Today we’d like to introduce you to CR Grimmer
Hi CR, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
When I was a teenager, I began having strange illness symptoms — digestion issues, rashes, “aches and pains” in my feet and joints. We thought that it stemmed from the ten years I spent as a competitive ice skater combined with stress. The symptoms worsened, though, and by the time I turned 18, I was in a lot of pain working service industry jobs while taking night classes.
I had never planned on writing and did not particularly enjoy it at the time. I had always wanted to play drums, dance, read, volunteer, and play video games. As my work-life-school balance slammed into the reality of new physical limitations, I was fortunate enough to take my first creative writing workshops. In those classes, I met mentors who helped me begin the slow process of coming to terms with my body and its new, shifting realities, but also who I am in the world. I began running creative writing workshops in Detroit public schools with a focus on poetry and found an unexpected purpose in teaching and writing poetry.
That undergraduate experience shaped my career. I was eventually diagnosed with Lyme Disease and complex PTSD. I moved to Portland, OR to pursue an MFA. I thought I just needed some degrees and my love of poetry to teach other college students and develop public-facing, social justice partnerships; I learned the reality, which is you need to publish.
I continued through higher education, eventually getting my MA and then moving to Seattle, WA for my PhD. During that time, I published my first collection of poems, “The Lyme Letters,” my first chapbook, “O–(ezekiel’s wife)”, and began a YouTube series on poetry, pop culture, and social justice, The Poetry Vlog. I have my dream job at Utah State University teaching poetry with incredible colleagues to amazing students. In many ways, the original dream came full circle. I am able to use arts-based approaches to literature to give back to the community and students the way my mentors did for me.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I am not sure many people would identify their own road as smooth, so I feel hesitant writing the immediate “no, it has not been smooth road.” I can, though, highlight some of rougher parts and how they contributed to where I am heading now. The time period between starting school and finishing spanned about 12 years. In that time, I survived sexual assault, received my diagnoses, had multiple surgeries, went through a difficult divorce, and came out to my (religious and conservative) family and friends. I was working fulltime and usually at multiple jobs for most of the years. I was also on the job market for the position I have during COVID, which was an expensive time in Seattle to be in flux. These are the easy to name bullet points of “bumps.” At the same time, they provided the substance for my creative work and my desire to support students today.
I have been teaching college students that range from community colleges to University of Washington since 2011. One thing I have learned is that nearly every student in my writing courses will bring to class traumas similar to, different from, and oftentimes much worse than my own. Writing is a genre that also offers space for young people to create narratives and language around their becoming.
I am in the rare, enviable position, now, of building a life with a partner I love where I can support and learn from colleagues and students. The different obstacles and challenges live in my writing and body, but with the right mentorship and community support, they also make up the better parts of the writer and teacher that I am today.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a writer, teacher, and scholar. I publish poetry and essays, have some arts-based (we call it multimodal) poetry projects in the works. My research background, meanwhile, focuses on how poetry and pop culture texts create coalitions for anti-racist, LGBTQIA+ affirming, and ecologically sound worlds. Much of these two backgrounds come out in my YouTube and podcast series, The Poetry Vlog, as well as in my classrooms, where I emphasize community-based writing for building the worlds we want to see.
What were you like growing up?
I hate to admit it, but I think I was a little bratty. I was always seeing, thinking, saying, singing, and doing at least three things at once. If I was asked to do something and did not understand or believe the “why,” I pushed back on it. I spent most of my spare time reading and playing video games, but it wasn’t much spare time. I began working at a local cafe at 15, and before that, my parents were probably trying to manage my hyper activity by putting me in a competitive, demanding sport. I was also pretty anxious — I think reading and video games offered an escapist outlet for the anxiety. That is how I remember myself, but I am betting if you asked others who knew me back then, they would have more precise and accurate answers.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://crgrimmer.com
- Instagram: @cr_grimmer
- Facebook: cr.grimmer
- Twitter: crgrimmertpv
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/thepoetryvlog
