MOCHA	MATIX poet of the month
	interview by Jamie Jablonski.
Recently Mocha opened the Saul William's reading at IU, featuring the NuYorkian poet and star of the film SLAM (read this review from the Seattle Times.) When she gets her Doctorate in Higher Education Administration and her Masters in Afro-American studies at Indiana University, she’ll pack her backpack and travel the world. She notes that her friends who have spent time in London come back better poets. In London, poetry is not underground; readings are for audiences of 300 or more at a time.
listen / read Mocha's poetry.

MATRIX: Do your poems have a prevalent theme?

MOCHA: “Well, my signature poem is ‘Blank Pages-a black woman’s voice’. I write about love, things I hate, politics, whatever surrounds me that I think needs to be addressed. People stereotype me as the angry black poet-like the poets in the 60’s.”

How long have you been doing readings?

“I’ve been doing performance poetry now for about four years, but I’ve been writing I’d say all my life, I’m 29. The writing has progressively gotten better since I’ve gotten older and wiser and took on different techniques. And, I do want to make a career out of it, but I’m also caught between a rock and a hard place because it doesn’t pay very well… I’ve taken the security route and have always had a steady job.”

Do you remember what the first poem you ever wrote was about?

“I think it’s the corniest thing I’ve ever written now. It was called ‘Some of my favorite things’. I just wrote about the environment I was in- playing scrap football, my mother cooking fried chicken, planes going by in New York- we lived by an airport in New York. So I called it my favorite things.”

How old were you?

Mocha: “I was little, like ten.”

Wow. I think I was peeing my pants when I was ten…