Poetry in Motion

In poetry and in life, anything is possible, including a most beautiful tale of friendship

Words by Jameelah Nasheed | Photos by Jaclyn Martinez

The dizzying hum of insects. The slick scales of a writhing fish, just pulled from a silty creek. The low rumble of a summer thunderstorm. The air is thick; the pulse of life teems all around us. To watch the 2023 film “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is to be immersed in the Southern landscape. It’s the kind of film that can ignite our senses and stir our souls if we surrender to it. Art and storytelling can transport us, transform us, and awaken us to the beauty of the world around us. If we’re open to it, our friendships can do the same. Sometimes, it happens all at once.

“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” an intimate memoir of a woman’s life in rural Mississippi, captivates with its quiet rhythm. In the hands of filmmaker Raven Jackson, a writer and poet making her directorial debut, and starring fellow poet Charleen McClure, it flows and meanders. Through poetry, the women uncovered a deep connection, one that transcends words — mirroring the film itself, where sparse language is surrounded by thick, melodic silence. 

The quiet rhythms of Southern life are at the heart of “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” the directorial debut of writer and poet Raven Jackson.

I first saw the film, which was produced by A24 and Academy Award winner Barry Jenkins, at its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. It has since been named one of the top 10 movies of the year by The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and RogerEbert.com. 

Watching the film’s moving imagery, captured on 35 mm film, of Southern, Black American life — for a moment, I felt as if I’d stepped into an exhibit of photographs by Gordon Parks. A mother holding her sleeping baby outside among the trees. A young girl resting her head on her grandmother’s lap, while her sister rests her head on their grandmother’s shoulder. A young girl watching her mother put on makeup with awestruck eyes. A girl tenderly braiding her sister’s hair. Women eating dirt, or mineral-rich kaolinite, a tradition that persists in parts of the South and is the basis for the title of the film. Jackson saw this ritual passed down among the women in her own family. Generations of women experiencing life together and loving one another through it all.

Poet and “Salt” star Charleen McClure communicates — as often in lush silence as in speech — the deep, beyond-words connection she felt with the director.

McClure, an award-winning writer, Fulbright scholar, and fellow poet, had never acted professionally before. She met Jackson in 2013 at a poetry workshop in Brooklyn, and they kept reconnecting over the years. As Jackson worked on the film, she began to picture McClure as the protagonist, Mack. She knew the depth McClure was capable of from her writing. Casting her felt intuitive, like a poem unfurling.

“We were walking in Prospect Park one day and I saw it,” says Jackson. “I saw there was something there to explore. I trust my curiosities, I trust what moves me. … Charleen has this raw vulnerability, this quality that I felt the character needed.” Jackson gave McClure the script. “I read it, and I said, ‘Raven, you wrote a poem.’ [I thought] OK, so we’re making a poem.”

For Jackson and McClure, that mutual love for poetry has not only given them the skills to create this specific film — from creating the cadence to finding the vulnerability — it has also served as a meeting point for the two creatives. It has given them the language to communicate with one another in a way that is specific to their bond and liberating for their art.

“Poetry allows for a lot of imaginative leaps in range, and anything is possible in a poem,” says McClure. “I use the word elastic or elasticity. Having both come from poetry, there were times [on set] where Raven would say, ‘Do you know this poem?’ And I’d say, ‘Yeah.’ And she’d say, ‘Yeah, like that.’ Or when I told her I was thinking of Lucille Clifton’s poem ‘The Lesson of the Falling Leaves’ during the wedding scene, when Mack is standing at a church window. It gave us a way of communicating without having to say too much. There was one moment that was particularly moving and beautiful for me, when Raven was just able to look at me and say, ‘OK, I see.’” 

For Jackson, poetry gave her permission to experiment. “There are some cuts in the film that feel like a line break to me,” she says. “I borrowed language from poetry in the making of this film. I say ‘borrowed,’ but I don’t know if that’s the right word, because I do think they speak to each other in a lot of ways.” 

Jackson grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee, fishing in the Cumberland River, savoring moments of stillness, listening to the sounds of fireflies and insects. “I always felt very close to nature,” she says. “I knew with this film, going into it, that I wanted to show my reverence for all of that.” 

More than a year after I first saw the film, I still remember feeling transported back to a deeply familiar place. To childhood memories that shaped my sense of self and appreciation for community. Road trips to Nashville to visit my Dad’s parents. Sleeping in my Dad’s childhood bedroom, listening to my grandfather talk about his latest hunting excursion, eavesdropping on conversations between my aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother. Hot summers in LaGrange, Georgia, helping hang laundry on the clothesline to dry, running around with my brother and cousins, climbing the perfect tree for tree-climbing, picking bushels of muscadines at a nearby farm, then eating way too many on Grandma’s screened-in porch. We were Black children in the South — unencumbered and free to explore. That freedom gave my mind permission to wander in and out of good books and blank pages that I’d fill with short stories.

For star Charleen McClure, the love of poetry she shares with the director offered a meeting point, a common language, that was liberating and allowed the free play of imagination.  

In the ebb and flow of life’s currents, moments gather like debris in a river, some drifting by unnoticed, while others rise to the surface, buoyant with significance. Amid the flood of time, it’s the seemingly ordinary instances that often emerge. A shared laugh over breakfast, the warmth of a familiar embrace, the quiet beauty of a sunset stroll — these everyday moments mingle with the grand milestones, each lending its own hue to the mosaic of our lived experience.

For Jackson, this parity of moments is more than just a reflection of life’s complexity, but a testament to its inherent value. In a world often defined by its peaks and valleys, her film shows the beauty in the gentle cadence of the everyday through Mack — in the way simple joys and quiet sorrows coexist without hierarchy. If we pay attention, in the quiet rhythm of our daily lives, we can find boundless beauty, connect with our humanity on a deeper level, and discover the essence of who we are. 

Jackson was empowered to take those risks by her friendship with McClure. “There are leaps in this film that make it hard to imagine anyone else truly being in this role,” says Jackson. “I’m grateful we both trusted ourselves.”

That trust proved to be the foundation for the art. “My relationship with Raven was the only reason it was possible for me,” McClure says. “​​I was very scared, to be honest, but the way the idea presented itself to us, I had to do it. At the very beginning, when I was struggling, Raven really encouraged me to trust myself, which is a gift that’s beyond the film.”  ◊

Jameelah Nasheed is an op-ed columnist for Teen Vogue. She covers news, politics, race, and culture.

Jac Martinez, a photographer and filmmaker from Southern California, has meticulously refined her artistry through profound engagement with diverse art forms and collaborative ventures within the film industry. Now based in New York, she continues to evolve artistically on a global scale. Her career reached a pivotal moment in 2021 with her solo exhibition, “Rising Son,” in Berlin. This exhibition celebrated her unique vision, heralding her rise within the art world. Her collaborations in film span work with production companies Plan B, Pastel, MGM, Amazon Studios, A24, and Participant, working alongside renowned filmmakers like Kahlil Joseph, Andrea Pallaoro, Spike Lee, Raven Jackson, and Charlie Kaufman. She aims to bridge the gap between viewer and subject through her work, fostering a nuanced understanding of the human condition within each frame.

Photos courtesy of A24.