A Night of Magic – How Sin À Tes Souhaits Got His Start
While Las Vegas is primarily known for casinos and flashy lights, actual artists and creatives of all kinds represent this city in the best of ways. Locally well-known poet Sin À Tes Souhaits, says Vegas is his home, and it’s where all his attention and investments are.
Sin’s roots run deep, having been born and raised in Las Vegas as well as living and working all over the city. He’s made it clear that dedicating his time, energy, and talents to Vegas is important. He’s been working since the age of 15 and now teaches literature at Nevada State College.
“There’s nowhere in the city I can’t go and there’s no industry or sub-community within the city that I haven’t been a part of to some degree or another,” Sin said.
Starting in a lone Starbucks at UNLV during an open mic night, he recalls that he knew writing poetry was his path. Looking back, reading his early work, like “Rolling Loud,” laid the groundwork for his writing career.
After seeing the positive reaction from the crowd, which resulted in conversations about his work, Souhaits realized that poetry wasn’t just about making words rhyme; Poetry is an art that opens up a person’s perspective, creating community and conversation.
“I got up there on the mic, and after that, I was like, you know what, this is what I’m doing. I don’t know how I’m going to make it work, but that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.
Like most people practicing their craft, he’s improved his writing over time. The topic and his mission remain the same, though: keeping Las Vegas at the forefront and telling its stories.
The Expectation is Set
Discussing why his work reflects the essence of Vegas, he brought up the importance of regionalism. He takes responsibility of applying an accurate depiction of the Las Vegas experience as someone from and a part of the community.
“Vegas is America’s dirty bathroom mirror… we reflect back everything that is in our culture… nothing happens in Las Vegas that isn’t a deeply American thing,” Souhaits said.
Souhaits then discusses the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, an English writer primarily known for his romantic poetry. A year before Percy died, he wrote the rebuttal essay, “A Defence of Poetry,” to combat “The Four Ages of Poetry’ by Thomas Love Peacock. Peacock, in his magazine piece, wrote that poetry lacked value in the coming age of science and technology. Shelley’s response to this bold take was that, “A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth, the creation of actions according to the unchangeable forms of human nature, as existing in the mind of the Creator.”
Souhaits shares this belief with Percy, quoting this essay in our conversation. He saw this quote come to life at that open mic in Starbucks. He believes that poets create the parallels of image and metaphor that usher you into how you think of things. And, in his case, that includes Las Vegas.
Souhaits believes America is in the middle of an identity crisis. With so much divisive rhetoric and hate spread every day, he feels it’s the role of the “middle children” to step up and educate. The words of American rapper J Cole come to mind: “I’m dead in the middle of two generations, I’m little bro and big bro all at once.” During our conversation, Souhaits refers to writers in their late twenties through early fifties, calling them to take their writing seriously and fight against the machine working tirelessly to spread misinformation.
“We have to create a new norm, establish a new baseline,” he said. “That’s what’s been going on for the last 10 years—it’s been a culture war over what America is going to be. Are we going to be a society of people who are sensitive to others?”
Furthermore, he continued by questioning if we’ll be a society “who cares about uplifting the most marginalized and disadvantaged people in our communities and in our country, or are we going to be a capitalist nation who tells other people to tough it up and look out for yourself?”
Bridging the Gap
As an instructor, reaching any student at any level is a top priority. Meeting them somewhere where they are intellectually, speaks to your ability to discern and to feed people what they need to move the conversation forward.
“[When] you lack an education, you lack the ability to resist to imagine, to create, you know, and for us, that can be that can be like harmful, detrimental, or fatal,” Souhaits said.
Depending on the person, having time to educate yourself is either a luxury or a burden. For Sin, it’s a bit of both; being able to balance life is admirable and a skill we should all work towards. In today’s climate and economy, it’s understandable that some individuals would just consume information in a shortened format. I believe this is why people can fall prey to misinformation or only read the headlines.
As an intellectual myself, I still struggle with my patience for educating those who don’t have the same stances as I; this is where the burden comes for people like Sin and me. Especially if you’re blatantly defiant when new information is presented to you. As an instructor, Souhaits fights the urge not to meet someone with the same energy and instead rises above it.
“If you’re not in a conversation with someone who’s already presented that they’re malleable about these things and receptive and open to something that might challenge their worldview, that’s not somebody that you should necessarily try to teach,” he said. “Because in so many ways, you’re forcing your beliefs and opinions on them, and that’s how it’s going to seem to them. And because our beliefs are so tied to our identity, when you tell somebody that what they believe is wrong, you’re telling them that their identity and who they are is fundamentally flawed in some way.”
Sin À Tes Souhaits’ Notes on Life
Any artist or craftsperson will always tell you to enjoy the process. That’s what fascinates me the most. The end result is great, but the real bones are how you arrive. Souhaits speaks on this chapter of his life involving steady discipline and staying committed to goals regardless of the task.
Taking himself and Vegas everywhere he travels is a priority. There’s no code-switching happening on his end, and the youth, especially those who look like him, need that type of authenticity represented in all spaces. Whether you see him at a rap battle event or you’re taking his literature class, you’re going to get Souhaits in every sense of the word.
“You don’t have to sacrifice part of who you are or, you know, deny your past in order to go into your future,” he said.
Souhaits cites Nipsey Hussle, Jericho Brown, Lucille Clifton, and Hanif Abdurraqib as his biggest inspirations, stating that their works and how they support young writers speak to him. Having inspirations for your work is great; however, I wanted to know how he wanted to be remembered by those who look up to him, like me.
“I want to be remembered as an artist who was a person of service. I want to be a man who served people in my community.”
#GetinMotion with Sin À Tes Souhaits
To support Souhaits’ work, purchase and read the poetry book he contributed to, ‘Like a Hammer,’ watch his poetry short ‘10 Toes Down,’ and follow his Instagram.
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