The Monthly talks to writer, poet and musician, Tifara Brown – Part 1 – A family legacy of literature and poetry

Do you have any early memories of being interested in writing?

My mother and my grandmother both were English and Drama teachers, so my parents instilled a love of literature in me from a very young age. As early as I can remember, we had a library. We had books about history, geography, civil rights, even Egyptian history. In my formative years, growing up, there was always books around.
I didn’t really start thinking about writing seriously, maybe even professionally, until my mother gave me a book by Toni Morrison called “Sula”. She gifted that to me in the 7th grade and it was the first time I actually saw characters that looked like me, had a similar upbringing to me, growing up in the rural south of the United States.
That was when I decided that I wanted to be a writer and my writing was what I wanted to contribute to the world. I was given that legacy by my family, but I was in Middle School, around the age of 13, when I made that decision to write.

Clearly you had support at home?

Yes, although my grandmother passed before I was born, so I only knew about her from my mother’s stories.
My mother was a drama coach, a vocal coach and she was also a debating coach. I grew up with her teaching me poetry and my extemporaneous speaking and dramatic interpretation. I received that training from my mother at a very early age.
I was given that legacy by my mother, and she was given that legacy by her mother, my grandmother.

Did you get support at school?

Yes I did. I participated in one act plays, I was in the Spring musicals, and I competed in the performing arts. I had opportunities even though I grew up in a very small town.
I had amazing teachers and I had my mother who also taught at my school. I did have some Drama and English teachers who saw potential in me and they certainly tried to bring my talents out of me. They also tried to support me with my extracurricular activities.

That sounds like you had quite a lot of support?

Now where I grew up, in rural, southern, Georgia, the county was one of the poorest counties not only in our area, not just in our State, but in the entire nation and I was considered an “at risk” youth. I didn’t know that until much later when I was an adult.

I had a mentor who brought a leadership programme to my school and that programme was only for “at risk” youth. He told me that information only a couple of years ago.

We were also lucky in that, there were youth organisations which offered opportunities in performance and they also offered opportunities to travel.

Our county was riddled with drugs, alcohol abuse and teen pregnancy and so I was fortunate to have great teachers, great mentors and support at home, because if you went by the statistics, I shouldn’t have had any opportunities at all.

Do you go on to university to study literature?

No, I actually studied Technology and Business. I went to school to do that. I studied Management Information Systems and I worked in Atlanta as a Technology Consultant for 8 years.

Up until recently I was juggling two careers. As I was doing my Tech work, at the same time I would do poetry performances.

I went to the University of Georgia, so I would go to my business classes and then I would go out to perform at musical events and poetry events. At the university there was always things happening there, musical and poetry events that I could be part of, and it was a great place for me to be able to cultivate my voice and my style of poetry.
It is just recently that I started to work full time doing writing and poetry performance.