How to Be a Better Human

How to find small delights in an uncontrollable world (w/ Sarah Kay)

40 min
Dec 1, 20256 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Poet and educator Sarah Kay discusses how to find beauty and connection in an overwhelming world through vulnerability, presence, and intentional community care. She shares her journey from discovering poetry in NYC dive bars to building meaningful relationships through attention and small acts of care.

Insights
  • Vulnerability and openness to being affected by the world enables deeper connection and joy, despite increased risk of heartbreak
  • Demonstrating care requires converting internal feelings into concrete behavioral actions—thinking of someone isn't enough without communication
  • Focused, localized impact on immediate community is more meaningful than dispersed effort across abstract large-scale problems
  • Presence and attention are the most valuable gifts we can give others, especially through shared experiences and inside jokes
  • Small moments of beauty and delight deserve lingering attention as counterbalance to overwhelming global challenges
Trends
Shift from digital-first to in-person community as antidote to information overload and despairIntentional cultivation of vulnerability as professional and personal practice in creative fieldsLocalized community engagement as alternative to abstract activism and large-scale problem-solvingPoetry and spoken word as vehicles for building shared emotional experiences and collective healingAttention and presence as scarce resources with measurable social and emotional valueRejection of performative coolness in favor of authentic emotional availability in professional contextsSmall-scale, relationship-based impact models gaining prominence over broad-reach initiatives
Topics
Spoken word poetry and live performanceCommunity building and neighborhood engagementVulnerability and emotional opennessAttention and presence as practicePoetry as vehicle for connectionFinding beauty in everyday momentsCombating despair and overwhelmInside jokes and relationship deepeningNew York City poetry scene and historyLocalized vs. abstract activismMentorship and teachingFreestyle rap and improvisationPlace and memory in identityCare work and emotional laborGrief and joy balance
People
Sarah Kay
Poet, educator, and author of 'A Little Daylight Left'; discusses poetry, community, and vulnerability
Chris Duffy
Host of 'How to Be a Better Human'; author of 'Humor Me' (January 2026); interviewer
Phil K
Sarah Kay's partner in poetry; traveled with her for 10 years performing in schools
Hanif Abdurrakhman
Poet and community organizer in Columbus, Ohio; example of localized community impact and care
Anthony Bonetzialli
MC and freestyle rapper from Freestyle of Supreme; influenced Sarah Kay's approach to stage presence
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Performer who appeared at Bowery Poetry Club before widespread recognition
Quotes
"It turns out when I am thinking of someone I love, they don't experience that. They actually have no idea that I'm thinking of that. Unless I do something to make it clear to them."
Sarah KayMid-episode
"We actually have to demonstrate it. We have to, it's not enough to experience a feeling in myself if I want that feeling to make it to somebody else. I have to convert it into behavior."
Sarah KayMid-episode
"I have a limited amount of time and I limited amount of energy and a limited amount of effort I can put out and I want what I do to matter."
Hanif AbdurrakhmanLate-episode
"What I really admire about honey is that he is able to make this really big impact because he has focused in on where he lives and on taking care of the people around him."
Sarah KayLate-episode
"We are surrounded by miraculous phenomena and sometimes they're very small and seem silly to others and that's okay they don't have to impress anybody but you."
Sarah KayClosing segment
Full Transcript
The world moves fast. You work day, even faster, pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Co-Pilot is your AI assistant for work. Built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear path to your best work. Learn more at Microsoft.com slash M365 Co-Pilot. Tired of the, I know it's here somewhere, moment. The new ScanSnap IX 2400 scanner means you'll never search for a receipt again. Our simplest scan snap experience yet. Just press the blue button and instantly convert documents into digital files you can find in seconds. Perfect for busy professionals who need organization without complexity. With instant one-touch scanning, 45 pages per minute speed, an automatic data extraction, the IX 2400 saves your files exactly where you need them. No more missed expense claims or lost warranties. Just peace of mind knowing everything important is safe and instantly accessible. Ready to stop wasting time hunting for paperwork? Visit scansnapit.com slash podcast and discover how simple document management can be. Scan snap. The smarter way to work. You're listening to how to be a better human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today's guest is the poet educator and all around joy of a human being, Sarah Kay. And we're having Sarah back on the show for a number of reasons. One is that she's just someone who I love talking to. I've known and loved Sarah for years. She is immensely talented as a writer and performer. I mean, how many poets do you know who tore the world performing their poems and have millions of people watch their videos online? That is not exactly the typical poet career path. But another really big reason why I wanted to talk to Sarah today is because Sarah is also immensely talented offstage in the care that she puts into her work in schools and teaching students in her friendships and her relationships. And so today, we're gonna talk with Sarah about how to connect with other people more deeply. How do you move through the world with openness and vulnerability? And how do you seek out beauty even when things are painful or scary? To get us started, here is a poem of Sarah's from her latest poetry collection, A Little Daylight Left. This is a poem that I love so much. It's a poem that I have shared with many, many, many people. It is called Miles from Any Shoreline. I frequently miss entire days, caught in my brain's spiderwebs. But if I happen to look up in time to notice that the darkness still has a little daylight left to swallow, I will ivy up the fire escape to catch whatever embers of the day are still slow dying behind New Jersey. And last week through the fog of my loneliness, I realized the living room was slippery pink, which I knew meant a light show must be on display. So with a quickness, I reserve for emergencies. I scampered to the roof and sure enough, an explosion of upside down, clementine, cotton candy, cloud whists was tie-dying the Hudson River neon. And I swear, I am not a lightweight, but I was color drunk immediately, dizzy with gas and skyward reaching, hoping my fingers might find a bell I could ring that would summon all of New York City to look up and west. But there was no bell and no one to call just my own astonishment still willing to answer after the first ring how predictable, one good sunset. And I release my nihilism like rose petals behind a bridal gown. Look, I have married my cynicism. And renewed my vows. But it didn't stop the streetlights from coming on at the exact moment I passed beneath them when nobody else was in the park to see it. Like the whole city was winking. And yes, I blushed, the way I do whenever someone beautiful flirts with me. I haven't stopped thinking about death. I am just ringing every last jaw drop from the tissue between heartbreaks. On a long run outside the city, along a highway and miles from any shoreline, I found a starfish alone on the asphalt, an unsolvable mystery with no witness to corroborate. And there I was again, wandering the streets of bewilderville population one. What else could I possibly do but swing wide the doors of my delight to this patron saint of unbelonging, fragile and whole and so far from home? If you too have been the one nobody asked to dance, I've got a starfish I'd love to introduce you to. And I don't have any proof, but one time the wind or my ancestors or unseasonal warps carried three hawks to my kitchen windowsill to rattle my coffin to cocoon and two of them left, but one of them stayed. I'd me through the glass like a promise or a dare. And so lately I am trying to pick up when the universe calls. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and then after this we will be in conversation with Sarrake. Don't go anywhere. The world moves fast. You work day, even faster, pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 co-pilot is your AI assistant for work. Built into word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear path to your best work. Learn more at Microsoft.com slash M365 co-pilot. Tired of the, I know it's here somewhere, moment. The new ScanSnap IX 2400 scanner means you'll never search for a receipt again. Our simplest scan snap experience yet, just press the blue button and instantly convert documents into digital files you can find in seconds. Perfect for busy professionals who need organization without complexity. With instant one-touch scanning, 45 pages per minute speed, an automatic data extraction, the IX 2400 saves your files exactly where you need them. No more mystic-spence claims or lost warranties. Just peace of mind knowing everything important is safe and instantly accessible. Ready to stop wasting time hunting for paperwork? Visit scansnapit.com slash podcast and discover how simple document management can be. ScanSnap. The smarter way to work. Everything breakfast at a cardo, save on yoga, cereal and get a great price on milk so you can splurge on eggs even from quails. Perfect if you have the urge to eat a dozen eggs, but you aren't that hungry. Save and splurge at a cardo, the online supermarket. Select lines only geographical restrictions, minimum spending charges apply, offers then 24th of March. Terms and offer info at cardo.com forward slash terms. Today we're talking with Sarah Kaye about how she uses poetry as a vehicle to seek connection and how all of us can move through life with more openness and vulnerability, finding beauty in our everyday interactions. Hi, my name is Sarah Kaye and I'm a poet and educator from New York City and the author of A Little Daylight Left. Sarah, you are just for people who don't know. You live in New York City, but you are actually recording this right now quietly at night from across the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, I'm at a writing residency right now and I'm trying to be thoughtful of the other nearby writers who may be headed to Bettson. So apologies for my soft radio voice. Imagine that Sarah is softly describing her work and philosophy in another room as you drift off to sleep at your writer's residency in Scotland. Well, let's start with a question that I think is central to a lot of your work, which is place and how place and memory and where we live and where we come from can affect who we are. That's a huge question, but I'm just curious to hear how you have been thinking about that recently in your life. Well, I am from a pretty peculiar place that I didn't realize was peculiar until I got old enough to leave and meet people who were not from where I was from, which is New York City. You never know what is rare when you have no comparison. So I didn't know that growing up in New York City was rare and strange, but that is where I grew up. As a result of that, I mean, it would be impossible to have grown up somewhere so vibrant and full and delightful and strange and complex and not have it impact me. And so I love the place that I'm from and also the place that I'm from has never cared about me. In any way, that doesn't know that I exist. And that's the funny part of being from a big city like New York City is to know that deeply that I can belong somewhere or try to belong somewhere and know that it does not belong to me. For people who aren't familiar with your work, you are a spoken word poet. You're also a poet who writes in the written word as well, but your career really started because of this unique strange place that you grew up in New York City. You were just a kid when you started being exposed to poetry into this particular form of poetry. That's true. I also didn't realize like what a New York City story, my story is until I started telling it and then realized it was when I was about 14, I think, I got a letter in the mail, the letter said, congratulations, you've been registered to compete in the New York City teen poetry slam. And a poetry slam is a competition for poets to perform and there are judges and it's a whole thing. And I had never heard of a poetry slam before. I had never seen a poetry slam before. This is also pre-YouTube, so I couldn't find out what that was. All I knew was that it had the word poetry in it and the word teenagers and I thought, okay, well, maybe there will be other teenagers who like poetry like me. So I went to this event and it just so happened that for this teen poetry slam event, they had rented out a place called the Bowery Poetry Club, which was a dive bar on the Lowery side. But that night it was packed with teenagers and I got to sit in the audience and watch these brilliant poets perform confidently and I had my little 13, 14 year old mine absolutely blown. And I fell in love with it on this spot. I thought this is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. How can I see more of this? And on my way out there was like one of those little bar flyers on the bar and it said poetry, open mic and poetry slam every Thursday night. And I thought, perfect, okay, I'll come back on Thursday and I'll continue to get more of this. And I didn't understand that 364 days a year, this was a dive bar. And so when I showed up on Thursday and said, hello, I'm here for the poetry, they looked at this 13, 14 year old and said, well, okay, sit over there and don't try to order anything from the bar. And I did, I sat and I listened and that became the place that I went to every single week to see poetry. And because I was in New York City, some of the best poets in the country and in the world came through town. And so whenever a poet would come through town, they would come and do a feature and they would come perform at this bar. And so I got to watch all of these poets perform from their, in their own style with stories from their hometowns in their vernacular and accent and performance style. And I really felt like I got to, I learned about poetry first and foremost. And so only in retrospect, did I realize, oh, this is a really New York City story, I guess. And just talking about like some of the luminaries who came through there, right? Like you got to know the people from freestyle of supreme, you got to cross paths with Lin-Manuel Miranda before anyone knew who Lin-Manuel Miranda was in this particular way. And all of the great, or many of the great live performing poets who still are around today. I had always loved writing poems, but being in that dive bar, watching poets perform is where poetry shifted from being something that I thought was only solitary into something that could be communal. That was the shift that made me fall in love with the art form. When I figured out like, oh, this is something that we can gather together and share with each other and laugh and cry and learn and heal and witness. And I don't think I had all this language when I was 14. I just knew that it felt magic and I wanted more of it, but it was that that made me keep coming back. It was the communal aspect of it. And that is what continues to draw me towards poetry, I think. I love the craft and I love working on the writing too, but getting together and getting to share and getting to create a shared experience around live performance is so unique and otherworldly still. It's something that I've been just thinking about a lot because just to be totally honest, I get so overwhelmed these days by the state of the world, by zooming out even the tiniest bit and seeing the amount of suffering and conflict and the kind of rapid acceleration of everything. And it's really hard for me to not want to immediately then go back to bed and just put my head in the sand or feel totally discouraged. And the thing that I think is the solution to that, at least the solution to that for me, is to be in person community, whether it is we are taking action or we're in a room listening to a performance or eating together or doing an activity, then I don't feel that, right? I feel energized and I feel connected and I have hope again. I feel hopeful. I think that there are so many opportunities to focus on what you have no control over or what you feel like you have no control over because we, frankly, don't have a lot of control as individuals. And yet, what we do have control over sometimes is our time and our attention and our curiosity. Not always, sometimes those are required of us elsewhere, but in the moments where there are our own and we get to decide where we place them, finding ways to focus my attention and curiosity and time on other people, other people's art, other people's passions, other people's suffering and whether I can alleviate them in some way or even smaller, just other people's mundane burdens, other people's cheering up, you know, that feels like something I can do. It feels like a bit reminder that anytime we're feeling like we're alone or isolated, there's somebody on the other side of a door or on the other side of a wall, that's also feeling that too. And so if there's a way to get to them and at least then we're doing it together instead of alone. But you're also someone who I am, like totally aside from our personal relationship, a fan of your professional work. And I think that's something that is a really clear connection between who you are off stage and away from the page and who you are on stage and on the page is this real attention to care and to creating a space where you are with the other person. You are really present. And that is such a gift of being your friend and it is such a gift of being in the audience and listening to you, read your work. You have this ability to show us that we have the ability to do that, to shine the spotlight of our time and a momentary presence and attention onto another person and say, like, I'm really here and I really see you and I'm noticing things. First of all, those are all very kind things. You've just said, so thank you. You're welcome. So it takes effort genuinely, it takes effort to like to find focus attention for me and I also think that I've learned this from other people, no surprise and from experience. I was on the road for 10 years full time traveling from school to school, performing poetry, facilitating workshops with my partner in poetry, Phil K. And I spent most of the year away from the majority of my friends and family, other than Phil. And I learned this thing which sounds so obvious when I say it out loud, but I like really had to learn it, which was it turns out when I am thinking of someone I love, they don't experience that. They actually have no idea that I'm thinking of that. Unless I do something to make it clear to them. And sometimes that's as small as a text message that says I'm thinking of you and sometimes it's a phone call to check in and sometimes it's a little gift that I send in the mail that gets there in a couple of weeks and sometimes it's any realm of gesture of like concerted effort to show someone that I am thinking of them, that I do care about them, that I love them. And I had to learn that because there was a long period of time where I wasn't doing that and my friends and family felt neglected or they just didn't know that I was always thinking about them, just learning like, oh, we actually have to demonstrate it. We have to, it's not enough to experience a feeling in myself if I want that feeling to make it to somebody else. I have to convert it into behavior. I have to convert it into action in some way. Action can be in very small units, you know. And I think that then shifted into just a broader understanding of like how can I behaviorally demonstrate to someone that I am present with them when I am physically present with them in addition to present with them when I'm not physically present with them. So, in the same room, I've learned how important it is. And then, which is one step further, is in poetry, when I write a poem, in some ways, it's me pouring my attention in a direction for a moment and by virtue of putting language to it and then putting that language somewhere, either on the page or into a performance or just into an email to a friend, by virtue of trying to find language for it, I am suggesting that this is worth my attention and your attention for a moment. Stay in this poem with me for a little bit is my invitation. And then you mentioned the guys from freestyle of supreme. When I was a teenager, there was a group of young men who were incredible freestyle rappers and musicians and they created a show and they would do short form improv games but all in the form of freestyle rap. They were brilliant, it blew me out of the water and nothing that I do in my poems is usually improvised. It's like a very, very pre-written, very prepared, memorized, you know what I mean? Like I'm not trying to improvise when I want to stage for the most part. However, because I watched those improvisers so often and so much, and I should specifically say, like Anthony Bonetzialli is a person who was in the role of MC in freestyle of supreme. And he was so good at making sure the audience understood that everything that was happening on stage was not only improvised because of course, that was the point of the show, but also was happening with them, from them, and for them in a way that it would never exist again. And to do that at all is incredible, to do that in the form of freestyle rap and comedy, impossible, he's a magician. And I mentioned that to say that most of what I know about being on a stage, I learned from watching freestyle rappers in freestyle of supreme and specifically Anthony because it extended that idea of like, how do I communicate to this room that what I'm doing up here is for them in this moment and not for anyone else in the future. Whatever happens next is irrelevant, whatever happened before, like we're here in this room together and we're making something together. And so the presence that I try to bring into a stage space is really something I learned from them. What you just described, the idea that like, I am here with you and there is nothing else going on other than me and you in this moment that this is for you and us together. That is the greatest and rarest gift that we can ever give or get from another person. Well, also, I mean, you and I have talked a lot about comedy and humor because of the book You Have Written that I'm very excited about. You're talking about the book Humor Me out January 6th, 2026 from Double Day, available for pre-order now. That is exactly what I'm talking about. This whole podcast interview is actually a sponsored advertisement. But you and I have talked about how one of my favorite things in the world is when someone goes above and beyond with their effort immense effort for a very small payoff is one of the funniest things and the reason I bring it up is like putting in an immense amount of effort to make a joke for one person. But like, they're the only person that will laugh at this. But they will be beside themselves. Like, like what greater gift is there? You truly have all the people I know are one of the greatest connoisseurs of an inside joke. You love an inside joke and you love to take an inside joke for decades. You will keep it alive and vibrant in a way that is so fantastic. You will keep it alive and it will be like this deep connection where it's like, well, I know for sure that every time I see a cake in Sarah K's round, she's going to do the thing that's the cake joke. That's there. Well, because that's what I mean is it's like, it's such a lovely way to communicate to someone. Not only am I thinking of you, not only do I care about you, but I have calibrated my brain in such a way that I can lock in to this specific detail that I know will bring you joy and make you laugh. And perhaps is for no one else but you. Like what a what a deep sign of love that is also like often very stupid parentheses. Confimentary. It's incredible. Okay, we're going to take a quick ad break. So use this time to calibrate your brain to Sarah K joke mode and then we will be right back. The world moves fast. You work day even faster pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data, Microsoft 365 co pilot is your AI assistant for work built into word Excel PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use helping you quickly right analyze, create and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear path to your best work. Learn more at Microsoft calm slash M 365 co pilot. Everything breakfast at a card. I save on yoga cereal and get great price on milk. So you can splurge on eggs even from quiles perfect if you have the urge to eat a dozen eggs, but you aren't that hungry. Save and splurge a card. I the online supermarket select lines only geographical restrictions minimum spending charges apply offers and 24th March terms and offer info at car.com forward slash terms. Tired of the I know it's here somewhere moment. The new scan snap I X 2400 scanner means you'll never search for a receipt again. A simplest scan snap experience yet. Just press the blue button and instantly convert documents into digital files you can find in seconds perfect for busy professionals who need organization without complexity with instant one touch scanning 45 pages per minute speed and automatic data extraction the I X 2400 saves your files exactly where you need them no more mystic spence claims or lost warranties just peace of mind knowing everything important is safe and instantly accessible ready to stop wasting time hunting for paperwork visit scan snap it.com slash podcast and discover how simple document management can be scan snap the smart away to work. And we are back we're talking with the poet and educator Sarah Kay we got this opportunity with this podcast we got a grant from the temple 10 foundation to make a video series and you and me talking about this led to us together going to Columbus Ohio to interview and spend time with Heney who is your good friend and maybe you can just recap a little bit of like why we ended up in Columbus specifically and with Heney specifically we had a conversation at a moment when you were feeling particularly down and you were you were saying I'm feeling very hopeless I'm feeling very small there's a lot that I want to do that I don't know if I can and I don't know whether I had already talked to you about or you had seen some of Heney's writing about his community in Columbus and the way that he lives there and cares for his community and the way the community cares for him and you asked me you know that guy seems like he's got something figured out is that right and I said yes he he certainly does this is maybe not the best answer to why do I love Columbus but there is something that requires me to feel a responsibility for others that I perhaps would not feel if I lived in a city that felt so large that I could not touch or or be touched by others but I didn't want to I tend to think that my most joyful experiences living in Columbus are mirrored by the fact that people just talk to me I could just be a whole foods get in my fruit in someone will just pop up and want to talk to me about an album you know what I mean or talk to me about the NBA finals and that's because I think people in this city know me well and know that my main engine for existing in a place like this is to connect with people who I consider be my neighbors and that is beautiful to me and I think that has really mapped itself out through my life in Columbus. One of my favorite experiences in my life has been any time I get to go visit honey in Columbus to do a performance or to visit a school nearby no matter what at some point on the trip I end up in the car with honey running errands and nothing brings me more joy than sitting in the passenger seat while honey drives around the city of Columbus picking up his dry cleaning going to the bakery dropping off some package to a friend that got delivered to his house because the friend was out of town and while we're driving honey is pointing out personal landmarks around the city like there's the basketball court I used to play on when I was a kid and then over there is the smaller basketball court where the younger siblings were relegated and the older kids wanted to play on the big court and over there is where I had a really bad date one time and then over there is where like the best milkshake is and I have this great awe and this great respect for the way honey loves his hometown and how it's not abstract to him he loves people there he loves the elders that live on his block he loves the high school students that he mentors and who mentor him back he loves the guys who work at the record store and remember what he bought last time so that when he comes in next time they have something to recommend him and the way that he moves through that place looks like what I imagine you are looking for when you are looking for an example of how to be in community I think for me part of this is it's not like I'm a post the idea of you know big philosophical think solutions to things but I just feel like I have a limited amount of time and I limited amount of energy and a limited amount of effort I can put out and I want what I do to matter I want to make a difference I want to help make things better rather than worse and often I fall into this kind of trap of being like instead of choosing a fire and taking the hose and spraying water on the fire and putting it out I think what if I threw a couple of drops of water at hundreds of fires you know and then I think well all my water is gone and I did nothing and that feels so bad to me it feels so bad to be like I just I'm using all of my resource and I'm not accomplishing anything it's not maybe any effect I think that what I really admire about honey is that is able to make this really big impact because he has focused in on where he lives and on taking care of the people around him and having those people be really within his circle of care and then they care for him as well and then he's able to also address some of the bigger stuff but he doesn't forget about where he's from and I think I sometimes like you because I'm from New York City and it's like well New York's got a lot it's got millions of people who can worry about New York City I think it's like Chris have you ever heard of yes and oh yeah I have actually heard of that and I taught it for several years the key and philosophy and I think sometimes it's like a question of yes and which is like you can't ignore and we shouldn't ignore the big things that all we can offer are our tiny tiny efforts from afar sometimes that's what you've got and what you can do and also the key is to like not let that discourage you and crumple you to a level of being ineffective in your lived daily life it's really hard like it's so much easier to read the news scroll feel bad feel discouraged think I'm a small drop in an endless bucket and nothing I do can help or matter and therefore why try anything if that is the easier path to be able to say to be able to put not ignore the news and not ignore the big troubles that require our attention and effort and activism but to also say like okay so if I care about these things who in my vicinity is also being affected by this who can I touch in my daily living who can I reach and is there a way for me to help someone nearer to where I am this question of attention and this question of how can you make an impact one of the Sarah K isms that I think about all of the time and truly used to direct my life is you talking about how a lot of people and a lot of society want us to walk through life with our arms crossed being cool nothing affects us right you say something it bounces right back off me or whatever you know can affect me and that in fact what you try and do is to instead take your arms and uncross them and leave them open to catch what is thrown your way to let the world and people and things impact you and that cultivating that vulnerability which I think you know many children have but adults we we learn over time that we're not supposed to have that that you deliberately cultivate that and I think about that all the time of walking with my arms open rather than my arms crossed as something that is really important to me and that I want to have be a part of my life and now that I have kids that I want to teach my kids to that like that is what to aspire to is to be affected to not be so cool and unaffected I want to also say that in your new collection of poems one of my favorite poems has this image in it which is of a starfish a starfish that you discover miles from any shoreline and you are just paying attention to this as as a thing that why is that here and this is a magical moment that is inexplicable there's this classic cliche at least here in North America of you know the story of a person walking down the beach and there's a bunch of starfish on the beach and they pick one up and they throw it back in the water and the person says well why would you do that doesn't make any difference there's millions of starfish on the beach and the person says well it made a difference to that starfish I think that kind of unites a lot of the themes that we've we've talked about today. It's funny I had forgotten that that starfish story the the throwing the starfish back story for me so much of my poetry is my brain is always buzzing always bouncing always jumping jump jump jump jump this to think about this distress about this to worry this this this this this and so if I can get my brain to land on something long enough that what I'm end up doing is searching for language to try to share it with someone other than my own brain it suggests that it is because there's something there that I desperately want to linger on and I think lingering on something and on someone is it's everything because we only have so much time and so whatever we decide to linger on that's what we've given our time to that we can't get back when I allow myself to feel more porous as I move through the world yes that has the potential for a more heart break and more overwhelmed more devastation and it allows me to notice when something is beautiful when something requires me to linger on it when a person needs my presence when a star fish is on the asphalt you in your work as a friend as a person in this interview right like you are encouraging us all to be like shed the idea that like what's interesting about you is the thing that you think is interesting and instead be like delighted and passionate I can't believe I saw a starfish on the asphalt like that becomes amazing and becomes interesting because we are interested in what interests other people if they let us know yes and this is where I think like everyone has the things that they find delightful and amazing and they're passionate about and the more that you share those with other people the more that they're going to be connected and delighted to I think like giving yourself a chance putting yourself in places with people who can't help but share their delights like that's a way to be reminded that the lights exist you know to read poetry by poets who are celebratory or who can't help but share their own delights that helps remind me that that like oh yeah I can find some something to get stoked about I mean we are surrounded by miraculous phenomena and sometimes they're very small and seem silly to others and that's okay they don't have to impress anybody but you you can be impressed and delighted and wowed and in awe and then go back to and then go back to the treachery later you know it's going to be there you can take a little break to be excited about blueberries at breakfast well Sarrake thank you so much for talking to us from across the pond in a writer's residency in the middle of the night for you your new book a little daylight left is so good it is sincerely contains some of my favorite poems of all time not to mention my favorite Sarrake poems of all time if you have the chance to see a Sarrake live show you owe it to yourself to do it but Sarah thank you so much for being on this show and yeah what a pleasure to talk to you as always thank you Chris I love you I'll talk to you soon that is it for this episode of how to be a better human thank you so much to today's guest Sarah K her beautiful new book of poems is called a little daylight left and you can find more information about that book and her life performances on her website which is K Sarah Sarah K a Y S a R a H S E R a dot com or just Google Sarah K poet I am your host Chris Duffy and my book humor me about how to laugh more every day it's my first book it's coming out in January and it is available for pre order now you can find more about that book and all of my other projects including my live shows at Chris Duffy comedy dot com how to be a better human is put together by a team who are all currently hanging out at a poetry bar in New York City that is on the Ted side Danielle Balorezo band band Chang Michelle Quint Chloe Shasha Brooks Valentina Bohanini Laney lot Tanzik assume Manivong and Tony Elaine and Joseph Debrine this episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Matea Salas who will always verify the presence of starfish before publication on the PR side we've got the poet laureates of audio Morgan Flannery Norgill Patrick Grant and Jocelyn Gonzalez thanks again to you for listening please share this episode with a person who you are so delighted by and or who you think would be so delighted by this episode we will be back next week with even more how to be a better human until then take care and thanks again for listening The world moves fast you work day even faster pitching products drafting reports analyzing data Microsoft 365 co-pilot is your AI assistant for work built into word excel PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use helping you quickly right analyze create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear path to your best work learn more at Microsoft calm slash M 365 co-pilot tied of the I know it's here somewhere moment the new scan snap I X 24 hundred scanner means you'll never search for a receipt again a simplest scan snap 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