Today we’d like to introduce you to Marley Powell.
Hi Marley, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was always told I was too quiet. Being born in Los Angeles, what I quickly recognized was that people expect you to live your life on a stage, and when you’re quiet or shy you can be seen as offering less to the world. That’s the thing about Los Angeles; you are expected to perform for others in a way where you are often not able to build yourself.
I learned early on the power of writing; I was taken to see plays and exposed to literature from a young age. I learned early on that I enjoyed writing, but also writing is where my voice was heard. Writing allows me to tell stories and put together words to describe and account for my way of seeing the world. Writing allows connection, and writing allows me to create and shape something unique and my own.
Writing was what did from a young age. I began writing at the death of my aunt and used writing to connect and to describe my feelings to try and explain my quiet and sadness.
In middle school, I was first published as a poet, and in high school, I excelled at play writing and was presented a future to study in that field. When it came time for college, I intended to study history and philosophy, not writing as was expected, because I felt at the time that I wanted to expand my knowledge base. However, in what is an emotionally rough period for me, I had to drop out of college during the 2008 financial crash and begin working a job over my pursuit of a degree.
Writing became an “outside” pursuit that wasn’t what I was doing seriously because I wasn’t studying it, and I had to hold jobs instead. I spent a lot of time working a series of jobs that filled the need I had for weekly expenses and paid my bills through my twenties. Through that decade, I didn’t have an interest outside of art until I began working as an organizer in electoral politics in my late twenties. It was in electoral politics where I found another real purpose of mine. I was lucky to discover something that mattered greatly. Civics and the importance of community and being a presence in the community became a second way that I saw the world.
I helped lead a canvassing group in the Antelope Valley, where we helped knock on the doors of thousands of voters and helped move control of the district from the Republicans to the Democrats during the 2018 election.
The thing that I discovered with politics and connecting with voters directly was that many things connect us. That politics is the science of creating solutions for immediate and pressing needs and art act of creating to speak on needs and the circumstances of your life. Politics addresses the kind of immediate needs that connect everyone. Being in a world where that kind of service matters and realities can be changed is a transformative experience. To feel like one of many that can work together is an incredible experience that collaboration can transform our society.
There’s an element of connection and intention in both politics and art. They inform our world but are both easily pushed aside when others want to dismiss them. I found an endurance in both from the others ability to easily dismiss something or attempt of them to try to shape someone else’s world. In fact, both deal with having to focus on reality and address it directly.
Politics was a chance to allow to focus my work on benefiting others. Coming out of my shell, having to speak with people about themselves and myself. My writing has circled around to my interest in politics. I found that a greater purpose in my work came about when I was able to put present and ongoing meaning in my life into it.
My newest novel is circling with publishers now, and have my upcoming podcast launching in January, called Black Skin Red Heart, about the history of Black Americans and Communism.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t like to see life as full of obstacles. That can be a way of allowing outside things to control you or define the limits of what you can carry out. I prefer to look back on moments, times, and things in my life that would be considered obstacles have tended to act as times where pursuits like writing and politics became points of interest and life pursuits to me. These times created objectives and pursuits as a way of overcoming the obstacles.
Writing began for myself when I was young with the loss of my aunt. I began writing poetry as part of working through my feelings. I was able to connect my feelings to words to process the tragedy and never gave it up.
I left college during the financial crash of 2008 and so my studies didn’t directly link to my art. I didn’t see writing and art as a matter directly connect to school studies. That allowed me to direct my time not spent working on art.
I was lucky that the work I found was enriching. I worked a series of things from labor to galleries, which exposed me to a great number of worlds. In my late twenties, I was lucky to find work in an elected officials office and worked my way up from the receptionist desk and exposed myself to direct political work.
With politics, I saw the connection between the art and politics in the ability to transform communities. Both can capture attention and allow for a release of feeling that no other thing can do.
We are in a time of immense division that seems to be spread by digital isolation, and both force us to be around each other and commit the necessary daily compromises of living with each other. That we see the world differently and that we need different things from the world, so we’re not at odds but often trying something best for ourselves.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have built a strength in my perspective on the outside. Leaving college, writing outside the normal circles of coming up, working in politics over entertainment, and pursuing my work on my own terms. I am a writer and artist. I predominantly write fiction, non-fiction, and center photography in my visual arts pursuits.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.marleypowell.net
Image Credits
Carla Weber
