Jimmy Carter and Jacqueline Woodson Talk Shop at the New York Times

What better way to segue into the weekend than with an insightful convo between two great writers and public figures, former president Jimmy Carter and current Young People’s Poet Laureate Jacqueline Woodson. At the New York Times, Philip Galanes engages the two in a conversation that touches on growing up in the south, the Confederate flag, gay marriage, and of course their mutual love for poetry. Let's get to the heart of the matter:

Philip Galanes: Let’s start with a line from Jacqueline’s book: “Somewhere in my brain, each laugh, tear and lullaby becomes memory.” How did you mine memories from 85 years ago?

Jimmy Carter: Well, I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

Jacqueline Woodson: Memories don’t come back as straight narrative. They come in little bursts with white space all around them. It felt more realistic to write mine as poems.

PG: I was surprised that you included poems in your book too, President Carter.

JC: Oh, I’ve been writing poems since I was in the Navy — to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.

PG: Let’s explore some of those feelings. You grew up as nearly the only white family in a community of African-Americans. Did you think about that much?

JC: It was like breathing. I never thought about it. All my playmates on the farm were black, and later, when I started school in Plains, it was all white. But I was always eager to get back home to my friends in Archery.

PG: It’s the perfect inverse of Jacqueline’s experience. Her mother always telling her, “One day you will be in a room, and you will be the only person who looks like you.”

JC: I bet you’ve done that a lot.

JW: Yes, I’ve been in a lot of those rooms. People have a sense that when the laws changed, Jim Crow was simply over. But it wasn’t. It was still very dangerous for blacks. My grandmother still took us to the back of the bus in South Carolina. She didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. And growing up, we were told never to run in a white neighborhood. People wouldn’t know why you were running. You might get shot. And this was in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s.

Make the jump to NYT to read about Woodson's reaction to the Handler incident at last year's National Book Award Ceremony, as well as the time Carter and Woodson spent as Christian evangelists, and more!