Writing is as much a sensory experience as it is a physical one, according to poet Shauna M. Morgan who met virtually with The Amistad editors in the Literature and Publishing course. Morgan is an associate professor of creative writing and Africana literature at the University of Kentucky. Her poetry has appeared in A Gathering Together, Interviewing the Caribbean, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, among other periodicals and anthologies. Through her home garden and also because she originated in Jamaica nature seems a part of her life. Both her scholarship and poetry reflect her close relationship with nature. She talked about her debut collection, Ground Provisions, which will be released in September 2025 and is published by Peepal Tree Press.

​

The following is an excerpt of Morgan's meeting with The Amistad editors on March 12, 2025 and two new works of poetry: Exotic Wager and Kwansaba: Main Sequence Star.

​

Amistad Editors: You talked about the importance of sensory writing. For you, do you think that you need to experience what you’re writing about to make it genuine, or can you simply feel it internally?

​

Morgan: Definitely something I experienced, but a lot of my writing comes out of memory also. So, I would say I'm writing from multiple places. In some instances, I am writing from the experience of that very tactile thing, going and touching something, experiencing it. But sometimes I’m taking from a memory that's very far away in time, or far away geographically and building on that imaginatively.

​

Amistad Editors: So, what are the benefits of writers embedding themselves in nature, and are there other things you do with your writing that writers of this generation should adopt?

​

Morgan: We oftentimes only glance or spend seconds on something, but if you really force yourselves to look for three minutes, figuring out the way that our senses work together, I think it can help us experience something different, something unique that we can then put in a story or poem.

​

Amistad Editors: When you were reading your poems such as “New Provisions,” you used the scientific terms for certain flowers. In addition to being present in nature, are you also a student? If so, how does this inform your creative process?

 

Morgan: But one of the things I'm working on right now is this idea of naming and who gets to do the naming, right? And so, some of the newer stuff that I'm writing now, I am using scientific terms, but in a different way. I'm just right now obsessed with the idea of naming and who gets to name. And I was thinking about that with the whole, Gulf of America thing, and I went back to just look at some of the things I've written and this idea of the scientific name. I'm thinking about how does the language honor the thing that is being named? So, for example, the Columbia River, which runs through Oregon, is not called the Columbia River, by the indigenous people.

It's called um something that translates to big water or great water—something that honors like the very thing.

 

Another important aspect of Morgan’s talk was describing her non-linear path to becoming a writer. Growing up in Jamacia, Morgan said that the arts were an important part of the national identity, while the U.S. doesn’t place nearly as much emphasis on the arts, or even the humanities as a whole.

​

Amistad Editors: You had mentioned you’ve been writing as a child, so did you think you always wanted to do this?

​

Morgan: I was pushed into the sciences when I went into undergrad because at that time, in the 80s, everyone said, you want a job, you have to be a scientist and it's kind of like that now too. There’s this alarm and people devalue the humanities. But humanistic studies is where we really do the critical thinking, and where we do the creative work.

​

This is a discipline meant for any and everyone, and there’s no reason to close off the possibility of a career in the field we love simply because we don’t see ourselves as a “true” writer. Whether we write in front of a computer inside, or we write on a notepad in the park, we are all writers.

Some of us may pursue a career in it right away, and some may take a nonlinear path like Morgan and so many others. No matter what kind of writer we are, we are all linked by the same thing—a love of bringing the world to life on the page.

​

​

Exotic Wager

 

The bugle’s first call starts a scurry, but I am transfixed,

wondering if I should risk everything today. A memory

mounts me: at the edge of our dirt and moss yard, past

the sweetsop tree where my uncle planked the unholy

betting shop, his radio blaring the Caymanas Park post

 

time, Granny is humming, all full of grace, her children

with the space to make their living. One will sit with her

in church tomorrow. Her head is tied, the Madras plaid

making no objections to her floral house dress. She palms

and rubs her knees, liniment scents us, returning me

 

to the field of false favorites pasteled and feathered,

flowered and seersuckered. Milk. Sugar. Cotton. Tobacco

everywhere. White boys in slave clothing and Indian tartan

for rows, the new silk road before us, my maiden breaking

on the spires of history and memory and longing for home.

 

 

Kwansaba: Main Sequence Star

               For Kumasi J. S. Walker

 

 

Warm heart, holding us along this ellipse,

lapping you, we see our Black love

turn to night, beams aslant until day

finds us in your light, radiant again,

feeling the heat of your laugh, flaring

force, speed bright, long waves of spectra,

dark lines, gases aglow, forming this life.