CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. Through our programming, we strive to amplify the voices of those who have historically been under-represented. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Jenna Robinson: Hello. Hello. I'm so excited to see you and to talk to you and to hold this space with you. So thank you for being willing to be a part of this conversation and share this with our community. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Thank you so much for being willing to hold the space and for bringing me in. I am so excited for our talk. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. Well, I just want to start with I'm in love with your book, I think. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Thank you. 

Jenna Robinson: I'm surprised that I'm in love with it because, you know, the typical book that says falling back in love with something doesn't necessarily register as something 

Kai Cheng Thom: that is really fair. 

Jenna Robinson: But I think that you did that with such nuance and complexity. I think you do a wonderful job of holding the weight of love. And all that comes with that. So I want to first thank you for putting this out. And if it's OK to kind of jump in, I have so many questions. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yeah, let's do it. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. Well, I'm curious, like who this book is for. I know you have a dedication at the start that it's for the monsters who are still waiting to be loved. But I'm wondering, yeah, who that is and what the book is for. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Thanks so much for that question and for noting the dedication as well. For all the monsters who are still waiting to be loved. Someone asked me that recently, like who are the monsters? And I was like, huh, everybody. The monsters are everybody. And I think there are different like species of monster out there in the world. You know, I am maybe a few, maybe you might be a few as well. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, I'm sure people in my sphere would love to tell you that. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yeah. But really, you know, this book is about trying to reach across pain, suffering, even harm or violence and find connection with the people that we see as monstrous in the world. And I think that the deeper we go into that journey, the more we have to realize that the monster we fear the most is the monster inside of ourselves. And so this book is about that. It feels particularly relevant to me right now because of the global context that we are living in. There's so much violence going on. And yeah, this book is about finding, rediscovering faith in humanity despite all the horrible things that we do to each other. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, that we can really make each other the monster which can rationalize the violence that we enact. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jenna Robinson: So, so are you, I'm hearing that this book then is, is, is it a tool to get to that? Is it, is it a, is it a prayer? Is it a hope to get to that place? And is there someone in particular that you're hoping reads it? 

Kai Cheng Thom: Well, you know, I like to think of this book as a spell book or maybe a book of prayers. Probably both. And really when I wrote it, the spells or prayers were mostly for me. Like I was like, what are the words that I can say that will change me back into a person that I love? And that, that's sort of the primary purpose of the book to turn me specifically back into a lovable person. And, and then I kind of think that if other people find some aspect of that in it for themselves so much the better, you know? 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's the power of poetry to be a, to be a spell, to be a prayer and incantation for something that you wish for yourself. Do I, did you find that? Were you able to step into that in the process of writing this book? 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yeah, absolutely. It's sort of come as a surprise. I didn't start to think about it until recently. I've been doing interviews about the book and people have asked me, you know, like, how does it feel afterward? What did it do for you? And you know, for me, the, the ultimate version of that question is, did I fall back in love with being human after writing the book? And I'm really happy to say, yeah, I did. Yeah, yeah. That's what I want to share with the world. That it's possible. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. You, you're a somatics person. So I'm curious, what does that feel like? Like actually, what does it actually feel like in your body to, to fall back in love with being human, to fall back in love with, with yourself? 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yes. It feels like, like actually like, like blossoming or unfolding, like, like a flower blooming inside of me. And then if, you know, if I'm going to get really like wooey with it, I might say it feels like that flower is made, made of light. 

Jenna Robinson: I mean, to get you, this is the place to get wooey. I don't know if you know about CIIS. 

Kai Cheng Thom: I have been told. 

Jenna Robinson: This is it. The university of that, which is why I think why we're so special. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Jenna Robinson: And I wonder like how, you know, how you found the courage to, to turn to that, to turn back towards love and what maybe advice you would give to others who want to go on that journey. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Well, you know, it's very mysterious to me. Like I'm still kind of trying to figure, figure that out to like search inside my body. I'm not even sure it's like that it is courage. It feels so much more like, like despair. You know, I, you know, I, so I go through these periods of time where I'm like, I guess I'll never write again, you know? And then I feel some sort of crisis happen upon me and I'm like, I guess I have to write a book now. And this book absolutely comes from despair. You know, it was 2021, JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series had just put out, you know, a statement about her feelings on trans people, which was very distressing to me. And also, you know, we were, we were in the midst of the first wave of the pandemic and there were a number of really terrible things that had happened in my personal life. And like really awful things, like things where I really got to witness, you know, yet again how terrible people can be and how terrible I can be. And it was sort of like succumb to despair, or write a book and I chose write a book and still don't really know why or how that was the choice that was made. But it reminds me a lot of what we see sometimes in meditative traditions or spiritual traditions of like falling into the pit, right? Or the long dark night of the soul in those moments where we are in crisis, sometimes we discover an unknown strength. And I'm just really grateful that that's what happened this time around. 

Jenna Robinson: I appreciate the reframe that it's coming from a place of despair, but I think sometimes, like you said, people just succumb to despair. They aren't mobilized by it. And you made a choice to turn towards love and action. You know, you speak of JK Rowling, you have a letter, a love letter in here, which I was like, stop. I couldn't believe and I think that that because it was it was heartfelt. It wasn't sarcastic. You're not you really are being genuine of trying to reach towards her or other people like her. And I, yeah, I think a lot of people are lost for knowing how to turn to courage in those moments of despair. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yeah, yes. I mean, I think that for me is so much about commitment and like devotion, devotion as practice, right? Like if we come back to somatics, there's like a popular saying in the somatic world. I think it comes from the Strozzi lineage of like, and that saying is, we are what we practice, we become what we practice. And you know, I really love that so much because it practices not even, it's not reliant upon feeling. I might feel overwhelmed by despair, but I can still practice something else in the midst of that. I don't have to be despair if I'm practicing something different. And you know, that loss you're talking about, that like feeling of like, well, how do I reach for love or how do I reach toward the other that, you know, is my enemy or the other that feels so monstrous? That's a practice. And we get stronger and more skillful at that if we commit to it and do it over and over again. 

Jenna Robinson: I feel you. I feel you and I can see the intention in your practice, the strength towards turning towards and building that habit of doing that. But our society doesn't teach us that. We're actually, we're taught very much the opposite. And I wonder maybe like, how can people, what communities could people be in? What places could people go to start to build that practice in a society that is so opposed to it or can seem so opposed to it?

Kai Cheng Thom: Yes. There's a lot of illusion, you know, in the dominant culture, right? A lot of conditioning to practice defensiveness, defendedness. There's nothing wrong with defending oneself, of course. But where the deception comes in is where we are told, well, that other group out there is dangerous and therefore we should defend ourselves by any means necessary. And that becomes like a refrain and we practice it over and over again. And we see it in every microcosm of the oppressive system that we live in. People are taught to be afraid of marginally housed or homeless people. And so this justifies the practice of horrific forms of policing and architecture. White folks are taught to be afraid of Black and Indigenous folks. And so this justifies all kinds of horrific violence towards racialized communities, right? Over and over and over again, we see this kind of like defensive, defendedness that is sort of pushed into an extreme. We practice dehumanizing others in the name of our own security. And I mean, I really love your question about like what kind of community could we be in? What would be possible for us if we didn't live in that fear? Because I think that is the key to unlocking within our bodies and the collective body, how to really build like an abolitionist society where we don't police one another and where governance is not defined by the legitimized use of violence. 

Jenna Robinson: That's a word. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Sorry, I just threw all that at the side. 

Jenna Robinson: Yes. I mean, so much is coming up. I mean, you're reminding me, I think you talk a little bit about, you talk quite a bit about different types of monsters. You know, you said the external monster, the internal monster. And I also, I think I remember you talking about fear as a monster as well. And shoving away kind of all the things we fear. And you know, as you were talking, I was thinking about, you know, the way that we defend ourselves from our own monsters, that internal monster, the shame of having, the fear of having to feel that shame about who we are, what we've done. We project that onto other people. We make someone else the monster so we don't have to feel it. So now I'm kind of hearing that there's a dual thing happening. You have to, in order to love others, you have to turn towards yourself. And it has to happen at the same time. I think folks say, well, you can't love yourself if you've never loved others. You can't love others if you've never loved yourself. I mean, I think you just got to do both. So on that, I'm wondering how, you know, how do we relate to what is monstrous to us? Like I named a little bit about shame and projection. And I'm wondering, you know, in the poetic, in the expression, there's so much room for imagination and envisioning what could be possible. And I'm wondering what your vision is for this evolving, for how we can relate to that monster in us. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yes. I mean, I think that the poetic, like that poetry, especially like the communal, like spoken word, like the kind of work that you do, like poetry that is really in dialogue and alive with as many people as possible has so much power to de-shame, like the monstrous part of ourselves. Right. Like, and I think this is so much about like what we long for in community and what we long for in the collective, like to be held despite our most shameful parts. Right. And there are so many layers to that. I think on, you know, like a more surface but really important level is the embracing and like de-shaming of marginalized groups that are like labeled as monstrous, even though we obviously are not. Like I'm thinking here about my own experience as a trans woman of color. I'm also thinking about like black and brown folks, racialized folks, disabled folks who are so frequently labeled as monstrous by the dominant majority. You know, I think poetry has the power to unveil like how that kind of stigmatization happens and then bring people together, you know, in the spirit of justice. And I think spoken word poets, you know, like yourself have been doing that, you know, for. But I think this kind of like dialogical loop is something that the poetic can help us to Sure. And that is true from a political, from a political perspective. many years now. And it's work that needs to continue. And then I think, you know, on a deeper level, but, you know, I think, you know, no more or less important is the, is like looking at the monstrous within that is really about how we harm one another's and how we harm ourselves in relationship to one another. I think all the time about how someone like JK Rowling, for example, uses, well, uses, she experiences fear and like her own trauma around abuse. And this is projected onto trans women. I think as well about how she very frequently will make reference to, you know, what are apparently many death threats and like intense forms of like backlash that she gets from the trans community. And I think this kind of dialogical loop is something that the poetic can help us unpack and unveil in a good way. Like it's, it's, it is not okay for someone like JK Rowling to use their public platform to stigmatize and attack trans people. And also maybe it is not okay for trans people to send JK Rowling death threats, even though we might understand the feeling or, you know, like, you know, there's justified anger or pain there. I think poetry allows us to hold that liminal ambiguous space of like what we do to one another in the midst of our suffering in a way that politics cannot. Because of course a strong political line, you know, for trans people would say, well, you know, JK Rowling is the person in power, the transphobes are the people in power. And so, you know, we get to defend ourselves. But I think the poetic realm allows us to ask the question, as we are defending ourselves, who do we want to be? What do we want to practice? Who do we want to become? And, you know, that's a bit of a scary thing to say, you know, as a political radical, but I think we must be radical in it. And I think that, that poetics gives us, you know, so much more space to practice living in the world that we want to create. 

Jenna Robinson: You're, you're reminding me a little of some, some things that Adrienne Marie Brown talks about and she talks about it, I think within the, you know, we need to live our activism in the way that we want to create the world. If it's just, if it's just angry and hard and a struggle, what do you, what do you think we're going to create on the other side? You know, that, that is the practice that you're saying. So we have to live now in that space of love and, and joy and, and pleasure alongside with the push with the resistance. Matter of fact, being loving and joyful in an oppressive society is resistance itself. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Absolutely

Jenna Robinson: And politics, there's no room for that in politics, the way that we have created it may be in a, in a different iteration that perhaps we can dream of and actually create and put into place maybe. But it's so polarized and I appreciate you naming that the like poetry, poetics has, has space. It is so much more. And I, I really appreciate you bringing in a spoken word, slam. You know the performance poet has been at the microphone, you know, at the heart of a lot of movements for beyond, you know, beyond when slam as we know it, you know, spoken word it's, it's been at the root of our activism since forever. And I'm curious, I think you were kind of mentioning this a little bit. I'm curious a little bit about your thoughts about the, the role of the witness, you know, the impact stories have and maybe even thinking about how, you know, your presence like you, you being witness, like what, what impact that did that have on you to share your story, to be in your story and in front of audiences and people to see you, to receive you. I mean, I think in your, I'm giving you a big question now. I just thinking about it a lot because I think in a lot of your different essays, different parts of the collection, you talk about seeing people, you say, I see you. So I'm, I'm curious about this, this role of, of the witness, the witness scene. Yeah. Anything that's coming up for you on that? 

Kai Cheng Thom: Oh my gosh. I love this question. And I'm like, Oh, I'm like sweating. This makes me nervous. 

Jenna Robinson: I'm seeing you. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Exactly. Oh my God. You know, I think, like the, the collective archetypal role of the witness, I believe has like the, the incredible power to pull away like the veil of shame. But it also has the power to bestow shame and stigmatization. And for that reason, I think that the witness, the audience you know, is like a, like a double headed monster, you know, beautiful and terrible in, in its way. I started doing spoken word when I was about 19, 18 actually, yeah, in Montreal. And I mean, it was a beautiful experience. I got like a little tiny bit of mentoring from the community vibe collective. I had some incredible mentorship from like primarily black poets and musicians actually. And like to be witnessed in that community was like, Whoa, I felt filled with light and power and empowerment. And then I became like sort of, you know, trans famous, you know, and like became more visible to like a wider audience that like was maybe like less revolutionary in form or was, you know, yeah, like more exploitative. And yeah, I think, I think about this all the time, like how I'm always struggling with the balance between being consumed by my audience and being in communion, communion with my audience. And I think like the skillfulness that comes with being a poet, an orator, a storyteller, especially one who is working towards social change in some way is casting the spell that invites the witness into communion. Like how can we be together in these words and this story in a way that creates more wisdom that pulls away that veil of shame and deception and allows more truth to be born into the world. And you need both the storyteller and the, you know, and the listener, the audience to do that kind of magic. You need, yeah, both parties are required to create more wisdom and more truth. And I think, you know, what's really dangerous, you know, I think I'm thinking about like the dead poet to be young who says, you know, if you give an MC without integrity, the mic, they will rhyme the death of the people. You know, it's very true about poets without integrity. We're seeing a lot of that right now, you know, and I think that's true of audiences without integrity too. Like you know, the danger of being a witness, like in the witness role, is that we don't rely upon our own wisdom in order to interpret what we're hearing. So I mean, I guess that's my invitation to people who find themselves in the audience, to say all of us at some point in time to bring our own wisdom with us when we're listening to stories or to poetry so that we can discern like what is wisdom and what is not. 

Jenna Robinson: And not just going with the group think, the way that everybody else is responding to actually be in your own wisdom. I love that and I love the idea of you talking about the parallel of being consumed or being in communion with your audience. I think spoken word poetry scene can really set you up to be consumed. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Hell yeah! I mean, you know those trauma porn poems? Sometimes I just want to pull an 18 year old off the stage and be like, you don't need to tell that right now. 

Jenna Robinson: I mean, I think there's a part of me, oh man, let's get into the toxicity of slam. I love it. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Let's do it. 

Jenna Robinson: I've been waiting to have this conversation. 

Kai Cheng Thom: We're ready. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, I mean, that is actually what brought me into doing expressive arts, like being in the slam scene and sharing my own trauma stories. And it wasn't like, oh, let me throw this trauma on the stage. It was like, I found words for my experience and it's beyond a need. It's beyond an urge to share it. It just had to come out. And the more you do that, the more people come up to you and talk to you and you facilitate. I would facilitate these spaces. And I feel like once you teach someone how to write their story, you got to be ready for what comes out. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Oh yeah. 

Jenna Robinson: I wasn't. I wasn't. Which led me to, you know, CIIS, we have an expressive arts therapy program, which I went to and now I'm a part of. And I think what I was steering away from was the people just throwing trauma poems up for the sake of the competition, for the sake of, you know, how hard can I cry on the stage to get to win? Instead of, you know, the diversity of human experience. So yeah, I think, you know, in that competition realm, it gets really sullied. But I think what you were talking about, really the kind of the Black experience, the Black culture that really formed that space of call and response and an active, supportive witness and audience is the important part. And I mean, clearly why it still operates and lives as much as it does, because it's still a part of it. But it can get so distracted because we get caught up almost in the, we get caught up in the ego, in the, it sometimes can be really violent. These things can be violent. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Totally. Yeah, no. And I mean, I think I'm, you know, there's so much about like the ritual of poetry. Poetry that needs to be constructed with skill, you know, like the poet needs to have skill, the audience needs to have skill, the slam master, or like, you know, needs to have some skill, everyone needs to be skillful. And I think slam culture has, you know, being part of like capitalist competitive kind of culture, you know, strips that away sometimes. But I mean, I love the sound of the work you do. I think, you know, like, you know, when I think about narrative therapy in particular, right, like we have like the client and then you have also like the witness and you have the therapist, right. And like, there's three people or three points in the triangle that are like mediating the story that is being told. And I mean, I, you know, the slam scene here in Canada kind of collapsed like a while ago for a lot of reasons. Some of it was like kind of what you're talking about now. And we have this opportunity to, you know, create a new one. And there's been some incredible conversation, you know, between, you know, veteran poets and organizers of the scene here, some of whom are also pursuing like expressive arts therapy now as like kind of a way to learn more about like, how do we, how do we create this? Like, how do we teach people to tell a story in a way that is about like going through the arc, like of their process, right? And how do we facilitate audiences to be reflective and responsive in a way that doesn't like reward or encourage like unprocessed sharing, you know? Yeah, I really believe that like some, like some evolution of the slam might be able to hold stories in a better way, particularly if we like build the community so that like there's like long-term knowledge that I'm getting really nerdy about this now, but I'm just like, you know, like we really need to like build ritual practice, I think, that is about healing and not what's the most like sensational poem someone can put on the stage. Let's give that person the most points. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, yeah. Rewarding the exotic, 

Kai Cheng Thom: Exactly

Jenna Robinson: the sensational, totally. You are very much in line with our program because we're very much a narrative therapy program. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Oh great, I should take that program. 

Jenna Robinson: People I was telling some of the other professors I was speaking to today and they were mad jealous I gotta say. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Oh wow. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, our program adores you. But I appreciate you naming narrative therapy and the idea that, you know, it's not just a story, it's not just us, right? It's not so solid and it's not just that we create it. Everyone in our circle, our sphere influences our story. And in order to create a new one, we have to have new people, we have to have people a part of that story to receive that new story. And I appreciate you naming, you know, that the witness, a witness is a part of that, but if a witness doesn't know how to do that, like how that could fall apart. So yeah, there's some effort in the poetry groups that I run and some people in our program, like teaching people how to be a witness, right? Like it is, it's a skill. Like you know, we can't just assume that people will know how to be in healing community. It's not just about writing your story, telling it, having the courage to speak it out. Like you have to have the courage to be, you know, a loving active witness too, which sometimes I think is actually a little bit harder. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Totally I would totally agree. Yes. Yeah. 

Jenna Robinson: All right. Well, you're talking a bit about rituals. Slam is so ritual. Poetry is such a ritual and your book, your book is full of them. 

Kai Cheng Thom: That's true. Yeah. There's 30 rituals in here. 

Jenna Robinson: It's like, I love how it's structured that you have, you know, an essay and then really a ritual following each. And I'm curious about that. I'm curious about your choice to actually have action in that, suggestions for people. And you know, which one's your favorite? If you have one. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yeah. So in the book, there's 30 love letters. And then after each love letter, there is a ritual prompt that like folks can do. And I mean, I love them all, but my favorite, favorite one is like, I'm trying to find the specific one so I can get the word wording right, but I might not be able to. But it's, yes, here it is. “Collect a bag of stones. Give each stone the name of something you've been holding on to that you'd like to let go of. Take the stones to a river or ocean and drop them in.” I love that one. I feel like, I don't even know. I did, like I used to make up rituals myself all the time and that's when I did, you know, like 10 years ago or something like that. And I keep on thinking I need to do it again. You know, for me, I really wanted to make the book an embodied experience for people, which is hard to do with books because you know, by nature, you're usually reading them alone. 

Jenna Robinson: Totally. 

Kai Cheng Thom: You know, it's language, it goes into the mind, you know, that sort of thing. And I just wanted to create portals for people to take the love letters into their own lives and experiment with them and make their own conclusions. For me, you know, like I'm a big sucker for any kind of like applied arts, right? Like I love theater of the oppressed. I love spoken word poetry. Anything where like the art is like relational and embodied. And I just wanted to make this book like a part of that. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, actually be more alive. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Exactly

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, totally. I will say, I think for a lot of these books, when I see those kinds of things, I just gloss them over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll come back. 

Kai Cheng Thom: I'll come back to that. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, I'll do that one day. But you know, I felt really compelled with yours to try it. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Did you do it? Oh my God, what did you do? 

Jenna Robinson: I stopped reading. I was like, let me just stop. You had something about go read a childhood book. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Oh, yes. 

Jenna Robinson: I think it was after JK Rowling's thing. Let me see. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yes. We're maybe able to see Animorphs. Yes, read a children's book. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, read a children's book you used to love. Do you still love it? And I, for some reason, what came to mind was, oh man, what was that book called? It's the one with the, it's a fish with like the glitter. I don't know what it's called. What was that book called? 

Kai Cheng Thom: Rainbow Fish? 

Jenna Robinson: Rainbow Fish. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yeah. Oh my God. I could talk forever about Rainbow Fish. 

Jenna Robinson: Oh man. I was like, I remember liking it and I don't remember why. So I read it. I read it. And oh man, yeah, I loved it for way different reasons. I was like, oh man, I didn't know I got this kind of truth spilled on me when I was like five or whenever that came out. But yeah, I think I really appreciated your call to do that. And I thought that's, I mean, it's, there's the intention, there's the heart in that, but there's so much play in your invitations. And I was really appreciating that the spectrum that love and being human can be, you really encapsulate that in a lot of your work. And I appreciate that. I appreciated the Rainbow Fish again. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yeah, I'm so glad you did that. 

Jenna Robinson: I did. I need to share my sparkly gills with people. And that is what I learned in that. I'm kind of, I want to shift just a little bit cause I, in what you were talking about Slam, you were also, what kind of came to mind was also a little bit about cancel culture. You were talking about, you know, the scene kind of collapsing and often what happens in a lot of these scenes is a vitriol, you know, expelling people from the scene. And you did this really wonderful thing. You talk quite a bit about cancel culture, but you did this, you made really interesting parallels between like moralistic performative, performativity and like chastisement, the sinner and the problematic person and the connection between how religious communities and social justice circles ostracize people for like their lack of faith in whatever the mission, the spirituality is and wonderful parallels. I've never seen that made before. I was really stunned. How similar. And I was also curious, you know, for folks engaging in wanting to, would you give to them in that community trying to repair after a harm has occurred and that kind of like walking the line between accountability and forgiveness? 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yeah. The deep question. 

Jenna Robinson: It's so easy. Just the easiest question.

Kai Cheng Thom: I'm so glad you asked though. You know, let's think about the slam. You know, the way I've experienced poetry slam is there are sort of two categories of harm. One is the harm that can happen on the stage when a poet, usually like a newer poet, like does a poem and it's offensive and usually they do not know that it's offensive, but it can be, right? You know, especially in the mid 2010s, I was seeing all kinds of misogynist, homophobic, racist poems. I was like, oh no, someone should have done it. Oh my God. You know? And then there's the harm that happens off the stage, which is like when people in the community, and you know, often these poetry slams are happening in bars, you know, at night and stuff. And so, well, I mean, it's not the bars or the nighttime that's doing this, but some people are doing things that are like creepy, you know, not cool, not consensual. So those are the kinds of harms that I tend to see in poetry. 

Jenna Robinson: I appreciate you making that clarification because I think a lot of people will blame alcohol, substances, the venue for the harm that happened, and not that someone made a choice in those particular spaces to cause harm. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I think it's more like people are in a bar, you know, and drinking and they'll think, ah, this gives me an excuse or like some cover to make some bad choices, right? And that's, you know, I'm really unfortunate. But of course, bad choices can be made anywhere. You know, but yeah. When I think about the rupture, like the ripple effect that happens after, you know, these kinds of harms, for folks seeking repair, I guess it's like, you know, I'm not sure if that depends on what position you're in, the role of harm doer, the role of harmed or the role of, you know, witness. When we come back to that triangle of three, and I would say, for the person in the role of harm doer, which is where we tend to put the most kind of spotlight when we're having the conversation, put the pressure there, right? I would say it's really to me about if we're seeking repair, separating our humanity, like our human goodness from the fact that we have done something hurtful. If we collapse those two things, like that we are human beings and we, you know, want to be good and also that we have harmed somebody, that it becomes, you know, the intensity of the pain and the shame and the fear that comes from that actually tends to make it too difficult to acknowledge what we have done or, you know, or to work through it in a good way. If we are able to hold onto our goodness, like to know that we are good and, you know, be aware that even when we are good, we sometimes do harmful things, I actually think it becomes a lot easier to do the repair work. You know, I really struggle with this word accountability because I think people use it to mean way too many things. But if I, you know, if I focus on it, I sort of think account means a story and ability means capacity. And for me, accountability, you know, maybe we could think of it as the capacity to hold someone else's story of how you have hurt them, right? To be truthful about it and then to act on that story, you know, in reparative ways without collapsing, right? I think the, you know, the tendencies I see, and this is maybe goes back to the somatic is, you know, we either completely flee and deny that we've harmed people or we collapse and we're like, I'll do whatever, I'll do whatever, oh my God. And actually neither of those things is quite right, you know, when it comes to justice, because we need to be able to respond when somebody has told us that we have harmed them in a grounded and centered way. You know, when it comes to, you know, the person who has experienced harm, you know, the first thing people ask me is why are you always telling people to forgive? And I'm like, I think that might be a misunderstanding of what I'm saying. I am not telling people to forgive, although I think forgiveness is nice, but you know, it's not really about forgiveness. It's much more about being compassionate first with ourselves. And this is like a hidden part of being, you know, a survivor, I think. Being compassionate with ourselves for having been someone who was harmed. Like, you know, like the anger we feel toward ourselves at having quote unquote allowed ourselves to be harmed, which of course no one really does. But you know, I think that hidden anger at ourselves is what makes it so hard to be in the process of repair. If we are asking the person who has harmed us to be responsible for our internal healing, we're probably going to be disappointed because that person usually cannot do it. Like, what do I mean? I sort of mean like, often when we are harmed, we want to reach out and touch the person who has harmed us, you know, grab them by the metaphorical shoulders and say, how could you do that to me? How could you do that to me? You know, tell me that I am not a person who deserved what you did. Make me feel like I didn't deserve what you did. And maybe they do that, and that would be really great if they could. But actually, you know, inside of ourselves, we need to know we didn't deserve to be harmed. And then the last thing I'll say about this is actually we put so much pressure on survivor and on perpetrator. So, so, so, so, so much pressure to do things right. It's unfair to the survivor most of all. Not possible for the perpetrator, usually. It is the witness, the community, I think, that bears so much of the hidden responsibility for making repair possible. Because if we shun survivors and say, we're not going to believe you, then it's not going to be possible. If we exile perpetrators and we're like, well, let's get rid of all the perpetrators, also repair is not going to be possible. It is up to the witness, because the witness is not the one who's directly implicated, right? To be able to gift the community with our wisdom. And that's what I'd like to see in poetry communities and beyond, that it is the third parties who are able to create that safe enough space for repair to occur. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. Man, there's so much there. There's so much. And just what's really sticking out to me is in your book, you talk about the violence for justice and the, I think the violence for domination. And that seems to be like all about, predominantly about the witness, about the way that the witness enacts justice. Which is our word for repair, I guess, actually is not repair. It's about punishment. And I'm curious, I'm curious about that responsibility. Like how, what, yeah, the weight of that responsibility on the witness to help people repair in a system that's really actually just about justice. And in one where someone maybe, if someone who has caused harm is not owning their part, their role in the harm. And for a survivor who really wants harm to happen to the person who harmed them, how hard is it to be in that space as the witness, as the mediator for repair, like actual repair? Yeah. 

Kai Cheng Thom: I mean, I think it's incredibly painful to watch. It's painful to watch someone who has caused harm refuse responsibility. And it's painful to watch someone who has experienced harm demand revenge. Also I have noticed that lots of witnesses really love the demand for revenge too, because we get to put all of our own stuff in there. And the reason I say we put too much pressure on harm doers and people who have experienced harm and that the responsibility lies with the witness is because the witness tends to be a collective body. There tends to be like a group of us. Whereas when it comes to survivors and perpetrators of harm, it usually tends to be one-on-one or a small group on another smaller group. And I think that when we have a collective of witnesses, we're able to draw more on collective wisdom, the collective nervous system. And I really think it comes back to, I think about Debbie Young all the time because she's such an influential figure in my poetry life. She has this poem where the refrain is, where are our elders? And I think about that all the time in poetry community, in queer community, in activist community, we really need to have elders, not just older people, but people who are, we all have to step into the leadership role at some point in time to create the wisdom of how to respond. And by that, I really mean on a practical level, when there is a person causing harm and they refuse to see it and they keep on doing it, then we actually really need to be able to say with discernment, okay, maybe you need to stop doing poems for a while, maybe you need to stop performing for a while in a judicious way. Not like you need to stop performing and we'll drive you out of the community, but maybe stop doing these poems until you can do poems that aren't racist anymore. And when you see a survivor who is demanding revenge, the real discernment there of the witness is like saying, your anger is justified and this behavior cannot happen. And it takes courage to say that to someone because it's terrifying and we feel shame maybe when we say that, but we have to be able to create the community that we want. And when I say this question, where are our elders? What I really mean is, where is the strength in all of us to be witnesses who have that skill of responding in the right way? Does that make sense? 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And yes, in these arts communities, yes, in our criminal justice system, but what was really striking to me is how this relates to family violence and the way that we have as a community, as neighbors, as people, as friends have so much fear with responding, have so much fear for responding in the wrong way or trusting our guts that we have put so much power on this other, the system, a criminal justice system to do it for us that doesn't have that same wisdom. I mean, I think some of the people in the system do definitely, I'm not, you know, 

Kai Cheng Thom: Sure, they're huge. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah, it's lots of people, there's lots of them and they're wonderful. But we see so much more harm happening to families as a consequence of being involved in that system. And there's a big movement to decriminalize domestic violence and to have more of a, you know, a community oriented response. The violence because, you know, family, neighbors, community tends to have that wisdom that you're talking about, have the tools to respond in a way that can actually intervene in violence and not perpetrate it, continue it in just new forms. So yeah, I hear that and I really appreciate you saying that you're talking about holding multitudes that we can feel we don't have to do, right? We can feel anger and not act on it. We can be informed by that. Actually listening to your anger is probably a good idea, but acting on it, you know, just doing something immediately isn't always the best idea. And that separation too of the, you can do harm, you can, you know, behave in harmful ways and violent ways, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you are a violent person, like to call someone an abuser or a problematic or a criminal, right? It gets them trapped in that identity. And then there's, where's the room for, where's the room for love? Where's the room for repair? It just is who you are. Yeah, I appreciate this conversation and I know also listening to a lot of survivors where they want to call someone the abuser, they want to be the victim because these are some identities that help their pain make sense. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yes, indeed. 

Jenna Robinson: But it actually doesn't really lead to, you know, transformative healing. It just leads to numbing, I think actually in a way. 

Kai Cheng Thom: I think so. And it takes time, right? Like it's a long process. You know, when I was in clinical practice, which was now a minute ago, I worked with a lot of teenagers and young adults who had experienced family violence, you know, horrific kinds as I'm sure you have as well. And I mean, of course one is not going to tell a teenager like, you know, it's time to forgive and not ask for vengeance. You know, like actually we're going to be like, what have you made some art about your amazing vengeance? You know, like, you know, and then talked about it. But I was also amazed by some of those young people who, you know, they had many considerations and took many paths, you know, amongst them, but quite a few actually, given the space that they really needed. Maybe it also helps that all of my clients tended to be trans and very steeped in like, you know, transformative justice, you know, zine culture or whatever. You know, so many of them came to the conclusion that they were allowed to hate the family members who had hurt them so badly, that they were allowed to feel that rage. And that seeking vengeance would not improve their lives, that they were allowed to feel rage, they were allowed to not forgive. But that acts of healing were not acts of vengeance, but acts of love for themselves, right? And I mean, I just think that's so important. On a global level, I think, you know, the danger of, you know, over identifying with the role of oppressed or the role of survivor or the role of victim is again that we perpetrate, you know, cycles of violence. You know, I'm probably waiting too deep here, but, you know, I think so much about how the current conflict we are seeing in Gaza is in real time being justified on social media by the Israeli nation state with this language of like, those people are the terrorists and we need to crush them in order to be safe. And like, holding multitudes is about knowing, you know, the actions of, you know, of murdering Israeli citizens is not okay. And also murdering, you know, untold thousands of people in Gaza is not an okay response either. And on a historical level, of course, there is a much bigger picture around the ways that Palestinian people in the Palestinian territories have experienced oppression for, you know, 75 years now. And we have to be able to hold the multitude. It's not like, I don't think the solution really can be on an emotional level to say, well, one, you know, one pain matters and another doesn't. All the pain matters, but also we need perspective, right? And this is like the deep wisdom, I think, you know, of holding multiple truths is being able to say, okay, yeah, like lots of things are hurting and like no atrocity is okay. And let's also use our discernment to see like, you know, what are the power dynamics? What are the real answers? You know, what are the social conditions that lead to the perpetration of ongoing violence? 

Jenna Robinson: Totally. Yeah. And there's a current or a near history of this climate, of this trauma, but it's also like generations. This is historical trauma and trauma decontextualized. I mean, it's sort of in the same place and also not. There's all these different bodies of trauma coming into this one moment that really requires you to pause and look so far out that we just, we aren't in a culture of pausing. We're in a, you know, in this moment, it's a culture of responding. It's a culture of defense, immediate protection and not thinking. And when you're in the middle of crisis, when you're in the middle of trauma, like you actually can't, you can't think. You know, our brains are not designed to do that. It requires us to do the practice of stepping back and regulating, calming. And that's not something we can do alone. That's something that takes a community to do in order to get to that place of turning towards love and true repair. Which is just, yeah, it's, that's so, that's so dense and painful. It's really painful. And I appreciate you bringing like our specific, you know, circumstance of what's happening in our world to the forefront within this, within this conversation. I'm wondering if there's anything that, you know, we didn't speak about that you really want, you know, to make sure is, is honored as his voice that folks get an opportunity to witness. Yeah. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Oh gosh. I mean, you're such an amazing interviewer. I was like, wow, we really want to do. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just trying to think. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, there's, there's one thing and I'm still figuring out what this book is, you know, it's so great to get to do so many interviews. Cause I'm like, oh, what is this? What am I really saying? You know, I think, you know, so I wrote falling back in love with being human as a sixth book. The fifth before it was called, I hope we choose love. And you know, there's this sort of extended inquiry or study I'm doing of like through my own body, how can I love human beings? And like wrapped into that is all this stuff we just talked about with like harm and monstrosity and like pain and violence and justification, all that kind of stuff. And I think something I just want to say into the universe as like an incantation or like a spell or an invitation is like I think when we, when we talk about how to do love, how to be a more loving society, there can sometimes be this strain, you know, of like, oh, well, you know, we're probably not going to do that, you know, or I can't do that. You know, we're, we're probably not going to be a society right away that is, you know, more loving and abolishes prisons and doesn't do war. It's probably not going to happen right away. Or even in our lifetimes or in many lifetimes. And I as an individual human being am probably not going to stop being a person who wants to punish, wants revenge, you know, does hurtful things, you know, you know, to, to, to my beloved partner after they don't do the dishes when I want them to, et cetera. Like that's probably not going to stop. And you know, I think where love comes in is like not just about, I'm telling myself this love is not telling people to be more loving, like wagging the finger and being like, oh, you should be more loving or even pointing the finger at oneself and being like, oh, you should be more loving too. Like, I really think that the deepest practice of this that I can, I can find is knowing that we have failed, knowing that I'm going to fail. You know, communities are going to punish people and exile people. And we are going to demand revenge. Harm is going to happen in cycles. And we might slow it down or change it. I do believe we can make great change. But also we are going to fail and we are going to be monstrous. And I think the practice of, of falling back in love with being human is loving ourselves and others anyway. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. 

Kai Cheng Thom: So that's, that's sort of the last thing. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's just wonderful. I really feel that. And I think in our program, we really talk about, you know, you're going to, you're going to mess up. Whatever skill you learn in this program, you're going to fail it. The biggest thing that you could learn is, is how to own that and be like geared for repair. That is, that is the number one skill we try to help teach, which is hard, 

Kai Cheng Thom: but it's the hardest one. 

Jenna Robinson: Yeah. But it reduces, I think a lot of that pressure to be perfect and that you have to show up that, that you don't have to be ashamed. You know, quit shitting all over yourself. Right. Like about how you're supposed to show up, just show up and be yourself and, and be willing, be willing. I think that's huge. So thank you. Thank you for that. Well, what a conversation this has been, Kai Cheng Thom. I am so grateful that I got to talk to you, to read your book. Like you said, the baby has been born. Falling back in love with being human, Letters to Lost Souls. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Thank you. 

Jenna Robinson: It is a gorgeous collection of poetic essays and rituals. Do them, put the book down, and go read that children's book again. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Yes, Rainbow Fish. 

Jenna Robinson: And it's so, what a gift that you've given us about turning back to ourselves. So thank you for sharing this time with our community, with public programs, with CIIS. And if folks can get your book, I encourage you to buy it. And yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing space with us. 

Kai Cheng Thom: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for your beautiful questions and just your general amazing attunedness. Jenna, it's been such a delight to get to talk about the book with someone as wise and experienced and skillful as you. So thank you. You know, it's from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. 

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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