Listen to Malachi Levy talk about his life as a poet in the third episode of the Northwood Artist Series.
Script
[Intro]
Revy: Hi there! I’m Revy Godehn
Gianna: And I’m Gianna Cacciato.
Revy: And we’re staff writers for the Northwood Omniscient.
Gianna: In this podcast, we will be interviewing Malachi Levy, poet and member of the senior class at Northwood, about his poetic endeavors. You’ll even get a chance to listen to one of his poems!
Revy: He is our third student featured in the Omnsicient’s new Northwood Artist series. Northwood offers 26 arts classes, including theatre, dance, instrumental and vocal music and the visual arts. The series will highlight some of the most talented and artistic students here at Northwood.
[Intro Music]
Gianna: How long have you been writing poetry?
Malachi: So, I’ve been into poetry most of my life because my mom was a musician. She did music when she was younger, just not full time; she was in a band on the side as, like, a hobby, but she’s always been writing poetry and she wrote a poetry book when I was in second grade, and I actually took it to school and read it one time. I kinda got out of it, but I really got interested in writing again freshman year.
Revy: What other styles of writing do you use and which is your favorite?
Malachi: So I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot recently–adding new realms to my writing, and I really really enjoy short story writing and essay writing. I’ve just started to work on both of those skills recently, and I’ve really, really enjoyed it, mostly because with short stories, I think of them as just longer poems, and you have a lot more room to go into detail and be more creative. And then essay writing, I’ve come to enjoy it through school after I got into poetry writing. So once I started writing poetry a lot more, my essay writing became more enjoyable because I felt I had more experience writing, and I felt I could be more creative, I could say more, versus when I wasn’t writing poetry.
Gianna: Are you in arts programs or clubs at Northwood?
Malachi: Yeah, I am the President of Northwood’s chapter of National English Honor Society, and then I’m the Captain for the Northwood Cross Country and Track and Field teams, and this year I joined Pitch Please, and what else? And then I’m a part of My Brothers Keeper at Northwood.
Gianna: Have the Northwood Arts programs influenced your creative process?
Malachi: I would say definitely. I’ve taken a variety of classes at Northwood in the different Arts. I’ve taken Visual Arts, Theater, and then I’m involved in Pitch Please. Northwood has such an amazing arts program, like in all different avenues, and the English Department is amazing here so all the teachers I’ve had have really inspired me not only continue writing but to improve on my writing and to read more and that’s been a big influence in my creative process–, cannot thank them enough for that.
Gianna: Pitch Please is Northwood’s acapella singing group.
Revy: Have you won any awards in regards to your writing?
Malachi: So yeah, I just recently, actually my junior year, last year, I was named one of the National English Honor Society’s Poets of the Year, and then this past fall I entered this writing contest sponsored by the Milken Institute out of the I, Too, Am the Dream writing contest, and out of 750 submissions throughout the entire country, I was one of the 15 finalists and one of the three winners.
Gianna: Are you planning to pursue writing in college or as a career?
Malachi: I’m definitely planning to pursue writing in some fashion, I don’t have my [decided on] career as of now but I really want to go into journalism at some point in my life, and I want to go into editing and publishing. I also want to go into screenwriting, specifically for film and TV so all three of those avenues I hope to to pursue in my career–hopefully intertwine them all at some point in my career as well. I haven’t chosen a college yet; I’m down to four or five schools that I’m really thinking about so I’ll just leave it at that. But yeah I wanted to be an author and a writer ever since I was a little kid so I haven’t really even thought about other career paths just because I’ve been so enveloped in this one since I was young and it’s always felt kinda right to just follow it.
Gianna: How has the pandemic affected your ability to create?
Malachi: Actually, it hasn’t. I would say I’ve been writing a lot more, over last summer I got to a point where I was writing a poem a day or a short story a week, and this was going on for like two months, so I’ve actually had substantially more time to write, and I’ve really enjoyed that.
Revy: How does your identity inspire or influence your writing?
Malachi: So, my identity is my main focal point to my writing, I would say a lot of what I write about draws roots from experiences I’ve had, or experiences that I’ve been told about from friends and family, or just thoughts I’ve had. I used to say my poems are just collections of all my thoughts I’ve had on a daily basis and really just me ranting about the questions and curiosity I have about the world, so I would say my identity has impacted my poetry in at least one way.
Revy: Could you read us one of your poems?
Malachi: So I’ll go to a poem I wrote a couple months ago called “Healthy” and it has a long metaphor about dieting and eating in regards to America, and not even just America, just the country that we live in. It’s very rhymey, very rappy one could say, and I actually had a lot of fun with this, but I just really tried to extend the metaphor and the comparisons about dieting and food [and] healthy eating to this country in sort of a creative way. I wouldn’t say the poem has a set theme, but that’s what that’s one of the things I love about how poetry is. It’s really open for interpretation, so I’ll stop talking and I’ll start talking again to read the poem. It’s called Healthy:
Healthy
Dining table with too many big macs
Oozing maple-syrup pancakes in big stacks
Pound cake soaked in pig fat
Kool-aid covering kit-kat
This is that, mismatch, diet intolerable
Lactose intolerant intolerant, blood so thick it ain’t soluble
American cuisine, leaning on gurneys and stretchers
Kids on screens so much there’s no dirt on the sketchers
Peppered with chicken tenders and severed arteries
Part of me victim of my own, cardiovascular system
Part of me all alone, in my darkened pessimism
I mean, what’s the cost to be healthy?
Too much
I attended a couple of protests before Ronald McDonald threw a fuss
And I pondered the honorable outcasts who were vegan before the hype
Went keto just for the bite
And left cheetos for the ant’s dust
A couple of calories never hurt the calisthenics
A cut of that apple pie never called for paramedics
But a lifestyle like this could be passed down like genetics
A cap and gown graduate of ignorance
From the burger place
A gerber life ad that says babies deserve a plate
Of the socially constructed pork chops with the dark sauce
Healthy chefs are the political outliers, Paula Deen the president’s boss
How much more can the US’s stomach stomach before we plummet?
The summit of health reached before BC, all that ease and peace we shunned it
Peas and carrots undone in the crockpot, replaced with churches-
Chickens,
Purchased from the democrat who was reimbursed on the curse
To pursue the nations best interests in the kitchen
I take a bite, watch my diabetic blood spike as I talk
It’s a simple recipe for anarchy
The lack of food for thought
Revy: That was amazing! What was your inspiration for this poem?
Malachi: Alright, thank you, thank you and yeah this poem was inspired by the state of the world at the time, and food because I was very hungry when I wrote this, so I try to combine the two in a creative way and that poem was born. Written in one try actually, I edited a little bit. I usually edit all my poems, but that was rare once and I left it.
Gianna: What would you like readers to take away from your work?
Malachi: I would say I would like for readers to take away [that] my poetry is not meant to have one specific interpretation, but meant to be discussed and talked about and to simply be enjoyed. I think we as humans, we have a tendency to take the enjoyment out of reading and literature and writing and with my poetry, I’ve always tried to not do that, [to] try to make it interesting and fun, because that’s what stuck out to me when I got into it as a freshman. I was reading poetry that I thought sounded cool. Looking at a lot of slam poetry videos, listening to a lot of, like, lyrical rap music , listening to the amazing poets like Saul Williams, just looking at all types of poetry–it was all interesting to me and it was fun. I really try to put those influences in my own writing by just making it interesting and enjoyable to hear and think about and of course to leave messages that hopefully inspire people or leave people feeling good about themselves or feeling good about the road ahead of him, because like I said my poems are just thoughts I have about the world so I figured I should write them down and share them with the world so they can read on and feel that they are not alone or that someone relates to them. That is all I have. Once again, thank you guys so much for including me in this series. I really really appreciate it; thank you.
[Closing Music]
Gianna: Thanks for listening to this podcast on behalf of The Northwood Omniscient. We hope you learned something from it!
Revy: If you enjoyed, this podcast be on the lookout for more Northwood Artist Series content. Stay tuned for our next episode on Scott Gilliam!
[End Podcast]
