Journeys to Leadership

Tina Chang
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Tina Chang: [00:00:00] That loss of my father and searching for my father and searching for my roots became the entirety of my first collection. Um, it's, it's quite, you know, it's interesting how those pivotal events in life, however sad, can lead to something that feels full and, uh, possibly inspired. Um, And rich in terms of the creative spirit.

President Zak: Hello, and welcome to Agnes Scott college's podcast journeys to leadership, where we explore the paths of inspiring women leaders from around the globe. I'm Leo, Katie is AC president of Agnes Scott and the host of this podcast. I hope that our guest stories, not only encourage you. Our listeners and leaders of today and tomorrow, but they also inspire you as you take the next steps in your own journey.

President Zak: Today's guest is an award winning [00:01:00] poet, teacher, and editor. She's the author of Half Lit Houses, Of Gods and Strangers, and most recently, Hybrida, which was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2019. by NPR, Oprah Magazine, and Publishers Weekly, and was also named a New York Times Book Review New and Noteworthy Collection.

President Zak: Her work has brought her to international audiences in China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and many other parts of the world. She has traveled under the auspices of the U. S. Department of State to discuss her process and to share her work. She currently serves as the Director of Creative Writing at Binghamton University and is the first woman to be named Poet Laureate of Brooklyn, New York.

President Zak: She has described her ultimate goal as breaking down the wall between people and poetry, and has made it her mission to create larger audiences for poetry through youth education and [00:02:00] literacy programming. She is an award winning writer, making a major impact across the globe. Please join me in welcoming Brooklyn Poet Laureate, Tina Chang.

President Zak: Well, Tina, we are so delighted to have you as part of our podcast today. Welcome to Journeys to Leadership.

Tina Chang: Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. Thank you.

President Zak: Well, as you know, one of the things we do on our program is to explore people's journeys, um, to leadership, and we'd like to go all the way back to where it began.

President Zak: So where did you grow up and how did that influence you in your journey?

Tina Chang: Hmm. I grew up, uh, well, I first was, I was living in Canada and then as a result of my father having cancer, we traveled. To New York city, uh, for him to be treated at the Sloan Kettering cancer center. But his, uh, his illness would progress quite quickly [00:03:00] and he died within a couple of weeks.

Tina Chang: And so we found ourselves in New York city. That's how he landed there. And so, uh, that is how things sort of began for me in a city that was very unfamiliar to us. And then. My mother had decided that it was too difficult for her on her own. So she sent my brother and I to go live abroad in Taiwan with our relatives.

Tina Chang: And actually that's where I think a lot of Observation began for me, even as a young person living in Taiwan, the sites, the sounds, the language, everything was so different. And so much of my first collection was really focused on that experience, even as a young person perceiving things fresh and new and different, and to be able to start to take insights and sounds.

Tina Chang: Um, so even though it started off with something that felt very much like a tragedy, That loss of my father and searching for my father and searching for [00:04:00] my roots. became the entirety of my first collection. Um, it's, it's quite, you know, it's interesting how those pivotal events in life, however sad, can lead to something that feels full and possibly inspired.

Tina Chang: and rich in terms of the creative spirit.

President Zak: That, um, is such a difficult journey and your mother also, what a difficult decision for her to make and selfless and hard for you as well. How old were you?

Tina Chang: I was only, I was only two years old. So when I was two, my mother had to send us away. So we lived away for two years.

Tina Chang: So from the, during those sort of pivotal years of growth and development, I was without my father and without my mother, but I had a wonderful extended family. So she really trusted them to care for me. And they [00:05:00] did. And after two years, when she was able to get back on her feet again and have a home for us and have a job, um, Everything led us back to her again.

Tina Chang: And it was almost as if no time passed, except I was very cognizant and aware, even as a young person, uh, that I had been away someplace that felt very different for me. Um, and it, it, it planted a seed in my memory and my place of imagination that I wanted to kind of go back there again, which I did again as an adult.

President Zak: When you were young and growing up and having all these experiences, did you ever imagine being a poet? What did you think you were going to do?

Tina Chang: Yeah. Recently, my mother had sent me, I had moved from, from Brooklyn to, to Ithaca, to upstate New York. And she had sent me a bunch of my childhood papers. I had saved everything, including my report cards.

Tina Chang: So I reviewed my grade school report card and in second grade, My teacher had [00:06:00] written to my mother with a very concerned report card saying, uh, Tina is not reading at grade level and she doesn't seem to recognize words. And I'm a little concerned. You must work with Tina. So I looked at all of my grades and back then I got a D in everything from, from, uh, reading to oral understanding, to speaking, to math, to science, social studies.

Tina Chang: I started off with Ds, and it wasn't because I wasn't trying, but I also noticed that from unit to unit, I tried so hard that by the end of the year, I'd gained all As, um, especially in creative writing at that point in my life, so even at a young age, I think the struggle to try to understand words, the struggle to understand why I was having such a difficult time with words actually helped me to delve even more into language because I had to work so hard for it.

Tina Chang: My mother was not, [00:07:00] uh, the English was not her first language. So as she was trying to work hard with me side by side to teach me the language, she too was learning the English So it became a journey for the both of us. You know, through loss and everything that happened, she now decided, okay, I have to sit here and make sure that my daughter learns and that she excels in school and she's able to take on a language that's even unfamiliar to me.

President Zak: That's amazing. And that really leads to the questions about who supported you. Did you have mentors or what was your inspiration as you made that transition to poetry?

Tina Chang: Yeah, I mean, I think that as much, my mother was a mentor in terms of just her whole personhood. She was such a, obviously from all of her loss, she was such a strong person.

Tina Chang: But academically, she couldn't really guide me because she was learning the language herself. So she struggled. Um, so really my [00:08:00] mentors became, Um, I, I realized that maybe moving into fifth or even sixth grade, the end of my elementary school years, my English teachers started to recognize that they, that there was some kind of inclination and maybe even a gift.

Tina Chang: And I also have those report cards as well, where my sixth grade teacher tells my mother, I think she might possibly be a writer. So it was my sixth grade teacher who started to recognize that when she gave me an assignment, I wouldn't just write a poem or I wouldn't just write a short story. I would actually go home and create an entire book in sixth grade.

Tina Chang: I would create all the poems, I would illustrate them and I would create a cover and I would hand it to my teacher by the end of the weekend and she said, I didn't ask you to write an entire book. I said, but I wanted to, I said, it gave me.

President Zak: Overachiever. Always an overachiever. Do you have any of those? I do.

President Zak: I

Tina Chang: [00:09:00] still, I still have them.

President Zak: Is that your next collection to publish? Uh,

Tina Chang: you know, they're adorable to look at. They're, they're, uh, they're very, uh, you know, primitive in many ways. But I admire, I really see the young person who started. To love just the creative life, the creative spirit. And I, I wasn't 100 percent sure how that was going to take shape in my life, but I knew I love to create.

Tina Chang: When I was younger, it wasn't scary at all, but as I entered into the college experience and I continued to love poetry, it started to feel frightening to me only because I didn't have role models that looked like me, that sounded like me. I didn't even really know. How a poet was supposed to shape a life.

Tina Chang: So I was so frightened that I really ran away from poetry right after I graduated from college. I wanted to do everything that felt acceptable. I involved myself in public [00:10:00] relations, advertising, um, book publishing and magazine publishing. I tried everything possible to avoid. Poetry. It was like almost as if every other mode of language, I tried it and I tried it trying to fit myself into these pre described shapes and the shapes were not fitting me, and that felt really painful.

President Zak: Well, what brought you back?

Tina Chang: What brought me back is I was working at a magazine. I happened to land at Cosmopolitan Magazine. Originally, Cosmopolitan Magazine was a magazine to liberate women. It's, it changed over time, but originally the, uh, the editor in chief, Helen Gurley Brown, thought that in the seventies, you know, we need to liberate ourselves as women.

Tina Chang: We need to be able to talk openly about sensuality, sexuality, but then it really, it really became over time. I thought, you know, a [00:11:00] magazine more geared from, for men than for women. Although some people would argue against that, but it was when I was there That I made this very firm decision, I think it was one day that my boss came in and something had happened and she had, um, started really, um, yelling at me at work and she, uh, yelled at me in front of the entire office.

Tina Chang: And I returned to my little cubicle and I was red faced and I felt like crying, but I wouldn't allow myself to. And I thought to myself, I need to make a change. I thought that this path in media was something that I should do because I love language so much. But I had to ask myself at that moment, when was the last time I was truly happy?

Tina Chang: When was I happy? So, I thought the last time I was truly happy was when I was writing poetry. And when I was sitting in a circle with other poets speaking about this art form. And I thought, well, [00:12:00] that's a scary idea. What should I do with that idea? So at that moment, I actually logged on and did what people are not supposed to do at work.

Tina Chang: And I started to apply for different writing programs across the country. And I, I think I applied to five or six altogether and I thought whoever accepts me. I will just go there. And I was rejected by every, uh, writing program except for NYU and Columbia. It's not too shabby. Not at all. Not at all. So I decided on Columbia.

Tina Chang: All those others are saying, we

President Zak: should have accepted her. And so

Tina Chang: I decided Columbia was my tap and it was really A beautiful decision because that is where I continued on with my mentors who showed me what it was like to be a poet, a functioning and working poet in the world. And that's how things really started for me.

President Zak: And during that time, are there things that you wish you [00:13:00] had done maybe in college before you found that path or, you know,

Tina Chang: You know, I think that I made so many mistakes along the way that I think that every Turn that I, that I, every path that I went down that felt like a wrong turn for me. It was actually, in essence, a right turn.

Tina Chang: When I had gone down the path of public relations thinking, Oh, you know, my mom would be proud. My mother would be proud of me if I was a, uh, you know, the president of a public relations firm one day. And that path didn't feel right. So I turned away from that. Then I thought, okay, maybe Book publishing, book publishing will be very acceptable to my family.

Tina Chang: I could bring home a paycheck and I could prove to my mother that I succeeded in this field and I tried that. And it made me terribly sad because what I wanted to do most of all was to be on the other side of publishing. I didn't really want to publish anybody else's book. I wanted my work to be published.[00:14:00]

Tina Chang: And so I had to be very real with family. myself and those mistakes or what one would deem as a mistake were actually, the, they were served as calling cards to what would happen later on in life. So I don't know if I ever really thought of anything as an actual mistake because anything that felt painful, anything that felt difficult at the time, um, actually led me to.

Tina Chang: The next place, oftentimes when I, when I'm asked what inspires you, I said, misery inspires, misery inspires me because when I am at a place where I am so deeply fraught with sadness and I don't know where else to go, it actually forces me to see the next path that I'm going to take.

President Zak: Well, I was going to say, I'm not sure there are any mistakes, as, as you've pointed out.

President Zak: It's just a path to what should be coming next. And you have such a beautiful way of [00:15:00] demonstrating that path. Oh, thank you. Did you find, um, on that path People who helped you, you know, you talked about your mother, you talked about your teachers, how about now? Are there people that continue to help to support?

Tina Chang: I do. I find now that in this stage of life right now, I'm serving as the director of creative writing at. Binghamton University. And what's interesting is that often people feel when you get to a certain place in life, like where else do you go after being a director in a program at a university that you don't need any help or you don't need any collaboration and you don't need to be guided by anybody anymore.

Tina Chang: I'm always, I always see myself as a student of the craft. I'm always being guided by some for someone, somebody is always inspiring me. So Right now, actually, my colleagues are really inspiring me. What we're involving ourselves right now is [00:16:00] transdisciplinary. work. I think the future of poetry and the future of all art forms is to communicate with one another and to find collaboration.

Tina Chang: So, uh, I think that one of the people, and he doesn't even know that he mentored me or has mentored me, is, uh, someone, uh, a professor named Dan Thomas Davis, and he is in the music department. And, uh, Last year, we just struck upon a conversation that we wanted poets and composers to work together. We thought, and he just came up to me and said, do you, do you think that maybe your poets would be interested in providing work to my composers and we can come up with this amazing program where we can talk to each other and, and then we could match up the poets and the composers and it would wind up being this.

Tina Chang: Tremendous performance. I said, there is nothing in the world that sounds more beautiful than even artists talking to each other. So he has served as a, as, as, as a mentor, as an inspiration. And then the [00:17:00] students too. Students are, students are mentors. You know, they are teachers.

President Zak: They certainly are. And they're such an inspiration on a daily basis.

Tina Chang: Students as, um, Inspiration. That's really no joke. I have to say that during the pandemic, the one thing that got me through besides family, and this is another family, was my students. Um, I think that there were days where I got up where I thought, Oh, my gosh, how am I going to get through this day? You know, how is it going to feel like being, you know, in my office basement, you know, get it trying to, you know, get myself together for the day.

Tina Chang: And it was always the students when I saw their faces and just how much they were actually producing. And they were writing and they were writing poems and they were creating music and they were coming to me each day and they were thriving and I thought how [00:18:00] amazing that we can get through this thing together that we don't even understand because if you could remember there were there was even you know in the beginning controversy should we wear masks should we not wear masks so we're all in these very insular spaces where it felt so difficult and each day what got me through was the students so they really served.

Tina Chang: as a force of teaching me that if I want to be able to relay this lesson about living and thriving, I must listen to them. I must look toward them. And they helped me to develop all the programs because I was constantly listening to what they had to say.

President Zak: Speaking of inspirations, do you have times that you sit down and about to write and And nothing comes.

Tina Chang: Yes, there are so many days where there is absolutely nothing happening in my mind. And that is kind of, I've come to a place now in the middle of my life where I actually welcome that. It's okay. Uh, there were definitely [00:19:00] more dry spells. I, I definitely think at the beginning of the pandemic, when I was so worried about everybody around me and those who are, uh, Ill at the time that that was definitely not a creative spot for me.

Tina Chang: But what's interesting about that time is that I was never afraid that I wouldn't gain the creativity back. I knew that it was somewhere waiting for me, only because I had been a practitioner in the craft for so long. Um. And then there are days where I'm honestly thinking about administration. I'm thinking about my program.

Tina Chang: I'm thinking about how I want to serve the students at the school, that my mind is there. But now I've, I've started to really understand the notion of wearing different hats. Wearing different hats for me actually envision in my, in my mind, like putting on an imaginary hat on the days that I have to be a leader and the days that I have to work on administration [00:20:00] and really now the mornings, the quiet time, even if it's 15 minutes, 20 minutes.

Tina Chang: to an hour I completely devote to my writing. And I know that I only have that time and instead of being, um, hardened myself, but by thinking I must make a work of genius within this hour, I thought, I think to myself, what is it that I feel that I can complete? Even if it's a part of something, even if it's a part of the whole, what can I complete within this 20 minutes?

Tina Chang: And I feel like that's a much kinder way to treat myself when I'm working on a piece or a longer piece or a shorter piece. It's a much kinder way to, for it to function with, with my spirit. You know, it's, it's not moving into that place of beating myself up over things I can't finish, but maybe celebrating what I can accomplish.

President Zak: Well, you mentioned wearing different hats. One of them is leader. Um, who are you when you're [00:21:00] that leader? What are

Tina Chang: those qualities? It's hard to see from the outside, right? I mean, I mean, unless, unless somebody outside the person on, on the inside, it oftentimes feel like, feels like. over time, uh, that being a leader is about being a great listener.

Tina Chang: And you've probably heard that, that I think that, um, during years and, uh, when we've had leadership of this country, I won't say who, I won't say what different kinds of leadership, but there have been moments where I actually think, and when I was talking about difficult moments before, in those difficult moments of having a leader of a country that Um, maybe I wasn't in agreement with certain things or I wasn't in agreement with how things were being run.

Tina Chang: Those challenging moments actually really helped me to step back and think to myself, well, what kind of leader do I want to be in the realms where I step into? And the thing that mattered the most to me was a [00:22:00] spirit of listening and a spirit that I wasn't a leader at the forefront of something. I was a person that was collecting.

Tina Chang: Ideas in my community and those ideas in my community would then lead me to the charge of placing those ideas into action. So, so much of leadership in my role, in my various roles has been about collaboration, really been about, um, how am I going to take these ideas, uh, from these various places and make sure that I don't just, um, Sit on the ideas is great to be a wonderful listener.

Tina Chang: I think it's wonderful to really be in a quiet space to receive those ideas. And then I think it's something else to be able to skillfully, um, think about how those ideas will take shape in the world. Um, how will those ideas then [00:23:00] find whether it's a solution, uh, whether it's a project, it's a program, how will that take shape?

Tina Chang: So a lot of it so much is about, um, active listening.

President Zak: That is wonderful. Tina, it's been such a pleasure talking with you. Do you have any last words of encouragement or advice for our listeners?

Tina Chang: So I write weekly letters to my students when I look at their creative work. Um, At the end of each letter, I always tell them the same thing, and that's keep going.

Tina Chang: The idea of continuing on with the craft, the idea of, um, not letting go of a particular dream that we have for ourselves is so important. And waking up each day and finding that energy, that spark within oneself to keep going, um, is I think really the project for the day.

President Zak: Tina, that was so wonderful.

President Zak: Thank you so [00:24:00] much. What a rich conversation to our listeners. I hope you are encouraged and inspired by Tina Chang's journey. It's one of many that we can't wait to share with you. Thank you for joining us. I also want to thank our producer, Sydni Perry, for making this podcast possible. I'm Leo Kadia Zak, and this is Journeys to Leadership.