A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Aja Monet is a surrealist blues poet and musician.
AJA MONET: The blues is just - I feel like it's my origin story, you know? It's where I begin and probably where I'll end.
MARTÍNEZ: Two years ago, the Grammy-nominated Caribbean American artist performed a Tiny Desk Concert here at NPR.
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MONET: The devil you know taxes the air we breathe, privatizes the water, profits off homelessness, strangles the land, injects hormones in animals, rapes the people and rewards the rich.
MARTÍNEZ: "The Devil You Know" is part of Monet's new poetry collection, "Florida Water." NPR's Julie Depenbrock sat down for a conversation with the poet.
JULIE DEPENBROCK, BYLINE: In Monet's world, Florida Water has more than one meaning.
MONET: There's the literal Florida Water, you know, the perfume, the aromatic water that is used for cleansing the home and cleansing one's altar. And it's often used in spiritual baths, part of rituals.
DEPENBROCK: The other meaning is just the water in Florida, where Monet used to live. Water at the beach, water from floods and hurricanes.
MONET: This year was a dedication to Florida Water, the cleansing. Little did I know the whole world would be rinsing, too. Everyone is a running faucet, blood on their hands. Can't face ourselves in one another.
DEPENBROCK: As in the title poem, themes of resistance and revolution appear frequently in Monet's collection, like here in "The Perfect Storm."
MONET: The perfect storm empties a country of abuelitas, padres, hermanos, mujeres y ninos. A disaster that doesn't seem so natural, waves of wind damaged homes, hovering roofs made of tarp. If you wanted to take land from a people bent on resisting colonialism, insert McDonald's, Walmart or the Jones Act.
DEPENBROCK: To Monet, working as an activist and organizer is inseparable from her work as an artist.
MONET: I think a big part of the measure of our existence is based on our impact on one another. And the evidence that we exist is how we affect each other, how we have impacted each other.
DEPENBROCK: One of your poems poses a question - is love a commons?
MONET: Oh, I wanted to read that poem (laughter).
DEPENBROCK: Have you answered that to your satisfaction? And then, yeah, I'd love to have you read that.
MONET: Oh, that's the one. OK, that's funny that you said, 'cause I was like, should I read it? Should I not?
DEPENBROCK: She did read it.
MONET: Is love a commons? In the fifth year of side by side, he tells you he's got nothing left for you, not even tears. No apology will do. After all, he's not meant for relationships, just mobilizing them. His heart floods the internet, a tsunami of tears for his people. What a revolutionary man, who cries and shares softness - a stranger staring back at you through a screen, a timeline of prolific distance between you and him. What is socialism if it means his right to be right except for when it comes to you?
DEPENBROCK: So is love a commons? Monet believes it ought to be, and not only regarding romantic love.
MONET: I think if our leaders reflected the love that we know we need and deserve, we would have a very different way of organizing systems in society. So I look forward to a people that demands love from their leaders.
DEPENBROCK: And, Monet adds, from every relationship in their life.
Julie Depenbrock, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOGWAI'S "STANLEY KUBRICK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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