We recently connected with Christy Merry and have shared our conversation below.

Christy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

Around 1997, back while I was attending Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago, I was hanging out in Wicker Park with my friend Edward (aka Baltazar), and attending my first open mic. He was a visual artist who would sometimes attend these events and play the Native American flute. This had been a last-minute plan change and I didn’t attend with any plans to perform. During this event, the Word Salad Open Mic at the Pontiac Cafe, the host Jim Redd asked me if I was a poet and somehow persuaded me to share one of my poems.

I think the poem I performed was one I’d prepped for a show called ‘Six Virgins and a Mic’ which I’d been asked to do my first poetry reading at with other first-timers. The show had subsequently been cancelled before occurring. One of the poems I’d prepared – the first in the series – I’d committed to memory, and it would have been the only one I had ‘with me’ since this was impromptu. Something magical happened that night, and the air felt electric – I felt connected to the people in that room in a unique way. I was looking into their eyes and felt I was speaking right into their hearts. And the rest is history, I suppose. I’ve now been reading poetry at readings, both open mics and featuring at events, for near 30 years, as well as, during some seasons, also performing music. I’m forever thankful to Edward for bringing me into that awkward moment, and that I said yes and learned what I did. I could have so easily demurred.

This is the poem, if helpful for context:

FRUSTRATED DREAM

Generation X I am –
Where do I call my home?
Who do I call my own?
There ain’t no sky anymore, that’s blue;
there ain’t no love anymore, that’s true.
There’s only that sigh in the morning.
Will I find what it means today?
In my head still the blasphemous screaming
seems to have nothing to say.
And I cry though the song in the night keeps me awake,
for I never hear its ending.
And I find I’m alive though I wish I would die,
for I never hear its ending.
I ask myself if it’s partial truth,
but I can’t seem to find it complete,
like a man who’s forever been hungry
and there’s never enough to eat.

Sunrise

Sunset

And it’s over.
I’ve lost a game I didn’t even know I was playing –
I didn’t even know.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I began writing poetry, music and stories as a kid and had determined I’d like to be an author fairly early, while I was still in high school or possibly earlier. I used to submit poems to a magazine I’d read called Teen Challenge, starting about age 13. Over time, they published about 7 of my poems, and would generally pay me by sending me a tape or a T-shirt in the mail. I sent them even poetry I knew they wouldn’t publish; I remember a Dahmer-themed horror-type poem I sent entitled ‘The Dreams Will Still Be There’. I figured even if they weren’t publishing them, they’d be reading my work and that was something; I might make them smile. My first ‘big money’ get was when one of the editors at Teen Challenge moved to Go Magazine and reached back out to me to republish an Easter-themed poem I’d written. I received a check for $100.

I took a break from submitting poems while in college. I was the oldest grandchild on both sides of the family and expected to go to college, though no one could quite afford to pay my way. I applied and was accepted to Moody Bible Institute, which provided paid tuition for all accepted students. However, I still had to work on top of classes to pay for room and board and books. Unfortunately, Moody did not offer writing degrees, so I instead I obtained my B.A. in Urban Ministry with an emphasis on homeless youth, which was also a strong interest of mine. I did have a group of my works (poetry and a short story) performed by a college drama team at that time, and as mentioned in the previous story, this is when I became involved in performing poetry. I also took some excellent literature classes from Dr. Rosalie de Rosset that helped form some of my strong reading and writing influences, classes like ‘Violence and Grace in the Novel’ or ‘Images of Christ in the Novel’.

I also led a band in my junior year there called Thursday James with some incredible musicians from all over the world. The band taught me my limitations in not being much of an instrumentalist were sometimes an advantage. The drummer in particular would get excited about timings I would use. I wrote most of my songs a capella before we added instrumentation and didn’t really know standard timing rules, which would sometimes result in unique time changes within my songs that really stretched him. He was such an accomplished musician that it seemed he was usually able to figure things out, and the rest of the band too! This has been a great comfort to me in later years when sometimes I’ve worked with musicians that would say “you can’t do that” about a timing I am using. Now, even if the person I am talking with says it can’t be done, I tend to have faith that someone somewhere can ‘do that’ even if I’m not working with them yet.

Music continues to thread its way through my life and I have many more songs in many genres that have yet to see the light. I do plan to work on more at some point. I lived in Hollywood for a few years and was in a folk/jazz/rock/blues band called Old Souls while there, and in New York City where I lived for 5 years, I performed folk/Americana with my friend Rick Beerhorst some during the year our time in NYC overlapped. We even got to play in the basement of CBGBs once. I’ve been back in Minnesota since 2010, and I finally recorded a couple EPs of my own music here with Matt Patrick at The Library Studio, that were put out in 2021 and 2023. Which one you lean toward will likely depend on whether you’re in a quieter ‘cathartic’ mood (‘here for you’ EP was described that way by a reviewer) or whether you feel like dancing (as my vintage-jazz-feel ‘Doree & the Dishes’ EP may have that effect).

That said, currently my focus is on poetry and I plan for it to be so for the next year or so. To date, I have published 7 poetry collections (5 saddle-stitched chapbooks and 2 perfect bound books) since 2006. Two of them, the first and the the last, center on biblical characters and themes; two are breakup books covering the aftermath of a breakup of an engagement in my early 20s respectively in the 30 days following and the 7 years following; one is on themes of cancer, grief and death and the parts of these with which faith can and cannot help; one covers all the seasons of love; and then, finally, there is one currently out of print which touches more on social issues to some extent. This year, tho’ I am woefully behind due to a recent family loss and general procrastination, I’m hoping to release two more chapbooks. And then, sometime within this next year (I turn 50 in July), I hope to publish a collected works from my first 50 years, which if accomplished would include all these prior books plus additional unpublished works and juvenilia. It’s an aggressive schedule considering that I work 40+ hours a week as an Investor Services Associate, serve on a board for the Jessa Roquet Music Foundation, help serve youth at my church occasionally, and have a husband and cats etc.. However, these pursuits are really the reason I have a day job – to keep me alive in order to be able to do these things I love.

A couple things that are unique about my poetry are a) it is generally pretty accessible, which is to say, your average person who might not think of themselves as a poetry-reading person, may appreciate and understand much of it, b) I am fairly dramatic when I perform my poetry, in that I to some extent act things out as I read them and also occasionally employ accents, and c) my books tend to be illustrated with numerous black and white art pieces and/or photographs, showcasing work from both myself and many others in my community and network of artistic friends. One of my favorite things to do, when I put out a new project, is to write a detailed thank you blogpost and showcase how many amazing people have contributed to make something beautiful together. I am passionate about many types of art and specifically love encouraging talented folks to return to pouring themselves into their work when life has pulled them away from it. There is a beauty in seeing someone reconnecting with their gift(s), and I’m here for it!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Connections being made. Once, when I was in the middle of a break-up, my ex said in frustration to me, “You connect people all the time, and you don’t even see it!” At the time, I wasn’t really sure why he was upset about that, but the statement itself later opened my eyes to a core piece of myself, that, just as he was saying, I didn’t see. Or at least I didn’t realize how vital it was for me. In the time since then, I’ve kind of boiled down a statement that covers a lot of what I do: “I love connecting people with beauty, themselves, others, and the God who loves them.”

I think partly these connections come from the high value I place on truth. When I tell the truth, my experience, my secrets, it has the strange concomitant effect that others can feel a freedom to also share with me their stories and struggles. In the last year or so this has been happening a little more often. I’ve found myself sometimes just crying with people, sitting with them at crossroads where they are making a decision about how to use their gifts, re-evaluating complicated relationships with faith, or simply being able to access their own grief. Many times, it might be a poem or a song that unlocks something and/or says something that someone feels they needed to hear. That’s sacred ground to meet on, and I’m so thirsty for that gritty realness. There’s something in poetry, music and so many other types of art, that allows you to cut through non-essentials and talk about what really matters. So, that’s what I enjoy most.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I can, but I’d guess my ‘presence’ is relative – currently it looks like I have about 1800 followers on Facebook, where I’ve been since 2007, and a little over 1000 on Instagram, where I’ve been since 2013. I’m not sure I’ve actively tried to build an audience other than making friends and exchanging socials with folks I meet and posting somewhat regularly. These days I probably post on Instagram an average of 1x/day. Some days it might be a lot more, some days not at all. Consistency is probably decently helpful in this regard.

I cross-post reels and event announcements from Insta to Facebook and post rather minimally or sporadically on Facebook outside of that. I did accidentally realize in the last couple years, that each year I seem to gain 100 friends on Facebook. I don’t do this with any agenda and regularly forget to tell folks at shows about my socials; however, if I meet someone interesting, I may ask if we can connect ‘on the socials’. I guess I find a lot of folks interesting, so it happens with some regularity.

I have started to keep an email list and any time I’m selling books at a show or event I have a clipboard out where people can sign up for it if they like. When I send the Mailchimp emails I do include links to my socials both at the bottom and sometimes sprinkled throughout. When I reference a specific event, I might link an Instagram reel of a poem I shared if a past event, or I might link a Facebook event page if a future event. I also have my socials linked to my website. One thing I did at a book release last year which helped build that list was to include in the pay-if-you-can door charge a raffle ticket for some free merch (books and art), and the raffle tickets asked for your name and had an extra line where it was noted only to include your email address if you wanted to be added to the email list. Since lots of folks wanted free stuff (who doesn’t?), a good number of people filled out their names and while they were at it, a decent percentage signed up for the email list.

Some of the things that I do ‘on purpose’ that may help on the socials front are the following:

1) Occasionally I will create videos of myself reading my poems featuring either myself or voiceovers with video of a related image or scene.
2) If I post a group of pictures of an event, if I am in one of the photos I’ll put it as the first one. This is not because I’m so me-focused, but because I realize if I am following someone, it’s usually because I’m wanting to see more of them and photos of them will be more interesting to me than photos of strangers.
3) I tend to prioritize open mics that typically video their events, as I find I can ‘video the video’ to grab a quick clip of one poem or part of a poem and re-post, just to give folks a feel for my work. It’s a pretty lo-fi option, but helpful. Poets & Pints at Sisyphus Brewery is often posting recordings to YouTube, and I believe the Bosso Dreams night at 331 Club does this fairly regularly also.
4) I try to pin one or two posts to the top of my Insta and Facebook feeds so they are easy to find. Generally, a flyer for my next event and maybe a recent video of myself performing a poem.

In addition to the above tips, generosity probably helps! I tag a lot of people that I’ve taken photos or video of, and sometimes others kindly do that for me as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.christymerry.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cmmerry/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christymerry/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christymerry/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@christymerry

Image Credits
B&W against brick wall – photo by William Darhy
Looking through orange art piece – photo by Carrie Murray
Performing at American School of Storytelling – photo by Christine Mounts
Reading to crowd at Watermark Arts Building – photo by Tommy Rehbein