Today we’d like to introduce you to Bri Stokes.
Hi Bri, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born in Pasadena and grew up in the Inglewood and South Central neighborhoods, where I was raised by a single mom. I’ve always been an artist and a storyteller, and that’s taken on many iterations throughout my life: I studied tap dance and ballet as a child. When I was about 4 or 5, I used to take my mother’s camcorder and film movies with my toys. I took piano and guitar lessons in elementary school. I was involved in theater all throughout my teenage years. I also taught myself how to paint a few years ago.
Writing, however, is a form of storytelling that’s remained a constant in my life since the moment I was old enough to comprehend words on a page. It’s my gift and what I was put on this earth to share with others.
I fell in love with books at a very early age, and kind of found my way towards writing through a desire I had to demystify them. I was absolutely fascinated by books—the way they looked, the way they felt, and smelled; before I even knew how to read or write, I would sketch out drawings on sheets of printer paper, complete with paragraphs of squiggly lines to “narrate” each scene, and give them to my grandmother to staple together.
In elementary school, I started writing fiction and poetry. I’ve always been sensitive and shy, so I loved creating characters and worlds that I could escape into, where I felt free and safe enough to be myself. This persisted well into middle school and high school. The more I wrote, the more it became a method of escapism and release for me. And, eventually, the better and more polished I became.
When I graduated from high school, I wanted to be an actor, but I realized pretty early on that I didn’t have thick enough skin for the audition process. So, I became really diligent and focused with my writing. I guess the ball really started rolling in 2018 when I won a “Best Short Story” prize for a piece I’d submitted to a college literary magazine. That same year, I picked up an editorial internship at BuzzFeed, and the combination of those two events made me take a step back and think, “Ok, maybe I actually can do this.”
I fell into a pretty bad depressive state between 2018 and 2020, however, and stopped writing altogether. Then, during the pandemic (like so many of us), I had a lot of time and space to process the ways in which my depression and anxiety had hindered me from pursuing my dreams. So I spent the better part of a year writing and sharing these very vulnerable poems on social media to practice finding my voice and to develop courage and strength in my sensitivity. Along the way, thousands of people started finding and reading them. Since then, I’ve just made a habit of publicly excavating through my experiences, hoping to reach someone who may need to find them.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
[TW] I experienced a lot of trauma growing up and was bullied throughout my childhood. I was sensitive and never quite fit in, so kids had a tendency to project a lot of things onto me. In high school, I was one of maybe three Black kids on the entire campus, and I went through repeated instances of racial harassment. I was also repeatedly sexually assaulted between the ages of 13 and 14. So for years, I was sort of floating through life in a trance state, just trying to keep my head above water while I was carrying so much trauma and pain. Because these experiences happened at a very formative stage in my life, I internalized a lot of really harmful beliefs about myself. I pushed away people who loved me out of fear. I developed major depressive disorder, PTSD, and anxiety. I was very angry and hurt. I felt as though the world had communicated to me that it didn’t want me, and it was hard for me to believe in or advocate for myself.
Through the processes of attending regular therapy, developing a daily spiritual practice, and starting to write again, I was able to step outside of myself, realize that I had so much more to offer to the world and pursue a path of self-love. I began to open my heart to life and all the beauty that existed around me. I realized all the ways in which I’d been letting the pain, trauma, and lovelessness in other people define my perception of who I was. I made the decision to believe in myself, to push back against my insecurities, and to follow my dreams. Since then, I have worked very hard to consistently fight for myself, as well as for other women, Black folks, LGBTQIA+ folks, and for those who have gone through similar experiences or those who have always felt “different.”
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a writer, producer, poet, editor, curator and cultural worker. In 2022, I curated and co-created the art showcase, “POLARITY: The Tension of an Emerging World,” which featured art, installations, performances, and media from nearly 30 primarily Black and queer artists in the Los Angeles area and beyond. Earlier this year, I sat on a panel of esteemed jurors from the L.A. and Bay areas to select a cohort of four artists to participate in a residency program through Level Ground—an arts nonprofit and production incubator that platforms the work of queer, trans, and BIPOC creatives. I’ve been a staff artist at Level Ground since February of this year. I’m also the current Managing Editor of SKEW, a Black and queer-led arts, culture, and dialogue magazine owned cooperatively by its editors, curators, and contributors.
Writing is and always will be my first love. I’m probably best known for my poetry, but I also write fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. I haven’t gotten around to showing off what I can do with fiction just yet, but I will one day! I’m also interested in directing and filmmaking, and I envision that’ll be something I take on in the future, too.
My writing is unique because it’s pure magic. I’m a very spiritual person, so I pray over and pour love into every single piece of writing that I create. That’s why it’s so intriguing to folks—because of its inherent mysticism. God has given me a platform at a time when people are in so much pain because I can speak directly to that feeling; and I know that the only way that we can heal from our collective pain is by fostering radical compassion and empathy for each other. So my writing exists to find those who need it and to offer them a sense of love, comfort, and empowerment. It exists to give people the will to keep going, whatever that may mean or look like to them.
At this moment, I’m most proud of my debut poetry collection, “A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt,” which was recently released through Bottlecap Press. It’s about the cyclical relationship between love, desire, and envy. My hope is that it offers people the freedom to express who they are at their core and that it helps people believe that they can achieve absolutely anything. If I can reach for it, you can reach for it.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I come from a family of (almost) all women, and they have been my primary support system and the bedrock of my strength—particularly my mother, my godmothers, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother. My great-grandmother died last year, two weeks before what would have been her 102nd birthday, and she instilled into me a deep sense of confidence. She was the most fierce, powerful and liberated woman I’ve ever known, and I would not be who and where I am today without her influence. The women in my life taught me how to be independent, how to stand up for myself, how to survive, how to say “no,” and, of course, how to be glamorous.
I’m also thinking of my grandfather, who passed away in 2017. He was a veteran, an engineer, and one of the first Black men to build airplanes at Howard Hughes. We used to discuss politics and philosophy all the time, and when I was little, he took great pride in explaining to me how airplanes were able to fly and answering my hundreds of questions. He instilled in me a sense of kindness, a desire to learn, and an early awareness that Black people can do, be, and achieve anything.
Contact Info:
- Website: bristokes.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/bri_stokes_writes
- Twitter: twitter.com/bristokeswrites
- Other: threads.com/bri_stokes_writes ; bristokes.substack.com
Image Credits
Amber Salik, Tina June, Brynn Evida, Nousha Salimi