The Visionaries Poetry Collection: Sabrina Anthony's Manipulated Memories
This is the first piece of the Visionaries Poetry Collection, curated by Shakilya Lawrence for National Poetry Month. This series centers on the poet, their work, and background, highlighting the messages they want to spread with their projects.
I had the pleasure of (virtually) meeting Sabrina last year during my BIPOC writing series. She bravely shared her story about her experience with D.C. protests as an organizer and activist as one of our featured writers. Though her college background is in political science, writing has always been a major part of Sabrina’s life, and she has found a voice through poetry and spoken word.
“I believe that writing found me...”
She began her writing journey as a young girl in elementary school, journaling about her day as a way to process her life and emotions.
“I used to keep a journal—like a ‘Dear Diary/Self’— [where] I would write about my life and self-affirmations to myself even at that young age,” Sabrina told me. Writing about her daily life built a form of discipline, reaching a point where she felt inclined to write about her life every day. Even as a young adult, writing has continued to be a space for her to process her emotions and clearly convey how she feels.
Her love for poetry followed later on in life as she found her voice as a poet through watching Def Jam’s poetry slams. Her transition from political science into writing poetry was effortless as she describes herself as a “rebel,” putting her mind towards whatever she desires to do. Her key to remaining multi-faceted was understanding that she didn’t have to box herself into one area. She allowed herself to flow where her interests were, and sometimes that meant she would “be writing about self-help/love” one day and “attending a board meeting about coronavirus” the next.
Her chosen style is prose poetry, which is reflected in how conversational, relatable, and transparent she is in her pieces.
“My writing is a doorway for people to see me. And hopefully, in seeing me, they can see themselves [and] open the door to what they don’t know.”
Her poetry's inspiration mainly comes from fragmented thoughts—i.e., a past conversation or sentiment, a quote/phrase, etc.—that acts as the baseline for her piece. From that starting place, she builds upon the idea, developing it into a complete body of work. Because her ideas come from different places, Sabrina’s open about her creative process, sometimes working backward from the end, building a poem around one word, or even going back through old tweets for inspiration.
When asked about who exactly inspires her to create, Sabrina confidently answered, “a younger me.” Her poems are a way of speaking to herself (a way of self-coaching) while offering love and guidance to her younger self. These pieces display the transformation and growth she had to go through to become the person she is today.
“My younger self inspires me because I never would’ve thought I’d be at a place where I’m healing through my work. Being able to turn my [worst] experiences into a poetry book and a guide, I think that inspires me the most.”
Her work is truly inspirational, and through her openness, she’s been able to reach and help others. In her writing, she relates to her audience through experiences and emotions, creating a safe space for her readers to know they aren’t alone in their struggles. The poetry she creates emphasizes themes of self-love and worth, setting boundaries, vulnerability, and mental health, the major topic she explores within her debut poetry book Manipulated Memories and her spoken word EP Spoken Memories.
Sabrina describes her book as an “open love letter to herself.”
Her latest project, Manipulated Memories, is a collection of prose, most of it coming from her daily journaling dating as far back to her middle and high school years. The book includes poems, short stories, and self-affirmations that explore topics of self-love, mental health, and healing.
The idea for the EP came afterward upon realizing the amount of spoken word pieces within the project. She came up with the idea to take four poems and perform them over a beat, giving her readers insight into how she intended it to be read and allowing them to hear the passion behind her words. In doing this, she brought life to the words on paper, no longer remaining static or up to interpretation. Readers got to hear the inflections, emphasis, and pauses—the cadence in her voice as she delivers every line and every word. She orally takes us on a short journey of her work—through self-healing, affirmations, and mental health; it’s another way Sabrina gets personal with her readers. It was also a clever way of building interest for her upcoming book, as the EP was released March 26th on Soundcloud.
With releasing such a personal collection, Sabrina had to step outside her comfort zone and journey through some challenging emotions. Though most of her pieces were about past situations that she already had moved on from, she admits to concealing some of her feelings for a long time. The writing process forced her to confront those lingering sentiments. Certain pieces in the collection hit closer to home and were “uncomfortable to write.” They evoked emotional responses from past situations and reminded her that she “wasn’t past those moments in her life” yet. However, she allowed herself the space to feel those emotions to process what happened, understand her feelings surrounding the situation, and figure out the message she wanted to convey. Her book and EP have been a healing source within her life, helping clear the air over the last of her past baggage.
“I’m an author.”
This is Sabrina’s first book as a published author, and doors began opening the moment she decided that she was one. The opportunity arose for her to publish her first book shortly after changing her language from “I write/am a writer” to “I am an author.” Last year, after her change in mentality, she was contacted by a Georgetown professor to participate in his yearly publishing program for writers. This project has been a year in the making and has helped create ease in her publishing process while also teaching her about the industry. But even if she hadn’t gotten blessed with this opportunity, Sabrina still would’ve pushed towards becoming an author because sharing her work is extremely important to her.
“This has always been a dream of mine. Before they even reached out to me, I always knew I wanted to write a book. [On my own], even if I only sold 10 copies, I’m happy because this is something that I wanted to do—to put out into the world. I wouldn’t even care if it’s 1 copy! As long I know that I did what I was supposed to in this chapter of my life.”
“From this process, I really found my voice as a spoken word artist” ”
Nothing great is without its challenges, and you’re bound to run into some when creating a comprehensive project. The most obvious one for Sabrina was understanding not everyone will “buy, like, or relate to [her] work,” no matter how relatable it is. As artists, we strive for our work to resonate with others. However, the key is letting go of those expectations, and understanding your work will impact those who need it. Secondly, she had to become comfortable enough to sit with herself. This pertains to processing her emotions to complete her pieces, but she also did this when planning her book’s direction.
“I didn’t want the book to be surface level. I knew I had to get to know myself and the people around me again, [understanding] that I only know them from my standpoint. I figured, ‘let me put myself in their shoes’, so I can write a well-rounded book.”
Lastly, isolation was imperative to ward off all potential outside influences during her writing and developmental stages. As part of her writing process, she stayed away from all forms of influence—social media, books, and YouTube—until she was solid in her foundation.
Manipulated Memories is a collection of prose that grants you a personal look into Sabrina’s life, mental health, and self-love journey. But it’s also an opportunity to “explore yourself, your healing, and memories in a new light.” She wants her audience to receive the book’s messages, understanding that healing is not linear—it looks different for every person—and that there’s no blueprint to finding yourself and self-discovery. Everything comes with time, but you have to be open to journeying with yourself.
When asked what’s next for her, she replied, “The sky’s the limit!” A fitting phrase for someone who’s pioneering her own path with her career. And I can’t wait to see what else she has in store.
