I think that fear came from, "Okay, I'm going to have Beyoncรฉ in the title, and people are just going to think, it's Beyoncรฉ poems. It's light and fun." I was kind of super-conscious of that. It's kind of like this weird trick I'm playing, where you're like, "What an interesting, fun cover, and then the name Beyoncรฉ." Then you open it, and it's just about my depression. All of it belongs together.
Morgan ParkerThe book [There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncรฉ?] is quite complex, and I was worried that it would be marketed as one-sided or flat, and I knew that Mickalene's [Tomas] work would be able to encompass all the many states of being that are in the book.
Morgan ParkerI'm working on a young adult novel. I've been working on it for a while, because I don't know how to write a novel and I'm teaching myself. For that reason, I've been reading a lot of YA [young adults], which I never have before. It's totally new to me.
Morgan ParkerI always say that my artist statement is to not be afraid to talk about the messiness - the unpleasant feelings and happenings around my life. I also try to convey what it feels like and sounds like and smells like and looks like inside of my particular skin, to move through the world as a black American woman in her mid-twenties. Language from songs and TV shows feel integral because it helps to create the environment and describe the full picture.
Morgan ParkerAfter a while, being so honest and so vulnerable on the page ends up affecting my own kind of self possession in the world, because I am not afraid of myself and my own thoughts. I think so much of being a woman, of being a social being, of being polite, is quieting those thoughts. There's so much we try not to say as we go through the day. There's a lot of tempering and self-editing. It is a relief to make writing that space where I don't need to do that.
Morgan Parker