General Questions

Is Nicole Breedlove a pen name? 

No. It is actually my real name. The story from my aunt, who did some research on my family history, is that we come from a band of Black Indians somewhere in Florida. I was never able to confirm that but it would certainly explain my warrior spirit.

Were there any locations in New York City that especially inspired you to write? If so, where were these places and in what ways did they inspire you?

I was kind of a revolutionary nomad in my younger years. I was hanging out and living in the city, Brooklyn, Jersey, Staten Island, the Bronx and Queens. I was hanging out with friends, drinking, writing and performing. Every one of these places inspired me, Brooklyn especially because that’s where I grew up. BedStuy will always be home to me. The people were so right yet so wrong. Some were broken but absolutely survivors. Some were predators. Others were saviors. It is such a great place to learn and explore and grow. I learned about people in Brooklyn. My family and neighbors and friends shaped the person I am today.

Can you tell me a little bit about the Nuyorican Poets Café and how you started performing there?  How old were you at the time? Had you performed your poetry anywhere else prior?

The Nuyorican Poets Café should be designated as an historical institution. So many amazing writers came out of that place. It’s located on the lower east side and the gritty, blue collar, punk, goth, trendy mix of folks is a perfect backdrop to the array of talent that walks in there.

When I was 17 I  met this punker named Finnegan. He was a black dude with a blonde, foot high Mohawk, steel toed boots, a motorcycle jacket and a contagious laugh. He mentioned he was a poet and read some of his stuff to me. I told him I write too and he said he knew some others and why don’t we start a group. I agreed. We called ourselves DarkStar. 

We began performing at community centers, schools, open mics etc. You name it, we performed there. We were all young. The oldest in our group was 20. The youngest was 14. Other artists started calling us the brats but there was no denying our talent. Pretty soon we were making a name for ourselves and we didn’t have to beg for gigs. Folks were coming to us and we were getting paid to do what we loved.

We were performing at the Knitting Factory and Bob Holman approached us. He wanted us to perform at the Nuyorican. We agreed. At that time there was an article written about us in the Village Voice so we were hot. The night we performed was bananas. It was amazing. To this day it is still one of the best feelings ever.

How many times did you perform at the Nuyorican Poet Café?

I can’t even count the number of times I performed there. I performed with the group, DarkStar. Then my friend Malkia and I split off and started our own group, Nia Kuumba so we started performing. I judged a few poetry slams. I entered a couple of slams. It’s my second home.

Did you write any poetry after the ones from Aloud? If so is there a way I can read them or view them? 

I wrote a lot after but didn’t perform as much. After a while all the poets began to sound the same to me. They all began to recite in the same cadence and rhyme. It was less about the content and more about the performance. It annoyed me so much that individuality and creativity disappeared that I just quit the scene. The work took on a whole other meaning.

Here is a video of me performing Front Page or Bust. This was a PBS special on the spoken word in 1991---https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY7pKQ-Imco

Were there any New York poets who inspired you? If so, then in what ways? 

Pamela Sneed was this amazing poet. She was tall, bald, gorgeous and an excellent writer. She inspired me. Sapphire was another writer whose work touched. Listening to her work made me unashamed in exposing my vulnerabilities.

Had Audre Lorde influenced your poetry at all?

Audre Lorde was my mentor and more importantly, I considered her a friend. She personally called me and my poetry partner Malkia to participate in her I Am Your Sister conference in Boston. Her poetry was the first of its kind. She was a Black lesbian proud of who she was. A warrior spirit like me. She told it as it was.

Where do you live currently?

I actually moved to Omaha, NE.

What do you do for a living?

I am working at a manufacturing company in the accounting department.

What motivated you to create the Our Sista Circle website? How has it evolved?  Is the site what you had envisioned it to be?

About seven years ago I was single and the bar scene is not really a place to meet anyone for a serious relationship. I started looking online. I noticed that a lot of dating sites didn’t cater to women of color. So, I began researching dating sites.

Most of the women were white. If there were women of color they have been inactive for months. I then researched social networking sites and found the same thing. There was tons of websites for women of color but you were only able to leave comments. You could not engage in an IM or chat. Many times we are just looking for friends not necessarily love interests. So I decided to launch OSC. The first free social networking site for lesbians of color in 2009.

I was paying fees each month out of pocket for the site. It became a financial burden. I reached out to the sistas for donations but received very little. I emailed and handwrote many LGBT organizations, companies, churches, school organizations, magazines, radio and television shows and received a lot of rejections. I tried to get corporate and private sponsors but no one wanted to take a chance on an unknown, unproven site. Sadly, in March of 2014 I was forced to shut it down for lack of resources and support.