Rest in Conversation with Sullivan Summer – Why Rest as Liberation Reaches Far Beyond Self-Care (Part 1 of 2)

In Part 1 of this two-part, intimate and thought-provoking conversation, host Dana Tenille Weekes is joined by a dear friend and listener, Sullivan Summer, a poet, essayist, literary critic, and adoptee rights advocate. 

Together, they explore the layers of personal transformation, ancestral wisdom, and how societal and familial conditioning can undermine the vivid details of who we truly are.

Marking the 20th episode of The Rest of Us, this conversation between dear friends explores self-trust, unlearning, and learning to let the world catch up with you (a kind of rest that reaches far beyond self-care).

What You’ll Settle Into

• The question, “Were you once someone else?” (Inspired by the first two lines of Audre Lorde’s poem, “Change of Season.”)
• Whether Dana’s definition of rest is meme-worthy, leading into a dialogue about the power of reimagining during times when people feel compelled to resist.
• The question, “To be liberated, must you first be imprisoned?”

Key Quotes & Insights

“Let the world catch up to you.” 

Truth is the undercurrent of rest, and rest requires you to distinguish comfort, peace, and liberation to live in your truth.

Rest calls us to reimagine.

Rest requires us to unlearn, not to react.

Mentions

“Change of Season,” a poem by Audre Lorde

Sullivan Summer is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and adoptee rights advocate. Her first poetry chapbook, Performance Anxiety, was published in 2025 through Black Sunflowers Poetry Press.  

Sullivan is a co-host of Adoption Pop! (bursting pop culture’s favorite adoption tropes) and host for the New Books Network. Her Substack, Additions to the Archives, is a space for video conversations with authors, academics, readers, and thinkers committed to the preservation and expansion of the Black collective archive. She is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the African American Intellectual History Society.

You can find Sullivan’s work on her website, sullivansummer.com, on Substack @sullivansummer, and on Instagram @thesullivansummer.

LENGTH: 34 minutes