106 AN INTERVIEW WITH SHELLEY VALDEZ Back in February 2021, Poetry Editor Asela Lee Kemper sat down with poet Shelley Valdez on writing poems through poetry slam, love, and just being a total badass.
Asela L. Kemper (ALK): Tell me a little bit about yourself! How did you get into poetry?
Shelley Valdez (SV): Well, I guess I’ve been telling stories since I was a little kid. I didn’t know that I wanted to write poetry. When I was a little kid, my hero was Britney Spears. It was very silly. (Laughs) And then in the fourth grade, we had to write little books and my teacher was like, “Hey Shelley, you should be a writer! Did you ever think about that?” So from the fourth grade, I was like, “Oh! Well! I guess this is something I like. This is something I want to do.” I’m still in touch with that fourth grade teacher. Her husband is Gene Yang [writer and graphic novelist of critically acclaimed graphic novel, American Born Chinese and Avatar: The Last Airbender comic books]. He is super cool! He worked at my high school and the reason why I went to my high school was because of my fourth grade teacher. She said, “My husband works there! You know who he is. You should go!”
It was high school was when I really started writing poetry. I was part of the poetry club, it was called “Es Esoterikos” They made little zines, had little poetry readings, or little days where you sit in little rooms and write poetry. That was when I really knew that this was something I wanted to do. I would carry a little notebook around and write little poems in them. I didn’t think I would want to do it forever, but it was something I really cared about. And then my junior year, I had to become the head of that poetry club because the head of the club graduated and was like, “You can do it! See ya!” I was like, “Well! I guess I will!”
And that’s what I did. It was a lot of fun. Around that time, I discovered this publishing house called, Write Bloody Publishing. Before then, I had been writing a lot of rhyming poetry because
