Get “Messy” with Songline: Q&A with Aron Wander ’15 and Ryan Cody ’15

Street sat down with Aron Wander ’15 and Ryan Cody ’15, who are, along with Namkyu Oh ’16, the three co-founders of slam poetry group Songline. Songline was founded in 2013. Wander and Cody discussed Songline’s unique characteristics, the slam poetry process and Songline’s upcoming show, “Hot Mess,” which runs this Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. in the Wilson Black Box Theater.

Daily Princetonian:What are the goals of Songline and why was it founded?

Aron Wander: We were looking for a cohesive, small, tight-knit poetry group that would be able to put on themed shows and would have a small group dynamic. Slam poetry often — poetry in general — you often end up writing about things very personal. We found it’s easier to have an honest writing process—

Ryan Cody:—if you can get really close to everyone in the group. Encourage a very tight-knit community. We felt like it was easier to do that, especially when we only try to perform 45 minutes to an hour for our shows; it’s nice to have a smaller group so everyone gets to say what they want to say.

DP: Can you tell me a little about “Hot Mess?”

AW:Hot mess — so it’s going to be a bit of a hot mess. It’s going to be a good time I think. We have a lot of different kinds of poems. Not as many group pieces as in some previous shows, but I think it’s nice to let people speak on their own. We got some poems about couches, we got some poems about dead skin, poems about being a foreigner, a good mix of poems.

RC: A little bit of everything.

DP: What are some of the challenges involved in running a slam poetry group?

AW: I think one is, as much as having a small tight-knit group is a boon, it also means that each member really has to carry their own weight. Nobody’s there to pick up the slack for you. I mean, we’re there to pick up the slack for each other, but there aren’t that many people to pick up the slack.

RC: And it can be really tough, you know just how things fall — especially for us, you have seniors who have theses due ... You have to write all your stuff, and I couldn’t write a poem for him if he was struggling. It all comes from you, and it can be hard sometimes if you don’t know what you want to say. It’s not something where it’s like, “Today I’m going to sit down and write a poem.” It happens most of the time where it’s just like, “I have an idea, I’m going to write it right now.” And that can be tough when you’re really caught up in other stuff.

AW: I think two of the biggest challenges in slam poetry [are] because you have an audience, you’re often constantly on the line wondering, “How honest am I being? Am I saying this to get a reaction, or am I saying it because I feel it? Am I trying to make myself feel it so I can believe it and say it?” And then you’re also trying to balance, “How much am I relying on my personal experience to make this poem good, and how much am I relying on the writing?” I have a poem about my OCD, and so I wonder, “Am I relying on the fact that people are going to feel bad for me because I have OCD to make people like this poem, or is the writing actually good?” I think those are two big tensions people encounter.

DP: Do you guys have a favorite show or performance you did in the past that you want to share?

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RC: I liked the first show we put on when the newly formed group was kind of crazy, because we hadn’t had auditions yet. We had three people for the majority of it; then we added a fourth person pretty close to when the show was. It was very much rolling with the punches. We performed in Terrace, which was really cool. But it was that experience of finally pulling it all together, really the first time we were like, “We are a group, we’re performing, we’re ready to go” — I thought that was a lot of fun.

AW: We had no idea how many people were going to show up. We got about 100 both nights, which was awesome. We overflowed the room. It was really exciting — it was very stressful, because when there were four of us, each of us was responsible for a lot of poetry, so we were each in like five or six poems. This show, most of us are in like three. It was a good time, though.

DP:What are Songline’s goals for the future?

AW: I think we’re just going to keep trying to do what we’re doing, but do it even better.

RC: I think it’s been interesting, because we’ve been here, and obviously, we started the group just last year, so it’s still making sure that we’re carving out a space for ourselves. It’s kind of a scary, exciting time to be like, “All right, now it’s up to you guys.” They’re all freshmen and sophomores and juniors, [and they’re] taking control of the group more and more as we get closer to being done.

AW: It’s also weird for us because Cody and I have been doing poetry on campus since sophomore year, freshman year. And we’re about to head to places where we’re probably not going to be doing a lot of poetry, in the real world.

RC: We’re also the first graduating class of Songline, so that’s pretty exciting stuff. But yeah, I think doing what we’re doing, but doing it better and probably expanding the areas we get involved in, optimizing our system. I’m happy with it for now.

Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article misstated the time of the show. The show is on Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. The 'Prince' regrets the error.