Humans of McMaster: Robyn Sidhu

C/O Robyn Sidhu

The Silhouette: Please introduce yourself.

Robyn Sidhu: My name is Robyn, my pronouns are he/she/they and I'm a fifth-year student at [McMaster University] in the [political science department] and I'm double majoring in peace studies and attempting to minor in gender studies.

When did you first get into poetry?

I was in grade 10 [and] for a civics assignment, we had to do a creative project that had to do with a social justice issue my teacher gave us. I decided to do poetry and I think queerness. This was also when I was still in the closet so I was like, “let me test the waters, let's see how these folks think about the gays.” That same year I started slamming with the Brampton poetry slam. That doesn't exist anymore; it only lasted a couple years, unfortunately. But I loved it. I was writing really angsty poetry that was definitely not good at all, but I really loved it. Then I came to Mac and I heard about the Burlington slam project. I ended up joining the team and being able to go to a couple different festivals, which was really cool. I got to go to Dallas, [Texas] in my first year for the International Women's Poetry Slam and this was also before I came out as nonbinary, [so] I identified as a woman when I went. I got to go to Chicago for the National Poetry Slam out there which is super cool and only three Canadian teams get to go — the Burlington, Toronto and Vancouver teams. I also ended up going to the Canadian festival for Spoken Word in my second year, which was in Guelph. That's how I got to know the national scene and then the American scene and kept writing.

Do you have any goals in regards to your work?

It's kind of weird. Once the pandemic happened, I've taken a step back from writing and now I teach [more]. I work with this charity in Toronto called CANVAS. We do consent education training in schools and workplaces and queer identity training in schools, camps, workplaces and stuff like that. Through CANVAS, I run a poetry program for [femme and misogyny-affected] youth and shelter spaces. For the past two years, I've been running this program . . . Every year, I get to meet so many wonderful youth who come through the program and write and foster and create that space. That is something that I love doing more than actually performing and writing. We put together a book every year called the Back Talk Collective. My real poetry goal is to expand that program . . . I want to expand that. I want to do a queer-specific stream; I want to do a stream for boys and masc [folks]; I want to do a trans only stream; I want to keep teaching . . . I love doing it. All of our sessions are about some part of our identity or experience. We try to weave a lot of other art forms into the session like collaging, poetry and music. We do performances together and we pay whoever comes to perform. We really strive to not just create that safe space in session, but also as an organization, [to] really invest in our youth and our artists. So, we’ve implemented this new thing where if you're submitting to any literary magazine and there's a paywall to submit, we'll cover that. Or if you're wanting to go to other workshops that are arts-related and there's a paywall, let us know and we'll pay for it. That's been one of the things that I've really tried to foster because I don't just want people to come to my session and then do poetry; I want them to invest in themselves.

Have there been any obstacles that you've encountered with poetry or any of your work?

I run a poetry slam series in Toronto called Hot Damn it's a Queer Slam. It's Canada's only queer circuit for queer people by queer people. The pandemic has forced us online. We haven't been able to meet together in person. Everybody's Zoomed out and nobody wants to go to Zoom events so we found that our poetry slams, our open mics and the workshops we've been hosting have been pretty intimate. They're not getting as many people as they normally would have. That's been kind of a step back, but also the beautiful thing about Zoom is that everybody can join, no matter where they're from if you have Internet access. We've been seeing a lot more disabled folks come and join our sessions because you can log on and you don't have to physically go anywhere. We've had people from across the world join our workshops, which has been really weird and really good because we never would have met [them] otherwise, but now [they’re] from London and [they’re] in this workshop on a random Saturday. 

Do you have any favourite poems?

Sonya Renee Taylor and it's called The Body is Not an Apology. Gorgeous, phenomenal. It's about how you don't have to apologize for existing and you having a body is a joyous reckoning. Sonya Renee Taylor also has a website and an organization called The Body is Not an Apology. It's a movement about reclaiming your body as a disabled person, reclaiming your skin as a racialized person and then it's just a phenomenal organization and movement. Another poet that I absolutely adore, but, unfortunately, have never been able to meet, is Melissa Lozada-Oliva and she is phenomenal. She's a [Latin] writer and she's got this poem called Black Thong Underwear. 

Do you have any favourites of your own?

Falling in Love with a Poet. I just love roasting shitty men I've dated and that one is so close to home. When I read it for other poets, they're like, "wow, you're really calling me out" and well, we all do this stuff, so. Then I've got another poem I wrote in my first year that's called Sunflowers and Rooftops and I usually perform it with my ukulele. I know four chords on the ukulele and I milk them all. It's about this first-year romance I kind of had but I exaggerated in my head.

Do you have takeaways from your work, your experiences or just even from poetry itself? 

I think the biggest takeaway from poetry has been that anybody can be a good writer. As long as you foster it, especially with teaching. There's this thing I teach called the responsibility of the storyteller. [It’s] the idea that we're all experts of our own narrative, but we shouldn't be writing each other's stories; write what you know [and] write what you've experienced. It's been really interesting to see people writing such specific stories to their own experiences and then seeing other people relate to that. It makes me feel not alone. Poetry brings so many people together. If I read a random poem out and somebody I never met before relates to it, that's a shared moment and I love those shared moments. I love how such specific stories in my own life can resonate with other people and vice versa. Also, putting your heart into it and trying really can get you somewhere. You know, with being able to go to all the festivals, being able to meet so many wonderful people and being able to run a slam myself. It's just my wildest dreams come true.