THE OUTPOUR

But amongst her busy schedules, creative outputs and various projects, Chloe took time to sit with us for a few questions about her journey into the industry as a black creative, her inspirations, how she got started, and how there is still more to come.

 

Many will know Chloe for her spoken word poetry, as seen on social media, attracting thousands of views. With her poetry, covering topics such as love, family, black beauty and more, we were eager to know how Chloe came to use poetry as way to express herself.

 

[Chloe] what led you to poetry and spoken word poetry?

 

“What led me to poetry was I had done it in secondary school, there was a lady, and she came into the school as a volunteer, and I kind of joined her spoken word Poetry Club. She showed me artists like George the Poet and Suli Breaks, and I was inspired.”

 

With that volunteer planting the seed, Chloe set off on her own writing path, joining a competition run by Suli Breaks. Despite not winning, she deems it a success as it broke her onto the poetic scene and connected her with other artists. Woodsy being on of them.

 

“Me and Woodsy followed each other because our poems were sick, but I never got to meet him until a year later, when my best friend was hosting her poetry event and I went, and she told me that I can perform there but I was a bit shy, I was chilling in the back like:

‘I'm not going on stage’”.

 

But in the end, with a bit of a push, Chloe got up on stage and read her only poem that she had at the time. That moment set things into motion.

 

“I met the headliner and we just got on instantly. He took me to events every single week, like five times a week he was taking me to shows, and it was all these different poetry shows, different people, I met people every single time, and by the end of it I had my first headline, and it’s been up since.”

 

Chloe went on to tell us that despite this positive period, she remained apprehensive about doing Open Mics, even though guests would constantly ask her, “I always said no, not today.”

 

She spent most of her time immersing herself in the poetry scene, culture, and watching performances. Yet, Chloe still found the stage scary, until one performance with her best friend changed everything.

 

“It was scary, especially because my mum was the person that came out to support me, to be honest I didn't want anybody else to come see me anyway. I kept it really secret I just went on stage, and I did it. I think you never really forget how it felt, you remember the fear. My partner he always tells me, you feel the fear and you do it anyway, and I've been doing that for the rest of my life”.

 

The shift in perspective for Chloe has enabled her to fully own the stage, in spite of any fears or nerves she may have. Chloe just owns it. She views every stage performance as another door that could open something new.

 

“Whenever you have the opportunity to share and go on stage, take it, because you never know who's in the audience, and I’ve been taking it every single time”.

 

Getting over stage fright is not the only hurdle in the industry but Chloe smiles and puts her own spin on things.

 

What’s the hardest thing about being a creative or an artist?

 

“I’ll tell you what isn’t the hardest thing - what isn’t the hardest thing is the challenges because the challenges, a lot of the time, are the things that keep you going but I think the hardest things is, it has to be yourself you know?” Says Chloe.

 

“It has to be the relationship that you have with yourself because when you have that rocky relationship where you’ll go through things as an artist where you feel like you don’t know yourself, and you feel like you're not good enough you feel like other people are better than you and all of those things, are never entirely the result of other people, it's usually what you have inside of you and that feeling and that discussion and that conversation”.

 

Discernment of what you allow to get inside of you is what Chloe advises we all do when our minds become the enemy. Being mindful of what we listen to, reflecting on our thoughts, knowing what pushbacks we have to give, or what fights we have to put up.

 

But being in tune with one’s mind is a crucial part of being a creative, and we discussed how spiritually we can affect the directions our lives take.

 

The Bible talks about the power of the tongue, and I believe that words are very powerful, what do you think is your responsibility as a poet?

 

“I think people do have the ability to speak things into existence, and you do have the ability to speak things out of existence as well, so you have to be very careful and mindful of what you say”.

 

And this mindset is brought into Chloe’s poems, especially her most ‘important’ and ‘powerful’ one Black Girl Magic. “[Black Girl Magic] was having this ability to uplift black women as a people, who they are and their magic, but I kind of flipped it and looked to the other side; that's what I like to do as a poet.”

 

And through looking at other sides and double meanings, Chloe took magic as a concept and wrote down all the words associated with it - such as disappearance - which was rooted in past experiences with family.

 

“It came from the fact from my little cousin, he was all into magic tricks and he came round to my house, when I think I was 11 years old, he did a disappearing card trick on me, and you have to pick a card so I picked a card, and then the card just happened to be the Black Queen of Hearts and he made it disappear, and then seven years later I thought of it.”

 

With that, came the basis of her poem, Chloe blended it with hard-hitting themes such as the high rates of Black women going missing. Taking inspiration from famous Black creative Beyonce whom, in 2010, had a performance called ‘Bring Our Girls Back’.

 

“That was to do with Nigerian women, and it was like bring our girls back, but also bring the card back. It’s all about like speaking things into existence which is very powerful, and what I'm doing moving forward with my new poems is being able to speak life into myself and speak life into the people that hear it.”

 

Chloe says that she doesn’t aim to drown people in positivity, but wants her poems, especially her new ones, to give people a positive outcome.

“You have to be able to speak positive things over your life and over other people's lives.”

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