Dr. Marcus Clayton shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Marcus, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
This past summer, I’ve been struggling with the idea that I finished a PhD program. The prestige is lovely, but the time lapse and financial strain (especially in this economy for anyone who teaches English or Ethnic Studies) weighed extremely heavy on me recently. “What was the point? What does it even mean? Can I have the past six years back if there are no jobs right now?” At the moment, I am once again adjuncting (part time college instructor, a gig I left in favor of a PhD in the first place) until I find something more permanent. But let me tell ya…on the first days of class, I often open with “Hi everyone, my name is Marcus Clayton and I will be your instructor for the next 16 weeks.” This time, I started with “Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Marcus Clayton and I will be your professor for the next 16 weeks,” and suddenly the weight lifted a little bit, and my confidence as a college professor and the positives of how I spent the last six years of my life became more clear. There are still some existential hurdles I’m working on, but in that moment I finally felt the “oh shit, I did that” pride.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Dr. Marcus Clayton. I am a writer and poet, a college professor, and a punk musician. All these things intersect in my writing, teaching, and music, as someone who grew up in South Gate, CA, in the mid-2000s where punk scenes and interest in alternative music and lifestyles were how folks like me configured living through and navigating adolescence. I am in an “old man / Professor punk” band named tudors. with other friends who teach and grew up in punk and punk adjacent communities. This year, I released my first book of prose titled “¡PÓNK!” with one of my favorite publishers, Nightboat Books.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
Let it be known that I am introverted and proud of it. That said, I grew up a very fearful person — of other folk’s thoughts and behaviors, of saying the wrong things — and was a classic wallflower. I stuck to the sidelines to get a sense of who people are, to listen in on conversations and understand inflections and thought processes, to take the good (and bad) from personalities that I found the most interesting and hoped to shape a me that could insert easily into these crowds. There’s a Kurt Cobain quote I think about a lot, “”I use bits and pieces of others’ personalities to form my own.” Over the past ten years or so, I felt as though I figured out who I should be, how I want to be, and how to not be scared when interactions with others get jarring. I still listen, but I got my voice ready to go these days.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
Being in a punk band allows for a lot (good) exhaustion. Notably, having a platform to freely scream and be gigantic when the world around you is being loud and making everything feel so small. While I have written and studied poetry, I find playing loud af music lets those words contour the best when surrounded by loud instruments. It’s an intense feeling to sing about suicidal ideation, political corruption, and systemic racism from the pits of my angered gut and turn it into a reclamation of power.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
Absolutely. I’ve reached an age where I have run out of people to impress (maybe a detriment on the job market, but is what it is), and I have a much easier time letting what I once believed to be my most “cloistered” self loose onto the world. I have an overly sardonic and dry sense of humor, am verbose, obsess over being original, and want to make sure people feel comfortable around me — that last part is impossible if I do not feel comfortable being myself.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. When do you feel most at peace?
When I write anything — music, books, journaling — I find the most solace. There is something about world-building and creating narrative around this fast-paced world (wrangling it, in a way, and slowing it down) that allows me some semblance of control that I often feel missing in my life. Being a published author, especially, has allowed me to actualize that peace and feel like I’m not wasting time with writing. People read the stuff I write, which in turn convinces me to keep going with it; to keep letting my most prized hobby to center myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://marcus-clayton.com/
- Instagram: @marcussomethingsomething
- Twitter: @marcussomething
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marcus.clayton.927/
Image Credits
Dr. Marlen Rios-Hernandez
David Diaz
Evan Martin-Casler
Lindsey Boldt
@threexstitch
