If you too are a lover of libraries, it’s possible that your social media algorithm has recently delivered videos of Mychal Threets, whose smiles and open-hearted love of library kids, cards, and community, lit up the TL and prompted comparisons to Mr. Rogers.
But there is another librarian, no less an encourager, perhaps more Fred Williamson* than Rogers, who has been a force in the digital neighborhood and a presence in the Columbus Public Library system since Mychal was attending story time in California.
Nearly ten years ago, I traveled to Columbus, Ohio to interview Scott Woods for the IRL Project and then, for reasons previously shared, never wrote about the experience. This is my attempt to right that wrong, despite knowing that no words can convey the myriad ways he has built community in both digital and real-life spaces. I don’t know when the man sleeps, but somehow he has managed to be a librarian, a prolific writer, founder and executive director of The Streetlight Guild – a gathering place and hub for artists with both a digital and brick & mortar presence – while also serving as an Obi-Wan to countless peers in his community. He is a true Renaissance man, conversant in the languages of music, sports, art, literature, and the Dewey Decimal system.
I first became aware of Scott, thanks to Tressie McMillan Cottom who retweeted the poetry prompts he shared during National Poetry Month in 2014. Thirty days of starters like, “I gave you up for Lent,” and “The Reneging Tree,” were the sort of witchcraft that made my brain actually want to write. As the replies rolled in, some would find their way to his Twitter feed and let me tell you, the few times one of my poems got retweeted, I was as proud as if I’d won a major award. Unlike so many people uselessly shouting into the void, the man wasn’t just sharing his art, he was trying to get us make our own.
So I reached out and he said yes, but my schedule was uncertain and when it was time to go to Columbus, I emailed instead of calling and held off a day when I didn’t hear back. Had I picked up the phone, this story would be different because I would have arrived on a Wednesday and attended the open mic poetry slam that Scott hosted every week, long before Streetlight Guild existed. Instead I arrived in Columbus on Thursday, the human embodiment of a day late and a dollar short.
We met for dinner and because he’s a foodie, it was a small local place, and every bite was spectacular. He said he ate there a couple times a week and that it was a home of sorts, like the Cheers bar, where regulars could eat well and also know each other’s names. He told me he thought it was important to have places where you are known and he was talking about the restaurant obviously, but what an extraordinary thing, that it also applies to his city.
The library was closed so we walked around it and he shared more about the open mic group, how he saw his job not just as an emcee, but as a facilitator; someone who integrated the new folks, and it was easy to see that in real life, as well as on Twitter, he was a leader who made the circle wider, edging people out of their comfort zones and into community. At the time, there’d been relationships and marriages and even babies born to people who met in that group, which not only survived the pandemic, but also thrived because of the web of connection holding it together, whether folks were in the same room or not.
In the aftermath of Twitter’s sale and subsequent descent into chaos, it’s interesting to consider that despite a strong voice there, Scott’s preferred social media at the time was Facebook (where he still has an outsized presence), because, as he told me, “it felt like a place where people could have a conversation.” This is wild to me, given my experience with FB, but one look at his page confirms that not only was it true then, it is still is. The preaching he’s done online in both forums and on Instagram taught me and so many people to take their art seriously, despite numerous setbacks and discouragement; to understand that it has nothing to do with the size of the audience or whether we get paid for it. This work ethic, so rare in a late-stage capitalist world where every image or line of poetry can be monetized, reclaims the idea that the artist’s life can be for everyone and not just those with leisure time or trust funds. Did you write a novel while working at a factory? Were you brave enough to share your first poem at the open mic? Did you bring a watercolor to the community art show? Congrats you’re an artist, keep going.
The recording of our conversation cut out at some point (whew the fails piled up on this one), but there is one moment that has stayed fixed in my memory, wholly apart from any audio footprint—when Scott looked at me across a plate of brussels sprouts and said,
“A Black person could never do the IRL project.”
The weight of it hit me so squarely that I was speechless, but it’s a truth that has informed the learning I’ve done ever since – understanding the ease with which I’m allowed to move through this world and the responsibility not to waste it.
Such veracity is in short supply these days as we ping-pong between virulent aggression and fawning complicity. Politicians and CEOs may tout themselves as pillars of the community, and they are indeed, front and center whenever there’s an audience, but they are little more than decorative architecture. In contrast, consider the ways that an artist who puts down roots can impact a city – teaching by example and making their own work, yes, but also nurturing an ecosystem of connection and an infrastructure that beckons its residents to create and build too. This is no mere pillar. It is a Jenga block – a game whose name comes from the Swahili word, “kujenga” meaning ‘to build or construct.’ Remove one of those so-called leaders from a Jenga tower and the center holds because they were never really there to begin with. Yet buried deep inside are other blocks, load-bearing and hidden, connected internally at corner and edge. Slide one of these out and the entire structure tumbles. We have no idea the ways such people hold us together.