We recently connected with Sleepless The Poet and have shared our conversation below.

Sleepless, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

Definitely sooner. I’m thirty-one and I’ve been writing my whole life, but admittedly did not fully grasp or have the foresight of how powerful social media was going to be.

I was posting on Instagram in 2011. Just posting pictures I had taken that I thought were good; not even writing poems to them yet.

Had I known what Instagram was going to turn into and that entire careers would be made from it, I would’ve started pairing the poems a lot sooner.

Now we have Tik-Tok and I’ve been obstinate on joining and posting there since I, again, feel I may have missed my mark and be hitting too late.

I started pairing poems with my pictures and really putting myself out there as a poet in 2017, so had I been with it back in 2011, I feel like my career would be 6 more years developed than it is now.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Sleepless

The name comes from years of Insomnia.

I got into writing and poetry for a number of reasons:

I always wanted to be the frontman in a band
I love literature and thought and wit
I’m a hopeless romantic
I’m from Atlanta
I like to run my mouth too much

When you put all of that together, it just makes sense.

I admired these bands I listened to growing up and their lyrics and wanted to be like them. I loved anything that could make me think or feel and I’m just mad emotional so I needed an outlet anytime my feelings got hurt (which was a lot) to express what I wanted to say when I felt like I couldn’t say anything.

The love for rhyme came naturally, being from Atlanta, with the massive hip-hop/rap scene, but I only started truly taking rhyme seriously when I came to terms with the fact that a band wasn’t in the cards.

I tried for years making a band happen and it never worked out so I got tired of relying on others to help me express myself. That’s when I really started putting myself out there as a poet and as an individual.

Now I’ve put out 2 poetry albums:

The first was a collection of 10 poems

The second was a concept album of 20 poems that document the events throughout all of 2020

And I just released my first musical album, “That Was Then, This Is Now” Streaming on all platforms.

“That Was Then, This Is Now” definitely has a lot of that Atlanta hip-hop influence, but is another concept album that is meant to tell a story from beginning to end.

I’ve been really focusing on the music aspect of Sleepless as a project, but hope to have a book out in the near future.

I have merch for sale and can also be hired for writing or booking for performances through my website.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I’d say “catharsis” is a constant motif throughout my journey.

I feel this way or I feel that way and I don’t know how to feel about how I feel

So I write it down

It helps quell the frustration and when I’m able to articulate a thought or feeling in a poem and make that rhyme connect and for it all to make sense, it gives me a sense of accomplishment.

And getting those thoughts or feelings out of my head and off my chest helps me live a healthier life mentally throughout my day to day.

That’s why most of the stuff I’m putting out currently where I’m transferring my writings to other formats. Whether that be music or audio albums or apparel, they’re all unresolved thoughts and feelings that I had to release into the world away from me so I could stop thinking about them.

There are still a lot that I need to get out of my head.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think the term “non-creative” is…limiting and divisive.

I think even folks that would deem themselves as “not having a creative bone in their body” still have creativity in some aspect of their life and jobs or occupations we deem as being “non-creative” are a lot more creative than we give them credit for.

I’m fresh to my thirties, so I think that could be why I feel this way. Cusping from my “youth” into the “grown-up” years, but I work a 9-5 for my day job that most would consider to be “non-creative”.

But that job fulfills a creative part of me the same way my poetry does and it provides the money and the security I need in order to produce the art I want to and to the extent that I want.

I remember wanting to be an actor in my early twenties and a successful film-maker years later and how I thought I could only work restaurant gigs because I didn’t want to be tied down in case “the big one” came along and I finally got my break.

I have friends that still tell me “Oh I could never work a desk job” and it’s those same friends I see struggling day in and day out and worried about money and rent.

Social media changed the game in the sense that, not only is it easier to get your art out to the masses and that’s great, but now everyone can get their art out to everyone, so you are now a dime a dozen. Even if you are the cream of the crop, you have to have the money to get yourself out there.

So take that desk job, get some health benefits, get a steady check, get some security.

Because working a 9-5 does not make you a non-creative unless you let it.

Contact Info:

• Website: Sleeplessthepoet.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sleeplessthepoet/
• Other: Merch: https://sleepless-the-poet.creator-spring.com/

Image Credits
Chris Coates Zack Wilson