Vincent Rendoni’s project for the 2022 Jack Straw Writers Program is a poetry book titled A Grito Contest in the Afterlife that celebrates the lessons he’s learned from his elders. In his conversation with curator Michael Schmeltzer, they talk about his origin story as a storyteller, his inspirations as a writer, and the way he finds elation in morbid moments. “If anything, the joy and whimsy comes from death . . . This will all end, so who cares if your parents don’t like what you write or who cares what people think. Do what makes you happy, because it will conclude.”

Music by Ran Park, produced through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.