Nathan Phillip is an author, playwright, and poet working in written and spoken word. He creatively writes in hopes of introducing people to different viewpoints and modes of thought. “I work to try to tell the stories that go unspoken or unsaid in the world today, to express the ideas that everyone feels a connection to in a new way,” he says. “I write from what I know and what I’ve felt, because I feel like that’s the only way for my work to be truly honest.”
Nathan has been passionate about writing since a young age and has made it his life’s goal to reach people through his words. “Writing is more than just an art form to me. It’s how I express the depths of myself — everything I feel and that I am. It’s my voice.” His H of H featured work, titled “zeitgeist”, is his favorite for being his most experimental and impactful piece to date.
Nathan’s creative process consists of first looking inward to “find his truth” on a certain subject and then exploring how to express that notion into words. He cites rapper Tupac Shakur as one of his central inspirations. “I’m not a musician, but the way that he weaved his message with his words to make something more powerful than him has always been a driving force to me.”
Nathan is from Harlingen and attends school in Edinburg. “I want to see the Valley move past a lot of it’s cultural biases and hangups. There’s a lot of things that get said and done in the Valley that aren’t talked about, and I want people to open their eyes to them,” he says. “We’ve come a long way, but we have further to go.”
Nathan believes #BlackLivesMatter is an opportunity to bring about significant change in our communities. “It’s more than a movement or a group, or even a cry for help. It’s a people who were made voiceless finding their voice.”
Read Nathan’s poem "zeitgeist" here.
