The Poet Heard in Space

By Cal Abbo

When Fadi Y. Sitto found his calling, the switch was immediate. He would stop writing articles for magazines and press releases for corporate firms. He had no choice but to follow where his heart pulled him. He would become a poet.

Poets, however, come in many different shapes and sizes. Some write long, heroic stories that resemble novels. Others write odes to nature or their lovers. Fadi, as his clients know him, writes about people, often those he just met.

Fadi grew up in Detroit, but his family moved out of the area when he was a teenager. “I only have good memories there,” he said. “Detroit and my community back there has never left me.” Though he currently lives in the Phoenix area, Fadi is looking to reconnect with his community in Detroit and show them his abilities.

After moving around for some years, Fadi settled in Arizona. For a while, he worked mostly as a freelance writer for different magazines. While he was passionate about writing, Fadi said he never felt particularly called to this work: in his own words, “It didn’t make my heart pump out of my chest.”

It didn’t take long for Fadi to find a passion in poetry. His essential problem, he said, was that he was fearful he couldn’t be successful as a working poet. Although the odds were not in his favor, once he decided to overcome that fear, there was no looking back, and his resulting career has been nothing short of astonishing. It was no longer a question of if, but rather, how he would become a poet.

Fadi published a book 10 years ago called “Bending Serendipity.” The book is a collection of original poems – many of which he wrote while traveling the world. The book, which touches on different concepts like love, truth, identity, and matters of the heart, resembles his current style and contains wisdom and creative verse beyond what might be expected of such a young poet.

Fadi said a lot of the ideas for the book came while he was on a six-month getaway in Sri Lanka. On that trip, he lived at a monastery for a bit more than a month. “It was a Buddhist monastery, but it was connected to a Benedictine Portuguese monastery,” he said. “I took a vow of silence for ten days. I didn’t speak the entire time.”

When you avoid speaking for ten days, according to Fadi, your other senses become amplified. “You can hear things clearer. When you look at a flower, the color is a little deeper,” he said. This foundational experience in the Sri Lankan monastery confirmed what he knew: he had to keep writing.

“God put me on Earth to do something,” he said. “The best way I can serve humanity is through my writing.” Because of this commitment, he continued to search for ways to monetize his skillset and turn it into something he could live off of. He found his answer in 2009, at a park while traveling in Peru.

“I was living in Peru, and I was in a park,” Fadi said. “I saw two older gentlemen sitting on a bench with typewriters in front of them. They weren’t doing poetry, but tourists would come up to them and ask for a typed letter to send back home.”

This gave rise to Fadi’s foundational idea. The typewriter is his unique instrument, the tool with which he unleashes his words into physical reality. With it, he distinguished himself from other poets and developed a particular and personal style: there is one unique copy of each of his poems; Fadi’s poems consist of sporadic words and phrases spread around a full page as he moves the typewriter around; and finally, it allows for Fadi to generate his poetry spontaneously in a live setting. He is well-known in Arizona for his live poetry experience at weddings and corporate events.

These are Fadi’s trademarks. Perhaps the most distinguishing factor about his work is the poem’s spontaneous generation. When Fadi goes to an event, he sets up his table and typewriter, sits behind it, and waits for guests to approach. Someone sits on the other side of the table; after a short conversation, Fadi composes a custom poem based on the vibe of the conversation and the request of the guest. After a few minutes, he gives the poem away. A simple act of human creativity, which Fadi calls “an honest, intuitive appraisal of your vibe,” can never be recreated or reproduced. It is a figment of Fadi’s mind, which comes into existence in time and space only once, and it is made for you.

“There’s no backspace. There’s no White-Out. This is what you get,” he said. “It’s like a performance. I compare it to acting in a play versus filming a movie.”

A large part of Fadi’s work relies on the intimate connection he develops with the subjects of his poem, even in just a few minutes. His clients often open up to him and tell him things they have never told anyone else. Sometimes they cry. “I don’t know how the words come out of me,” he said. “I know it’s honest and that’s it. I never know what I write.”

Often, Fadi’s discernment about a client after a few minutes of conversation bewilders them. It sometimes seems that his words are divinely inspired because his intuition is uncanny. His poems can leave the client in shock at the accuracy of his words.

Sometimes, he said, the things people tell him are almost too heavy. “It’s almost like I’m suffering,” he said. “Like I can’t wait to get the words out of me. I don’t want them, and they aren’t mine. This is your poem.”

In “Bending Serendipity”, he writes this: “i suffer what one cannot fathom / for I know not why I write / no proof no sense of birth or end / as like secrets given for me / if i shall write Not these words / my life / in whole / is only a Half Truth – “

As a creative person, Fadi had to develop a routine he uses to enter a creative headspace. His specific strategy involves both manifestation and prayer. His prayers everyday focus on gratitude; he’s grateful for how far he’s come, and he asks God to lead him even further. “I ask God for the wisdom and courage and bravery to bring these words out, and to feel what I need to.”

Dr. Sian Proctor

Fadi thinks his manifestation technique is especially powerful. He sits in silence and focuses on breathing. “I imagine in my head all the things I want to come true,” he said. “I’m seeing it happen. I see the guests coming up to me. I imagine our conversation, feeling what they say, feeling the words come out of me, tangibly, physically through my arms and onto the typewriter. I visualize the words, confident, brave, vulnerable, open.”

This preparation took some time for Fadi to perfect. It combines strategies he learned throughout his life in the Chaldean Catholic tradition as well as those he practiced during his travels. Wielding these strategies, he can properly deliver his creative endeavor into the client’s hands.

In addition to his live poetry experience, Fadi also takes custom requests that are not completed live. He receives regular requests from high-ranking people, including Phoenix Suns Head Coach Monte Williams, NBA athlete Kelly Oubre Jr., and other famous authors and TV personalities.

Perhaps his most important poem was one composed for an astronaut, Sian Proctor. After failing to advance from the final round of NASA’s 2009 Astronaut Group, she went back to teaching at her university. More than a decade later, Proctor was selected as the pilot of Inspiration4, an historic SpaceX launch that served as the first ever civilian spaceflight mission.

One day, Proctor saw Fadi working his magic at an event and approached him. Fadi had recently written a birthday poem for her friend, and she wanted to commission a poem from him to take to space with her. In September 2021, Fadi became the seventh person in the history of mankind to have a poem recited in space, and he is certainly the first Chaldean to hold that honor.

You can read more about him on his website, fadipoetry.com, or follow his Instagram, @fadipoetryevents.