Tenderness and Terror—the Making of GRIME: An Interview with Thea Matthews

Thea Matthews’ second poetry collection, GRIME, is part of City Lights Books’ Spotlight Poetry Series and was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of their Most Anticipated Poetry Books for Fall 2025. Writing in conversation with collections such as Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric as well as Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler, Matthews writes dramatic monologues to engage with and subvert US culture’s dependency on racialized violence. The poems of GRIME are risky and tender, exploring dependency and resistance, a commitment to movement, and a sticky awareness that geography is not freedom.

A writer of African and Indigenous Mexican descent, Matthews holds an MFA in poetry from New York University and a BA in sociology from UC Berkeley. Her poetry has appeared in the Obsidian Lit & Arts in the African Diaspora, The Massachusetts Review, Alta Journal, The New Republic, and others. Matthew’s first poetry collection, Unearth [The Flowers] (Red Light Lit Press), was chosen for Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Poetry of 2020. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Mahru Elahi: The author’s note that prefaces GRIME made me nod in affirmation. The last sentence reads, “Ultimately, GRIME is more than a book of poems, a strident genre of music, the dirt beneath your nails or ingrained on the windowsill, it’s an experience to face.” What does grime mean to you?

Thea Matthews: There’s this jaggedness, this edge of survival. It’s the hardened heart. It’s also the underbelly. There is tenderness, but also terror. What is grime? It’s like that point where ice and heat produce the same sensation.

ME: You mentioned that a friend recently suggested that while Unearth [The Flowers] might be your first collection, GRIME is your debut. That’s a beautiful, tender way to frame your work. Say more.

TM: At the end of the day, I learned that a book marks time. You just keep going, knowing there is never a state of perfection for “completing” a book. And I accept that there would be no GRIME without Unearth [The Flowers]. I’m very, very thankful for Red Light Lit Press, for Jennifer Lewis, and for being able to release this triumph over trauma piece that serves as alchemy to pain. Unearth came from reflecting on my healing as a survivor and processing my undergraduate research in survivor visibility and transformative, as well as restorative, justice models for effectively confronting child sexual abuse.

ME: How would you describe the trajectory from Unearth [The Flowers], to GRIME?

TM: Survival is still at play, and so are desperation, love, and the pull to explore the depths of the human psyche. That is where my story––my life––can take me. When I look at GRIME, I see that there is much more intentionality with the truths of a poem: whether it be sonically, factually, musically, or formally. Nicole Sealey taught me that, and I also learned how to engage with legacy on the page. Robin Coste Lewis taught us to write the poem, honoring our muse, and to never forget that our best teachers are on the page. I didn’t have any of this in mind when writing Unearth [The Flowers]. GRIME––post-MFA, best believe, I do.

ME: Describe the process of being included in the City Lights Spotlight Series. As a native San Franciscan, what has City Lights—the literary institution—meant to you?

TM: As a poet born and raised in San Francisco, I think of legacy and the many poets seated at the City Lights table. It feels surreal, and I am truly grateful to poets like Tongo Eisen-Martin, my editor Garrett Caples, and the entire City Lights team for their patience and support. GRIME went through many iterations, and I thought that the process was supposed to look a certain way and that a certain publisher was supposed to pick up my second book. I had all these useless ideas of how I thought the end product would look. I’m just so thankful to be wrong. I needed to trust the process and accept the divine opportunity in front of me.

ME: Awareness of literary legacy makes me think of your choice to employ dramatic monologue throughout GRIME.

TM: Dramatic monologue is a foyer to self. What I find most intriguing about employing dramatic monologues is the access to parts of me that I would have historically shamed or denied. I get to explore the depths of my consciousness with persona and subvert the “I” and then watch how the “I” shifts and morphs and becomes an actual eye of observation.

ME: This “exploring the depths” through dramatic monologue, as you mentioned, requires a certain amount of emotional labor. What are the ways you care for yourself throughout the process?

TM: First, I recognize the idea, store it, and then I research the subject matter. After reading articles and meditating on the themes and speaker, I’m ready for the first draft. Once I have the “clay,” I let it sit there before I mold it through revision. In fact, I work with time to care for myself because I give myself distance between drafts and poems. I have an on-season and off-season, like an athlete, when it comes to writing. I’m either focusing on generating new material, or I’m in the phase of revising drafted poems. I find this process very helpful for the type of brain I have and how I work.

ME: There’s a fluid and visceral movement between cities on either coast in GRIME, as well as a tenderness toward those who inhabit liminal spaces. I noticed this throughout the collection, and “Dez” does this so powerfully. The character Dez inhabits an “old Niners jacket” and “Giants’ pride” while cooking injectables “in this Brooklyn kitchen.” Dependency knows no geographical bounds. How vital is a commitment to movement (and a certain kind of stuck-ness) in your work? What perspective does this offer?

TM: I love that you brought up “Dez.” He was a real person from San Francisco who passed away in Brooklyn in 2017. My commitment to movement depends on the poem. It goes back to different temperatures, accessing different tonal registers, and having breathers, honestly. In conversations with Garrett, I decided to get rid of the book’s sections to provide more movement. There’s this nonlinear flow throughout the whole book––a braid of content––where certain phrases and themes evolve throughout the collection, and I’m intentional with the interweaving of what is more autobiographical with what is conjured in a dramatic monologue.

ME: Was there a poem in GRIME that surprised you? I’m thinking about the process of accretion as we write. Were there moments of recognition as you embodied the characters in the dramatic monologues?

TM: I’m thinking of the poem “On East 38th Street,” where the poem is a persona of the policemen guilty of killing George Floyd. I interweave audio transcripts, facts of what took place, and then the exploration of the inner world in that moment. The poem ends with “I can’t move, / I’m chained to the rapture.” And I had no idea that the poem would take me there. I love surprises. I love it when a poem frightens me and moves me to feel this “drop,” so to speak.

Another poem from GRIME that comes to mind is “In My Room: A Golden Shovel.” The poem is dedicated to Kalief Browder and is written after “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams (WCW). Terence Hayes, who came up with the golden shovel form, gave me feedback on how to effectively subvert WCW’s poem. I juxtapose something benign yet canonical to mirror US culture’s dependency on systemic violence. I use dramatic monologues to participate in a discourse on sociopolitical issues.

ME: What are you noticing about your writing now, post-GRIME?

TM: I’m drawn to form in a newfound way. I think of Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric and the way in which she’s able to shift the speaker’s eye and “I” and how encompassing and intimate the lonely “I” is of a poem. I’m intrigued by the depths of one’s despair but also the depths of one’s resiliency. I’m much more drawn to persona as a vehicle to grapple with parts of self—like beliefs, values, breaking points—than avoid the self.

ME: Are there hopes and intentions that you want to bring to the GRIME release, to having the collection out in the world?

TM: My hope is that this book gets into the right hands, inspiring others and validating readers’ breadth of compassion and empathy. As with any book, and as a reader, I want a book that makes me feel, that makes me bleed, as Rita Dove once said. I want a book that is experiential––that is what I hope GRIME brings, and more, to the world.