We recently connected with Melissa Civil and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Melissa, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I have worked on has been the one that is unfinished.

Ha. I want to tell you which one, but that wouldn’t be integritous to what I believe success is and what it takes to be truly successful.

One day, as a youth, I can’t remember the age, I was in church and the pastor said “raise your hand if you know your going to heaven.”

I jumped out of my seat and I said, “I know I’m going to heaven!”

The pastor was seemingly shook by my audacity at KNOWING I was going to heaven. And I was shook that he was shook. For a while I dared to be ashamed of what I knew to be true. For a long while.

Now, knowing what I know, what else should one expect in a world that ravages itself desolate and decimated in search of proof and proving?

I have a good, joyous friend David Bayard, his art is hanging on my wall with a quote on the back that says “Any path undertaken with the heart shall always lead you home.”

In a world that needs to prove everything… there is very little time to believe. Believe in what the heart is saying, though it’s not fully formed.

In a world that needs and needs only the concrete, it is extremely hard to heed, hear and have faith in what has not yet materialized or what has not been seen.

One time, online, not too long ago, a man asked to speak to someone who was successful for some pointers. I offered up space to speak. He never took me up on it. But in that moment I had slightly astonished myself.

I was broke. I had very little to my name and didn’t know when i’d be paid next. (Heck I’m still in that spot most days). But what I did have was a strong feeling (some call it blessed assurance), a firm and dedicated hold on my passions, Very Very Very Good Friends (chosen family), and a God who could not fail. I knew I had made it. I had made it to the place when I knew that all I had to do was unwrap the gift—let the present unfold.

I guess to consider THAT making it one would have to have lost it all, huh?
(May I suggest you listen to”Walkin’ in the Sun” by Chaka Khan).

So back to your original question, my most meaningful project is the one that keeps me going, keeps allowing me to reflect and engage with my life in meaningful ways, and keeps me showing up to my work. Because that’s what it takes. That’s what it takes to be successful. That’s what is to be successful.

At some point in some near and distant future, I will have the trappings of success this world wants me to have. But it will not be because I fell for the illusion of fame and bright lights. But because I trudge an arduous, radical journey doing a work that lifts not only myself, but my loved ones and those who happen to come across whatever I’m putting out.

And that’s what keeps all things meaningful. Even if some of them are never seen by a gaze seeking to esteem and evaluate who I am, what I am, or how much I’m worth.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I began the journey of becoming a poet at the tender age of 12 after my sister died and Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” reminded me that I didn’t. I was still alive and still here, and I would be okay. When I realized the power that poetry had to help others shift their perspectives, I knew that was how I was going to help people. In middle school, I was obsessed with figuring out ways to help people. When I found poetry, I found my way.

My craft grew over the years. I became a spoken word poet at the age of fourteen and received a bachelor’s in Creative Writing and Italian from Florida State University. The journey was arduous. As, in what was supposed to be my final semester of college, I had my first of many bouts of psychosis. Today, I let people know that I battle with bipolar schizophrenia but that hasn’t stopped me on my journey. In fact it informs a lot of the work that I do. I eventually graduated and years later received a master’s in urban education. I had to leave the classroom because it wasn’t fit for a mind like mine with all its complications and dreams.

These days I chalk my survival up to Jesus, Social Justice luminaries, and grit. I utilize the wisdom gained over years of pain to provide safe spaces for others to enter into discussion about the things that ache. I host open mics and performances that aren’t just open mics and performances, but opportunities to enter into community in a vulnerable way–essentially just creating the conditions for what I’ve always wanted to be a part of. I have found that through my faith and hardships, I’ve been gifted an opportunity to facilitate spaces where others do not feel alienated in their deepest and darkest mores of self and this crazy life we’ve been subjected to.

In short; the services I provide are performances, MC-ing, workshop facilitation, and sometimes just a listening ear. In my capacity as an artist both as poetry and musician, I aim to create soundscapes that doesn’t center me as the object for tending to, but one’s own heart. And when I do my work well, hopefully healing happens.

I think I’m most proud of the fact that though the stereotypical career aspect is slow going, I still consider myself a success, because of the people that I know I’ve been able to help. Despite the hardships along the way.

I’m also an organizer and when I’m able to work in that capacity, I feel right in my pocket of being a poet, organizer, educator and musician. I like to say I’m a poem, written by the greatest Poet alive, the Great Creator, the Most High.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

When a person of any age, though I would say it feels most rewarding if it’s a teenager, comes up to me and tells me in detail how my work impacted their life for the better.

Why teenagers? They’re the toughest crowd. Haha. And I’m convinced that if you can help teenagers we got a better shot at a brighter future.

Rather than be complimented. I like to know how my work was able to complement others. How I was able to walk alongside them for a bit, and they alongside me. And how that journey led them to better and brighter places.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

We never see first drafts. We never see first recordings. We never see hungry nights and days. We never see the moments of doubt and frustration. We don’t see the battles with mental health issues. The battles with God. We don’t see the lonely nights or the nights crying in friends arms. We don’t see the pounding of the pavement. Or all the grace granted and needed to continue. We just see the final product. The one or few that made it before our eyes.

This work… is not easy. It is rewarding. But it is not easy. To follow your heart in a world continually trying to dull it, is not an easy task. To learn to respect yourself to be accountable to what you feel you must do from within to get to where you are trying to go is hard. Especially in a world that tells you someone else always knows what’s better for you–in a domineering way, rather than a way of guidance.

And perhaps that’s my definition of a creative: One who follows their heart no matter what.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.melissaferrerand.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissaferrerand/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissaferrerand7/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Melissafpoet
• Other: https://soundcloud.com/melissa-ferrer-and

Image Credits
Black and White Images: Sundiata Moon