Yunyi Dai / NextGenRadio
Tashie Tierney speaks with poet Yuki Jackson, who uses her art and her experience with homelessness to help reduce violence among young people in the Tampa neighborhood of Sulphur Springs.
Florida poet finds a ‘Sunshine State of life’ by empowering others
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Yuki Jackson: My name is Yuki Jackson, and I’m a poet based in Florida.
This poem is called Night Wash.
I spend the night inside
and outside a 24 hour laundromat,
watching the kind of customers
who do their laundry at 3:00am
avoid looking me in my eyes
me a woman wearing a hoodie,
pulling a large suitcase
with nowhere to go
do they know I am a teacher
and does that even matter
when I am without home
So I experienced homelessness in the latter part of 2020 and in some of the earlier part of 2021. I really believe that that experience helped me tremendously, which sounds funny (laughs) or ironic, but yeah, it was very helpful in developing empathy.
My mother is Japanese and my dad is a Black American, so I was, you know, born and raised in Japan, but my dad is actually from Florida, and so when he retired, when I was in middle school, that’s when we, uh, came back to Florida.
If you’re biracial, you always kind of feel not like quite fully one or the other. It’s like you’re, you’re of something, but you’re also outside of that culture at the same time. In Florida, yeah, there isn’t a lot of Japanese people. That may have had a hand in that sort of pronounced otherness.
Sulphur Springs is a majority Black, uh, neighborhood, and it has a high poverty rates, high crime rates, high, you know, single-parent households and, um, low literacy rates.
I applied with the Hillsborough County Public Library System; they thought I would be a fit at the Sulphur Springs branch. As soon as I walked into that library, I felt like I would die for these children.
It was in April of 2017, in one week, there was a series of three shootings outside the library.
In my mind, I just started to imagine I’m supposed to respond to this shooting by creating a youth program and, you know, like, call it “The Battleground.”
Everything I had been observing kind of gelled together at that moment of like, “Oh, they like fighting, so incorporate martial arts, that’ll also teach ‘em discipline. Oh, they need a positive way to express themselves emotionally, incorporate poetry and rap.”
Hearing the personal anecdotes of the kids and what they kind of go through at home, the struggles, what I saw in them is that it’s helped hone them all to be very self-reliant and very confident and very resourceful. What I saw in them as well is how capable and bright they are and like super funny, super resilient.
We are known as being the Sunshine State (laughs), and how, you know, typically Florida, we’re seen for it being a very desirable place because of the sunshine. I see that as not just a climate but also a sunshine state of life, where we are able to be that source of light, not only for ourselves in the darkest moments but also for others.
The Temple Terrace, Fla. laundromat where Yuki Jackson spent nights while she was homeless between 2020 and 2021. Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023.
Tashie Tierney / NextGenRadio
“Night Wash” by Yuki Jackson
I spend the night inside
and outside a 24-hour laundromat,
watching the kind of customers
who do their laundry at 3:00am
avoid looking me in my eyes
me a woman wearing a hoodie,
pulling a large suitcase
with nowhere to go
do they know I am a teacher
and does that even matter
when I am without home
I keep walking back
for the warmth, the light, the wifi
and the sound of each cycle turning
Poet Yuki Jackson spent many homeless nights in 2020 and 2021 inside a Tampa laundromat for warmth, and she watched as people gave her judgmental looks. It was a familiar feeling for her, this feeling of otherness.
She remembered the feeling back in Japan, where she was born to a native mother and a Black American father. Her dark skin made her feel like she didn’t belong, and it didn’t get much better when she moved to Florida. Here, she was “the Asian girl.”
“If you’re biracial, at least in my knowledge and experience, you always kind of feel like an alien,” said Jackson.
In spite of Jackson’s isolation, she eventually found a special connection with the children who visited the Norma and Joseph Robinson Partnership Library at Sulphur Springs, where she worked. Poverty, crime, single-parent households and low literacy rates are all issues that plague the Tampa neighborhood.
“If you’re marginalized or disenfranchised, that is sort of a side effect that you develop – that sense of otherness,” said Jackson. “As soon as I walked into that library, I felt like I would die for these children. It was just like an automatic instinct that kicked in that I’ve never experienced before.”
That was especially true when, over the span of one week in April of 2017, three shootings occurred outside the library – all committed by boys under the age of 14. While many would lose their sense of hope, Jackson’s purpose and optimism for the future of these children grew.
A portrait of Yuki Jackson. Monday, Jan. 2, 2023.
Tashie Tierney / NextGenRadio
In addition to poetry taught by Yuki Jackson (center), the youth of The Battleground learn martial arts taught by Tampa Wing Chun Kung Fu instructor Garret Brumfield (third from left).
Courtesy of The Battleground via Instagram
That was when she created The Battleground, an organization dedicated to reducing violence and improving literacy among youth in Sulphur Springs. Jackson speaks to the children in their own language, using poetry, hip-hop and martial arts as a way to empower them.
“It’s been a conversation I’ve had with the actual youth of the program, of what they want, what they envision, what they’re interested in,” said Jackson.
And while many may see Florida as the land of palm trees and theme parks, she has seen the dark side of the Sunshine State. Jackson has been homeless, and she has witnessed firsthand the violence that can happen here. But as a poet, she sees the Sunshine State more in a metaphorical sense.
“We can develop a state of life inside to where we are able to just enjoy what there is to enjoy, even when it seems like there is nothing to enjoy,” said Jackson.
This mindset also seems to have an effect on the kids taking part in The Battleground.
TJ Pearson, also known by his poetry name “Negasi,” was Jackson’s first student.
Pearson met her in 2016 when he was a struggling student at Chamberlain High School. At The Battleground, Jackson taught him the literary and reading comprehension skills that gave Pearson the confidence to break out of his antisocial shell and get back on track to graduate at the top of his class.
Now 21 years old, Pearson still keeps in touch with her, seeing Jackson as a mother figure. While he studies computer engineering at Hillsborough Community College, he continues his passion for poetry.
With Jackson’s encouragement, The Battleground lets kids like Pearson harness poetry and other creative gifts they don’t normally have the chance to use to escape from the struggles of their low-income community.
“Creativity is stagnant because people are thinking more about survival,” Pearson said. “She even deals with some of the most troublesome kids and turns them into little sweethearts.”
Children from the Tampa neighborhood of Sulphur Springs pose with the mural “Hear Our Voice.”
Courtesy of The Battleground via Facebook
Many of the kids of Sulphur Springs have what some may consider a dark life, but Jackson sees that they have the sunshine inside of them, and she is determined to bring that out.
“We are known as the Sunshine State, and, you know, Florida being a very desirable place because of the sunshine,” Jackson said. “I see that as not just a climate, but also a sunshine state of life, where we are able to be that source of light, not only for ourselves in the darkest moments, but also for others.”
Video description: Yuki Jackson is smiling and looking forward. The photo is surrounded by a border and is still; dynamic text and a waveform appear in sync with an audio recording of her poem “Sunshine State of Life.”
Tashie Tierney / NextGenRadio
Yuki Jackson shares her poetry and the cover of her chat book at the Lector Social Club in Tampa, Fla., in 2018.
Courtesy of Yuki Jackson via Instagram