really is going to say any sort of feedback about it, but you can figure out what's working and what isn't. But yeah, take inspiration. Like, you know, take inspiration from music videos, from movies, from other artists. There are some really awesome poets who capture, like, small movie moments and then add their poetry into it. Like they somehow just able to do that, I guess. The hell is you just got to try?

33:38 Like what? What works for you? Like what? What movies do you like? Play off your strengths, play to what you lean towards. You don't need to try someone else's vision, but taking inspiration never hurts either. It helps to be photogenic like yourself mate. Like I said, you got your piercing blue eyes staring at us while you're doing some love poem or something. It's, it's very moving. Thank you. I reckon so many of us need to give ourselves permission to just be crap at something. And that's hard because I'm sure we all have day jobs where if we were crap at our day job, like we probably wouldn't last very long. So we, we build up this thing of like, well, to be an adult is to be good at everything. I try my hand at which ends up with a very restrictive life.

34:19 That's certainly what I've found. I've found that my my own insecurity and fear of trying something new has definitely helped me back. I'm on this journey like anyone else. So just just like do something in the same way that you would do it when you were 10 years old and you didn't have all that other baggage. You got to find some way to access that area of yourself, I think. For sure. And it's all like, you know, what are your expectations? If you're will it, you know, if you're writing poetry to be a millionaire, that's not really going to happen, is it? But if you have that mindset, because I can sort of sneak up, then you're going to put so much pressure on every poem you write, everything you post, all that sort of thing. But if you have the expectation of, well, this is my passion project.

35:03 Yes. It's very personal and very vulnerable. And if someone were to say something, you'd be a troll. Like, obviously that's going to hurt. But if I post something, I'm still going to be OK the next day. Like, physically I'm going to be OK. Like all these sort of things. Yeah. It's sort of like reminding yourself of like, therefore I can make a mistake and everything will still be OK. But again, like, it's there's such a muscle. Like you don't have start off, you start off slow. Like what I did. Like I literally just did my poem white background bang, and that was it. And like, that was enough for me to be like, yeah, this is a vulnerable space for me to be in, but I'm happy to be sharing something. And every once in a while, someone might say something, and that just meant the world to me.

35:46 I've just finished reading the latest book by Ben Crowe. So he was Ash Barty's kind of mindset coach during her prime, if you like. And he's constantly talking about finding a sense of play to take pressure off yourself. You know, that's what he uses for elite athletes. But I think it's applicable to everyone. If you're playing, you can't lose no matter the situation you're you're in. If you take the stakes down to just like, let's find something out, you know, all of a sudden it's like the relaxed body language comes in and you can do your thing. No, that's great. Cool. I want to now dive into some familiar waters, which I've covered before on the podcast, but I do like diving into it with people who are up for it.

36:27 I want to know if you can tell me more. Sorry, I was going to say this is my very much my my Stephen Colbert moment with all this stuff. Yeah. Can you tell me more about the what I'm going to call the intersection of like, faith and creativity in your life? Like, how do you see those two things dancing together, so to speak? For sure. It's such a great question. I think I'm certainly a Christian and it's my #1 like most important thing in my life. And I think it's sort of because it is. It'll sort of play out in everything, hopefully in everything that I do. So if I am writing a poem, like it'll be sort of intertwined somehow. And look at this hit like there's such a history of, you know, Christianity, religion, whatever, of just so much art. Like if you're passionate about something, art is created. So I'm passionate about Christianity. So art about it is, is going to be created no matter what. Because if you're inclined, like I am like it sort of comes out of you.

37:27 And so, yeah, I think like certainly like in the Bible, there's, there's lots of poems in there, there's lots of silence, there's lots of people shaking their fists at God. And then there's also adoration, and there's Christian music, and there's. It's a lot of genres, you know. A lot of genres, you know, history, there's paintings, there's, there's so much, yeah. Christian music these days, all that sort of thing. Movies. If you want to share your art, you're sharing a part of yourself and a part of your vulnerability. And as you're doing that, if something means so much to you, like it's naturally just going to show, it's risky as well. Like anything, like you share a part of yourself, it's always going to be vulnerable. But yeah, I try to show it when I can. I don't all the time, but when I do, yeah, you find that other people also can can relate to it. Yeah, No, that's great.

38:17 And I think whatever people may believe, like there is a space for you to to share that through your creative medium. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And, and for that to contribute to, I don't know, I guess the broader cultural conversation and, and we, we've, there's so many contemporary examples of this. I mean, everything from you to to Lauren Daigle, you know, this, these kind of people. So I'm always interested, like, are are there any artists in in that kind of corner who really inspire you? It's interesting even like Boniver, like he's not necessarily the data that they don't think he calls himself a Christian, but he's written songs about his struggle with Christianity. Heavenly Father's a really great song, a great example.

38:59 Of that did Have you seen the recording of that at the Opera House or whatever? It's stunning. It's unbelievable. But like, you know, what a what a beautiful piece. Just talking about the struggle between, you know, he means relationship with God. There's certainly lots of Christians artists out there. Like the one that does come to mind is Justin Bieber. He's written some songs about it. And again, it's more just him showing that vulnerability, that side of him. And it's like, well, that music is coming from him. I don't know if that's really from the label or anything like that. So just the ability that he's able to do that, like that's pretty daring because I don't think many people would respond to it very well. Yeah, you too, obviously is a great example. I'm sure there's more.

39:39 I can't think of any at the moment, but yeah, it's very brave religion or anything that you know that is vulnerable to them to be able to share that. I guess if anything, you know, my own faith journey has led me to value earnestness in people, like wherever they're at. Yeah, when you see someone in a moment of genuine questioning anguish about the big things about life. Like what, what are you gonna do in that moment? How are you gonna respond? And I'm so drawn to try and meet those people where they're at because I know what that feels like. And again, we we see that through faith inspired art and literature throughout history. So to be able to be a small part of that or whatever I think is is, is really cool.

40:25 Yeah, absolutely. Let's look towards the future. Now what? What are you currently kind of working on? Is there a second book in the process or have you got the the foot off the off the accelerator at the moment? What's what's happening? It's it's tricky because sort of like we mentioned, like Instagram and social media is such a machine. If you don't keep up with it, then you know, you do get left behind a little bit. But I think for the moment, there's certainly a book, There's certainly another book that's coming. The last one took five years, this one may take 4. Like I may have speed up a little bit, but it's still, you know, such a process. But that's that you like I said, it's a passion project, so I'm more than happy to do that. I have this other the I guess that red note account that's doing well as well.

41:09 So being able to share that in a completely different country is really cool. But I think for myself, honestly, the thing that I'm telling myself more is like, I need to be more disciplined with writing. Like I need to separate myself from sharing sometimes and just get back to, you know, why did you start writing to begin with? What was the purpose for it and sort of finding that enjoyment of the process again? And I think that's like, you'll hear so many artists say that, like, it's pretty cliche, but it's amazing how true it is. You just get lost in this world of, Oh my God, I got a post three times this week. I got to make sure a post is done, exhaust, all that sort of thing, exhort and life gets busy and you just go, well, what's more important? It's like we're finding that love and that passion and or even, you know, the days I'm like, I'm not, I don't want to write a poem, but it's like I'm going to sit myself with music for 10 minutes and just write whatever. Like all of a sudden it's the like journaling. Like I feel great afterwards.

42:10 Yeah, like a deliberate practice that allows you that longevity to be like, OK, it's it. We're not trying to post 3 * a week. We're going to post once a month for 20 years or something or or even not making that many plans, just saying what what happens. I think that's that's super important. Jordan, I want to invite you now into the overarching creative metaphor that we've been using for Season 3. I want to know if your creative work is like a colour or a shade on the colour spectrum. What is it and why? I think to continue the theme of what my Instagram looks like at the moment, it it'll be sunset Orange, I guess is, is what I would, I would say or brown.

42:53 I kind of like brown because it's like I, I try to put a mix of everything in my life. You put all the colours together and, and it turns into brown. But there's a beauty in brown. Like it's one of my favorite colours. So I quite like it. But yeah, certainly the sunset orange. I just, I can, I can stare at that for a long time. I thought you might have something like that, so we'll say it's Sunset orange or Golden Rod or yeah, whatever you want. To yeah, that's yeah. Fantastic. Now we turn our attention to the segment shamelessly ripped off Diary of a CEO. We call it Diary of a POET. You've been left a question from my previous guest. So Jordan, this comes from Alyssa Pacheco, who asks, what is your secret ingredients to conjuring up or tapping into your creative essence?

43:40 What's your What's your your salt Bay that you put on the top? Yeah, it's nothing fancy. I've mentioned it before. I literally will sit myself in a room and I will play the saddest music I have possible and I will just start writing and just start going. What am I feeling? What's going on in my brain? What am I stressed about? And then by the end of it, I try to come up with a bit more lighthearted, like what do I find beautiful? Like the sunsets, the the landscape, what are the things I'm enjoying? It's sort of going through that cathartic process of I'm struggling with this. I'm going to sit and be emotional with the music and any sort of song that builds, I'm a sucker for. So Boniver fits perfectly with that. Death gap for Cutie maybe?

44:25 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Literally just force. Like you just have to force yourself. What I'm hearing is like not isolation, but solitude, right? Solitude. And obviously your love of music shines through people who might hear that and go, oh, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I could do that, that honestly, this sounds like such a healthy way of processing emotion, you know, healthier than than doing some compulsive whatever that that turns off, you know, your frontal lobe or whatever. That sounds like, like like heaven. That sounds great. Yeah, yeah. Like I won't be sitting in the room for 24 hours doing it, No. No, of course not. It's just one part of your life. That's right. And you allow yourself to feel the emotion of what's going on. You'll be surprised what's coming out as you're riding. And then by the end you go, all right, what do I, what am I enjoying?

45:14 What am I thankful for? And I can write about that, Write a poem about that. Right. Do you? Do you own a typewriter? Yes, O in two. You own 2. Tell us what models like what's what's on there? I wouldn't be able to tell you the models. I just, I like the look of them. But the old, just like, like I said, the old sort of books and the old typewriter are like that sort of aesthetic. But yeah, no, my first one I got I think 3 or 4 years ago and it works. And that was so awesome. And it was another one that I got from Savers last year that I also love. What a find. Couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it, $40. Well, this is and it works. I reckon you could eat off that, it's extremely well preserved.

45:54 Yeah, I couldn't believe it when I saw it. And yeah, literally $40 and I thought I must have it and then I didn't expect it to work. Works great. Fantastic. Well, Jordan, you now get to write your own little chapter in the book. That is, I think therefore I slam. What is the question that you're leaving for my next guest sight unseen? Yes. The question is, does poetry evoke emotion or is it a result of emotions? That is probably the ultimate chicken and egg, isn't it? It is, and I think that's the point. I want them to sort of go around in circles and see what they think when they come up with. OK wow, the gauntlet has been thrown down. The glove slap has happened, but how dare you?

46:35 It's all come out. You're challenging my next guest to a duel. That's what's that's what's going on. Yeah, that's right. Jordan Thompson If people want to see what all the fuss is about, if they want to follow what you're doing, if they want to buy your book, if they want to keep tabs on the the great work that you're putting out there, where's the best place or places that they should go? Essentially Instagram J dot T dot Elliott poultry best best place to do it. I've got links there which has the book on Amazon digital and you can buy physical as well. Honestly, I'm happy for anyone to reach out. Like I'm happy to chat about anything. But also I'm just, yeah, I'm super privileged and super happy to be on here chatting with you.

47:18 It's been awesome. And yeah, you've had some amazing guests and to be a part of them is such a privilege, so I really appreciate it. No, likewise, mate, we're ready for your your final piece for tonight before we wrap things up. Blow us away, mate. I might give a short one considering a lot of my stuff is short. Here we go. Yeah, this is the one that a short piece. This is the one that's I think most people enjoy. From my Instagram account. Does beauty sing or whispered gently to you? For I've heard her call and seen it's you. So I shall bear my heart for you to be in your neat room. I'll be home soon.

47:58 We can stare at the moon, hold hands in the dusk of its gloom. Short and sweet and simple. Short and sweet. That's how we like it. Jordan Thompson, we will see you in the glow of many a sunset into the future as you continue to bring forth your wonderful work. Thank you so much for thinking with us and slamming with us today. Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Wait, your big sands? What's that all about?