Nico Tortorellais re-introducing himself.
Safe to say, it’s an ambitious and idiosyncratic undertaking.
All of It Is Youis out April 17; you could pre-order ithere.
Credit: Maarten de Boer/Getty Images; Crown/Archetype
(Check out the audiobookhere.)
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The collection itself is such an experience when reading and listening to it.
What inspired you to write a poetry book?
NICO TORTORELLA:I mean, what didn’t?
That would be an easier thing to answer.
I just wanted to put out something that people can hold.
You wrote the entire book in 45 days tell me about the writing process.
It was all about dedication.
I never worked on something that I had to dedicate a lot of time to every single day.
I more or less just journaled for a month-and-a-half all day, every day.
Is that why the book is split into three sections: body, earth, and universe?
Yeah, but I can’t give you a definitive answer as to why it is split like that.
When I sat down to write this book, that’s just what came out of me.
Those are the three sections of the world that we live in, that just made sense.
I mean, we all have ideas of why we’re here.
Religion and spiritual has given us practice and storytelling, so this was just my own whack at it.
I mean, it still is.
I’ve done a lot of spoken word and looping with different effects.
For the book launch party I’m going to be doing some music with the poems.
What is it that makes it such a great title?
It is a reminder that we are everything and everything that exists is us, is you.
I listened to theaudiobook which is a whole production and experience in itself.
Why was it important for you to craft it that way?
I didn’t really have a choice.
It is authentic and it lives in the moment.
No, absolutely not, but for me that’s the journey and the process.
The music that you pair with some of the poems, did you collaborate with someone on it?
Or is it all yours?
I knew that I wanted some sort of ethereal sound and I reached out to him.
It was a no-brainer from the second I started listening to his music, it worked perfectly.
We’ve been working together since.
He represents a piece of home to me and that’s what this book is.
It’s about celebrating our homes, our bodies, souls, and minds.
That’s home to me.
I still am nervous.
[Laughs] My greatest insecurity has always been my own intelligence and also my own vocabulary.
There’s a space between the speed with which my mind thinks and my mouth speaks.
There’s a space between those two that I really like to live in.
That’s what they do, that’s their job, especially with poetry right now.
But there is a small part of me that is nervous, because it’s a freaking book!
What do you want readers to take away fromAll of It Is You?
It is self-love really.
It’s all worth celebrating, because all of it is you that’s all.
