What Happens When Travel, Poetry, and Identity Collide?
What do Melbourne, Edinburgh, and Paris have in common?
For award-winning poet, musician, and performer Josh Cake, each city has helped shape not only his art, but his understanding of identity, language, history, and what it truly means to be creative in the world.
In this episode of La Vie Creative, I interview Josh Cake, an internationally celebrated artist whose work spans poetry, comedy, music, and live performance. We talk about the way words can move us, challenge us, and even change us. We also dive into how travel transforms artists, how Paris can break you open in the best way, and why live performance remains one of the most powerful forms of human connection.
If you love poetry, artist conversations, travel stories, Paris, and creative inspiration, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
Meet Josh Cake: Award-Winning Poet, Musician, and Performer
Josh Cake is a globally recognized artist whose creative life has taken him from Melbourne to Edinburgh and across stages around the world. His work moves fluidly between poetry, music, and comedy, and his voice is both intellectually sharp and deeply human.
In our conversation, Josh shares how growing up in Australia gave him a complicated understanding of history and identity, and how later living in Europe — especially in Paris — changed him profoundly as an artist.
This episode is not just for poetry lovers. It is for anyone who has ever wondered:
- How does travel shape creativity?
- How do different cultures change the way we see ourselves?
- What role do words play in healing, connection, and resistance?
- How can artists grow through discomfort?
How Paris Changed Josh Cake as an Artist
One of my favorite parts of this conversation was hearing Josh reflect on his time in Paris.
Like so many artists, he came to the city full of ambition and talent. But Paris, as we both discussed, has a way of humbling you. It pushes you. It raises the standard. It demands more from you.
Josh studied in Paris as a young artist and found himself surrounded by excellence, intensity, and a culture that didn’t hand out easy praise. That experience forced him to become more disciplined, more open, and more serious about his craft.
For American listeners especially, this part of the conversation is fascinating because it reveals something many dreamers feel when they come to Europe: the realization that creativity is not just romantic — it is rigorous.
Paris didn’t simply inspire Josh. It transformed him.
Creativity, Identity, and the Artist Abroad
Throughout the episode, Josh speaks beautifully about the relationship between place and identity.
As an Australian artist with family roots in France, and a life now shaped by Scotland and international travel, he reflects on how living in multiple countries forces you to question who you are. It also invites you to become more curious, more flexible, and more aware of the stories that shaped you.
This is one reason I think this episode will resonate so strongly with American listeners, especially those who:
- dream of living abroad
- feel pulled toward a creative life
- are navigating questions of identity and belonging
- want deeper conversations beyond surface-level success
Josh’s story reminds us that creativity is not built in comfort alone. Sometimes it is forged in movement, culture shock, language, and the willingness to be changed.
Why Poetry Still Matters
In a fast-paced digital world, poetry can feel like a radical act.
Josh talks about discovering poetry in Paris through salons and spoken word spaces, and how it opened up a new way of understanding emotion, politics, and perspective. He explains that poetry helped him not just think about someone else’s experience, but actually feel it.
That is what makes this episode so powerful.
We discuss:
- how poetry can spark empathy
- why certain lines stay with us for years
- how language carries history
- the role of art in confronting violence, injustice, and memory
If you have ever thought poetry was intimidating or inaccessible, this conversation may completely change your mind.
Josh Cake on Performance, Human Connection, and the Gift of Attention
Josh has performed all over the world, including in Paris salons and live literary events, and one of the most moving parts of our interview is his reflection on what an audience gives an artist.
He says that when someone gives you their time, they are giving you something they can never get back — and that an artist owes them something meaningful in return.
That idea stayed with me.
Whether through laughter, music, thought-provoking words, or emotion, Josh believes performance should honor the audience’s time and create a real exchange. It’s such a beautiful reminder of why live art still matters.
For listeners who love performance, storytelling, and meaningful conversations, this episode offers so much richness.
The Striking Meaning Behind My Poems Pay Taxes, My Taxes Buy Weapons, My Weapons Kill Poets
One of the most unforgettable moments in the episode is when we discuss Josh’s album title:
My Poems Pay Taxes, My Taxes Buy Weapons, My Weapons Kill Poets
It is bold, provocative, and impossible to ignore.
Josh shares the story behind it, revealing how he began thinking deeply about complicity, taxation, war, and the role of the artist in political systems. This part of the conversation is intense, thoughtful, and deeply relevant for American audiences who are increasingly asking hard questions about where power lives and how ordinary people are connected to global events.
This is one of the reasons Josh’s work stands out: it is not afraid to be beautiful and uncomfortable at the same time.
A Poem That Will Stay With You
At the end of the episode, Josh reads one of his poems, “I’m Tired of Being Pizza,” and it is extraordinary.
The poem explores identity, race, fragmentation, and the exhausting ways people ask others to divide themselves into neat categories. It is smart, funny, painful, and unforgettable.
Lines like these are why spoken word and poetry continue to matter. They put language around experiences many people have felt but never known how to say.
If you love hearing artists read their own work, this episode is especially worth your time.
Where to Find Josh Cake
You can connect with Josh Cake here:
- Website: JoshCake.com
- Instagram: @joshcakemusic
He’ll also be performing in Paris in May, including appearances at beloved literary spaces like Paris Lit Up and SpokenWord Paris.
