Indie Author Tuesday: Yuni D
Yuni D
Yuni D. is an New York-bred-Atlanta-based poetic storyteller, overcomer, and mystic whose lifelong purpose is to inspire, empower, and encourage her readers through the power of words. She is also on a mission to spread positivity and make this world a better place than when she first entered it.
When she isn’t pouring her heart out onto paper, you can find this compassionate soul capturing beauty through a camera lens, listening to uplifting music, meditating, or binge-watching Friends.
To find out more about Yuni D. both personally and poetically, follow her on Instagram: @yuniiversal.
Yuni D released, The Invisible Bridge last year in May and I’m sure she did it with her chest out and heart ready to beam at readers. Yuni’s poetry is unapologetic. Bare. Delicious. In almost every poem I read, I felt as though I was back in my hometown (Brooklyn) watching the beautiful, ugly, and muttered whispers of its space. I hope she makes this an audiobook as well. That's another story…
So, anyway
Yuni’s pen is dripping with wordplay and witty lines. Heavy and down-to-earth, I found myself in this collection. It was like I was reading a family member's collection. Similar health issues, heartaches, and Brooklyn-raised experiences are what lured me into Yuni’s collection. Pray for Me, her one-liners (like…almost all of them) and Gates Ave Traumas were my favorites. Bedstuy Brooklyn Baddies (I’m the confidently awkward one. Yuni is the cool and extra fly one), her authenticity inspired me poetically. Staying damn near 100 feet from metaphors, it almost feels blatantly intentional as if to say: You gon’ understand every line- hold the abstract. End rhyme, free verse (I would say pararhyme too), and double entendre reign supreme in her The Invisible Bridge. Ya’ll in the first stanza of one of her poems Yuni said,
I thought I had won becoming your wife
and us moving and starting a new life.
Tears still flowing from your confessions at night
But during the final stanza she wrote:
So, fuck you.
You can have your ring back.
In Pray For You, I was in tears. It read like a love song about closure. You know…that one song that will have you crying, sliding down a shower wall? Nah? Ya'll ain't neva been through that? Anyway, my favorite two sections from her piece, Pray for You were:
I know it’s // redundant // for me to repeat the things that even I don’t want to hear.
I pray that you know that the true root of the grass being greener, is not what side you’re on but how you water it.
I’m hoping that the people who miffed our souls prior know it.
And
Just once,
Put me on all fours,
Make me beg for more,
to even the score.
Oh, a girl can dream.
Oh, I almost cream.
Grab satin pillows to muffle my screams
For this ultralight beam.
Heavy on the spike that leads.
Baby, she’s got to have it.
Feeling nostalgic and open to bleed in black and white about my favorite chicken spots and the first heartbreak I ever experienced, Yuni is relatable. But listen…those one-liners and epigrams…
Chile…
You have to check out her book.
Yuni D’s Interview
1. As a sucker for romance/heartbreak and love angst poems, I gotta know…are your love pieces (and lack thereof) solely based on your experiences? Are they based on a bundle of love stories between you and those around you?
Funny thing, I actually had a different theme that I was going for initially but as time went on it was then that I decided this would be a reflection on the love I dealt with throughout childhood and how that love affected other scenarios. Two poems were supposed to be taken out and those two poems are written for friends of mine who had gone through hard times in love. I just felt for them in their situations.
They stick out too, one poem that talks about a woman's dedication to her body to bear children for a man: that, which I've never done. That was for a friend. They're short and sweet but they are the only things not specifically about me.
2. BROOKLYN (I had to do it)
Music is such an inspiration for us creative. I believe sometimes, music motivates us to push out what's going on within our hearts. When you were writing, Gates Ave Traumas, were you listening to a song while drafting it? Was it written originally as a diary entry?
I couldn't agree more. Music and I have a deeply rooted relationship that I continue to nurture. For Gates Ave traumas, I didn't listen to anything, I reflected on one of the worse parts of my childhood, which was middle school. I went to school on Gates Ave. and a lot of trauma was stored in and outside of those walls.
3. How were you able to push through your comfort zone from being transparent with your cipher to being transparent with the world?
I've always been one who overshares naturally but typically in those moments you have some sort of judgment on what you share with others. I was scared the entire time! I have people in my family that was going to read some of the things I wrote about them, their family members, my boyfriend's family supported me heavily and they're from the south so that was another thing I was afraid of, but you'll never get it done if you keep letting the anxiety win. So, I did everything SCARED, that's how I pushed through!
4. What was your writing process when creating, The Invisible Bridge?
It was all over the place, I had writer's block for nearly a year. For this project, I did expose myself to something different. I dug deep into myself through meditation and pulled those emotions, frustrations, hurt, and even joy out of the person I was in those moments to allow myself to FEEL that in the present day and that was difficult, but the body NEVER forgets trauma, so it's possible.
5. Were there any pieces that needed a lot of courage to release to the world?
Honestly, I would say all of them because it was so personal and deep into my childhood trauma and even some adult trauma, and someone can read that and use that information for personal gain, or judge you or understand you better, you just never know how a person will receive it. Which is why I prayed over every copy and order.
6. You have a plethora of one-liners, micro pieces, and epigrams. Was this an intentional move (They were longer and you cut the pieces down like you choppin' onions) or were these pieces created from flow?
Created from the flow. I would start something and not finish or I would have a thought and write it down because I loved the way it sounded or even something may have stemmed from another thought that came during a writing session, they were barely tweaked though.
7. For your quote/oneliner: "I don't give a fuck if we are together 10 years…" How heavy or light was that piece for you? Do you have any other poems about consent?
That was extremely hard; I think back to moments when I was pressured to give my body to others and consent was never really involved. Even being in long-term committed relationships in the past there would be moments when my partner would just pull my underwear down while we were in bed and in my mind I really didn't want to be intimate because of the lack of care they displayed; it was as if they too thought they owned a part of me. I think that women should still be able to keep their bodies to themselves to an extent; even within a long-term committed relationship.
8. What do you wish your readers to feel after reading, The Invisible Bridge? What were your intentions when releasing this collection?
I always say that I hope my readers can see the lights at the end of my tunnels because tunnels are dark and they can be scary but if you just focus on the light at the end, eventually you get to walk in it; and it's beautiful. Your experiences don't define you, what you do after does.
9. Are you working on any poetic projects that you are open to discussing?
I am working on book two! I'm excited for it. I haven't gotten it completely structured but I'm always adding to it, currently in writer's block again but always adding something.
10. Any upcoming shows or events?
No shows or events but I'm always open to new things!
11. How significant is writing poetry for you? How significant is reading poetry for you?
I wrote my first poem when I was about 6 yrs old so it has always been a young love of mine. I love poetry and everything about it but I'm a writer of many things, poetry is just my root. I love to read it and feel everything the poet is trying to convey especially if it's a story, I will cry like it was written for me. As an empath, I think we feel a lot more from words than others.
Purchase Your Copy of The Invisible Bridge Today!
The Invisible Bridge takes the reader on a poignant journey of love, self-empowerment, social justice, heartache, and so much more. Through vivid storytelling and striking metaphors, Yuni D. instigates an awakening that gains momentum stanza by stanza. The reader will also be catapulted into the psyche of a woman who learns to love herself first before giving her love away to others, a survivor who has overcome all odds, and an empathic soul who understands the intricacies of trauma and wishes to heal it in both herself and others.
