From Associate Editors Patrick De Leon and David Marquez: We believe the origin of our work as creators is important to consider and hold. In CORE MEMORIES, we ask artists and writers about their own creative beginnings. What led them to operate in their genre of choice? Was it a specific moment, an errant thought, a movement? Was it an insight, a person, a place? Years into their work, does it continue to resonate?

In our second edition, we interview Ica Sadagat.

Ica Sadagat is a poet, essayist, educator, and collaborative artist immersed in textual impact, pleasure/play, and question marks. She does language, and she does body; oftentimes both. Her writing can be found in Apogee, Fence Issue #40, TAYO Literary Magazine, Skin Contact, I Keep Missing My Water (ICA VCU), and Nightboat Books' online blog. She has performed/presented at the Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York, ICA VCU, Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, The Philippine Center of New York, Studio Museum 127, UC Santa Cruz, and soon, Thinking Its Presence 2023. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at the California Institute of the Arts as the Truman Capote Literary Fellow, received her BA in Literature and Cultural Studies from The New School, and gained her tongue in tides from the sea. Ica also hoops. You can find Ica @___i_ca and icasadagat.co.

What is your CORE MEMORY?

I was seven, maybe eight. Uneven bangs. Used Catholic School uniform: grey skirt, maroon socks, white shirt. I remember being escorted out of Language Arts and taken to a trailer near the school building. Inside, I was seated next to two girls from my grade—both confused, quiet, and brown, like me. An adult I’ve never seen instructed us to place one hand inside an unmarked box and describe what we felt. My recollection stops there. This continued for years, being pulled away and taught a language as if I were languageless. I credit this experience for making words so palpable to me, turning them into entities I felt with my body. But a little violence also reified a muting and my desire to exclaim. Was being in ESL the moment I realized poetry was for me? Not quite. I did not know about capital P Poetry then. Although I now realize that’s what I was doing; finding sense before meaning. I think writing poetry is less about preference and more about need. A poet has no choice but to do poetry; the big labor is remaining close to it whenever the world tries to pull us away and tell us what to sense and how to mean.

How has that moment impacted your current work or current artistic practice?

Language starts and ends as physical matter for me. Before I make or learn meaning, I need to grasp the sense of a word—as in its very sensation. I have to feel a word or sentence or syllable in my mouth and in my body or even within my hands in order to become intimate with its definition or utility. I am not just talking about sound. I ponder the architecture of a phrase. Think of a cook; your senses must come first to be a great cook. You have to look at the salt, pinch the salt, watch how it breaks down, see how it prisms in the light, bite it, and taste how it differs on different parts of your tongue. Once you do that, then and only then you can understand how and when to use it. I think about my work as a poet and an artist, and honestly as a connective human, in this same way. So much of my practice has to do with my attention: how I do it, where I direct it, and most importantly when I give it.

Are there any new projects you’re working on?

I recently started Sadagat School of Motion and Text to offer more spaces for alternative learning and creative connection. My foundational course is Language Aquatics, a class that moves through text like a water athlete. We focus on foundations such as breathwork, core work, flow, stamina, and agility. But most of all, I want everyone (including me) to have fun; to giggle, and exist in the difficult or awkward and see what that discomfort can show us. I hope to continue offering courses that provide a playground for making and unmaking—and not only for writers but for anyone just trying to let go and find more ways to be.

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Core Memories: Ica Sadagat