Jessie Reyez Finds Freedom in Poetry, Shares “Teh People’s Purge” with Fans
Grammy-nominated artist Jessie Reyez’s new book, “The People’s Purge: Words of a Goat Princess Volume II,” offers a glimpse into the deeply personal poetic world that fuels her celebrated music.
Before the accolades and chart-topping hits, poetry was the foundational creative outlet for R&B singer Jessie Reyez. The Toronto-born musician, known for a sound blending R&B, hip-hop, and Latin influences, has now compiled a collection of poems-previously shared with her millions of Instagram followers-into a published work, released Tuesday. This project represents a return too her “first love” and a vital space for unfiltered artistic expression.
Reyez describes the weekly practice of responding to poetry prompts as a necessary release, “scratching an itch in the middle of my brain that I can’t reach.” She explained that the commercial pressures of the music industry can sometimes compromise artistic purity. “When you’re fortunate enough to find a job in creativity and you’re getting paid for your art,it can create this bastardized version of what you’re making,” she said. “some of the purity is jeopardized. you really have to be your art’s security guard.”
Reyez feels the most free when writing poetry, unbound by the constraints of song structure. “I feel the most free when I write and I’m not beholden to the fences of the chords of the song that I’m in, or to the melody of the song that I’m in.”
A Community-Driven Project
The decision to publish the poems stemmed from a desire to share the experience with her audience. Reyez noticed that followers who missed the 24-hour Instagram story timeline expressed a wish to preserve the work.”It became more apparent to me that this is a team thing,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that people could, you know, hold what they’ve made in tandem with me.”
The selection process involved a rigorous self-critique. Reyez believes a strong song shoudl stand on its own as a poem without musical accompaniment. “That’s kind of what I love when I play with words. It just becomes that much more apparent what is well done versus what is going to hit the cutting room floor.”
Embracing Heritage and Playful Subversion
reyez’s Colombian heritage is woven throughout the book,with one poem written entirely in Spanish. She explained that while English offers a broader vocabulary, Spanish remains deeply ingrained in her identity. “It is in my blood, it’s in my heart, it is in my soul, it’s in the way I love,” she said. “However, as much as Spanish is my first language…the library of words that I can pull from is just a lot larger in english, so by default my output is more in English.”
Reyez also enjoys playfully subverting expectations, as demonstrated by her response to a prompt requesting a poem about “Big butts.” She instead wrote about “buts” – hesitations in a relationship. “I do it a lot. That’s the method of finding how it relates to you,” she said, adding, “I love the idea of play. I love the idea of challenge.”
the Future of “The People’s Purge”
Despite recently submitting the manuscript, Reyez continues the weekly poetry exercise. She acknowledges the potential for future iterations of the book, admitting that deadlines are essential for containing the endless creative flow. “Deadlines are the gift of the creative as or else this would have been a never-ending book,” she said. Whether another volume emerges remains to be seen, but for now, “The People’s Purge: Words of a Goat Princess Volume II” offers a compelling testament to the power of poetry and the importance of safeguarding artistic freedom.
