Fall 2020 Edition
Fiction
"A Case Against Blissful Ignorance"
By Jennifer Lubin
By Jennifer Lubin
Grandma, why I gotta see this?
So that you won’t forget.
But I didn’t know in the first place, so how was I supposed to forget? You showin’ it to me now, so now I know. But why you want me to see this? I don’t wanna see these pictures or read nothin’ ‘bout ‘em. They horrible.
Because it’s too important for you not to know.
But Grandma, these two men is hanging from a tree and they backs is bleedin’. They dead.
Yes, they are. They were killed.
Who killt ‘em?
Hateful white folks.
Why they did that? Why them white folks was hatin’ on ‘em so bad that they did that?
Because they was black.
Why they wanted to kill ‘em just ‘cause they was black?
Because they was newly freed slaves and the folks that killed ‘em didn’t like the color of they skin...thought the color was too dark. And ugly. Thought they noses was too big and they hair too nappy. They didn’t believe that blacks had the same beating hearts that was pumpin’ the same red blood. They didn’t like the way black folks looked, so they figured black folks weren’t full human beings fit enough to go ‘bout living free and unbothered lives like white folks was.
But what was so wrong with the color of they black skin? It look just fine to me. It look like it’s about the same color as mine and yours. Look kinda good, actually. Just need a little shea butter lotion on the elbows, like you put on me.
Nothin’. Wasn’t nothing wrong with the color of they skin. Or yours. Or mine. Shea butter lotion or not.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
What’s a slave?
It’s somethin’ that wasn’t ever supposed to be, and ain't never supposed to be, baby. Slavin’ was and is somethin’ that was created by hateful people who never bothered consulting God on the matter.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
Is all white folks hateful?
No, baby. Not all of them.
Is most of them hateful?
I don’t think so, baby. A lot of them just scared.
Just some of them is hateful, then?
Yes, baby.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
Am I a human being?
Yes, you are.
Ain’t you one, too?
Yes, baby. I am.
Them boys was human beings too. I don’t wanna look at these pictures no more, Grandma.
You need to look.
Why?
You need to look.
Why? Do I gotta look because that’s gon’ happen to me?
No, baby. That’s not gon’ happen to you.
Then why I gotta look?
Because you need to know what happened to them...what happened to a lot of black folks just like them.
Why I gotta know what happened to them if the same thing ain't gon’ happen to me?
Because what happened to them is part of your history. It’s our history. You need to know what happened in your history so that no one’ll tell you lies ‘bout it.
Tell me lies ‘bout what?
Your history.
These hangin’ dead boys is a part of my history?
Yes.
Am I a part of theirs?
No.
Why not?
Because history has to do with things that done happened in the past. You came after they did so you ain’t a part of they history. But they a part of yours. You more a part of they future.
Am I gonna be a part of somebody else’s history?
Yes.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
Why would anybody lie to me ‘bout my history? Especially when they got pictures and stories ‘bout it.
‘Cause they just would.
Would they lie about everything?
No, not everything.
Just the things they did that was bad?
Yes.
If you do a really bad thing, you gon’ wanna lie about it so people won’t find out you did it, right Grandma?
Yes, baby. Sometimes.
People ain't supposed to do that to other people. They ain’t got no business killin’ folks just ‘cause they black and they ain't got no business lying ‘bout it, neither.
No, baby. They don’t.
Does Mamma and Daddy know about this?
Yes.
Does my teacher know?
Yes.
Does the President know?
Yes.
Does the King of England know?
Yes.
Does Pastor know?
Yes.
Does Coach Johnson know?
Yes.
Does the mailman know?
Yes.
Do the police know?
Yes.
So, Grandma, everybody know this done happened?
Yes.
How come didn’t nobody do nothin’ ‘bout it?
At the time when it happened, the only people who really wanted to do something ‘bout stoppin’ it was mostly black folks, just like them boys hangin’ from them trees, and they couldn’t do too much of anything at all ‘cause they was afraid that the same thing was gon’ happen to them. But people can’t go ‘round doing that to black folks no more, baby. Not like that. They’d go to jail for a long time if they did.
They’d go to jail? That’s all?
Yes, baby.
Did the hateful white folks who did this to them boys have mammas and daddies?
Yes.
Did they mammas and daddies know what they did?
Prob’ly so.
Did they get put on punishment?
Prob’ly not.
Did they say sorry for what they did?
No.
How come they didn’t say sorry for what they did, Grandma?
Because they didn’t think they needed to. They didn’t think they did anything wrong. They felt that those black boys deserved to die.
Do anybody deserve to die like that just for being black, Grandma?
No, baby.
Then why’d they do it, then? And how come they never said sorry?! Is something wrong with them? Is they sick in they heads? Is they sick in they hearts?
The government done said its version of sorry on behalf of them dead boys by way of making it so that, nowadays, if some angry white men decide that they wanna take a black man and hang him by his neck and kill him because they don’t like the way he looks or the way he talks or they just don’t like that he walkin’ ‘round livin’ his life and mindin’ his own business, then they’d go to jail for that.
Who took these pictures, Grandma?
Don’t know. Prob’ly somebody who had no problem taking a steady picture while watching those boys hang from them trees.
After this happened, did the people who did it go to jail?
No.
What happened to ‘em?
Don’t know.
You don’t know what happened to ‘em, Grandma?
No.
Then how you know they didn’t go to jail?
Because I just do.
What if they do it again?
They dead now, baby. The people who did this long been dead. I don’t know what happened to ‘em before they died, but I know they dead now because this happened a long time ago.
Did the people who did this have children, Grandma?
Don’t know. Prob’ly.
If they had children, did they children know they did that?
Don’t know.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
If it happened a long time ago, why I gotta know about it now?
Like I said, so you know your history.
But it makes me sad, Grandma. And scared. And mad.
Well, then that’s what it does, baby. It makes you feel all them things.
Why you want me to feel all those things, Grandma? I wasn’t feeling them before you told me about this and showed me these pictures.
Neither were them dead boys’ great grandparents. Them dead boys’ great grandparents wasn’t feeling them things either before they got put on a ship to head out this way years ago. They was prob’ly worried for they own lives, but they had no idea what was gon’ end up happening to their great grandbabies.
So that you won’t forget.
But I didn’t know in the first place, so how was I supposed to forget? You showin’ it to me now, so now I know. But why you want me to see this? I don’t wanna see these pictures or read nothin’ ‘bout ‘em. They horrible.
Because it’s too important for you not to know.
But Grandma, these two men is hanging from a tree and they backs is bleedin’. They dead.
Yes, they are. They were killed.
Who killt ‘em?
Hateful white folks.
Why they did that? Why them white folks was hatin’ on ‘em so bad that they did that?
Because they was black.
Why they wanted to kill ‘em just ‘cause they was black?
Because they was newly freed slaves and the folks that killed ‘em didn’t like the color of they skin...thought the color was too dark. And ugly. Thought they noses was too big and they hair too nappy. They didn’t believe that blacks had the same beating hearts that was pumpin’ the same red blood. They didn’t like the way black folks looked, so they figured black folks weren’t full human beings fit enough to go ‘bout living free and unbothered lives like white folks was.
But what was so wrong with the color of they black skin? It look just fine to me. It look like it’s about the same color as mine and yours. Look kinda good, actually. Just need a little shea butter lotion on the elbows, like you put on me.
Nothin’. Wasn’t nothing wrong with the color of they skin. Or yours. Or mine. Shea butter lotion or not.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
What’s a slave?
It’s somethin’ that wasn’t ever supposed to be, and ain't never supposed to be, baby. Slavin’ was and is somethin’ that was created by hateful people who never bothered consulting God on the matter.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
Is all white folks hateful?
No, baby. Not all of them.
Is most of them hateful?
I don’t think so, baby. A lot of them just scared.
Just some of them is hateful, then?
Yes, baby.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
Am I a human being?
Yes, you are.
Ain’t you one, too?
Yes, baby. I am.
Them boys was human beings too. I don’t wanna look at these pictures no more, Grandma.
You need to look.
Why?
You need to look.
Why? Do I gotta look because that’s gon’ happen to me?
No, baby. That’s not gon’ happen to you.
Then why I gotta look?
Because you need to know what happened to them...what happened to a lot of black folks just like them.
Why I gotta know what happened to them if the same thing ain't gon’ happen to me?
Because what happened to them is part of your history. It’s our history. You need to know what happened in your history so that no one’ll tell you lies ‘bout it.
Tell me lies ‘bout what?
Your history.
These hangin’ dead boys is a part of my history?
Yes.
Am I a part of theirs?
No.
Why not?
Because history has to do with things that done happened in the past. You came after they did so you ain’t a part of they history. But they a part of yours. You more a part of they future.
Am I gonna be a part of somebody else’s history?
Yes.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
Why would anybody lie to me ‘bout my history? Especially when they got pictures and stories ‘bout it.
‘Cause they just would.
Would they lie about everything?
No, not everything.
Just the things they did that was bad?
Yes.
If you do a really bad thing, you gon’ wanna lie about it so people won’t find out you did it, right Grandma?
Yes, baby. Sometimes.
People ain't supposed to do that to other people. They ain’t got no business killin’ folks just ‘cause they black and they ain't got no business lying ‘bout it, neither.
No, baby. They don’t.
Does Mamma and Daddy know about this?
Yes.
Does my teacher know?
Yes.
Does the President know?
Yes.
Does the King of England know?
Yes.
Does Pastor know?
Yes.
Does Coach Johnson know?
Yes.
Does the mailman know?
Yes.
Do the police know?
Yes.
So, Grandma, everybody know this done happened?
Yes.
How come didn’t nobody do nothin’ ‘bout it?
At the time when it happened, the only people who really wanted to do something ‘bout stoppin’ it was mostly black folks, just like them boys hangin’ from them trees, and they couldn’t do too much of anything at all ‘cause they was afraid that the same thing was gon’ happen to them. But people can’t go ‘round doing that to black folks no more, baby. Not like that. They’d go to jail for a long time if they did.
They’d go to jail? That’s all?
Yes, baby.
Did the hateful white folks who did this to them boys have mammas and daddies?
Yes.
Did they mammas and daddies know what they did?
Prob’ly so.
Did they get put on punishment?
Prob’ly not.
Did they say sorry for what they did?
No.
How come they didn’t say sorry for what they did, Grandma?
Because they didn’t think they needed to. They didn’t think they did anything wrong. They felt that those black boys deserved to die.
Do anybody deserve to die like that just for being black, Grandma?
No, baby.
Then why’d they do it, then? And how come they never said sorry?! Is something wrong with them? Is they sick in they heads? Is they sick in they hearts?
The government done said its version of sorry on behalf of them dead boys by way of making it so that, nowadays, if some angry white men decide that they wanna take a black man and hang him by his neck and kill him because they don’t like the way he looks or the way he talks or they just don’t like that he walkin’ ‘round livin’ his life and mindin’ his own business, then they’d go to jail for that.
Who took these pictures, Grandma?
Don’t know. Prob’ly somebody who had no problem taking a steady picture while watching those boys hang from them trees.
After this happened, did the people who did it go to jail?
No.
What happened to ‘em?
Don’t know.
You don’t know what happened to ‘em, Grandma?
No.
Then how you know they didn’t go to jail?
Because I just do.
What if they do it again?
They dead now, baby. The people who did this long been dead. I don’t know what happened to ‘em before they died, but I know they dead now because this happened a long time ago.
Did the people who did this have children, Grandma?
Don’t know. Prob’ly.
If they had children, did they children know they did that?
Don’t know.
Grandma?
Yes, baby?
If it happened a long time ago, why I gotta know about it now?
Like I said, so you know your history.
But it makes me sad, Grandma. And scared. And mad.
Well, then that’s what it does, baby. It makes you feel all them things.
Why you want me to feel all those things, Grandma? I wasn’t feeling them before you told me about this and showed me these pictures.
Neither were them dead boys’ great grandparents. Them dead boys’ great grandparents wasn’t feeling them things either before they got put on a ship to head out this way years ago. They was prob’ly worried for they own lives, but they had no idea what was gon’ end up happening to their great grandbabies.
"Bend the Knee"
By Nneoma Kenure
By Nneoma Kenure
The chimes from the kitchen clock nudged Ekeoma out of her food induced reverie as it announced it was five p.m. It was time to go home. It didn't matter that her curfew was at six and her home was only two blocks from Biola’s. She would have to leave fast because Biola’s father would be home soon. He was a director at the Federal Airport Authority and always left work at five o'clock. Since they all lived at the Airport staff quarters, he would be home in exactly eight minutes.
Ekeoma swallowed the last of her sugared doughnut in big gulps, then let bigger waves of the ginger spiced zobo drink push it all down.
“Kai! Ekeoma, why are you eating like it’s your first and only meal when your mother is the best cook in the quarters?” Biola asked with an indulgent smile.
As she walked away to the pantry, Ekeoma’s eyes followed her friend’s bare feet as they moved across the large kitchen. Biola’s feet slapped gently on the large beige tiles with the poise and oblivion of a life of comfort.
“I have to go help her wash some beans for tomorrow’s moi-moi.” The lie slid out of her mouth as smoothly as a ball of fufu enfolded in hot ogbono would glide down her throat.
“Your mum’s moi-moi is heavenly,” Biola said. “I’ve been meaning to ask if you know what she puts in it? And when will she make ofe akwu again?”
Their mothers both worked for the catering division of the Airport Authority. While Biola’s house seemed to always proffer lilting whiffs of hot baking dough and delicate hints of cinnamon, Ekeoma’s was always encased in dense puffs of ogiri or okporoko. Biola’s father was a level fourteen civil servant, so their family lived in a beautiful corner-piece bungalow. The living room was almost ethereal, with white curtains that billowed every time the glass doors that opened into the gardens were left open. It had luxurious white sofas that asked that you forget all your worries as they embraced you tenderly. Ekeoma loved the kitchen most of all; it was nothing like her mother’s with its soot stained walls and the chipped pestle in the large wooden mortar. The only furniture was the one wobbly stool on which her mother sat. It was so low, it became invisible when mother’s wide frame enveloped the stool and looked like she was performing a rather amazing feat of hovering over the floor.
Their family lived on the ground floor in the block of flats sometimes referred to as barracks by the kids in the estate. Ekeoma’s mother, a level four cook, had been lucky to be assigned living quarters only because it was imperative that the best cook the Airport Authority administration had ever hired could get to work earlier than others. Usually, accommodation was reserved for staff of level six and above. Their apartment faced the backyard of another building so that the only thing that ever caught a wind was their neighbours’ laundry on the clothesline. In Biola’s house, the kitchen wasn't just a place for pushing out meals. It featured an enormous hand-carved table with six chairs that always seemed to be encumbered by pies, cakes, and other exotic treats, and, as it had an air conditioner, it was no wonder the family spent a lot of time in there, laughing over sweet drinks and doughy pleasures.
Ekeoma loved Biola’s house. It felt like it could be her future. She would walk into her own home one day and turn on a gas cooker instead of a smoking kerosene stove. There would be a large piano, with loving pictures of her family in a corner. She would dare to have an all-white living room too, and it would stay white no matter the ages of her children because nobody had grubby soot-tinted hands. She would shuffle and do a jig barefoot in her own kitchen with the luxury of clean floors. Biola’s house was different from everything she'd ever known, and she loved spending the day here.
Why doesn't your friend ever come to your own house? She heard the held back disgruntle in her mother’s voice in her head and promptly dismissed it to ponder her immediate problem.
In a few minutes, when Biola’s father walked into his house, his daughters would say “welcome daddy” as they went down on their knees, and his son would prostrate flat on the floor in the traditional Yoruba way. This folding and unfolding of selves barely took all of five seconds, but it was always five seconds of awkwardness for Ekeoma. She had never enjoyed sticking out, but worse was knowing it could be interpreted as being rude, which added levels of anxiety that she was not sure the situation deserved. She did not want to be rude. At other times, when she gave in to the more casual slight bending of her knees, an acceptable Yoruba curtsy, she just felt stupid. In her very Igbo home, you said “good morning” to your parents and all adults standing up. She knew that this was impolite to some of her Yoruba friends, and she really didn't want them to think ill of her.
Her father was big on handshakes, which, to be fair, is not very Nigerian. When he came back home after a long day commuting from the Apapa ports where he was an office clerk, he responded to the “welcome daddy” from his children with a warm handshake and a twinkle in his eye as he called out for a glass of ice-cold water. He would tickle his wife as she warmed his soup on the sputtering stove, and her girlish squeals would reverberate through the cubicle they called home. Some Igbo girls knelt without skipping a beat, so why was it so difficult for her to do this? Did she think she was betraying her own self and perhaps her tribe?
Ekeoma actually enjoyed watching her Yoruba friends and siblings greet their parents; she thought it was a beautiful thing –this obeisance – but every time she'd tried it, it felt foreign and unnatural.
“She doesn’t use water, always beef stock,” Ekeoma said. Biola stuck her head out of the pantry so Ekeoma could see her questioning look. “That’s the secret to my mum’s moi-moi,” Ekeoma explained.
The clock ticked on as Ekeoma glared at it for a full minute. She let out a loud sigh and then called out, “I am sorry Biola, but I have to go now.”
“Then who will eat this cheesecake I was saving for last?” Biola asked as she finally emerged holding a large white cake with strawberries on it. Ekeoma had never seen real strawberries. It suddenly seemed excessively silly to give up the prospect of actually eating one for mere seconds of discomfiture.
“How about I help you with that cheesecake and I’ll bring you some ofe akwu later?” She glanced at the clock as she spoke. Four minutes had gone by already. She would have to make a decision quickly.
She had tried different ways to handle her dilemma. She made sure she was sitting when the father actually walked into the house; it always looked better if she stood up to greet him. It meant she had acknowledged his right to be deferred to. She didn't mind deferring; that was not her problem. Except, while she was going up, everyone else was going down. Once, she had pretended to drop something so that she was already on her knees when he walked in. While this was a good plan, she couldn't possibly start dropping things at the same time every day. Someone would notice, wouldn’t they? Her sisters had no problem genuflecting. She'd been surprised to find they had never even given it a thought; it was no big deal.
“You greet and move on. I don't understand you Ekeoma. Why do you have to complicate everything?” Ify had queried, her mouth upended by a sour pout. Her sister was right. It was really no big deal, but there was something about a physical lowering of one's self that was alien to her. “If you had to meet the queen of England, wouldn’t you curtsy?” Ekeoma eyed Ify, looking her up and down in rapid succession to show her irritation. Of course she would be okay with bending the knee to the queen of England, but she was sure she would be just as tired of it if she was running into her majesty every other day.
Had that clock always ticked so heavily? The hands seemed to be marching along with purpose. There were less than two minutes left, and Biola was still rummaging through the fridge. Ekeoma pushed away her chair reluctantly. “I really have to go now Biola.”
“Ahn ahn! What’s chasing you na?” Biola returned to the table with a bowl from the fridge and slowly poured on a strawberry glaze on the cheesecake. Ekeoma fell back in her chair in exasperation.
Chai! I really want to eat this cake. Maybe Biola’s dad would be late today. Maybe someone would bring in a file last minute that had to be attended to immediately. Maybe there was a car accident at the front of the Airport so that no one could go in or out. Maybe even a bomb threat. Those things pretty much happen at one airport or the other. Wasn't this airport due for one? If she wanted a part of this cake, she needed to make a decision fast. What are my options? She could either kneel or not. That was it. Was there any situation where she could explain to the adults: Look, I want to be respectful, but kneeling is not my thing? A tiny laugh escaped her lips as she scoffed at the mere thought. That was not an option.
“Just wait small. I can wrap this up for you to take home.” Biola walked back to the drawer and returned with a roll of aluminum foil and a can of whipped cream. “I had planned to make some fresh whipped cream but since you are suddenly in a hurry…” Ekeoma loved whipped cream. How could something so delicate and pleasing be food?
The sound of a car coming into the compound was unmistakable. There had been no unforeseen mishap to keep the civil servant away from home longer. A car door slammed shut, and the crunching on gravel grew louder as it got closer. Biola, unaware of her friend’s quandary, had decided the foil was inappropriate for the creamy cheesecake and foraged for an appropriate container in a large drawer. As the front door slid open all the way in the living room, Ekeoma realized that it was Friday.
You see, on Fridays, her father got to leave work early. Her mother’s bay-leaf-perfumed Jollof rice would fill the air so that neighbors, led by their noses, slinked towards her home under different pretexts, like zombies with brains on their own fetid brains. Ify would fry yellow ripe plantains until they were golden brown with crisp edges and mellow middles. The sounds of Sunny Okosun and Onyeka Onwenu singing idyllic songs of love from days long gone would float through the apartment from the small radio on the window sill as her mother, bent over the little stove, swung her wide hips from side to side. There would be mounds of pounded yam and a bowl of soup laden with strips of shaki and stewed snails as big as her fists for her dad. He would bite into succulent chunks of goat meat as the nutty palm-oil sauce threatened to drip past his fingers.
And so Ekeoma knew, as she made for the back door, that Biola would have to come visit her if she wanted some of her mother’s cooking. And she would not kneel.
Ekeoma swallowed the last of her sugared doughnut in big gulps, then let bigger waves of the ginger spiced zobo drink push it all down.
“Kai! Ekeoma, why are you eating like it’s your first and only meal when your mother is the best cook in the quarters?” Biola asked with an indulgent smile.
As she walked away to the pantry, Ekeoma’s eyes followed her friend’s bare feet as they moved across the large kitchen. Biola’s feet slapped gently on the large beige tiles with the poise and oblivion of a life of comfort.
“I have to go help her wash some beans for tomorrow’s moi-moi.” The lie slid out of her mouth as smoothly as a ball of fufu enfolded in hot ogbono would glide down her throat.
“Your mum’s moi-moi is heavenly,” Biola said. “I’ve been meaning to ask if you know what she puts in it? And when will she make ofe akwu again?”
Their mothers both worked for the catering division of the Airport Authority. While Biola’s house seemed to always proffer lilting whiffs of hot baking dough and delicate hints of cinnamon, Ekeoma’s was always encased in dense puffs of ogiri or okporoko. Biola’s father was a level fourteen civil servant, so their family lived in a beautiful corner-piece bungalow. The living room was almost ethereal, with white curtains that billowed every time the glass doors that opened into the gardens were left open. It had luxurious white sofas that asked that you forget all your worries as they embraced you tenderly. Ekeoma loved the kitchen most of all; it was nothing like her mother’s with its soot stained walls and the chipped pestle in the large wooden mortar. The only furniture was the one wobbly stool on which her mother sat. It was so low, it became invisible when mother’s wide frame enveloped the stool and looked like she was performing a rather amazing feat of hovering over the floor.
Their family lived on the ground floor in the block of flats sometimes referred to as barracks by the kids in the estate. Ekeoma’s mother, a level four cook, had been lucky to be assigned living quarters only because it was imperative that the best cook the Airport Authority administration had ever hired could get to work earlier than others. Usually, accommodation was reserved for staff of level six and above. Their apartment faced the backyard of another building so that the only thing that ever caught a wind was their neighbours’ laundry on the clothesline. In Biola’s house, the kitchen wasn't just a place for pushing out meals. It featured an enormous hand-carved table with six chairs that always seemed to be encumbered by pies, cakes, and other exotic treats, and, as it had an air conditioner, it was no wonder the family spent a lot of time in there, laughing over sweet drinks and doughy pleasures.
Ekeoma loved Biola’s house. It felt like it could be her future. She would walk into her own home one day and turn on a gas cooker instead of a smoking kerosene stove. There would be a large piano, with loving pictures of her family in a corner. She would dare to have an all-white living room too, and it would stay white no matter the ages of her children because nobody had grubby soot-tinted hands. She would shuffle and do a jig barefoot in her own kitchen with the luxury of clean floors. Biola’s house was different from everything she'd ever known, and she loved spending the day here.
Why doesn't your friend ever come to your own house? She heard the held back disgruntle in her mother’s voice in her head and promptly dismissed it to ponder her immediate problem.
In a few minutes, when Biola’s father walked into his house, his daughters would say “welcome daddy” as they went down on their knees, and his son would prostrate flat on the floor in the traditional Yoruba way. This folding and unfolding of selves barely took all of five seconds, but it was always five seconds of awkwardness for Ekeoma. She had never enjoyed sticking out, but worse was knowing it could be interpreted as being rude, which added levels of anxiety that she was not sure the situation deserved. She did not want to be rude. At other times, when she gave in to the more casual slight bending of her knees, an acceptable Yoruba curtsy, she just felt stupid. In her very Igbo home, you said “good morning” to your parents and all adults standing up. She knew that this was impolite to some of her Yoruba friends, and she really didn't want them to think ill of her.
Her father was big on handshakes, which, to be fair, is not very Nigerian. When he came back home after a long day commuting from the Apapa ports where he was an office clerk, he responded to the “welcome daddy” from his children with a warm handshake and a twinkle in his eye as he called out for a glass of ice-cold water. He would tickle his wife as she warmed his soup on the sputtering stove, and her girlish squeals would reverberate through the cubicle they called home. Some Igbo girls knelt without skipping a beat, so why was it so difficult for her to do this? Did she think she was betraying her own self and perhaps her tribe?
Ekeoma actually enjoyed watching her Yoruba friends and siblings greet their parents; she thought it was a beautiful thing –this obeisance – but every time she'd tried it, it felt foreign and unnatural.
“She doesn’t use water, always beef stock,” Ekeoma said. Biola stuck her head out of the pantry so Ekeoma could see her questioning look. “That’s the secret to my mum’s moi-moi,” Ekeoma explained.
The clock ticked on as Ekeoma glared at it for a full minute. She let out a loud sigh and then called out, “I am sorry Biola, but I have to go now.”
“Then who will eat this cheesecake I was saving for last?” Biola asked as she finally emerged holding a large white cake with strawberries on it. Ekeoma had never seen real strawberries. It suddenly seemed excessively silly to give up the prospect of actually eating one for mere seconds of discomfiture.
“How about I help you with that cheesecake and I’ll bring you some ofe akwu later?” She glanced at the clock as she spoke. Four minutes had gone by already. She would have to make a decision quickly.
She had tried different ways to handle her dilemma. She made sure she was sitting when the father actually walked into the house; it always looked better if she stood up to greet him. It meant she had acknowledged his right to be deferred to. She didn't mind deferring; that was not her problem. Except, while she was going up, everyone else was going down. Once, she had pretended to drop something so that she was already on her knees when he walked in. While this was a good plan, she couldn't possibly start dropping things at the same time every day. Someone would notice, wouldn’t they? Her sisters had no problem genuflecting. She'd been surprised to find they had never even given it a thought; it was no big deal.
“You greet and move on. I don't understand you Ekeoma. Why do you have to complicate everything?” Ify had queried, her mouth upended by a sour pout. Her sister was right. It was really no big deal, but there was something about a physical lowering of one's self that was alien to her. “If you had to meet the queen of England, wouldn’t you curtsy?” Ekeoma eyed Ify, looking her up and down in rapid succession to show her irritation. Of course she would be okay with bending the knee to the queen of England, but she was sure she would be just as tired of it if she was running into her majesty every other day.
Had that clock always ticked so heavily? The hands seemed to be marching along with purpose. There were less than two minutes left, and Biola was still rummaging through the fridge. Ekeoma pushed away her chair reluctantly. “I really have to go now Biola.”
“Ahn ahn! What’s chasing you na?” Biola returned to the table with a bowl from the fridge and slowly poured on a strawberry glaze on the cheesecake. Ekeoma fell back in her chair in exasperation.
Chai! I really want to eat this cake. Maybe Biola’s dad would be late today. Maybe someone would bring in a file last minute that had to be attended to immediately. Maybe there was a car accident at the front of the Airport so that no one could go in or out. Maybe even a bomb threat. Those things pretty much happen at one airport or the other. Wasn't this airport due for one? If she wanted a part of this cake, she needed to make a decision fast. What are my options? She could either kneel or not. That was it. Was there any situation where she could explain to the adults: Look, I want to be respectful, but kneeling is not my thing? A tiny laugh escaped her lips as she scoffed at the mere thought. That was not an option.
“Just wait small. I can wrap this up for you to take home.” Biola walked back to the drawer and returned with a roll of aluminum foil and a can of whipped cream. “I had planned to make some fresh whipped cream but since you are suddenly in a hurry…” Ekeoma loved whipped cream. How could something so delicate and pleasing be food?
The sound of a car coming into the compound was unmistakable. There had been no unforeseen mishap to keep the civil servant away from home longer. A car door slammed shut, and the crunching on gravel grew louder as it got closer. Biola, unaware of her friend’s quandary, had decided the foil was inappropriate for the creamy cheesecake and foraged for an appropriate container in a large drawer. As the front door slid open all the way in the living room, Ekeoma realized that it was Friday.
You see, on Fridays, her father got to leave work early. Her mother’s bay-leaf-perfumed Jollof rice would fill the air so that neighbors, led by their noses, slinked towards her home under different pretexts, like zombies with brains on their own fetid brains. Ify would fry yellow ripe plantains until they were golden brown with crisp edges and mellow middles. The sounds of Sunny Okosun and Onyeka Onwenu singing idyllic songs of love from days long gone would float through the apartment from the small radio on the window sill as her mother, bent over the little stove, swung her wide hips from side to side. There would be mounds of pounded yam and a bowl of soup laden with strips of shaki and stewed snails as big as her fists for her dad. He would bite into succulent chunks of goat meat as the nutty palm-oil sauce threatened to drip past his fingers.
And so Ekeoma knew, as she made for the back door, that Biola would have to come visit her if she wanted some of her mother’s cooking. And she would not kneel.
"The Only Flowers in El Komei Part One"
By Celine Callow
By Celine Callow
It was a place without rivers and streams. Without movement. Where each bead of dirt was welded to another, trampled under the feet of the same kinds of people since humans first inhabited the earth. There were no vibrant-colored flowers, no blossoming fruit. There were only the purple weeds that sprouted in patches and had roots enough to weather wind or shine. They were the only flowers that could grow in the dry dirt. Flowers being a generous term. More thorn than petal, more dust than perfume. Nevertheless, Soraya collected swathes of them and pierced their stems with her thumbnail, linking them together in a fairy-chain. These small rituals set in time the mechanics of her life with her sisters in the desert. The necessary busying of hands. She was a child who loved beauty, and where she couldn’t find it, she imagined it.
The sun beat down on the back of her neck as she headed home along the dust path. Since her childhood, she had made many tracks in the yellow-orange dust under her hand-me-down shoes. Once one was well established, she moved on to another. She crossed over several ghostly tracks on her way back home. Imagined the old versions of herself, playing alone, translucent as a spirit. The trailers emerged up out of the horizon, white beetles clamped onto the earth. El Komei trailer park was a community of strangers. People who arrived one dawn and set down roots, went about their lives in the quiet, relieved to be alone with people. You didn’t ask questions in El Komei. You minded your business, and if someone came sniffing around, you said nothing, knew your neighbour would do the same for you.
#
Soraya only faintly remembered life before El Komei. A yellow house, canary-colored with dark wooden beams. Soraya knew she’d been sad to leave the yellow house; there’d been a wood across the path from it like something out of a fairytale. Her window looked down on a host of conifers, green arrows pointing up at a blue sky. She remembered going with her sisters to cut down a Christmas tree. Her older sisters took turns with the axe -- they were sweat-soaked despite the chill and the denseness of their hand-knitted scarves. It took all of their eight hands on the broad tree trunk to guide it to the ground. Soraya felt proud to be included, and useful. It felt like the four of them were powerful together. They brought that broad, bark-wrapped giant to its knees.
Her sister, Jan, told her she’d got it all wrong; the yellow house was the one next door. Nevertheless, Soraya thought often of the yellow house. When her sisters were wistful and quiet, lost in thoughts of their old lives, Soraya thought of the house and the cragged edges of its dark beams. It was something sentimental that bound her to the past, to all of them. The yellow house was the medium through which she joined in their communion of longing. Though she wondered about her parents, she’d been too young to mourn their loss. To her, they were legends and not people. And besides, she never felt like she’d missed out on much, having grown up with three mothers of a kind. Soraya was sometimes ashamed of thinking this.
#
Soraya found herself longing for those trees now. She imagined tugging at their lush needles, sharp against her fingertips. She imagined the magic of light diffused through their branches, moss to cushion her steps.
Her sister, India, sat at the open mouth of the trailer, rocking onto the back legs of a plastic garden chair. She held a beer between her legs, clamped between strong thighs, tanned from desert sun. She was braless in a white vest; sweat pooled in the valley between her breasts and left crescent shaped smudges on the fabric beneath them. Her curly black hair was in a ponytail. India’s body held a mystery for Soraya. India’s body had had sex.
#
In the pitch dark of earliest morning, Soraya woke up to the sound of something scraping around in the dirt under her window. She pulled back the curtain from the bedroom window to see what it was. Soraya could make out the dim shape of two bodies intertwined. Moonlight picked up the white joints of their fingers, knees, and shoulders as they moved in the dark. India’s eyes swiveled up to the bedroom window, and the two sisters watched each other for a moment before Soraya tugged the curtain closed and went back to sleep. It didn’t make any sense to Soraya. Boys were forbidden, girls who had sex with them were sluts. Her sister knew this.
#
Now, India’s every look seemed to Soraya to be tinged with fear, with anxiety. Soraya wasn’t in the business of telling other people’s secrets, but India didn’t trust her. She sipped her beer and watched her. A steady look in India’s dark eyes, her round face studded with freckles.
“What’s for din?” Soraya asked her.
India shrugged. “Same as always.”
Soraya had hoped that keeping India’s secret would bring them closer together, but now they were little more than strangers with the same last name. Secrets were powerful things, this was clear to her.
“Another one?” India raised an eyebrow at the chain of purple weeds in Soraya’s grasp. “There’s so many of them just lying around wilting in there. They give off this stench when they die.” India threw her empty beer can onto the ground.
Soraya said nothing.
#
She found her two eldest sisters at the kitchenette. Tanya’s hair was wrapped with a kerchief; she used a wooden spoon to guide cream into a pan of potatoes, softened in a boil. A sugar container waited by the side. Janet sat on a kitchen chair at the table with a stack of papers and receipts. Her overgrown nails tapped against the calculator as she tapped on buttons and paused in-between to make notes in pencil on a yellow memo pad.
Jan looked up and smiled. “You’re back,” she said.
In the setting light she looked just like their father. Soraya didn’t remember his face, but there was a picture of him stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. He had ashy brown hair, just like Janet, a heart-shaped face with round cheeks, straight eyebrows. The man in the picture had his arm around a woman, but her face had been scratched off with a pin or a coin. Soraya thought this was more aggressive than simply cutting her out with scissors. She thought her mom must have done something very bad to make someone scratch her face out, but no one would tell her what it was.
Soraya deposited the chain of weeds onto the table, and Jan picked it up, wrapped it around her ponytail.
“How do I look?” she asked Tanya, who glanced up from her steaming pot of potatoes and offered a watery smile.
Soraya sat down at the table. “Sugar-mash for dins again?”
Tanya started to mash the potatoes in silence.
“You don’t think we could have something different, sometime?” asked Soraya.
Janet ran her hand down the column of numbers she was writing. “When you make money and pay bills, then you can decide what we have for dins, okay honey-pie?”
Janet had a way of speaking that made Soraya feel stupid whenever she asked a question and despite this, she was glad to have Janet as a big sister. She wasn’t dreamy and distant like Tanya or brooding like India. Janet was a person with energy, a great well of power in her stomach, latent strength in her sinewy arms.
“You like sugar-mash,” said Tanya, her voice a whisper. “Sugar-mash and chicken dinosaurs, I got them special from the store.”
Soraya didn’t want to upset her eldest sister, who was fragile looking in her kerchief. Her wheat-colored eyebrows and eyelashes added to the feeling that the life was low in her, more water in her blood. Soraya never heard Tanya raise her voice. She didn’t know what her sister thought about things, what she liked or didn’t like, except that she sometimes stayed up late drinking from a hidden bottle of whiskey. She made things out of the empty whiskey bottles after; candle-holders, vases, kept M&M’s in them and no one ever asked her where she got them from.
“I’m seventeen on Friday,” said Soraya.
“I haven’t forgotten, buttercup,” said Janet.
“Seventeen’s almost an adult,” said Soraya.
“So it is.”
“So, you said when I got older you’d tell me why we left home, and…and how mom and dad died.” There was a tremor in Soraya’s voice as she spoke, she was frightened and didn’t know why.
Tanya stopped mashing potatoes and stared out of the tiny kitchenette window, her brow furrowed.
Janet dropped her pencil onto the memo pad and sighed. “I already told you Raya; it was cancer,” she said.
“But if it was cancer then why did we have to leave the yellow house?”
Janet smacked the table with her palm. “Damn it, Soraya! There was no yellow house.” The chair swung backwards onto the floor as she stood up. “How many times do I have to tell you? The yellow house was the one next-door.”
“I’m sorry,” said Soraya. “Don’t be angry please, Jan.”
Janet shook her head and stooped to pull the chair upright. “One more year,” she said. “When you’re eighteen I’ll tell you.”
She’d said the same thing last year, but Soraya didn’t mention this.
End of Part One
The sun beat down on the back of her neck as she headed home along the dust path. Since her childhood, she had made many tracks in the yellow-orange dust under her hand-me-down shoes. Once one was well established, she moved on to another. She crossed over several ghostly tracks on her way back home. Imagined the old versions of herself, playing alone, translucent as a spirit. The trailers emerged up out of the horizon, white beetles clamped onto the earth. El Komei trailer park was a community of strangers. People who arrived one dawn and set down roots, went about their lives in the quiet, relieved to be alone with people. You didn’t ask questions in El Komei. You minded your business, and if someone came sniffing around, you said nothing, knew your neighbour would do the same for you.
#
Soraya only faintly remembered life before El Komei. A yellow house, canary-colored with dark wooden beams. Soraya knew she’d been sad to leave the yellow house; there’d been a wood across the path from it like something out of a fairytale. Her window looked down on a host of conifers, green arrows pointing up at a blue sky. She remembered going with her sisters to cut down a Christmas tree. Her older sisters took turns with the axe -- they were sweat-soaked despite the chill and the denseness of their hand-knitted scarves. It took all of their eight hands on the broad tree trunk to guide it to the ground. Soraya felt proud to be included, and useful. It felt like the four of them were powerful together. They brought that broad, bark-wrapped giant to its knees.
Her sister, Jan, told her she’d got it all wrong; the yellow house was the one next door. Nevertheless, Soraya thought often of the yellow house. When her sisters were wistful and quiet, lost in thoughts of their old lives, Soraya thought of the house and the cragged edges of its dark beams. It was something sentimental that bound her to the past, to all of them. The yellow house was the medium through which she joined in their communion of longing. Though she wondered about her parents, she’d been too young to mourn their loss. To her, they were legends and not people. And besides, she never felt like she’d missed out on much, having grown up with three mothers of a kind. Soraya was sometimes ashamed of thinking this.
#
Soraya found herself longing for those trees now. She imagined tugging at their lush needles, sharp against her fingertips. She imagined the magic of light diffused through their branches, moss to cushion her steps.
Her sister, India, sat at the open mouth of the trailer, rocking onto the back legs of a plastic garden chair. She held a beer between her legs, clamped between strong thighs, tanned from desert sun. She was braless in a white vest; sweat pooled in the valley between her breasts and left crescent shaped smudges on the fabric beneath them. Her curly black hair was in a ponytail. India’s body held a mystery for Soraya. India’s body had had sex.
#
In the pitch dark of earliest morning, Soraya woke up to the sound of something scraping around in the dirt under her window. She pulled back the curtain from the bedroom window to see what it was. Soraya could make out the dim shape of two bodies intertwined. Moonlight picked up the white joints of their fingers, knees, and shoulders as they moved in the dark. India’s eyes swiveled up to the bedroom window, and the two sisters watched each other for a moment before Soraya tugged the curtain closed and went back to sleep. It didn’t make any sense to Soraya. Boys were forbidden, girls who had sex with them were sluts. Her sister knew this.
#
Now, India’s every look seemed to Soraya to be tinged with fear, with anxiety. Soraya wasn’t in the business of telling other people’s secrets, but India didn’t trust her. She sipped her beer and watched her. A steady look in India’s dark eyes, her round face studded with freckles.
“What’s for din?” Soraya asked her.
India shrugged. “Same as always.”
Soraya had hoped that keeping India’s secret would bring them closer together, but now they were little more than strangers with the same last name. Secrets were powerful things, this was clear to her.
“Another one?” India raised an eyebrow at the chain of purple weeds in Soraya’s grasp. “There’s so many of them just lying around wilting in there. They give off this stench when they die.” India threw her empty beer can onto the ground.
Soraya said nothing.
#
She found her two eldest sisters at the kitchenette. Tanya’s hair was wrapped with a kerchief; she used a wooden spoon to guide cream into a pan of potatoes, softened in a boil. A sugar container waited by the side. Janet sat on a kitchen chair at the table with a stack of papers and receipts. Her overgrown nails tapped against the calculator as she tapped on buttons and paused in-between to make notes in pencil on a yellow memo pad.
Jan looked up and smiled. “You’re back,” she said.
In the setting light she looked just like their father. Soraya didn’t remember his face, but there was a picture of him stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. He had ashy brown hair, just like Janet, a heart-shaped face with round cheeks, straight eyebrows. The man in the picture had his arm around a woman, but her face had been scratched off with a pin or a coin. Soraya thought this was more aggressive than simply cutting her out with scissors. She thought her mom must have done something very bad to make someone scratch her face out, but no one would tell her what it was.
Soraya deposited the chain of weeds onto the table, and Jan picked it up, wrapped it around her ponytail.
“How do I look?” she asked Tanya, who glanced up from her steaming pot of potatoes and offered a watery smile.
Soraya sat down at the table. “Sugar-mash for dins again?”
Tanya started to mash the potatoes in silence.
“You don’t think we could have something different, sometime?” asked Soraya.
Janet ran her hand down the column of numbers she was writing. “When you make money and pay bills, then you can decide what we have for dins, okay honey-pie?”
Janet had a way of speaking that made Soraya feel stupid whenever she asked a question and despite this, she was glad to have Janet as a big sister. She wasn’t dreamy and distant like Tanya or brooding like India. Janet was a person with energy, a great well of power in her stomach, latent strength in her sinewy arms.
“You like sugar-mash,” said Tanya, her voice a whisper. “Sugar-mash and chicken dinosaurs, I got them special from the store.”
Soraya didn’t want to upset her eldest sister, who was fragile looking in her kerchief. Her wheat-colored eyebrows and eyelashes added to the feeling that the life was low in her, more water in her blood. Soraya never heard Tanya raise her voice. She didn’t know what her sister thought about things, what she liked or didn’t like, except that she sometimes stayed up late drinking from a hidden bottle of whiskey. She made things out of the empty whiskey bottles after; candle-holders, vases, kept M&M’s in them and no one ever asked her where she got them from.
“I’m seventeen on Friday,” said Soraya.
“I haven’t forgotten, buttercup,” said Janet.
“Seventeen’s almost an adult,” said Soraya.
“So it is.”
“So, you said when I got older you’d tell me why we left home, and…and how mom and dad died.” There was a tremor in Soraya’s voice as she spoke, she was frightened and didn’t know why.
Tanya stopped mashing potatoes and stared out of the tiny kitchenette window, her brow furrowed.
Janet dropped her pencil onto the memo pad and sighed. “I already told you Raya; it was cancer,” she said.
“But if it was cancer then why did we have to leave the yellow house?”
Janet smacked the table with her palm. “Damn it, Soraya! There was no yellow house.” The chair swung backwards onto the floor as she stood up. “How many times do I have to tell you? The yellow house was the one next-door.”
“I’m sorry,” said Soraya. “Don’t be angry please, Jan.”
Janet shook her head and stooped to pull the chair upright. “One more year,” she said. “When you’re eighteen I’ll tell you.”
She’d said the same thing last year, but Soraya didn’t mention this.
End of Part One
"The Only Flowers in El Komei Part Two"
By Celine Callow
By Celine Callow
He arrived in a beat up old truck, but Soraya only noticed the baby blue color of its paint against the yellow dust. She thought it was a beautiful color, like an oasis in the desert, like a stream. She wasn’t supposed to ask questions, but as she watched the handsome stranger pull up in a cloud of dust and radio music, a rosary swinging from the rear-view mirror, her mind was filled with them.
She watched from her window as he moved in with a single suitcase and a few cardboard boxes to the vacant trailer diagonally across from theirs on the plot. He was tall and broad-backed. When he came back out to the truck, Soraya noticed there was a dark Latin cast to his features, sensual lips and a sharp jaw.
The stranger’s presence next door changed the chemistry of the air. Soraya flushed as she imagined what intensely masculine activity he might be engaged with at that exact moment. It had been so long since she’d been in close proximity to an attractive man, and she’d been too young to care before. She promised herself she would find out something about him, even one thing would do. One small bit of trivia to muse on, like his favorite singer, or what he ate for breakfast. She didn’t feel too guilty; after all, these were only daydreams, but she knew Jan would be angry if she found out.
#
“Don’t you ever get a boyfriend, Raya. They only want one thing and it leads to nothin’ but trouble and violence. You hear me?”
The first time she was told this, Soraya was five-years-old. Soraya, who’d always been a light sleeper, woke before dawn to find her sister at work in the garden and wanted to help. She liked to help, remembering how much it had warmed her heart to fell their Christmas tree in the woods together. Her sister’s face was smeared with dirt. Her eyes were red, and her chest strained hard against her sweat-soaked blouse with each breath. Jan refused, snapped at Soraya to go back to bed, but not before she’d issued her ominous warning. Soraya felt uneasy at the sight of her sister, her wild-eyed expression as she tipped dirt onto the heap. Tendrils of her hair curled around her face like feathers. Not long after that night, the four sisters packed their things and left the yellow house for El Komei.
#
Wandering through the trailer-park, Soraya came across a cluster of rocks in the dust, scattered over a few square meters. She started a game of jumping from one to another. It was good fun until her foot slipped and she went over on her ankle. She sat down on her butt to inspect it.
“You alright there?”
It was him, the man, calling out of his trailer window.
Soraya knew she couldn’t be seen from her sisters’ trailer so called out in reply that she’d injured her ankle. She watched the stranger’s trailer door open. He was shirtless, and his skin gleamed in the sun. Soraya thought he looked like a dream. He wore his black jeans low on his hips. The suggestion of dark hair at the low-slung waistband of his boxers made her mouth go dry.
“Your ankle, you said?”
“Yeah.”
He crouched down beside her, close enough for Soraya to smell the tang of store-bought pizza sauce on his breath. She noticed his hands, so different from female hands, the size and shape of the fingers, the setting of the fingernail. His index-finger hovered over her ankle, less than an inch, but didn’t touch her.
“Is it broken?” she asked him. She didn’t know why, but she felt sure he was the kind of man who’d know a thing or two about broken bones.
He smirked. “Nah, you’d be in fuckin’ agony, and you’re not, are you princess?”
“Guess not,” she said.
“Can you stand up?” He offered her his hand.
She put her hand into the expanse of his palm. He helped her up. She took a few tentative steps on her injured ankle.
He smiled. “See? You’ll live, mija. You want a beer?”
Was he really inviting her inside? That would be too much, surely. Soraya felt sure that Jan would find out, she would just know. He was only supposed to be a daydream, not a thing that happened in real life. But if she didn’t go now, then she might never have the chance again.
#
“Come inside, you crazy child,” said the man, chuckling to himself as Soraya hovered in the doorway.
She took one glance backward before ducking inside. She thought his trailer was clean for a man’s. Specks of dust glittered in the light from the window, but the surfaces were spotless. He had an ancient television set up in the corner on top of an upturned crate. Soraya’s eyes were drawn to the colors on the screen, too rich and saturated to be realistic. They were better that way, she thought. She watched the actors in the movie as they argued. The woman’s mouth was blood-red and the man’s eyes were wide enough to show the whole of his violet-colored irises. Their posturing stirred something in her, an echo of a memory.
“You seen it?” Raphael picked up a t-shirt from the couch and put it on.
Soraya shook her head.
“Damn, really?” He reached down for two cans of beer from the mini fridge.
“We don’t have a T.V,” said Soraya.
“You’re kidding me, you ain’t got a T.V? That’s child cruelty, ain’t it?” He opened the can of beer and handed it to her.
“So what do you do all day then? You go to high school?” he asked her.
They both knew the nearest high school was too far to reach in a day.
Soraya shook her head and pointed out of the east-facing window.
The man squinted. “I don’t see nothin’.”
“Those plants, the purple ones, I make chains out of them sometimes.” Soraya expected him to laugh at her, but he didn’t.
“The flowers?” he asked, and nodded like it made sense.
Soraya was pleased he called them flowers and not weeds. She took it as a sign they might have the same way of seeing things. She wanted to ask him where he came from, how long he was going to stay in El Komei, but she didn’t want to annoy him. He kept calling her a child, which bothered her. She pushed out her chest in her t-shirt.
“What’s your name?” she said.
“Raphael,” he said. “What’s yours?”
“Soraya.”
“Soraya,” he repeated it. Soraya liked the sound of her name on his tongue. “You wanna sit outside? I got some chairs.”
“No,” Soraya answered a beat too quickly. “Can we stay in here? I wanna watch T.V.”
“Sure,” he shrugged. They sat down on the couch.
“How long are you gonna be here?” she asked him. Too afraid to meet his gaze. She sipped on the can of beer, liked the feel of cool metal against her lips.
“Maybe a week,” said Raphael, “maybe a couple months.”
She was sad to hear this, a part of her had hoped they might be friends. It got lonely on the lot without any young people.
“Doesn’t feel real, does it?” said Soraya. “Yellow dust in every direction.”
“I kinda like it,” he said with a shrug.
“I grew up in a place with lots of trees. You could see them all from my window, like a forest. I liked it there.”
“How come you came here?”
“They won’t tell me.”
“Who won’t?”
“My sisters,” Soraya blushed. She felt bad for telling this stranger their secrets, but he wasn’t just anyone. He’d come to El Komei, and that meant he had a secret of his own, something to escape.
“What happened to your folks?”
“They died,” she said.
“What? Both of them?”
“Yep.” Soraya felt sure she could develop a liking for beer. It was cold and sweet and bitter at once. She wasn’t allowed it at home.
“And what happened to your house?” Raphael made a circular gesture with his hand, “the place with all the trees. You didn’t inherit it?”
Soraya confessed she didn’t know.
“Weird, man,” said Raphael.
“And what about you?” Soraya felt she was owed some facts about Raphael.
“I gotta lay low for a while, just a while before I go back west.”
“What happened?”
“Someone died but it weren’t me that killed them, gotta wait ‘till they figure it out.” He eyed her, nervous to see how she’d react.
Soraya believed him at once, she trusted him infinitely, Raphael was no killer. “Don’t worry,” she said, softly. “I won’t say anything to anybody.”
They passed the evening quietly. They laughed at the same things on T.V., which Soraya enjoyed. She didn’t often laugh, and it was nice to turn to Raphael and find his face a reflection of hers. They sat on opposite ends of the couch, and Soraya’s heartbeat quickened at the smallest of his movements as she imagined touching his hand again, or perhaps even his lips. He showed her how to set the station on the T.V. by turning the knobs and tuning it in, and they ate Flamin’ Hot Cheetos from a sharing packet, passing them back and forth between them on the couch.
When Soraya saw the color of dusk out of the narrow trailer windows, she started to panic and knew she’d better go home.
“You leavin’ already, mija?” asked Raphael. “You don’t wanna eat?”
Soraya did want to but she couldn’t.
“Alright princess, how’s that ankle of yours?”
Soraya had forgotten all about her ankle, she got up slowly from the sofa. “Seems better,” she said.
#
Approaching her trailer, Soraya saw Tanya unpegging laundry from the washing line, a basket hitched up against her hip. Tanya stopped and watched Soraya, statue-like.
“Hi Tan,” she said.
“Janet’s been waiting for you.”
Soraya pushed open the trailer door which had been left ajar. She tried to think of an explanation, but her mind was blank, it was always blank when she needed to think quickly.
Janet stood against the kitchenette counter. India watched from the safety of the faded pink armchair in the far corner.
“So, are you gonna be honest?” asked Janet, her arms crossed.
Soraya lingered in the entrance, felt her cheeks burning.
“Come here,” said Janet.
Soraya took a few steps forward.
“Who is he?” she barked.
“Who?”
“Don’t you dare!” She struck Soraya across her face.
Soraya tasted blood.
“You know the rule about boyfriends,” said Janet. “We have these rules to protect you, Soraya. What do you think you’re doing spending all day in that grown man’s trailer? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Soraya hadn’t seen Janet this flustered since that night in their old garden. She could even smell the fresh-dug earth, feel the icy dawn breeze as the memory played in her mind.
“It wasn’t like that,” Soraya stuttered. “I hurt my ankle and he gave me some water, we talked, that’s all.”
Janet wrapped her hand around Soraya’s jaw like a vice. The bones of her fingers dug hard into Soraya’s cheek. India didn’t move from her seat. She watched things unfold with expressionless dark eyes. Tanya didn’t come inside even though Soraya knew she’d finished with the laundry. She imagined her eldest sister hunched over, clutching tight to the basket of clothes like it was an anchor that might stop her from being washed away.
“But what did you talk about, Soraya? Huh? What did you tell that stranger about us?” Janet let her go. Soraya’s cheeks flushed with blood and feeling again. “We haven’t got this far only for you to ruin it all, run around acting like a slut. You don’t want everyone to think you’re a slut, do you Soraya? Huh?”
#
Soraya had a new memory then. She remembered holding tight to the wooden rungs of the bannister. The house shook with the bass of her father’s voice. Deep and booming, it vibrated her infant rib-bones and her mother’s pleading drew goose-bumps from her forearms. She felt the presence of her sister Tanya beside her.
“Why is daddy angry?”
Tanya said nothing.
She heard her father calling her mom a slut. He said it over and over until the word was a sound and not a word. She heard the metallic clanging of pots and pans falling onto the kitchen floor, a smashing plate, and then a scream. Her father called for Janet.
Soon after, Janet came out into the hallway and told Tanya to take Soraya to bed.
“I want mommy.”
Tanya told her that her mom was gone and wasn’t ever coming back.
#
“He killed her,” said Soraya. She felt as though she were alone in the trailer kitchen, alone in the world. It came back to her in small, undeveloped snapshots like bits of negative film. How Janet had choked up when she told them their father had left in the night, leaving only a bundle of twenty-dollar bills on the kitchen counter. And a photograph with their mother’s face scratched off of it. Soraya remembered being pinched hard on her thigh if she asked questions. Told of what would happen to her if she said anything to strangers. Janet had erased their past with sheer willfulness, with new traditions, silly food and comic books, songs they made up on the long coach journeys they took across the country.
Janet’s face was ashen, grey. She turned away to steady herself, her hands rested on either side of the sink. The vertebrae of her bony spine heaved with each breath. India leaned forward in her seat, listened with the intent of someone afraid to be interrupted by even her own breath. Tanya stood at the doorway, outside of the threshold. She was as she’d always been, present and absent at once.
“You buried her in the garden,” said Soraya. She was as sure of it as she was of her own existence.
Soraya turned and started for the door. She didn’t know much, but she knew she had to get out of the trailer. Tanya stepped aside to let her pass, something apologetic in the downward turn of her pale blue eyes.
“Take your crap with you, then!” Janet reached for the waste-basket full of the purple flowers under the sink. The long chains had been broken, and many of the plants were speckled with black death. She threw the contents of the basket out of the trailer door after Soraya. For a half-second the sky was filled with them, the air full of their fragrance. They were butterflies for just a moment before they fell onto the dirt to be covered with dust and forgotten.
#
Soraya rapped hard on the door of Raphael’s trailer.
“Back again so soon?” he smirked at her.
“I need to get out of here, will you come with me?” asked Soraya, feeling like her skin had begun to itch and the only cure would be to get as far away from El Komei as possible.
Raphael looked around his trailer, exhaling through pursed lips. He scratched the hair at the back of his head.
“Please,” said Soraya.
Raphael shrugged. “Well alright, we’ll leave. My god girl. Don’t suppose you actually got somewhere in mind?”
“Somewhere with trees,” she breathed. “Just anywhere with trees.”
End of Part Two
She watched from her window as he moved in with a single suitcase and a few cardboard boxes to the vacant trailer diagonally across from theirs on the plot. He was tall and broad-backed. When he came back out to the truck, Soraya noticed there was a dark Latin cast to his features, sensual lips and a sharp jaw.
The stranger’s presence next door changed the chemistry of the air. Soraya flushed as she imagined what intensely masculine activity he might be engaged with at that exact moment. It had been so long since she’d been in close proximity to an attractive man, and she’d been too young to care before. She promised herself she would find out something about him, even one thing would do. One small bit of trivia to muse on, like his favorite singer, or what he ate for breakfast. She didn’t feel too guilty; after all, these were only daydreams, but she knew Jan would be angry if she found out.
#
“Don’t you ever get a boyfriend, Raya. They only want one thing and it leads to nothin’ but trouble and violence. You hear me?”
The first time she was told this, Soraya was five-years-old. Soraya, who’d always been a light sleeper, woke before dawn to find her sister at work in the garden and wanted to help. She liked to help, remembering how much it had warmed her heart to fell their Christmas tree in the woods together. Her sister’s face was smeared with dirt. Her eyes were red, and her chest strained hard against her sweat-soaked blouse with each breath. Jan refused, snapped at Soraya to go back to bed, but not before she’d issued her ominous warning. Soraya felt uneasy at the sight of her sister, her wild-eyed expression as she tipped dirt onto the heap. Tendrils of her hair curled around her face like feathers. Not long after that night, the four sisters packed their things and left the yellow house for El Komei.
#
Wandering through the trailer-park, Soraya came across a cluster of rocks in the dust, scattered over a few square meters. She started a game of jumping from one to another. It was good fun until her foot slipped and she went over on her ankle. She sat down on her butt to inspect it.
“You alright there?”
It was him, the man, calling out of his trailer window.
Soraya knew she couldn’t be seen from her sisters’ trailer so called out in reply that she’d injured her ankle. She watched the stranger’s trailer door open. He was shirtless, and his skin gleamed in the sun. Soraya thought he looked like a dream. He wore his black jeans low on his hips. The suggestion of dark hair at the low-slung waistband of his boxers made her mouth go dry.
“Your ankle, you said?”
“Yeah.”
He crouched down beside her, close enough for Soraya to smell the tang of store-bought pizza sauce on his breath. She noticed his hands, so different from female hands, the size and shape of the fingers, the setting of the fingernail. His index-finger hovered over her ankle, less than an inch, but didn’t touch her.
“Is it broken?” she asked him. She didn’t know why, but she felt sure he was the kind of man who’d know a thing or two about broken bones.
He smirked. “Nah, you’d be in fuckin’ agony, and you’re not, are you princess?”
“Guess not,” she said.
“Can you stand up?” He offered her his hand.
She put her hand into the expanse of his palm. He helped her up. She took a few tentative steps on her injured ankle.
He smiled. “See? You’ll live, mija. You want a beer?”
Was he really inviting her inside? That would be too much, surely. Soraya felt sure that Jan would find out, she would just know. He was only supposed to be a daydream, not a thing that happened in real life. But if she didn’t go now, then she might never have the chance again.
#
“Come inside, you crazy child,” said the man, chuckling to himself as Soraya hovered in the doorway.
She took one glance backward before ducking inside. She thought his trailer was clean for a man’s. Specks of dust glittered in the light from the window, but the surfaces were spotless. He had an ancient television set up in the corner on top of an upturned crate. Soraya’s eyes were drawn to the colors on the screen, too rich and saturated to be realistic. They were better that way, she thought. She watched the actors in the movie as they argued. The woman’s mouth was blood-red and the man’s eyes were wide enough to show the whole of his violet-colored irises. Their posturing stirred something in her, an echo of a memory.
“You seen it?” Raphael picked up a t-shirt from the couch and put it on.
Soraya shook her head.
“Damn, really?” He reached down for two cans of beer from the mini fridge.
“We don’t have a T.V,” said Soraya.
“You’re kidding me, you ain’t got a T.V? That’s child cruelty, ain’t it?” He opened the can of beer and handed it to her.
“So what do you do all day then? You go to high school?” he asked her.
They both knew the nearest high school was too far to reach in a day.
Soraya shook her head and pointed out of the east-facing window.
The man squinted. “I don’t see nothin’.”
“Those plants, the purple ones, I make chains out of them sometimes.” Soraya expected him to laugh at her, but he didn’t.
“The flowers?” he asked, and nodded like it made sense.
Soraya was pleased he called them flowers and not weeds. She took it as a sign they might have the same way of seeing things. She wanted to ask him where he came from, how long he was going to stay in El Komei, but she didn’t want to annoy him. He kept calling her a child, which bothered her. She pushed out her chest in her t-shirt.
“What’s your name?” she said.
“Raphael,” he said. “What’s yours?”
“Soraya.”
“Soraya,” he repeated it. Soraya liked the sound of her name on his tongue. “You wanna sit outside? I got some chairs.”
“No,” Soraya answered a beat too quickly. “Can we stay in here? I wanna watch T.V.”
“Sure,” he shrugged. They sat down on the couch.
“How long are you gonna be here?” she asked him. Too afraid to meet his gaze. She sipped on the can of beer, liked the feel of cool metal against her lips.
“Maybe a week,” said Raphael, “maybe a couple months.”
She was sad to hear this, a part of her had hoped they might be friends. It got lonely on the lot without any young people.
“Doesn’t feel real, does it?” said Soraya. “Yellow dust in every direction.”
“I kinda like it,” he said with a shrug.
“I grew up in a place with lots of trees. You could see them all from my window, like a forest. I liked it there.”
“How come you came here?”
“They won’t tell me.”
“Who won’t?”
“My sisters,” Soraya blushed. She felt bad for telling this stranger their secrets, but he wasn’t just anyone. He’d come to El Komei, and that meant he had a secret of his own, something to escape.
“What happened to your folks?”
“They died,” she said.
“What? Both of them?”
“Yep.” Soraya felt sure she could develop a liking for beer. It was cold and sweet and bitter at once. She wasn’t allowed it at home.
“And what happened to your house?” Raphael made a circular gesture with his hand, “the place with all the trees. You didn’t inherit it?”
Soraya confessed she didn’t know.
“Weird, man,” said Raphael.
“And what about you?” Soraya felt she was owed some facts about Raphael.
“I gotta lay low for a while, just a while before I go back west.”
“What happened?”
“Someone died but it weren’t me that killed them, gotta wait ‘till they figure it out.” He eyed her, nervous to see how she’d react.
Soraya believed him at once, she trusted him infinitely, Raphael was no killer. “Don’t worry,” she said, softly. “I won’t say anything to anybody.”
They passed the evening quietly. They laughed at the same things on T.V., which Soraya enjoyed. She didn’t often laugh, and it was nice to turn to Raphael and find his face a reflection of hers. They sat on opposite ends of the couch, and Soraya’s heartbeat quickened at the smallest of his movements as she imagined touching his hand again, or perhaps even his lips. He showed her how to set the station on the T.V. by turning the knobs and tuning it in, and they ate Flamin’ Hot Cheetos from a sharing packet, passing them back and forth between them on the couch.
When Soraya saw the color of dusk out of the narrow trailer windows, she started to panic and knew she’d better go home.
“You leavin’ already, mija?” asked Raphael. “You don’t wanna eat?”
Soraya did want to but she couldn’t.
“Alright princess, how’s that ankle of yours?”
Soraya had forgotten all about her ankle, she got up slowly from the sofa. “Seems better,” she said.
#
Approaching her trailer, Soraya saw Tanya unpegging laundry from the washing line, a basket hitched up against her hip. Tanya stopped and watched Soraya, statue-like.
“Hi Tan,” she said.
“Janet’s been waiting for you.”
Soraya pushed open the trailer door which had been left ajar. She tried to think of an explanation, but her mind was blank, it was always blank when she needed to think quickly.
Janet stood against the kitchenette counter. India watched from the safety of the faded pink armchair in the far corner.
“So, are you gonna be honest?” asked Janet, her arms crossed.
Soraya lingered in the entrance, felt her cheeks burning.
“Come here,” said Janet.
Soraya took a few steps forward.
“Who is he?” she barked.
“Who?”
“Don’t you dare!” She struck Soraya across her face.
Soraya tasted blood.
“You know the rule about boyfriends,” said Janet. “We have these rules to protect you, Soraya. What do you think you’re doing spending all day in that grown man’s trailer? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Soraya hadn’t seen Janet this flustered since that night in their old garden. She could even smell the fresh-dug earth, feel the icy dawn breeze as the memory played in her mind.
“It wasn’t like that,” Soraya stuttered. “I hurt my ankle and he gave me some water, we talked, that’s all.”
Janet wrapped her hand around Soraya’s jaw like a vice. The bones of her fingers dug hard into Soraya’s cheek. India didn’t move from her seat. She watched things unfold with expressionless dark eyes. Tanya didn’t come inside even though Soraya knew she’d finished with the laundry. She imagined her eldest sister hunched over, clutching tight to the basket of clothes like it was an anchor that might stop her from being washed away.
“But what did you talk about, Soraya? Huh? What did you tell that stranger about us?” Janet let her go. Soraya’s cheeks flushed with blood and feeling again. “We haven’t got this far only for you to ruin it all, run around acting like a slut. You don’t want everyone to think you’re a slut, do you Soraya? Huh?”
#
Soraya had a new memory then. She remembered holding tight to the wooden rungs of the bannister. The house shook with the bass of her father’s voice. Deep and booming, it vibrated her infant rib-bones and her mother’s pleading drew goose-bumps from her forearms. She felt the presence of her sister Tanya beside her.
“Why is daddy angry?”
Tanya said nothing.
She heard her father calling her mom a slut. He said it over and over until the word was a sound and not a word. She heard the metallic clanging of pots and pans falling onto the kitchen floor, a smashing plate, and then a scream. Her father called for Janet.
Soon after, Janet came out into the hallway and told Tanya to take Soraya to bed.
“I want mommy.”
Tanya told her that her mom was gone and wasn’t ever coming back.
#
“He killed her,” said Soraya. She felt as though she were alone in the trailer kitchen, alone in the world. It came back to her in small, undeveloped snapshots like bits of negative film. How Janet had choked up when she told them their father had left in the night, leaving only a bundle of twenty-dollar bills on the kitchen counter. And a photograph with their mother’s face scratched off of it. Soraya remembered being pinched hard on her thigh if she asked questions. Told of what would happen to her if she said anything to strangers. Janet had erased their past with sheer willfulness, with new traditions, silly food and comic books, songs they made up on the long coach journeys they took across the country.
Janet’s face was ashen, grey. She turned away to steady herself, her hands rested on either side of the sink. The vertebrae of her bony spine heaved with each breath. India leaned forward in her seat, listened with the intent of someone afraid to be interrupted by even her own breath. Tanya stood at the doorway, outside of the threshold. She was as she’d always been, present and absent at once.
“You buried her in the garden,” said Soraya. She was as sure of it as she was of her own existence.
Soraya turned and started for the door. She didn’t know much, but she knew she had to get out of the trailer. Tanya stepped aside to let her pass, something apologetic in the downward turn of her pale blue eyes.
“Take your crap with you, then!” Janet reached for the waste-basket full of the purple flowers under the sink. The long chains had been broken, and many of the plants were speckled with black death. She threw the contents of the basket out of the trailer door after Soraya. For a half-second the sky was filled with them, the air full of their fragrance. They were butterflies for just a moment before they fell onto the dirt to be covered with dust and forgotten.
#
Soraya rapped hard on the door of Raphael’s trailer.
“Back again so soon?” he smirked at her.
“I need to get out of here, will you come with me?” asked Soraya, feeling like her skin had begun to itch and the only cure would be to get as far away from El Komei as possible.
Raphael looked around his trailer, exhaling through pursed lips. He scratched the hair at the back of his head.
“Please,” said Soraya.
Raphael shrugged. “Well alright, we’ll leave. My god girl. Don’t suppose you actually got somewhere in mind?”
“Somewhere with trees,” she breathed. “Just anywhere with trees.”
End of Part Two
Hybrid Literature
"Breonna's Poem"
By Clinnesha Sibley
By Clinnesha Sibley
No knock.
No charges.
Star-spangled bullets pierced the paint of the walls
just off of St. Andrews Church Road.
Unarmed in the hallway–
they somehow believe that legal and moral actions were taken.
They called me a soft target.
No kids.
No kittens.
Purified,
my showers are for singing the Gospel.
Boiling,
my Teflon pots now ruptured, they runneth over.
“Soft target.”
What a concept.
Black women are soft targets for everyone, I guess.
For family…
For the men and women we love.
For the blue men though, “a ‘soft target’ is a person, thing, or place that is easily accessible to the general public and relatively unprotected, making it vulnerable to military or terrorist attack.”
To this I say…
We are not!
We are not sitting ducks waiting to be hunted by your 40 caliber.
We are not fodder for your cannons.
We are worthy of touch and kiss.
We are saving up to buy this house so we can start a family.
We are making people laugh
and crying confidentially into our pillows at night.
We are human beings
with smiles that light up the sky.
We are so bright we are a phenomenon.
We are not who you open fire on.
We are who you open your hearts to.
We are not seeing that man anymore because we deserve better– mama even says so.
We are gripping flowers in the bend of our arms because we worked damned hard for them.
We are eating out because life is good.
We are watching Freedom Writers because it inspires us (and deep down I know I am a writer).
We’ve got “too blessed to be stressed” hanging on our wall because we need a reminder every day.
I’m sorry, Kenny
that when you called out to me--
Bre!
I could not answer.
When someone needs me,
I always answer.
They said I was a soft target,
but I watched my door come off its hinges
and it was the most horrifying thing I ever saw in my life.
For me, a tree was planted
candles were lit
buildings were burned
and a bill got named.
Jesus, I couldn’t breathe.
…now, everything is breathtaking.
…oh Kenny, I finally found a perfect place to watch the sunset.
No charges.
Star-spangled bullets pierced the paint of the walls
just off of St. Andrews Church Road.
Unarmed in the hallway–
they somehow believe that legal and moral actions were taken.
They called me a soft target.
No kids.
No kittens.
Purified,
my showers are for singing the Gospel.
Boiling,
my Teflon pots now ruptured, they runneth over.
“Soft target.”
What a concept.
Black women are soft targets for everyone, I guess.
For family…
For the men and women we love.
For the blue men though, “a ‘soft target’ is a person, thing, or place that is easily accessible to the general public and relatively unprotected, making it vulnerable to military or terrorist attack.”
To this I say…
We are not!
We are not sitting ducks waiting to be hunted by your 40 caliber.
We are not fodder for your cannons.
We are worthy of touch and kiss.
We are saving up to buy this house so we can start a family.
We are making people laugh
and crying confidentially into our pillows at night.
We are human beings
with smiles that light up the sky.
We are so bright we are a phenomenon.
We are not who you open fire on.
We are who you open your hearts to.
We are not seeing that man anymore because we deserve better– mama even says so.
We are gripping flowers in the bend of our arms because we worked damned hard for them.
We are eating out because life is good.
We are watching Freedom Writers because it inspires us (and deep down I know I am a writer).
We’ve got “too blessed to be stressed” hanging on our wall because we need a reminder every day.
I’m sorry, Kenny
that when you called out to me--
Bre!
I could not answer.
When someone needs me,
I always answer.
They said I was a soft target,
but I watched my door come off its hinges
and it was the most horrifying thing I ever saw in my life.
For me, a tree was planted
candles were lit
buildings were burned
and a bill got named.
Jesus, I couldn’t breathe.
…now, everything is breathtaking.
…oh Kenny, I finally found a perfect place to watch the sunset.
"Chocolate Milk"
By Jennifer Lubin
By Jennifer Lubin
*1985*
Daddy, why they say this little girl gone missin’?
What little girl?
This one right here on the milk carton.
Because someone done snatched her.
Why they snatched her?
Don’t know. Prob’ly ‘cause somebody bad gon’ do something bad to her.
And now they looking for her?
Yes.
On this milk carton?
Yes.
Are they gonna’ find her?
I don’t know. Hope so.
Does she drink milk?
Prob’ly so.
Is someone gonna snatch me, Daddy?
You ain’t gon’ have to worry ‘bout that.
How come?
Because I ain’t gon’ let nobody snatch you.
Daddy?
Yes?
If I get snatched, will they put my picture on a milk carton?
You ain’t gotta worry ‘bout that, neither.
How come?
Because you black. Ain’t nobody gon’ come looking for you if you get snatched, ‘cept me and yo Mamma.
Will you find me if I get snatched, Daddy?
You gotdamned right I’m gon’ find you. But you ain’t gon’ get snatched. Now finish your milk and buckle your seat belt, Baby Girl.
We gotta get you to school.
Yes, Daddy.
Daddy, why they say this little girl gone missin’?
What little girl?
This one right here on the milk carton.
Because someone done snatched her.
Why they snatched her?
Don’t know. Prob’ly ‘cause somebody bad gon’ do something bad to her.
And now they looking for her?
Yes.
On this milk carton?
Yes.
Are they gonna’ find her?
I don’t know. Hope so.
Does she drink milk?
Prob’ly so.
Is someone gonna snatch me, Daddy?
You ain’t gon’ have to worry ‘bout that.
How come?
Because I ain’t gon’ let nobody snatch you.
Daddy?
Yes?
If I get snatched, will they put my picture on a milk carton?
You ain’t gotta worry ‘bout that, neither.
How come?
Because you black. Ain’t nobody gon’ come looking for you if you get snatched, ‘cept me and yo Mamma.
Will you find me if I get snatched, Daddy?
You gotdamned right I’m gon’ find you. But you ain’t gon’ get snatched. Now finish your milk and buckle your seat belt, Baby Girl.
We gotta get you to school.
Yes, Daddy.
"Fold" (Poem-Song)
By Annah Sidigu
By Annah Sidigu
"Mythic Momma"
By Gloria Browne-Marshall
By Gloria Browne-Marshall
My mother ain’t no Big Momma. Don’t dare cry.
She won’t pick you up gentle and kiss where it hurts,
never went to the valley to send me up high.
And only says good stuff when I say it first.
She’s not the one in birthday cards, not mine.
She won’t praise my efforts that come up short,
don’t know me more than I know myself or sigh
because I breathe in and out. With me, she’s bored.
My mother was never Big Momma. Her embrace--
it was not thickly rolled pillows of perfumed steam clinging to folks long past grown and gone their way.
No. Children were just hoarders of her golden dreams.
Was life too stony for her to break off a piece? Hungry,
but preferring to feast only off the best parts of me,
leaving bitter-roots to be fixed by Big Mommas it seems
like Santa Clause, only come ‘round when you’re sleep.
Maybe she got no Big Mommas from the start,
To fight the bullies at school or the boogeymen at night,
no soft hands or wordless caresses held her heart
where life’s bridges were too thinly patched to cross tired.
Say I’m blessed. Blessed with her thirst, lips dry, spare,
drinking from shiny cups not found on some rough table.
Tall in my power to haunt those weakened by love to share--
life. Bone cold, fearing, like my mother, I’m not able.
I’m no Big Momma. Tho’ I’ve gone low raising some high,
none of them fruit of my womb. None stopping their claim -
women, men lifting skinny-armed girls to hold up half the sky,
makers of women, loving mommas, birthing sun and rain.
She won’t pick you up gentle and kiss where it hurts,
never went to the valley to send me up high.
And only says good stuff when I say it first.
She’s not the one in birthday cards, not mine.
She won’t praise my efforts that come up short,
don’t know me more than I know myself or sigh
because I breathe in and out. With me, she’s bored.
My mother was never Big Momma. Her embrace--
it was not thickly rolled pillows of perfumed steam clinging to folks long past grown and gone their way.
No. Children were just hoarders of her golden dreams.
Was life too stony for her to break off a piece? Hungry,
but preferring to feast only off the best parts of me,
leaving bitter-roots to be fixed by Big Mommas it seems
like Santa Clause, only come ‘round when you’re sleep.
Maybe she got no Big Mommas from the start,
To fight the bullies at school or the boogeymen at night,
no soft hands or wordless caresses held her heart
where life’s bridges were too thinly patched to cross tired.
Say I’m blessed. Blessed with her thirst, lips dry, spare,
drinking from shiny cups not found on some rough table.
Tall in my power to haunt those weakened by love to share--
life. Bone cold, fearing, like my mother, I’m not able.
I’m no Big Momma. Tho’ I’ve gone low raising some high,
none of them fruit of my womb. None stopping their claim -
women, men lifting skinny-armed girls to hold up half the sky,
makers of women, loving mommas, birthing sun and rain.
"Prophecy"
By Yvette Green
By Yvette Green
Anger had taken up residence in her memory
At first, I would shrug off my grandmother’s words as her own misery,
her schizophrenia,
her winter season.
But today, on the promise of my personal new year:
My grandmother called to say, “Happy Birthday,”
Through the phone, I could see her
smirk behind large bifocals
pressed against grey eyes,
propped on ears that had grown both wide and long with her years.
She watched as I aged.
On this birthday, my new season spoke age to me: 35.
The hardness of the odd numbers
sat firmly against one another.
Advanced maternal age
and menopause
surreptitiously stood in her shadows.
Today, she bequeathed anxiety and unresolved pain to me.
I, too, had been abandoned,
unworthy of even
the chance to become a bare tree that
still stood straight and reached to the heavens.
Today, her words took up residence in my heart
She reached through my flesh and
pushed her fist past tender muscles,
punctured blood vessels,
severed arteries until her tired fingers attacked my bones--
She made my rib cage her harp to accompany her refrain:
“you won’t have another child,
because he left you.
You’re just like me,
I ain’t got no husband and you don’t either.”
Birthday text messages from those who preferred not to talk but wanted to do more than the obligatory Facebook wall post poured in immediately on the first day of autumn. I’m usually hypnotized by the changing of the guards. The trees slowly, almost imperceptibly drain the summer green from their leaves and proudly adorn themselves in robust rusts, butternut squashes and brilliant magentas meet moody maroons. Each birthday, as I entered my own new year, I wrapped my arms around the newness of the season.
Except 35.
An early happy birthday text message was rudely met with, “35 can go hide under a rock!” I had greeted my birthday sourly and my friend momentarily caused me to reevaluate my perspective.
“Enjoy every moment because 45 will be here soon,” she cautioned. I failed to apologize for being so ungrateful but offered sincere appreciation for her wisdom.
Soon after, my 84-year-old grandmother called and quickly put herself at the center of the conversation, “I want you [to come see me], you ain’t got no husband.” Hence, I was supposed to jump and go visit her because no man was tethering me to him. She was asking me to come to my aunt’s house for a joint birthday celebration with my aunt who was fourteen years my senior to the day. I declined, not wanting to spend an hour or more each way driving up and down Interstate 95 between Maryland and Virginia. Not wanting to mask my feelings about being husbandless on this day. Not really wanting to do the family thing, wanting to do me. Even if that meant doing nothing with my boys.
Shortly thereafter, she had removed herself from the center of the conversation and traversed across the span of her 15 grandchildren’s lives and landed on my brother and his girlfriend. Trying to be a contributor to this conversation, I added, “yea we might have another wedding soon. You know we’ve got a baby coming.” (My cousin and his wife were expecting in October). But still thinking of my brother, she said, “yea they could have a baby. You can’t. Your husband left you.”
Usually when she sings her sad refrain of “you ain’t got no husband,” I’m unmoved by the melody. When she learned of my ex’s departure, she proclaimed her awareness of the ill-fitting match: “when ya’ll told me he liked to cook, I knew something was wrong. Caught him back.” She fits this vocal tic into the conversation; it signals that anger remains a part of her memory. Months after her reminder of my failings, she shared, “now you’re just like me. I ain’t got no husband and neither do you.”
“I can tell you this, it hurt me that he [my grandfather] went out on me…” she relayed.
I knew what she meant. I understood being hurt. But I straightened my shoulders and asserted: that pain was hers, not mine. I wasn’t going to hold onto that hurt. I would choose differently.
This specific year, however, autumn had failed in its sleight of hand. It had always seemed majestic. Yet, this new season spoke age to me. My grandmother’s harsh spirit was reflected in her words. I grew ever fearful of my fate. I was afraid the trees would remain the same for me and my life would mirror hers.
Today, those words were not hers, but mine. I was not just alone, but abandoned, not good enough to be loved. 35 was turning a corner and the likelihood of another marriage and another child were becoming further out of sight. Her unending pain was becoming a generational curse.
At first, I would shrug off my grandmother’s words as her own misery,
her schizophrenia,
her winter season.
But today, on the promise of my personal new year:
My grandmother called to say, “Happy Birthday,”
Through the phone, I could see her
smirk behind large bifocals
pressed against grey eyes,
propped on ears that had grown both wide and long with her years.
She watched as I aged.
On this birthday, my new season spoke age to me: 35.
The hardness of the odd numbers
sat firmly against one another.
Advanced maternal age
and menopause
surreptitiously stood in her shadows.
Today, she bequeathed anxiety and unresolved pain to me.
I, too, had been abandoned,
unworthy of even
the chance to become a bare tree that
still stood straight and reached to the heavens.
Today, her words took up residence in my heart
She reached through my flesh and
pushed her fist past tender muscles,
punctured blood vessels,
severed arteries until her tired fingers attacked my bones--
She made my rib cage her harp to accompany her refrain:
“you won’t have another child,
because he left you.
You’re just like me,
I ain’t got no husband and you don’t either.”
Birthday text messages from those who preferred not to talk but wanted to do more than the obligatory Facebook wall post poured in immediately on the first day of autumn. I’m usually hypnotized by the changing of the guards. The trees slowly, almost imperceptibly drain the summer green from their leaves and proudly adorn themselves in robust rusts, butternut squashes and brilliant magentas meet moody maroons. Each birthday, as I entered my own new year, I wrapped my arms around the newness of the season.
Except 35.
An early happy birthday text message was rudely met with, “35 can go hide under a rock!” I had greeted my birthday sourly and my friend momentarily caused me to reevaluate my perspective.
“Enjoy every moment because 45 will be here soon,” she cautioned. I failed to apologize for being so ungrateful but offered sincere appreciation for her wisdom.
Soon after, my 84-year-old grandmother called and quickly put herself at the center of the conversation, “I want you [to come see me], you ain’t got no husband.” Hence, I was supposed to jump and go visit her because no man was tethering me to him. She was asking me to come to my aunt’s house for a joint birthday celebration with my aunt who was fourteen years my senior to the day. I declined, not wanting to spend an hour or more each way driving up and down Interstate 95 between Maryland and Virginia. Not wanting to mask my feelings about being husbandless on this day. Not really wanting to do the family thing, wanting to do me. Even if that meant doing nothing with my boys.
Shortly thereafter, she had removed herself from the center of the conversation and traversed across the span of her 15 grandchildren’s lives and landed on my brother and his girlfriend. Trying to be a contributor to this conversation, I added, “yea we might have another wedding soon. You know we’ve got a baby coming.” (My cousin and his wife were expecting in October). But still thinking of my brother, she said, “yea they could have a baby. You can’t. Your husband left you.”
Usually when she sings her sad refrain of “you ain’t got no husband,” I’m unmoved by the melody. When she learned of my ex’s departure, she proclaimed her awareness of the ill-fitting match: “when ya’ll told me he liked to cook, I knew something was wrong. Caught him back.” She fits this vocal tic into the conversation; it signals that anger remains a part of her memory. Months after her reminder of my failings, she shared, “now you’re just like me. I ain’t got no husband and neither do you.”
“I can tell you this, it hurt me that he [my grandfather] went out on me…” she relayed.
I knew what she meant. I understood being hurt. But I straightened my shoulders and asserted: that pain was hers, not mine. I wasn’t going to hold onto that hurt. I would choose differently.
This specific year, however, autumn had failed in its sleight of hand. It had always seemed majestic. Yet, this new season spoke age to me. My grandmother’s harsh spirit was reflected in her words. I grew ever fearful of my fate. I was afraid the trees would remain the same for me and my life would mirror hers.
Today, those words were not hers, but mine. I was not just alone, but abandoned, not good enough to be loved. 35 was turning a corner and the likelihood of another marriage and another child were becoming further out of sight. Her unending pain was becoming a generational curse.
"The Wisdom of the Elders"
By Kimberly Jackson
By Kimberly Jackson
Nonfiction
"Dancing for the Lord"
By J.B. Jemison
**Content Warning: Contains subject matter dealing with child abuse, nudity, and emotional abuse**
By J.B. Jemison
**Content Warning: Contains subject matter dealing with child abuse, nudity, and emotional abuse**
My apparently lewd dancing during Youth Church that morning had gotten back to my foster mother. I knew I would be in trouble the moment I saw her. That hard look in her eyes, lips set in a thin line. She had shaken her head so hard I thought her wig would fall off. Hairpiece, that’s what she told me to call it. A wig was a full thing with slick hair that had a net and an elastic band. A hairpiece, hers at least, had two combs: one in the front and one in the back. Still, it shook so violently I could see the nest of natural curls at the nape of her neck.
In the parking lot catercorner to church grounds, I had come to a full stop and looked around. I didn’t want to be embarrassed here in front of my church friends. I didn’t want them to see her snatch me up, nails digging in to the point where my skin breaks and slides up in small paper-thin flaps exposing a fresh layer beneath. I didn’t want them to see how I’d fold in on myself, becoming as small as a mouse, still like an opossum.
I also didn’t want them to see me after. How I would keep my head staring straight, zoning out so I wouldn’t meet anyone’s gaze. I didn’t want to hear their snickering, as I’m sure they would laugh and pretend I was the only one bumping and grinding to the secular music. I didn’t want that one boy that I let touch my vagina in the sanctuary to see. He had crawled under the pews, reached under my skirt, and touched my hairless flesh with curiosity, and I didn’t stop him. I liked him, or I thought I did, but I didn’t want him to know the real me. The me that no one could love.
But all of that happened anyway. She marched me back to the car so fast I couldn’t keep up in my thin flats. They could get no traction, and whenever she dragged me about I slipped like a gazelle on a frozen lake. I tried to keep my gaze averted, but I didn’t have to worry. The churchgoers were already moving away, not wanting, or caring, to see how The Foster Kids were treated.
***
Once in the car, no one spoke to me. Not mom - whose face was still angry. Not dad — who was clueless as to what happened, per usual. And definitely not my other siblings — who hadn’t stopped me from making the mistake in the first place and had downright egged me on. They joked with each other and talked about which donut they wanted from Krispy Kreme — our after-Sunday-service tradition.
I knew I wouldn’t be getting a donut or she’d get my favorite kind, glazed with sprinkles, and then let someone else eat it. We also stopped by Church’s Chicken, another Sunday tradition, and as I impatiently sat cramped in my corner of the SUV, my stomach growled. I wondered if I would get to eat the juicy fried chicken with everyone else. If not, I’d be relegated to the kitchen table with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a longer sentence of the silent treatment.
When we arrived home she still said nothing. Everyone went their separate ways; the foster kids to do their many chores, my dad to his favorite leather chair that he slept in with feet raised, mom to her couch in the sunroom that she stretched out on from sunup to sundown, and then me — to the kitchen to clean up before dinner.
After dinner had been eaten, the dishes cleared, the table reset, the chairs moved back in place (as there were too many of us and extra chairs were always needed), and the food was put away, I was in agony. She had still yet to tell me what my punishment would be, but I knew something was coming.
Would it be twelve licks with daddy’s thick leather belt with Mom saying, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” followed by, “As soon as you stay still I can finish”?
Would it be hours sitting in front of the fireplace? A punishment tailor made for me because I had books in my room and “go to your room” wasn’t a punishment but a vacation, and one I relished.
Would it be one thousand sentences where I’d write out my crime and promise to do better? Hands cramping with every “I’ll never gyrate to secular music in church again. I apologize. I apologize. I apologize.”
Would I be banned from the library for two months? The worst one of all, because the house of books was my only safe space, the only place I truly felt happy.
More punishments went through my mind as I made myself scarce. I even thought maybe I should run upstairs and read as many pages as I can, just in case I had to empty my bookshelves into bags and leave my books before her door to be taken for an undisclosed amount of time.
On my way to do just that I heard her call me. She didn’t seem angry, and hope bloomed in my chest. When I arrived at the dining room the other foster kids were there, but only the girls. It didn’t seem important at the time.
“Strip,” she said with a little smirk on her face. The others started chanting, “Strip, strip, strip, strip.” I fought it and the smirk slipped from her face.
“Take. All. Your. Clothes. Off.” She barely got the words out through lips pulled tight across her teeth. “You want to be exposed and be fast?” Being ‘fast’ was something all girls (regardless of race) were who had ‘sexual tendencies’ at a young age, switching, making sex eyes, showing too much skin, going through puberty early to where their bodies developed faster than their age, and more.
“Go ahead and be like David. You remember him? He danced so hard his clothes fell off. Dance for the Lord,” she said. I stared at her and, at that moment, I wanted to hit her. I wanted to hit her so hard she’d never smirk again. I wanted to drive my fist into her face and pound until all my frustration peeled off like wet clothes. But I knew I couldn’t.
So, I stripped. I stood there with my hands blocking the soft folds between my legs. Despite my early puberty, I hadn’t grown hair there yet, even though I knew I one day would, and felt they could see into me. See inside me.
“Move your hands and dance. Just like you were doing at church this morning. I want to see.” I dropped my hands to my sides and moved my hips like I had seen girls do in music videos. My knees knocked together as I bent and straightened and swayed from side to side. I tried to blink quick enough to keep the tears in, but I could feel a wetness in my eyes welling up. Could hear the cries welling up inside me though my mouth felt glued shut.
“No, around the table. And move your arms more. Just like you were this morning. Don’t play games with me,” she said.
I stepped around the table, bouncing and popping my butt back and forth, shaking my chest that was just budding with breasts. Through the third, and fourth, and fifth lap around the table I danced harder. I closed my eyes and put my hands above my head, giving myself over as I’d seen the girls in the movies do.
“She has good rhythm,” I heard someone say merrily, as if it were all a joke, and I kept dancing.
***
My cheeks were wet now. I stopped trying to fight the tears a few laps back and continued to let them flow freely. I’m sorry God. I’m not a good girl. If I was, I wouldn’t have danced like that in your house today. I don’t deserve your love. I never did. I promise not to do it again. I thought as I continued to dance. I couldn’t lift my hands because my arms were so tired. My feet dragged across the smooth wood floors, catching on the area rug every time I passed by the frayed corners, and I could barely lift them.
There was no more laughter, no whispering heard from the table. The foster girls watched in morbid silence. My punishment didn’t seem funny to them anymore. I could see their faces, trying to avert their eyes. Shame was shown to me, and I wondered if it was mine or theirs.
“Enough,” someone said. It wasn’t mom though, and so I kept dancing.
When I was finally released from my punishment, I grabbed up my clothes and darted up the stairs, struggling to take them two at a time. My room door was open, and once inside I closed it as silently as I could, in fear of further punishment. I didn’t stop to pull my clothes on but climbed the ladder to my top bunk.
Beneath the thin cover I was safe, hidden, but all modesty left me that day. My body wasn’t just mine anymore. It didn’t only belong to me. Everyone had feasted on it with their eyes and their hysterical laughter. They’d stripped it of its purity via their sanctity. They looked into my void and I couldn’t stop them. I can never stop them because I bared my soul and, like my body, I’ll never have the right to it again.
In the parking lot catercorner to church grounds, I had come to a full stop and looked around. I didn’t want to be embarrassed here in front of my church friends. I didn’t want them to see her snatch me up, nails digging in to the point where my skin breaks and slides up in small paper-thin flaps exposing a fresh layer beneath. I didn’t want them to see how I’d fold in on myself, becoming as small as a mouse, still like an opossum.
I also didn’t want them to see me after. How I would keep my head staring straight, zoning out so I wouldn’t meet anyone’s gaze. I didn’t want to hear their snickering, as I’m sure they would laugh and pretend I was the only one bumping and grinding to the secular music. I didn’t want that one boy that I let touch my vagina in the sanctuary to see. He had crawled under the pews, reached under my skirt, and touched my hairless flesh with curiosity, and I didn’t stop him. I liked him, or I thought I did, but I didn’t want him to know the real me. The me that no one could love.
But all of that happened anyway. She marched me back to the car so fast I couldn’t keep up in my thin flats. They could get no traction, and whenever she dragged me about I slipped like a gazelle on a frozen lake. I tried to keep my gaze averted, but I didn’t have to worry. The churchgoers were already moving away, not wanting, or caring, to see how The Foster Kids were treated.
***
Once in the car, no one spoke to me. Not mom - whose face was still angry. Not dad — who was clueless as to what happened, per usual. And definitely not my other siblings — who hadn’t stopped me from making the mistake in the first place and had downright egged me on. They joked with each other and talked about which donut they wanted from Krispy Kreme — our after-Sunday-service tradition.
I knew I wouldn’t be getting a donut or she’d get my favorite kind, glazed with sprinkles, and then let someone else eat it. We also stopped by Church’s Chicken, another Sunday tradition, and as I impatiently sat cramped in my corner of the SUV, my stomach growled. I wondered if I would get to eat the juicy fried chicken with everyone else. If not, I’d be relegated to the kitchen table with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a longer sentence of the silent treatment.
When we arrived home she still said nothing. Everyone went their separate ways; the foster kids to do their many chores, my dad to his favorite leather chair that he slept in with feet raised, mom to her couch in the sunroom that she stretched out on from sunup to sundown, and then me — to the kitchen to clean up before dinner.
After dinner had been eaten, the dishes cleared, the table reset, the chairs moved back in place (as there were too many of us and extra chairs were always needed), and the food was put away, I was in agony. She had still yet to tell me what my punishment would be, but I knew something was coming.
Would it be twelve licks with daddy’s thick leather belt with Mom saying, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” followed by, “As soon as you stay still I can finish”?
Would it be hours sitting in front of the fireplace? A punishment tailor made for me because I had books in my room and “go to your room” wasn’t a punishment but a vacation, and one I relished.
Would it be one thousand sentences where I’d write out my crime and promise to do better? Hands cramping with every “I’ll never gyrate to secular music in church again. I apologize. I apologize. I apologize.”
Would I be banned from the library for two months? The worst one of all, because the house of books was my only safe space, the only place I truly felt happy.
More punishments went through my mind as I made myself scarce. I even thought maybe I should run upstairs and read as many pages as I can, just in case I had to empty my bookshelves into bags and leave my books before her door to be taken for an undisclosed amount of time.
On my way to do just that I heard her call me. She didn’t seem angry, and hope bloomed in my chest. When I arrived at the dining room the other foster kids were there, but only the girls. It didn’t seem important at the time.
“Strip,” she said with a little smirk on her face. The others started chanting, “Strip, strip, strip, strip.” I fought it and the smirk slipped from her face.
“Take. All. Your. Clothes. Off.” She barely got the words out through lips pulled tight across her teeth. “You want to be exposed and be fast?” Being ‘fast’ was something all girls (regardless of race) were who had ‘sexual tendencies’ at a young age, switching, making sex eyes, showing too much skin, going through puberty early to where their bodies developed faster than their age, and more.
“Go ahead and be like David. You remember him? He danced so hard his clothes fell off. Dance for the Lord,” she said. I stared at her and, at that moment, I wanted to hit her. I wanted to hit her so hard she’d never smirk again. I wanted to drive my fist into her face and pound until all my frustration peeled off like wet clothes. But I knew I couldn’t.
So, I stripped. I stood there with my hands blocking the soft folds between my legs. Despite my early puberty, I hadn’t grown hair there yet, even though I knew I one day would, and felt they could see into me. See inside me.
“Move your hands and dance. Just like you were doing at church this morning. I want to see.” I dropped my hands to my sides and moved my hips like I had seen girls do in music videos. My knees knocked together as I bent and straightened and swayed from side to side. I tried to blink quick enough to keep the tears in, but I could feel a wetness in my eyes welling up. Could hear the cries welling up inside me though my mouth felt glued shut.
“No, around the table. And move your arms more. Just like you were this morning. Don’t play games with me,” she said.
I stepped around the table, bouncing and popping my butt back and forth, shaking my chest that was just budding with breasts. Through the third, and fourth, and fifth lap around the table I danced harder. I closed my eyes and put my hands above my head, giving myself over as I’d seen the girls in the movies do.
“She has good rhythm,” I heard someone say merrily, as if it were all a joke, and I kept dancing.
***
My cheeks were wet now. I stopped trying to fight the tears a few laps back and continued to let them flow freely. I’m sorry God. I’m not a good girl. If I was, I wouldn’t have danced like that in your house today. I don’t deserve your love. I never did. I promise not to do it again. I thought as I continued to dance. I couldn’t lift my hands because my arms were so tired. My feet dragged across the smooth wood floors, catching on the area rug every time I passed by the frayed corners, and I could barely lift them.
There was no more laughter, no whispering heard from the table. The foster girls watched in morbid silence. My punishment didn’t seem funny to them anymore. I could see their faces, trying to avert their eyes. Shame was shown to me, and I wondered if it was mine or theirs.
“Enough,” someone said. It wasn’t mom though, and so I kept dancing.
When I was finally released from my punishment, I grabbed up my clothes and darted up the stairs, struggling to take them two at a time. My room door was open, and once inside I closed it as silently as I could, in fear of further punishment. I didn’t stop to pull my clothes on but climbed the ladder to my top bunk.
Beneath the thin cover I was safe, hidden, but all modesty left me that day. My body wasn’t just mine anymore. It didn’t only belong to me. Everyone had feasted on it with their eyes and their hysterical laughter. They’d stripped it of its purity via their sanctity. They looked into my void and I couldn’t stop them. I can never stop them because I bared my soul and, like my body, I’ll never have the right to it again.
"Grandma's Kitchen"
By Rasheena Fountain
By Rasheena Fountain
Tick, Tick, Tick. Swoosh. The flame on Grandma’s stove ignited. As a child, I’d brace myself for the impending heat to my hair. Clink. The straightening comb would collide with the stove as she rested it directly in the flame on the stove burner.
“Hold your head down.”
“Hold your ears.”
“Grandma, sorry.”
Iron collided with my dark brown skin, and I let out a soft “ouch.” The burn was painful, but Grandma loved me. She would straighten my hair for special occasions. I admired her art and experience. Grandma kept me from having burnt ears, a burnt neck, and singed hair. Living with Grandma and Grandad with Mama on the West side in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood after the divorce felt like a privilege—to have those times with Grandma combing through my hair. Grandma’s touch was gentle, even with her time-worn hands. Her dark brown hands had known manual labor—sharecropping labor in the Mississippi Delta where elementary school lessons were for the privileged. Free Black girl’s lessons in Merigold, Mississippi were in the fields instead of going to elementary school. I could tell that Grandma had been through shit. She was calm and reassuring. Mama and Aunt Diane burnt me more often when they straightened my hair. But Grandma had control—the ability to keep calm under pressure. I knew Grandma as a Baptist church “Ursher” on Sundays and blues woman every other day. And my brother John-John told me that when that man in the neighborhood tried to threaten Aunt Shirley, she ain’t call the police. Grandma chased that man with a pistol. I witnessed her stand between a gunman and Michael in the kitchen. Grandma handled things. The straightening comb was a step up from a generation who had once used clothing irons to straighten hair back in Mississippi.
I thought the straightening comb looked archaic: a black iron handle with tiny metal teeth set closely together. The comb turned orange like a cattle brander when hot. I’d seen cattle branded in those Western movies with A-list stars like Clint Eastwood and Marlon Brando that I watched with Granddad. In those movies, white men dressed up in cowboy costumes and fought against other white folks masquerading as Indigenous people for our colonizing, Hollywood pleasure. They conquered and explored and assumed ownership of everything around them in those films; mutilation by iron was just the prequel to the cattle’s eventual chopping into tiny bits of capitalism between greedy teeth. I don’t know why Granddad liked those movies, considering our family oral history says that we have some Indigenous roots. He proudly told me stories of Indigenous heritage, naming specific nations and stories, but I have forgotten the specifics. Many Black people have claimed to have Native blood, and I have yet to find out if Grandad’s stories were true. I do know that his hometown of Yazoo City, Mississippi has a rich history of Black and Indigenous relationships. I don’t think he understood the years it would take to undo this harmful indoctrination from those films. I watched the mutilation—the mockery of culture and Indigenous people slaughtered. The films showed that colonized land was like a fiery furnace. Grandma’s stove during straightening sessions was like the fiery furnace, heating assimilation through my tiny curls. That fiery furnace heated iron to brand my ancestors. They were stolen from their land and used as agricultural power. Grandma was a sharecropper. And her freedom would depend on living in and beyond that mutilation.
But the straightening comb was no match for my natural hair. It rebelled—in the humid Chicago summers, when heavy rains fell in spring, and as minutes passed in any day. My hair kinks always crept their way back in. By the next day, my hair would revolt to an in-between stage like voice cracks in puberty. And I could’ve just let nature take its course and allow my hair to run wild and radical like Angela Davis’s afro. I could’ve let my hair lock up like Bob Marley’s Rastafarian thick strands that swung free with him as he danced to revolution songs. I could’ve chosen to join my hair kinks in their resistance and free them to stretch in all their intended capacities. But as a child I didn’t know the power of the rebel. Resistance was outside of what I knew. I knew not what it meant to be unapologetically Black and beautiful.
Parents in my family and neighborhood knew to tame rebellion. I felt as if someone was always watching, ready to jump in and punish my parents for unkempt children and for the look of anything other than the proper well-polished child. Appropriate hair was just as important as not making any sudden moves during a police officer encounter. It was as important as a firm handshake. Hair was the difference in receiving welcome versus suspicion, acquittal versus conviction, or life versus death. Compliance with society was somehow tied up in the taming of my tight and wild, dry, youthful curls. I would often see my parents and others react with a force that I couldn’t clearly see as a child. I now know that my familial oral history passed down through generations was versed in how we survive in a society as unwanted visitors on colonized land; look the part, dress the part, talk the part, be politely Black or else.
Clever, sharp neighborhood kids’ roastings kept me ajar of the ramifications and pain of natural hair. And I had the kind of natural hair that made good material for hair jokes, because the world taught us that Black self-hatred was funny as hell.
“Yo’ hair is so nappy I took a nap in it.”
“You got a kitchen in yo’ hair.”
“You baldheaded!”
And at age nine, I had arrived at what seemed to be a rite of passage, but I was indifferent. Straight, long hair was supposed to be my aspiration. Mama’s hair was naturally manageable, wavy, and people would say that she had “good hair.” Her father, Granddad, came from a mother of mixed race; his side of the family was light-skinned. Mama says that she was part Irish. So, Mama’s inheritance was not my great great grandmother’s big white plantation house in the South she visited as a child and not the checks that Grandad got from the oil found on the land where my ancestor’s big white house once stood. She inherited hair that white folks and some Black folks deemed closer to the standard of beauty. I inherited Dad’s more African, spongy hair: hair that dried quickly, broke the teeth on combs, and made me look unkempt, if not “tamed.”
Before my first hair relaxer, I had mostly worn pigtails. Mama would part my hair symmetrically: pigtails on all sides of my head. After the divorce, Dad tried to do the same when I stayed at his house. I had collections of colorful barrettes and ponytail holders to accentuate my do. My hair was to always be drenched in hair grease to put the comb at ease and to give my hair that fresh, shiny kempt Black girl’s look. That was the look of youth, however. I was becoming a big girl at age nine. Mama thought I needed more lasting taming.
Dad and Mama agreed that assimilation was best. Yet, they disagreed on mostly everything. And they had their own ideas of what assimilation meant. Mama was okay with my use of “finna” or other Black Chicago lingo. Dad corrected it. “You need to master the King ’s English before you use the other language,” he’d say. Dad knew the power of language—the power in being able to code switch. Mama and Dad would argue about clothes and shoes Mama would buy my brothers John-John and Shad. When she bought them Major Damage brand outfits, all hell broke loose. Everybody wore Major Damage on the Westside: the drug dealers, the blue collar workers, kids, everybody. Yet, Dad wanted us to look different—to stand apart and not give those outside forces any reason to mistake us for a criminal, to kill us, to arrest us. Dad had made it out, mastered code switching and knew the blueprint to be successful. My brothers’ hair was to be nicely faded. No cornrows, even though our family photo album shows young Dad sporting braids.
Mama let us wear Michael Jordan gym shoes and join the latest trends in our neighborhood in the 90s. Jordan shoes could make us targets and people got killed for them, but not having Jordans or off-brand shoes made us targets too. Wearing Pro Wings, knock-off brand shoes, was like having nappy hair. And ain’t nobody wanna deal with the roasts and the violence from not assimilating. My shoes, my clothes, and nicely-done hair, kept the bullies off my back. Mama understood that. Brands and the pursuit of capitalism exploited us and masqueraded as protection. It still does. But big-picture thinking on a micro level can be hard when you just trying to get by and you just want to be a part of your culture. Mama ain’t want us to forget the culture—to forget where we came from. She embraced Grandma and Granddad's language and their sacrifice for family. I saw Mama embrace that, even when her choice to move away from Chicago and get married to Dad put her on the outskirts of the norms in our family. Mama’s assimilation was like Grandma’s—embracing the good, the bad, the ugly because we in this shit together.
Mama and Dad disagreed on whether I was ready for a hair relaxer at age nine. Dad called me his “only little girl” as a child, before my younger sister Imani was born and after Dad remarried. He took joy in putting my hair in pigtails with colorful barrettes on his weekends with me. I don’t remember if he thought I didn’t need a hair relaxer because of my age or what he thought about women with natural hair. I think he believed that I was too young and that hair relaxers came much later. I am not sure what Mama thought, but I knew it was a concoction of “I can do whatever I want with my child.” She wore a hair relaxer, even though her hair was straighter than mine. My parents’ relationship was toxic. Their kinks would never be straightened. Their divorce was the reason Mama and I lived with Grandma. My first hair relaxer was only a little over a year after. I don’t remember if Mama ever asked me if I wanted the hair relaxer. But the relaxer was good pain—necessary pain?
In 1991, on the day of my first hair relaxer, I sat in the chair atop the telephone books so that I could reach the sink in Grandma’s kitchen while Aunt Diane put relaxer in my hair. The intense smell of chemicals in my hair rushed up my nose. My hair began to feel heavy. Each hair follicle became covered and weighed down by thick, white gook. Fingers in my hair pushed against the grain of my natural kinks. Soon tingling. Then, pain—good pain? The temperature around my small head rose.
“It’s beginning to burn,” I told Aunt Diane.
The burning sensation meant that my hair was relaxed, a state where my natural fro of tight, dry, strands had become new. My hair began to feel like red ants biting at my scalp. Aunt Diane told me to sit on my knees so that I could reach the sink to wash out the chemicals. I leaned my head back into it. I could hear water flowing from the sprayer down into the drain as Aunt Diane waited for the water to get hot. As the water hit the surface of my head, I felt the difference. There was no resistance to the flow of the water as it moved through my hair. New dangling, straight hair dangled on my neck, and the water droplets against my burning scalp felt relieving as the chemicals washed away. When my hair was wrapped, blow dried and curled, I knew to smile. And I felt indifferent about the results. Unlike the hair relaxer, the pain and the mutilations could not be washed away in Grandma’s kitchen. As an adult, I have chosen to rebel. But as a child, I did not know that rebellion was good pain—necessary pain.
“Hold your head down.”
“Hold your ears.”
“Grandma, sorry.”
Iron collided with my dark brown skin, and I let out a soft “ouch.” The burn was painful, but Grandma loved me. She would straighten my hair for special occasions. I admired her art and experience. Grandma kept me from having burnt ears, a burnt neck, and singed hair. Living with Grandma and Grandad with Mama on the West side in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood after the divorce felt like a privilege—to have those times with Grandma combing through my hair. Grandma’s touch was gentle, even with her time-worn hands. Her dark brown hands had known manual labor—sharecropping labor in the Mississippi Delta where elementary school lessons were for the privileged. Free Black girl’s lessons in Merigold, Mississippi were in the fields instead of going to elementary school. I could tell that Grandma had been through shit. She was calm and reassuring. Mama and Aunt Diane burnt me more often when they straightened my hair. But Grandma had control—the ability to keep calm under pressure. I knew Grandma as a Baptist church “Ursher” on Sundays and blues woman every other day. And my brother John-John told me that when that man in the neighborhood tried to threaten Aunt Shirley, she ain’t call the police. Grandma chased that man with a pistol. I witnessed her stand between a gunman and Michael in the kitchen. Grandma handled things. The straightening comb was a step up from a generation who had once used clothing irons to straighten hair back in Mississippi.
I thought the straightening comb looked archaic: a black iron handle with tiny metal teeth set closely together. The comb turned orange like a cattle brander when hot. I’d seen cattle branded in those Western movies with A-list stars like Clint Eastwood and Marlon Brando that I watched with Granddad. In those movies, white men dressed up in cowboy costumes and fought against other white folks masquerading as Indigenous people for our colonizing, Hollywood pleasure. They conquered and explored and assumed ownership of everything around them in those films; mutilation by iron was just the prequel to the cattle’s eventual chopping into tiny bits of capitalism between greedy teeth. I don’t know why Granddad liked those movies, considering our family oral history says that we have some Indigenous roots. He proudly told me stories of Indigenous heritage, naming specific nations and stories, but I have forgotten the specifics. Many Black people have claimed to have Native blood, and I have yet to find out if Grandad’s stories were true. I do know that his hometown of Yazoo City, Mississippi has a rich history of Black and Indigenous relationships. I don’t think he understood the years it would take to undo this harmful indoctrination from those films. I watched the mutilation—the mockery of culture and Indigenous people slaughtered. The films showed that colonized land was like a fiery furnace. Grandma’s stove during straightening sessions was like the fiery furnace, heating assimilation through my tiny curls. That fiery furnace heated iron to brand my ancestors. They were stolen from their land and used as agricultural power. Grandma was a sharecropper. And her freedom would depend on living in and beyond that mutilation.
But the straightening comb was no match for my natural hair. It rebelled—in the humid Chicago summers, when heavy rains fell in spring, and as minutes passed in any day. My hair kinks always crept their way back in. By the next day, my hair would revolt to an in-between stage like voice cracks in puberty. And I could’ve just let nature take its course and allow my hair to run wild and radical like Angela Davis’s afro. I could’ve let my hair lock up like Bob Marley’s Rastafarian thick strands that swung free with him as he danced to revolution songs. I could’ve chosen to join my hair kinks in their resistance and free them to stretch in all their intended capacities. But as a child I didn’t know the power of the rebel. Resistance was outside of what I knew. I knew not what it meant to be unapologetically Black and beautiful.
Parents in my family and neighborhood knew to tame rebellion. I felt as if someone was always watching, ready to jump in and punish my parents for unkempt children and for the look of anything other than the proper well-polished child. Appropriate hair was just as important as not making any sudden moves during a police officer encounter. It was as important as a firm handshake. Hair was the difference in receiving welcome versus suspicion, acquittal versus conviction, or life versus death. Compliance with society was somehow tied up in the taming of my tight and wild, dry, youthful curls. I would often see my parents and others react with a force that I couldn’t clearly see as a child. I now know that my familial oral history passed down through generations was versed in how we survive in a society as unwanted visitors on colonized land; look the part, dress the part, talk the part, be politely Black or else.
Clever, sharp neighborhood kids’ roastings kept me ajar of the ramifications and pain of natural hair. And I had the kind of natural hair that made good material for hair jokes, because the world taught us that Black self-hatred was funny as hell.
“Yo’ hair is so nappy I took a nap in it.”
“You got a kitchen in yo’ hair.”
“You baldheaded!”
And at age nine, I had arrived at what seemed to be a rite of passage, but I was indifferent. Straight, long hair was supposed to be my aspiration. Mama’s hair was naturally manageable, wavy, and people would say that she had “good hair.” Her father, Granddad, came from a mother of mixed race; his side of the family was light-skinned. Mama says that she was part Irish. So, Mama’s inheritance was not my great great grandmother’s big white plantation house in the South she visited as a child and not the checks that Grandad got from the oil found on the land where my ancestor’s big white house once stood. She inherited hair that white folks and some Black folks deemed closer to the standard of beauty. I inherited Dad’s more African, spongy hair: hair that dried quickly, broke the teeth on combs, and made me look unkempt, if not “tamed.”
Before my first hair relaxer, I had mostly worn pigtails. Mama would part my hair symmetrically: pigtails on all sides of my head. After the divorce, Dad tried to do the same when I stayed at his house. I had collections of colorful barrettes and ponytail holders to accentuate my do. My hair was to always be drenched in hair grease to put the comb at ease and to give my hair that fresh, shiny kempt Black girl’s look. That was the look of youth, however. I was becoming a big girl at age nine. Mama thought I needed more lasting taming.
Dad and Mama agreed that assimilation was best. Yet, they disagreed on mostly everything. And they had their own ideas of what assimilation meant. Mama was okay with my use of “finna” or other Black Chicago lingo. Dad corrected it. “You need to master the King ’s English before you use the other language,” he’d say. Dad knew the power of language—the power in being able to code switch. Mama and Dad would argue about clothes and shoes Mama would buy my brothers John-John and Shad. When she bought them Major Damage brand outfits, all hell broke loose. Everybody wore Major Damage on the Westside: the drug dealers, the blue collar workers, kids, everybody. Yet, Dad wanted us to look different—to stand apart and not give those outside forces any reason to mistake us for a criminal, to kill us, to arrest us. Dad had made it out, mastered code switching and knew the blueprint to be successful. My brothers’ hair was to be nicely faded. No cornrows, even though our family photo album shows young Dad sporting braids.
Mama let us wear Michael Jordan gym shoes and join the latest trends in our neighborhood in the 90s. Jordan shoes could make us targets and people got killed for them, but not having Jordans or off-brand shoes made us targets too. Wearing Pro Wings, knock-off brand shoes, was like having nappy hair. And ain’t nobody wanna deal with the roasts and the violence from not assimilating. My shoes, my clothes, and nicely-done hair, kept the bullies off my back. Mama understood that. Brands and the pursuit of capitalism exploited us and masqueraded as protection. It still does. But big-picture thinking on a micro level can be hard when you just trying to get by and you just want to be a part of your culture. Mama ain’t want us to forget the culture—to forget where we came from. She embraced Grandma and Granddad's language and their sacrifice for family. I saw Mama embrace that, even when her choice to move away from Chicago and get married to Dad put her on the outskirts of the norms in our family. Mama’s assimilation was like Grandma’s—embracing the good, the bad, the ugly because we in this shit together.
Mama and Dad disagreed on whether I was ready for a hair relaxer at age nine. Dad called me his “only little girl” as a child, before my younger sister Imani was born and after Dad remarried. He took joy in putting my hair in pigtails with colorful barrettes on his weekends with me. I don’t remember if he thought I didn’t need a hair relaxer because of my age or what he thought about women with natural hair. I think he believed that I was too young and that hair relaxers came much later. I am not sure what Mama thought, but I knew it was a concoction of “I can do whatever I want with my child.” She wore a hair relaxer, even though her hair was straighter than mine. My parents’ relationship was toxic. Their kinks would never be straightened. Their divorce was the reason Mama and I lived with Grandma. My first hair relaxer was only a little over a year after. I don’t remember if Mama ever asked me if I wanted the hair relaxer. But the relaxer was good pain—necessary pain?
In 1991, on the day of my first hair relaxer, I sat in the chair atop the telephone books so that I could reach the sink in Grandma’s kitchen while Aunt Diane put relaxer in my hair. The intense smell of chemicals in my hair rushed up my nose. My hair began to feel heavy. Each hair follicle became covered and weighed down by thick, white gook. Fingers in my hair pushed against the grain of my natural kinks. Soon tingling. Then, pain—good pain? The temperature around my small head rose.
“It’s beginning to burn,” I told Aunt Diane.
The burning sensation meant that my hair was relaxed, a state where my natural fro of tight, dry, strands had become new. My hair began to feel like red ants biting at my scalp. Aunt Diane told me to sit on my knees so that I could reach the sink to wash out the chemicals. I leaned my head back into it. I could hear water flowing from the sprayer down into the drain as Aunt Diane waited for the water to get hot. As the water hit the surface of my head, I felt the difference. There was no resistance to the flow of the water as it moved through my hair. New dangling, straight hair dangled on my neck, and the water droplets against my burning scalp felt relieving as the chemicals washed away. When my hair was wrapped, blow dried and curled, I knew to smile. And I felt indifferent about the results. Unlike the hair relaxer, the pain and the mutilations could not be washed away in Grandma’s kitchen. As an adult, I have chosen to rebel. But as a child, I did not know that rebellion was good pain—necessary pain.
"A Black Hair Journey"
By Rasheena Fountain
By Rasheena Fountain
Tugs. Pulls. Yanks. Fingers from multiple Black hands twisted my hair roots, hard. My hair was being weaved like a basket into micro-braids across my head. The comb parted my thick hair, rubbing across my scalp like construction workers making thin street gridlines.
“Hold your head down.”
“Turn your head to the side.”
“You must be tender headed.”
In the summer of 2000, three women worked through my hair inside a Harlem braiding shop. They spoke in an African tongue vibrantly to each other as they tugged at my roots. I was miles away from Grandma and the family banter that often filled Grandma’s kitchen during hair straightening sessions in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood. I was living in Midtown Manhattan for the summer before my freshman year of college with Dad and my stepmom, Monica. I had just graduated high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan a couple of months earlier and had only spent my senior year in Michigan. My previous high school years were in Fairfax County, Virginia. Dad had a journalism fellowship with the University of Michigan, but was now stationed in New York for his job at the New York Times. I had rebelled, like Mama did years earlier, choosing to live with Dad and Monica in Virginia four years earlier. Before I moved with Dad, I was flunking out of high school, severely depressed, and dealing with trauma from the violence on the west side of Chicago. An unfortunate event, my brother Shad getting shot at, catalyzed me to make a decision at thirteen to leave my friends, Mama, and my entire life to head east.
Throughout much of my teens, I continued the mutilation—the self-hatred and succumbing to the pressure to straighten my hair and assimilate. Straight hair had become the norm since my first relaxer at age nine. I arrived in Fairfax County Virginia with a heavy west side of Chicago accent and swag. And the chorus of Black friends and family made me want to be silent most of the time.
“You sound ghetto.”
“You sound country.”
"Don’t say finna.”
I understood where Dad was coming from, but I had mastered the Chicago lingo I was speaking. It was a necessary skill when I moved back to Chicago at age seven after living in Urbana, Illinois for years. Yet, that type of Blackness felt unacceptable in Fairfax; it made me stand out and signaled to others that I had once lived beyond suburban landscapes. And my Air Jordan shoes ain’t mean shit out there. If I wore my hair with too much gel or the way I had worn my hair in Chicago, I was treated inferior in the land of white picket fences. I hadn’t hated where I grew up, but I began to internalize self-hatred and began covering up my hair, my Chicago accent, and my upbringing with polished, top-notch assimilation. And Dad’s job afforded me some privilege. When I told teachers that Dad worked for The Washington Post, they would brighten their smile and welcome me in a way that had not been previously shown. I guess then they saw me as a different kind of Black person, and I guess that was supposed to make me feel better. I embraced the growth in my straight hair as progression. I was better off educationally. My grades improved, and I went from an all “F” student to being accepted to my college of choice.
Progression felt like loss. It still does. My relationship with Grandma suffered when I lived in Virginia. The kitchen and the times with Grandma became distant memories. I rarely went to Chicago, we barely spoke on the phone, and I was busy exploring a new identity. When I did visit Grandma, I felt like an outsider. Culture is professed in the ways of being, and I could feel myself losing it. I could feel that she knew I had changed. My hair was straight but professionally straight. I had a certain suburban aura—an aura that could be picked out of the crowd if I walked down Chicago streets. Maybe Grandma thought that I thought I was better than her now—thought that I saw all she had worked for as less than. It pains me to realize, but she was right. I started to see suburban life in Virginia as better than my tight-knit Chicago community, or that somehow choices had caused the trauma that my community and Grandma faced. Grandma’s choice to stay in the hood and embrace it felt opposite to the narrative I was learning. I was learning how to make it out—how to assimilate into larger society. I regret this lost time—the lost times with Grandma when I believed in the façade of the American Dream and the lie of being Black and suburban. I mourn making her feel less than or that her granddaughter had turned on her. I couldn’t see that Grandma was just making do, giving us grandchildren what she could, and that our growth was her living. Straightening my new growth, our hair sessions, was a part of her dream—a dream where families stayed together.
Now over ten years since Grandma’s death, the moment I have never recovered from, I know that the only true acceptance I have ever felt has been in Grandma’s kitchen. And I feel ungrateful. The rituals like hair straightening were acceptance—Grandma passing down what she knew. I didn’t understand the nuances—the intentional mutilation of Black communities that had promised hope during The Great Migration, that Black communities were branded by redlining and predatory lending and disinvestment. I now know that the heat was turned up on Blackness in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood; it was hunted and thrown into the great melting pot full of violence and toxic mixtures much like the hair lye that erased my hair kinks at nine. My progression those four years on the other side of the tracks was progression in self-hatred. By the end of the four years, I was unrecognizable to most, and, most importantly, myself. Uncovering myself fully would take years of rebellion.
But New York began to change me—Harlem changed me. Harlem was still Harlem when I met it—Black and Brown folks from across the diaspora. We’d visit some of Monica’s family in Harlem. On one trip to visit her family, we went to the Magic Johnson Starbucks on 125th. That’s when I saw groups of Black women decked out in rebellion—hair beautifully kinky and free, with dreads and afros. Maybe some had straight hair, but I didn’t notice. I found something I didn’t know I had longed for—a feeling that interrupted my indifference I had taken on as a child. I wanted that beauty. I was becoming a woman, and indifference felt like a coping in need of change.
I couldn’t just wear my hair natural. I first had to convince Dad and Monica to let me make this transition. I remember addressing them like I would have to present an argument. Monica wore a relaxer, although that has since changed. Now, she wears her hair in a natural. “I don’t want to wear a perm anymore,” I told them. They asked why and I told them that I just preferred to wear my hair natural. They did not reply right away, because they usually would talk big decisions over away from us and deliver the results to inquiries as one accord. My hair up until then was always in an in-between stage, always a step away from needing to be straightened again. I no longer wanted to view my hair resistance as a threat. I wanted the feeling of raindrops hitting my hair without worry and to submerge my face in swimming pools without fear of my relaxer being ruined. My feelings were deep—an uncovering of self, but I kept my reasons why more surface-level, because I lacked the language of rebellion. Yet, they welcomed the change and allowed me to make an appointment to get my hair braided in Harlem so that I could let the hair relaxer grow out.
On the day of my rebellion, I took the trip alone—something Monica and my Dad let me do a lot that summer, even though they were strict when I lived in the suburbs. I was leaving for college, and I believe they were preparing me for independence. I took the New York subway I had gotten to know during that summer. A hair appointment might seem mundane for some, but this was my first intentional choice related to my hair. I pictured the women in that Magic Johnson Starbucks. I imagined not having to feel the burn of the hair relaxer any longer or to sit under the miserable hair dryer. I was nervous, but I felt this journey was better than feeling indifferent about my reflection in the mirror or feeling my reflection was less my own. I wanted ownership over my image. Having three women pulling at my hair for hours felt like good pain. And the itch from the braids on my face felt freeing. After hours of pulls and tugs, I stepped out of the African hair braiding shop into the Harlem streets with pride. Blackness was beauty—the kinks, the perseverance, the natural resistance.
I still miss the clinks on Grandma’s stove, and I miss her kitchen. I now fully embrace and see her progression and sacrifice that I benefit from. Grandma wore her hair straight, jet-black, with strands of gray. I’ve worn my hair straight, short, died, shaved, in an afro and more, even after Harlem. And that has been my choice. I don’t believe straight hair is wrong or that those who choose to wear their hair straight to be wrong. When I made the choice to get my hair braided, I was just happy that straight hair was no longer the default for my beauty. I choose to live beyond the mutilation—the white supremacy that stains us and is even etched in hair. I am still uncovering self, still repairing the scars, and am living to remove the toxicity. Maybe that’s what Grandma was doing—living to remove the toxicity.
“Hold your head down.”
“Turn your head to the side.”
“You must be tender headed.”
In the summer of 2000, three women worked through my hair inside a Harlem braiding shop. They spoke in an African tongue vibrantly to each other as they tugged at my roots. I was miles away from Grandma and the family banter that often filled Grandma’s kitchen during hair straightening sessions in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood. I was living in Midtown Manhattan for the summer before my freshman year of college with Dad and my stepmom, Monica. I had just graduated high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan a couple of months earlier and had only spent my senior year in Michigan. My previous high school years were in Fairfax County, Virginia. Dad had a journalism fellowship with the University of Michigan, but was now stationed in New York for his job at the New York Times. I had rebelled, like Mama did years earlier, choosing to live with Dad and Monica in Virginia four years earlier. Before I moved with Dad, I was flunking out of high school, severely depressed, and dealing with trauma from the violence on the west side of Chicago. An unfortunate event, my brother Shad getting shot at, catalyzed me to make a decision at thirteen to leave my friends, Mama, and my entire life to head east.
Throughout much of my teens, I continued the mutilation—the self-hatred and succumbing to the pressure to straighten my hair and assimilate. Straight hair had become the norm since my first relaxer at age nine. I arrived in Fairfax County Virginia with a heavy west side of Chicago accent and swag. And the chorus of Black friends and family made me want to be silent most of the time.
“You sound ghetto.”
“You sound country.”
"Don’t say finna.”
I understood where Dad was coming from, but I had mastered the Chicago lingo I was speaking. It was a necessary skill when I moved back to Chicago at age seven after living in Urbana, Illinois for years. Yet, that type of Blackness felt unacceptable in Fairfax; it made me stand out and signaled to others that I had once lived beyond suburban landscapes. And my Air Jordan shoes ain’t mean shit out there. If I wore my hair with too much gel or the way I had worn my hair in Chicago, I was treated inferior in the land of white picket fences. I hadn’t hated where I grew up, but I began to internalize self-hatred and began covering up my hair, my Chicago accent, and my upbringing with polished, top-notch assimilation. And Dad’s job afforded me some privilege. When I told teachers that Dad worked for The Washington Post, they would brighten their smile and welcome me in a way that had not been previously shown. I guess then they saw me as a different kind of Black person, and I guess that was supposed to make me feel better. I embraced the growth in my straight hair as progression. I was better off educationally. My grades improved, and I went from an all “F” student to being accepted to my college of choice.
Progression felt like loss. It still does. My relationship with Grandma suffered when I lived in Virginia. The kitchen and the times with Grandma became distant memories. I rarely went to Chicago, we barely spoke on the phone, and I was busy exploring a new identity. When I did visit Grandma, I felt like an outsider. Culture is professed in the ways of being, and I could feel myself losing it. I could feel that she knew I had changed. My hair was straight but professionally straight. I had a certain suburban aura—an aura that could be picked out of the crowd if I walked down Chicago streets. Maybe Grandma thought that I thought I was better than her now—thought that I saw all she had worked for as less than. It pains me to realize, but she was right. I started to see suburban life in Virginia as better than my tight-knit Chicago community, or that somehow choices had caused the trauma that my community and Grandma faced. Grandma’s choice to stay in the hood and embrace it felt opposite to the narrative I was learning. I was learning how to make it out—how to assimilate into larger society. I regret this lost time—the lost times with Grandma when I believed in the façade of the American Dream and the lie of being Black and suburban. I mourn making her feel less than or that her granddaughter had turned on her. I couldn’t see that Grandma was just making do, giving us grandchildren what she could, and that our growth was her living. Straightening my new growth, our hair sessions, was a part of her dream—a dream where families stayed together.
Now over ten years since Grandma’s death, the moment I have never recovered from, I know that the only true acceptance I have ever felt has been in Grandma’s kitchen. And I feel ungrateful. The rituals like hair straightening were acceptance—Grandma passing down what she knew. I didn’t understand the nuances—the intentional mutilation of Black communities that had promised hope during The Great Migration, that Black communities were branded by redlining and predatory lending and disinvestment. I now know that the heat was turned up on Blackness in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood; it was hunted and thrown into the great melting pot full of violence and toxic mixtures much like the hair lye that erased my hair kinks at nine. My progression those four years on the other side of the tracks was progression in self-hatred. By the end of the four years, I was unrecognizable to most, and, most importantly, myself. Uncovering myself fully would take years of rebellion.
But New York began to change me—Harlem changed me. Harlem was still Harlem when I met it—Black and Brown folks from across the diaspora. We’d visit some of Monica’s family in Harlem. On one trip to visit her family, we went to the Magic Johnson Starbucks on 125th. That’s when I saw groups of Black women decked out in rebellion—hair beautifully kinky and free, with dreads and afros. Maybe some had straight hair, but I didn’t notice. I found something I didn’t know I had longed for—a feeling that interrupted my indifference I had taken on as a child. I wanted that beauty. I was becoming a woman, and indifference felt like a coping in need of change.
I couldn’t just wear my hair natural. I first had to convince Dad and Monica to let me make this transition. I remember addressing them like I would have to present an argument. Monica wore a relaxer, although that has since changed. Now, she wears her hair in a natural. “I don’t want to wear a perm anymore,” I told them. They asked why and I told them that I just preferred to wear my hair natural. They did not reply right away, because they usually would talk big decisions over away from us and deliver the results to inquiries as one accord. My hair up until then was always in an in-between stage, always a step away from needing to be straightened again. I no longer wanted to view my hair resistance as a threat. I wanted the feeling of raindrops hitting my hair without worry and to submerge my face in swimming pools without fear of my relaxer being ruined. My feelings were deep—an uncovering of self, but I kept my reasons why more surface-level, because I lacked the language of rebellion. Yet, they welcomed the change and allowed me to make an appointment to get my hair braided in Harlem so that I could let the hair relaxer grow out.
On the day of my rebellion, I took the trip alone—something Monica and my Dad let me do a lot that summer, even though they were strict when I lived in the suburbs. I was leaving for college, and I believe they were preparing me for independence. I took the New York subway I had gotten to know during that summer. A hair appointment might seem mundane for some, but this was my first intentional choice related to my hair. I pictured the women in that Magic Johnson Starbucks. I imagined not having to feel the burn of the hair relaxer any longer or to sit under the miserable hair dryer. I was nervous, but I felt this journey was better than feeling indifferent about my reflection in the mirror or feeling my reflection was less my own. I wanted ownership over my image. Having three women pulling at my hair for hours felt like good pain. And the itch from the braids on my face felt freeing. After hours of pulls and tugs, I stepped out of the African hair braiding shop into the Harlem streets with pride. Blackness was beauty—the kinks, the perseverance, the natural resistance.
I still miss the clinks on Grandma’s stove, and I miss her kitchen. I now fully embrace and see her progression and sacrifice that I benefit from. Grandma wore her hair straight, jet-black, with strands of gray. I’ve worn my hair straight, short, died, shaved, in an afro and more, even after Harlem. And that has been my choice. I don’t believe straight hair is wrong or that those who choose to wear their hair straight to be wrong. When I made the choice to get my hair braided, I was just happy that straight hair was no longer the default for my beauty. I choose to live beyond the mutilation—the white supremacy that stains us and is even etched in hair. I am still uncovering self, still repairing the scars, and am living to remove the toxicity. Maybe that’s what Grandma was doing—living to remove the toxicity.
"Pubes, Yeast, and Blood"
By Nneoma Kenure
By Nneoma Kenure
It’s confirmed. I am pregnant again, and I am not ready. Not after everything I went through the first time. Fortunately, I can’t think straight, because this time, instead of the Lilliputian pricks that were my symptoms in the first pregnancy, all I must suffer now is the worst yeast infection. My brain is overburdened, and all I can handle is worrying about not scratching in public.
It's my first prenatal appointment, and I tell the doctor I think I have a yeast infection. She insists on checking it out because the itching may be a result of other disorders. As soon as my legs are open, she says, “Woah, this has to be the worst infection I have ever come across.” The brown-skinned doctor shows me her gloved fingers covered in frothy cottage cheese. I laugh with some pride; I will take any awards, even disgusting ones.
“You definitely have a yeast infection. I will send this to the lab just in case, but I recommend Fluconazole,” she tells me.
It’s a tiny pill I take immediately. There is a slight lull in my scratching calendar, but I am soon back on schedule with renewed vigor.
Just in time, the doctor calls with an update.
“Looks like you also have a urinary tract infection. You will have to take some antibiotics for the UTI. Unfortunately, the antibiotics will exacerbate your yeast infection.” This makes sense to me. There has to be major warfare between microorganisms going on down there – Clash of the Microbes – because I am a mess. When it’s scratch time, I go all out, until I have to take out some A4 paper from the printer to fan my hoo-ha because it’s now also burning. If I slapped on some flour, walahi it would make a nice sourdough bread. My vagina is going to jump off and walk away one day because it can't stand the heat.
I start the antibiotics and another interlude begins.
The doctor is on the phone again with more bad news. “You also have bacterial vaginosis. We will change your antibiotics prescription, which will of course intensify the yeast infection.”
Oh Lord, Mere m ebere. Take this vulva away from me because this is too much. Naanị m, three different infections!
It is time for another doctor’s visit. I’m still in bed when the phone rings; it’s the hospital calling to let me know my regular ob/gyn would be unavailable. The lady on the phone wants me to pick from a list of equally daunting names.
“Are any of these women?” I ask.
“I'm sorry ma’am, they are all male.”
Aren't they always? I think to myself.
I liked my original doctor who was Indian. I wonder if my connection to her was because she was ‘ethnic’ or because she was a woman. I pick a random name.
I soon begin ablutions for my appointment. My sister Ulo walks into the bathroom, toothbrush in mouth and notices my nether regions.
“Aren't you going to shave that?” she asks with blatant disgust on her face.
“Nope,” I quip.
“You cannot be serious. You are not that pregnant that you can’t see what’s happening there.”
Now, it's true that I was rather unruly down there, but I had decided I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I wasn’t bothered, why should any doctor be? I've always liked my pubic hair. Friends and family who've had the good fortune of being acquainted with it have always had the most comical reaction to it. Everybody is so structured nowadays; I personally like things a little haphazard; a little color outside the lines never hurt anybody.
Ulo is clearly disturbed by my ‘full’ look. I pause and try to explain my stance to her.
“You know how when you travel, and you forget your bathing sponge… well, I like to get a rich lather from my pubes.”
She stares at me, her face obviously thinks this is the most disgusting information ever shared. In a final attempt to convince me, she goes to her bedroom and comes back into the bathroom waving a shaving stick and a pair of scissors that I firmly ignore. This is my bra-burning moment, and I'm sticking to my pubes on this one.
“You have to tell me one practical reason why you need all that hair,” she begs.
“It’s prettier like this.” I turn around to give her a better view of my lush strands, combing them with my fingers and ignoring her deepening look of revulsion. “Remember when daddy came to visit me in school and I walked past him. I didn’t recognize him because he shaved off his moustache, and his lips looked like the two most pathetic fish out of water?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Okay, how is this? When I shave it and pee, the pee seems confused and doesn’t know which way to go, and then there’s pee down one leg and everywhere. When there’s hair, it’s just one stream. The hair, apparently, is a crucial pathfinder.” I nod my head as I speak, encouraging her to find reason with my words. She shakes her head slowly, like someone who just received sorrowful news and walks out, muttering to herself in Igbo. “It also looks like a plucked chicken when I shave,” I yell at her retreating back.
I’m not sure there is a downside to having an untrimmed look, other than maybe when I take a shower after wearing a pad instead of a tampon and the floor looks like Carrie’s shower scene. It takes a while to wash it all out when large clots of blood matte onto the hairs and I have to stop to untangle it, or push out my pelvis under the scalding water to melt it away slowly. It’s pure fun for me. I have no issues with menstrual blood either. I don’t understand the fuss or the need to hide it, especially from other women. Men act like menstrual blood is one big demonic cult– one they can’t run fast enough from.
The only time I ever got period-stained in public, I was taking an okada to my cousin’s house in Owerri, when a heavy shower of rain descended on us mid-journey. I didn’t mind. Whizzing past traffic on an okada is the most liberating feeling, and the rain only added to the ambiance. If my life was a Hollywood movie, I would wrap my arms around this not bad-looking young man and we would find a sunset somewhere to ride into. My daydreaming ended when I reached my destination, paid and walked away to the gate. The driver called out casually, “Sista, sorry oh, you don stain.” We both turned instinctively to look at the seat of the motorcycle I had just jumped down from. It was wet and bloody, exaggerated by the rain. He brought out a rag and wiped it away so nonchalantly that I almost fell in love. Why was this not an issue for him? Why wasn’t he disgusted? Didn’t he know that most people think period blood is the dirtiest of all blood? He waved away my apology with a huge smile and zoomed off dodging large pools of water.
*
The appointment goes on well. The new blonde doctor is kind and funny and insists I must have some German blood in me, a joke that goes over my head. I think he is referring to my perceived pain tolerance. When it's time to strip, he steps out of the room and Ulo eyes me with profound disapproval.
“He'll think I look like that down there too,” she whispers.
“Why?”
“Because we are sisters.”
“If you want, I can tell him we have different fathers and my dad is really hairy, while yours is bald.”
“This is Wisconsin. He is white; you’re probably his first African.”
“Why would he think that? It’s not like I have cowries on them.”
“He’ll just think it’s an African thing.”
“Maybe it is?” I shrug. I’m enjoying her misplaced unease.
“Everyone I know is clean shaven.”
I think about it. It’s true, my friends all indulge in some form of ‘landscaping’ or at least, they have the good sense to not let other people see them when things are out of hand. I shrug off her shame and ready myself. The doctor and a nurse step back into the room. I can see the embarrassment on my sister's face as my legs are placed on stirrups, and I pull a face at her to show I really couldn't care less.
But the doctor never actually looks into the ‘light.’ He sticks his fingers in, while still chatting with Ulo, but I am sure he must have felt it, my proud un-conforming thoroughbred African thicket. This one is for the culture.
He says my cervix is nice and closed; unfortunately, I still have a bad yeast infection and he wants me to take Fluconazole. I refuse. I have already had two courses of this one tablet therapy– I had been given another one when I was done with the antibiotics– and I'm now reluctant to expose the baby to anymore. He agrees, and says I'll just have to live with it, as it will probably pass as soon as the baby's born.
“Isn't there anything else we could try?” I ask in desperation. “Dr. Sandhu had mentioned trying to wash the cervix with a purple liquid?” I ask tentatively, not sure if I had remembered right.
“Oh! That's old fashioned. I’m certain this will go away as soon as the baby’s here.”
This man does not understand how heavy this yeast cross has been to carry. He says I should live with it. Would you live with it if your balls were constantly on fire? I think to myself.
This yeast infection is a roller coaster of sensations. On some days, it's an annoying tingle, and on others, I scratch like a fool in a Martin Lawrence movie. I return to my trusted Dr. Google. She has never forsaken me. She has always been there, introducing me to fellow neurotic persons with the same real or imagined symptoms. She was there when I needed to unclog my mother-in-law’s toilet really fast. She was there when I spilled red nail polish on my sister's new beige rug just when she called to say she was on her way back home from a night shift, so if anybody could save me, it was Google MD.
The prognosis isn't good. When I type in the words ‘yeast infection won't go away,’ I am appalled to find how many women are living their lives with a yeast infection. Some for years and years. I begin taking Lactobacillus with 500 mgs of vitamin C. Oh God, please let this thing leave as soon as I have this baby. I am well and petrified as I have just finished a scratching session, ending it with making jerky motions on the bed. In my desperation, I've also begun another course of treatment I had scoffed at a few weeks ago. I bought some natural plain yogurt, which I inserted morning and night with tampons. Nothing happened. There was no change– when I needed relief, I would use some Monistat and there would be a lull for a day or two.
I am thirty-six weeks pregnant and there are few things I have control over; not my sleep, not how much I have to pee, or even my exacting toddler. If I could control one thing, just one little thing, I would make time reel by like the gears of a cassette tape whirling around a pencil, just so I could get to the end. But I can’t, and like my smiley new doctor said, I will just have to live with it.
It's my first prenatal appointment, and I tell the doctor I think I have a yeast infection. She insists on checking it out because the itching may be a result of other disorders. As soon as my legs are open, she says, “Woah, this has to be the worst infection I have ever come across.” The brown-skinned doctor shows me her gloved fingers covered in frothy cottage cheese. I laugh with some pride; I will take any awards, even disgusting ones.
“You definitely have a yeast infection. I will send this to the lab just in case, but I recommend Fluconazole,” she tells me.
It’s a tiny pill I take immediately. There is a slight lull in my scratching calendar, but I am soon back on schedule with renewed vigor.
Just in time, the doctor calls with an update.
“Looks like you also have a urinary tract infection. You will have to take some antibiotics for the UTI. Unfortunately, the antibiotics will exacerbate your yeast infection.” This makes sense to me. There has to be major warfare between microorganisms going on down there – Clash of the Microbes – because I am a mess. When it’s scratch time, I go all out, until I have to take out some A4 paper from the printer to fan my hoo-ha because it’s now also burning. If I slapped on some flour, walahi it would make a nice sourdough bread. My vagina is going to jump off and walk away one day because it can't stand the heat.
I start the antibiotics and another interlude begins.
The doctor is on the phone again with more bad news. “You also have bacterial vaginosis. We will change your antibiotics prescription, which will of course intensify the yeast infection.”
Oh Lord, Mere m ebere. Take this vulva away from me because this is too much. Naanị m, three different infections!
It is time for another doctor’s visit. I’m still in bed when the phone rings; it’s the hospital calling to let me know my regular ob/gyn would be unavailable. The lady on the phone wants me to pick from a list of equally daunting names.
“Are any of these women?” I ask.
“I'm sorry ma’am, they are all male.”
Aren't they always? I think to myself.
I liked my original doctor who was Indian. I wonder if my connection to her was because she was ‘ethnic’ or because she was a woman. I pick a random name.
I soon begin ablutions for my appointment. My sister Ulo walks into the bathroom, toothbrush in mouth and notices my nether regions.
“Aren't you going to shave that?” she asks with blatant disgust on her face.
“Nope,” I quip.
“You cannot be serious. You are not that pregnant that you can’t see what’s happening there.”
Now, it's true that I was rather unruly down there, but I had decided I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I wasn’t bothered, why should any doctor be? I've always liked my pubic hair. Friends and family who've had the good fortune of being acquainted with it have always had the most comical reaction to it. Everybody is so structured nowadays; I personally like things a little haphazard; a little color outside the lines never hurt anybody.
Ulo is clearly disturbed by my ‘full’ look. I pause and try to explain my stance to her.
“You know how when you travel, and you forget your bathing sponge… well, I like to get a rich lather from my pubes.”
She stares at me, her face obviously thinks this is the most disgusting information ever shared. In a final attempt to convince me, she goes to her bedroom and comes back into the bathroom waving a shaving stick and a pair of scissors that I firmly ignore. This is my bra-burning moment, and I'm sticking to my pubes on this one.
“You have to tell me one practical reason why you need all that hair,” she begs.
“It’s prettier like this.” I turn around to give her a better view of my lush strands, combing them with my fingers and ignoring her deepening look of revulsion. “Remember when daddy came to visit me in school and I walked past him. I didn’t recognize him because he shaved off his moustache, and his lips looked like the two most pathetic fish out of water?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Okay, how is this? When I shave it and pee, the pee seems confused and doesn’t know which way to go, and then there’s pee down one leg and everywhere. When there’s hair, it’s just one stream. The hair, apparently, is a crucial pathfinder.” I nod my head as I speak, encouraging her to find reason with my words. She shakes her head slowly, like someone who just received sorrowful news and walks out, muttering to herself in Igbo. “It also looks like a plucked chicken when I shave,” I yell at her retreating back.
I’m not sure there is a downside to having an untrimmed look, other than maybe when I take a shower after wearing a pad instead of a tampon and the floor looks like Carrie’s shower scene. It takes a while to wash it all out when large clots of blood matte onto the hairs and I have to stop to untangle it, or push out my pelvis under the scalding water to melt it away slowly. It’s pure fun for me. I have no issues with menstrual blood either. I don’t understand the fuss or the need to hide it, especially from other women. Men act like menstrual blood is one big demonic cult– one they can’t run fast enough from.
The only time I ever got period-stained in public, I was taking an okada to my cousin’s house in Owerri, when a heavy shower of rain descended on us mid-journey. I didn’t mind. Whizzing past traffic on an okada is the most liberating feeling, and the rain only added to the ambiance. If my life was a Hollywood movie, I would wrap my arms around this not bad-looking young man and we would find a sunset somewhere to ride into. My daydreaming ended when I reached my destination, paid and walked away to the gate. The driver called out casually, “Sista, sorry oh, you don stain.” We both turned instinctively to look at the seat of the motorcycle I had just jumped down from. It was wet and bloody, exaggerated by the rain. He brought out a rag and wiped it away so nonchalantly that I almost fell in love. Why was this not an issue for him? Why wasn’t he disgusted? Didn’t he know that most people think period blood is the dirtiest of all blood? He waved away my apology with a huge smile and zoomed off dodging large pools of water.
*
The appointment goes on well. The new blonde doctor is kind and funny and insists I must have some German blood in me, a joke that goes over my head. I think he is referring to my perceived pain tolerance. When it's time to strip, he steps out of the room and Ulo eyes me with profound disapproval.
“He'll think I look like that down there too,” she whispers.
“Why?”
“Because we are sisters.”
“If you want, I can tell him we have different fathers and my dad is really hairy, while yours is bald.”
“This is Wisconsin. He is white; you’re probably his first African.”
“Why would he think that? It’s not like I have cowries on them.”
“He’ll just think it’s an African thing.”
“Maybe it is?” I shrug. I’m enjoying her misplaced unease.
“Everyone I know is clean shaven.”
I think about it. It’s true, my friends all indulge in some form of ‘landscaping’ or at least, they have the good sense to not let other people see them when things are out of hand. I shrug off her shame and ready myself. The doctor and a nurse step back into the room. I can see the embarrassment on my sister's face as my legs are placed on stirrups, and I pull a face at her to show I really couldn't care less.
But the doctor never actually looks into the ‘light.’ He sticks his fingers in, while still chatting with Ulo, but I am sure he must have felt it, my proud un-conforming thoroughbred African thicket. This one is for the culture.
He says my cervix is nice and closed; unfortunately, I still have a bad yeast infection and he wants me to take Fluconazole. I refuse. I have already had two courses of this one tablet therapy– I had been given another one when I was done with the antibiotics– and I'm now reluctant to expose the baby to anymore. He agrees, and says I'll just have to live with it, as it will probably pass as soon as the baby's born.
“Isn't there anything else we could try?” I ask in desperation. “Dr. Sandhu had mentioned trying to wash the cervix with a purple liquid?” I ask tentatively, not sure if I had remembered right.
“Oh! That's old fashioned. I’m certain this will go away as soon as the baby’s here.”
This man does not understand how heavy this yeast cross has been to carry. He says I should live with it. Would you live with it if your balls were constantly on fire? I think to myself.
This yeast infection is a roller coaster of sensations. On some days, it's an annoying tingle, and on others, I scratch like a fool in a Martin Lawrence movie. I return to my trusted Dr. Google. She has never forsaken me. She has always been there, introducing me to fellow neurotic persons with the same real or imagined symptoms. She was there when I needed to unclog my mother-in-law’s toilet really fast. She was there when I spilled red nail polish on my sister's new beige rug just when she called to say she was on her way back home from a night shift, so if anybody could save me, it was Google MD.
The prognosis isn't good. When I type in the words ‘yeast infection won't go away,’ I am appalled to find how many women are living their lives with a yeast infection. Some for years and years. I begin taking Lactobacillus with 500 mgs of vitamin C. Oh God, please let this thing leave as soon as I have this baby. I am well and petrified as I have just finished a scratching session, ending it with making jerky motions on the bed. In my desperation, I've also begun another course of treatment I had scoffed at a few weeks ago. I bought some natural plain yogurt, which I inserted morning and night with tampons. Nothing happened. There was no change– when I needed relief, I would use some Monistat and there would be a lull for a day or two.
I am thirty-six weeks pregnant and there are few things I have control over; not my sleep, not how much I have to pee, or even my exacting toddler. If I could control one thing, just one little thing, I would make time reel by like the gears of a cassette tape whirling around a pencil, just so I could get to the end. But I can’t, and like my smiley new doctor said, I will just have to live with it.
"You're a Pretty Girl"
By Pietra Dunmore
By Pietra Dunmore
‘Pretty’ is a word I am very hesitant to use to describe myself. To many, that might sound like a compliment. It isn’t. Those three words negate everything else I am. It’s like my face and my body are all that matters. Part of it is because women are expected to be self-deprecating and the other is because I had bouts of cystic acne until my late 20s. So I never thought of myself as pretty. I made my way by being the funny one. Or I was known as the skinny one or the one with the big hair, but rarely as the ‘pretty’ one.
Being considered unattractive in my youth forced me to develop a personality. Not relying on my looks gave me time to develop character. I can say without hesitation that I am down-to-earth and funny; I am straightforward, I have empathy, and I am confident enough to be an advocate for myself. I am so much more than ‘pretty.’
Secondly, ‘pretty’ is perceived a certain way. Due to that perception, I was encountering men who expected me to be both easy and stupid. This doesn’t land me in the pool of men with which I’d wish to swim. This acquaintance refused to believe me. I left the conversation saying, “You have no idea the issues that pretty brings.”
Because of this perceived prettiness, I have been conditioned to be fearful of going out alone. It starts off innocently enough with a family member or friend asking where I am going, then asking who I am going with. If I dare say I am going alone, I get a barrage of advice. Watch where you park. Don’t put down your drink. Be careful, you’re pretty. Although it’s not intended, saying these things is like telling me I can’t go out to any destination at any time of the day or night without an escort, lest I be raped. But at least I’m 'pretty.'
Let me put it like this: ‘pretty’ has taken away my personal space. I have walked home from the bus stop as early as middle school and had random men beeping and screaming obscenities at me. ‘Pretty’ had its hand also, when it was used as an excuse in college in what could have been a circumstance of date rape. I’ve had men come up to me and automatically grab me by the waist. I’ve been sent unsolicited dick pics. I’ve been called a stuck-up bitch when I didn’t respond to unwanted advances.
‘Pretty’ also didn’t help me when I was getting beat up by my ex-boyfriend in college who decided I had moved on too quickly. Although he was living with the woman with whom he cheated on me, he thought he should still be able to control me. The day it happened, all his blows were focused on my face as he repeatedly hit me. He thought I was ‘pretty’ too.
I have many more stories like these. So does almost every woman I know.
A decade ago, during a visit to a restaurant, an older friend joked that his wife thought there was something going on between us. At first, I thought he was kidding, until I noticed his eyes as he spoke of our alleged affair. I continued eating, not saying a word as I wondered where the conversation was going. It remained lighthearted, and my ‘spidey’ senses remained at bay. We finished dinner and walked towards our cars. I thanked him for dinner. I was ready to get into my car and drive home. I stood by my car door and nearly lost all feeling in my legs when he asked to kiss me. I felt the color drain from my face and my mouth drop. I could feel my eyes grow to the size of silver dollars and my tears ducts open slightly.
“You’re coming on to me?” I asked.
He immediately apologized for asking, saying he had read me wrong and he thought that was what I wanted. When he apologized, he told me he thought I had been looking at him in a suggestive way for years. He told me that my stare was so intense sometimes he had to turn away. I don’t remember the exact mechanics of how I drove away, but I recall half-heartedly taking the twenty dollars he handed me for gas money. As he gave it to me, he politely suggested that I not share the situation with anyone and that everything would be cool because he knew where the boundaries were now.
As I drove home, I replayed the entire evening in my head, wondering when I could have sent him signals. I wondered if I had been wearing something suggestive. Was it my fuchsia top with the beaded detail, or my skinny jeans? I looked him in the eyes as he spoke; did he think I was giving him the ‘look?’
As I thought about his apology, I remembered him telling me he looked at me as a grown woman, not as a family friend. He called me ‘pretty’ too. Me being ‘pretty’ didn’t change the fact that one question erased years of a kinship and mutual understanding that I believed I had.
In hysterical tears I called a male friend and told him what happened. His voice remained matter of fact as he said, “What do you expect? You’re a pretty girl.”
Being considered unattractive in my youth forced me to develop a personality. Not relying on my looks gave me time to develop character. I can say without hesitation that I am down-to-earth and funny; I am straightforward, I have empathy, and I am confident enough to be an advocate for myself. I am so much more than ‘pretty.’
Secondly, ‘pretty’ is perceived a certain way. Due to that perception, I was encountering men who expected me to be both easy and stupid. This doesn’t land me in the pool of men with which I’d wish to swim. This acquaintance refused to believe me. I left the conversation saying, “You have no idea the issues that pretty brings.”
Because of this perceived prettiness, I have been conditioned to be fearful of going out alone. It starts off innocently enough with a family member or friend asking where I am going, then asking who I am going with. If I dare say I am going alone, I get a barrage of advice. Watch where you park. Don’t put down your drink. Be careful, you’re pretty. Although it’s not intended, saying these things is like telling me I can’t go out to any destination at any time of the day or night without an escort, lest I be raped. But at least I’m 'pretty.'
Let me put it like this: ‘pretty’ has taken away my personal space. I have walked home from the bus stop as early as middle school and had random men beeping and screaming obscenities at me. ‘Pretty’ had its hand also, when it was used as an excuse in college in what could have been a circumstance of date rape. I’ve had men come up to me and automatically grab me by the waist. I’ve been sent unsolicited dick pics. I’ve been called a stuck-up bitch when I didn’t respond to unwanted advances.
‘Pretty’ also didn’t help me when I was getting beat up by my ex-boyfriend in college who decided I had moved on too quickly. Although he was living with the woman with whom he cheated on me, he thought he should still be able to control me. The day it happened, all his blows were focused on my face as he repeatedly hit me. He thought I was ‘pretty’ too.
I have many more stories like these. So does almost every woman I know.
A decade ago, during a visit to a restaurant, an older friend joked that his wife thought there was something going on between us. At first, I thought he was kidding, until I noticed his eyes as he spoke of our alleged affair. I continued eating, not saying a word as I wondered where the conversation was going. It remained lighthearted, and my ‘spidey’ senses remained at bay. We finished dinner and walked towards our cars. I thanked him for dinner. I was ready to get into my car and drive home. I stood by my car door and nearly lost all feeling in my legs when he asked to kiss me. I felt the color drain from my face and my mouth drop. I could feel my eyes grow to the size of silver dollars and my tears ducts open slightly.
“You’re coming on to me?” I asked.
He immediately apologized for asking, saying he had read me wrong and he thought that was what I wanted. When he apologized, he told me he thought I had been looking at him in a suggestive way for years. He told me that my stare was so intense sometimes he had to turn away. I don’t remember the exact mechanics of how I drove away, but I recall half-heartedly taking the twenty dollars he handed me for gas money. As he gave it to me, he politely suggested that I not share the situation with anyone and that everything would be cool because he knew where the boundaries were now.
As I drove home, I replayed the entire evening in my head, wondering when I could have sent him signals. I wondered if I had been wearing something suggestive. Was it my fuchsia top with the beaded detail, or my skinny jeans? I looked him in the eyes as he spoke; did he think I was giving him the ‘look?’
As I thought about his apology, I remembered him telling me he looked at me as a grown woman, not as a family friend. He called me ‘pretty’ too. Me being ‘pretty’ didn’t change the fact that one question erased years of a kinship and mutual understanding that I believed I had.
In hysterical tears I called a male friend and told him what happened. His voice remained matter of fact as he said, “What do you expect? You’re a pretty girl.”
Poetry
"A Man, A Woman, A Child, A People (The Journey Has Left Us All With Nightmares)"
By Retta Lewis
By Retta Lewis
We’re still writing the ending to this story,
But the beginning was bold enough.
No one is alive to remember the story as it happened,
And no one who ever lived
Could forget the story once they knew.
A man, a woman, a child, a people.
What there was of us
Could not survive a journey across the ocean
Without dying its own brand of death--
And now, the centuries are one.
There is much reflection on the damages,
But conversation has been used to reveal nothing.
The tales of our arrival,
And the lack of any means of escape, reverberates.
The journey has left us all with nightmares--
How many have we faced?
The truth--
It will not treat this history well,
But it’s not hiding its face anymore.
Until the story is told,
The life that didn’t get lived
Is still waiting to die its death.
Unlike how history has us sorted,
We were riding out a storm;
Sorting out a journey over quicksand
With what choices we had left.
It is with the remembering that we struggle,
The facts that we stumble,
And the things we can never know.
A man, a woman, a child, a people.
How do we make sense of events
We are unable to reconcile?
The mourning period is over;
The bloody coup is complete.
Put into historical context,
We did not emerge from it unscathed.
We drew a field of darkness--
It did not serve us;
But what do we know about landmines
And snipers on the roof?
What do we know about darkness
And the damage it can do?
This is our sacrifice;
This is our discontent.
How do we emerge from it?
How do we dare?
But the beginning was bold enough.
No one is alive to remember the story as it happened,
And no one who ever lived
Could forget the story once they knew.
A man, a woman, a child, a people.
What there was of us
Could not survive a journey across the ocean
Without dying its own brand of death--
And now, the centuries are one.
There is much reflection on the damages,
But conversation has been used to reveal nothing.
The tales of our arrival,
And the lack of any means of escape, reverberates.
The journey has left us all with nightmares--
How many have we faced?
The truth--
It will not treat this history well,
But it’s not hiding its face anymore.
Until the story is told,
The life that didn’t get lived
Is still waiting to die its death.
Unlike how history has us sorted,
We were riding out a storm;
Sorting out a journey over quicksand
With what choices we had left.
It is with the remembering that we struggle,
The facts that we stumble,
And the things we can never know.
A man, a woman, a child, a people.
How do we make sense of events
We are unable to reconcile?
The mourning period is over;
The bloody coup is complete.
Put into historical context,
We did not emerge from it unscathed.
We drew a field of darkness--
It did not serve us;
But what do we know about landmines
And snipers on the roof?
What do we know about darkness
And the damage it can do?
This is our sacrifice;
This is our discontent.
How do we emerge from it?
How do we dare?
"Ancestral Supplications"
By Vicie Rolling
By Vicie Rolling
On those darkest of days,
When I feel no one cares
In that funnel of doom
The loneliness
Overwhelms me
Consumes me
Makes me feel
Empty
Blank
Useless
Flat
Fruitless
Forgettable
Unaware
Of my place
In the Universe
Reserved for me only
Kept by a thin veil of prayer
Of those who went before me
The supplications of ancestors
Feeds and Fashions my spirit and
Makes me whole again
When I feel no one cares
In that funnel of doom
The loneliness
Overwhelms me
Consumes me
Makes me feel
Empty
Blank
Useless
Flat
Fruitless
Forgettable
Unaware
Of my place
In the Universe
Reserved for me only
Kept by a thin veil of prayer
Of those who went before me
The supplications of ancestors
Feeds and Fashions my spirit and
Makes me whole again
"As I Wake, I Hear Children Crying"
By Ellen Wright
** Content Warning: Contains subjects related to violence and abuse**
By Ellen Wright
** Content Warning: Contains subjects related to violence and abuse**
AS I WAKE, I HEAR CHILDREN CRYING
and their mother shouting.
I creep out of bed.
The woman doesn’t want him to hit her anymore,
but no matter what she says,
her voice full of tears, it’s wrong--
and my cousin slaps his wife again.
Peeking through my narrowly opened door,
I see shadows pantomiming,
and I see the children down the hall
in their thin, brown skin—crouching
in the bathroom, huddled together
beside the chipped, white clawfoot tub.
The Connecticut house on the tree-lined street
is ablaze with anger.
I want to stop his assault, slap him back,
rescue their mother and save the girls,
but I’m no hero.
I’m thirteen in the summer of 1975
trying to escape the unhappiness of my own home,
and I can’t save them.
I jump back in bed. Perhaps he heard me.
Perhaps he remembered I was in his house
when he opened the door
and sat on the edge of my bed.
His words were blank with the cries
of his children ringing in my ears,
my contempt as visible as blood in my eyes.
He drove me hours home to Jersey.
I said nothing, saving myself,
leaving two little girls behind,
burying the ugliness
of my Connecticut summer.
and their mother shouting.
I creep out of bed.
The woman doesn’t want him to hit her anymore,
but no matter what she says,
her voice full of tears, it’s wrong--
and my cousin slaps his wife again.
Peeking through my narrowly opened door,
I see shadows pantomiming,
and I see the children down the hall
in their thin, brown skin—crouching
in the bathroom, huddled together
beside the chipped, white clawfoot tub.
The Connecticut house on the tree-lined street
is ablaze with anger.
I want to stop his assault, slap him back,
rescue their mother and save the girls,
but I’m no hero.
I’m thirteen in the summer of 1975
trying to escape the unhappiness of my own home,
and I can’t save them.
I jump back in bed. Perhaps he heard me.
Perhaps he remembered I was in his house
when he opened the door
and sat on the edge of my bed.
His words were blank with the cries
of his children ringing in my ears,
my contempt as visible as blood in my eyes.
He drove me hours home to Jersey.
I said nothing, saving myself,
leaving two little girls behind,
burying the ugliness
of my Connecticut summer.
"A Time for Flowers"
By Ellen Wright
By Ellen Wright
Why write now about the delicate nature of lilies,
their blush, their grace,
when men and women lose their lives in the streets,
and a police officer is so brazen as to murder
a black man in front of witnesses
holding cameras, pleading for the man's life?
This is the summer we channel the spirits
of the great civil-rights poets like Dudley Randall,
who wrote about the Birmingham church bombing of 1963
and the deaths of Addie Mae, Cynthia,
Carole and Carol Denise,
whose coffins, newspapers show, were draped
in black and white flowers.
This is also a time for flowers
like the dozens of red roses adorning the coffin
of George Floyd, or the blue lilies
and yellow mums that draped the coffin
of Ahmaud Arbery,
or the one with hints of lavender that draped the coffin
of Breonna Taylor, or the hundreds that draped the coffins
of dozens of others who died away from the public eye
after protests, during protests,
because they were thought to be protesting,
or while they were jogging,
or while they were behind closed doors
minding their own business.
Yes. This is a time to write about flowers,
the exuberant spray of white lilies
that silently say this life mattered.
their blush, their grace,
when men and women lose their lives in the streets,
and a police officer is so brazen as to murder
a black man in front of witnesses
holding cameras, pleading for the man's life?
This is the summer we channel the spirits
of the great civil-rights poets like Dudley Randall,
who wrote about the Birmingham church bombing of 1963
and the deaths of Addie Mae, Cynthia,
Carole and Carol Denise,
whose coffins, newspapers show, were draped
in black and white flowers.
This is also a time for flowers
like the dozens of red roses adorning the coffin
of George Floyd, or the blue lilies
and yellow mums that draped the coffin
of Ahmaud Arbery,
or the one with hints of lavender that draped the coffin
of Breonna Taylor, or the hundreds that draped the coffins
of dozens of others who died away from the public eye
after protests, during protests,
because they were thought to be protesting,
or while they were jogging,
or while they were behind closed doors
minding their own business.
Yes. This is a time to write about flowers,
the exuberant spray of white lilies
that silently say this life mattered.
"B(l)ack & fo(u)rth: a palindrome"
By Latorial Faison
By Latorial Faison
Dead & gone like King
Like Malcolm, like Obama.
We be a black dream
We be a black dream
Like 40 acres & mules
Like the right to love
Like the right to love
We be craving honey, house
Sometimes without home
Sometimes without home
We be craving all the world
Like the right to vote
Like the right to vote
We dared to dream, learned to read
Like Phillis, the Bible
Like Phillis, the Bible
Bearing white people’s myths, gifts
On the wings of words
On the wings of words
Black men & Black women flew
From slavery to freedom
From slavery to freedom
Our enslaved people survived
The whip & the chains
The whip & the chains
O, how they tried to break us
For America
For America
The colonies our backs built
Betrayed & traded
Betrayed & traded
Like lambs led to a slaughter
We be fatted calves
We be fatted calves
Sacrificed at the return
Of wayward children
Of wayward children
America calls not things
As though they are here
As though they are here
America calls not things
Of wayward children
Of wayward children
Sacrificed at the return
We be fatted calves
We be fatted calves
Like lambs led to a slaughter
Betrayed & traded
Betrayed & traded
The colonies our backs built
For America
For America
O, how they tried to break us
The whip & the chains
The whip & the chains
Our enslaved people survived
From slave to freedom
From slave to freedom
Black men & Black women flew
On the wings of words
On the wings of words
Bearing white people’s myths, gifts
Like Phillis, the Bible
Like Phillis, the Bible
We dared to dream, learned to read
Like the right to vote
Like the right to vote
We be craving all the world
Sometimes without home
Sometimes without home
We be craving honey, house
Like the right to love
Like the right to love
Like 40 acres & mules
We be a black dream
We be a black dream
Like Malcolm, like Obama
Dead & gone like King.
Like Malcolm, like Obama.
We be a black dream
We be a black dream
Like 40 acres & mules
Like the right to love
Like the right to love
We be craving honey, house
Sometimes without home
Sometimes without home
We be craving all the world
Like the right to vote
Like the right to vote
We dared to dream, learned to read
Like Phillis, the Bible
Like Phillis, the Bible
Bearing white people’s myths, gifts
On the wings of words
On the wings of words
Black men & Black women flew
From slavery to freedom
From slavery to freedom
Our enslaved people survived
The whip & the chains
The whip & the chains
O, how they tried to break us
For America
For America
The colonies our backs built
Betrayed & traded
Betrayed & traded
Like lambs led to a slaughter
We be fatted calves
We be fatted calves
Sacrificed at the return
Of wayward children
Of wayward children
America calls not things
As though they are here
As though they are here
America calls not things
Of wayward children
Of wayward children
Sacrificed at the return
We be fatted calves
We be fatted calves
Like lambs led to a slaughter
Betrayed & traded
Betrayed & traded
The colonies our backs built
For America
For America
O, how they tried to break us
The whip & the chains
The whip & the chains
Our enslaved people survived
From slave to freedom
From slave to freedom
Black men & Black women flew
On the wings of words
On the wings of words
Bearing white people’s myths, gifts
Like Phillis, the Bible
Like Phillis, the Bible
We dared to dream, learned to read
Like the right to vote
Like the right to vote
We be craving all the world
Sometimes without home
Sometimes without home
We be craving honey, house
Like the right to love
Like the right to love
Like 40 acres & mules
We be a black dream
We be a black dream
Like Malcolm, like Obama
Dead & gone like King.
"Black Female Bodies"
By Cheyenne Marcelus
By Cheyenne Marcelus
I once did a Google search for images of “Black girls having fun.”
I instead found images of Black girls gone missing.
2 Black girls gone missing from campus 2 Black girls gone missing from
church
2 Black girls gone missing from a playground 2 Black girls gone
missing from DC
2 Black girls gone missing from Chicago
and to disconnect the missing from the discovered,
2 Black female bodies
they would often phrase it.
Sometimes one body may have collapsed a few feet away from the other,
and they would be presented as separate unrelated incidents;
as if they were not near to one another,
tethered together by cracked bones and dried blood;
dear to one another,
with families waking together,
filling their bellies with similar contents of soul food;
as if their homegoings wouldn’t be at the same missionary Baptist,
sermoned by the same pastor who is exhausted of funerals.
2 Black female bodies;
the missing girls who were missing too long.
If there were really such strength in numbers
they’d call out to each other
and ascend their way home.
If I avoided the footsteps of all the missing Black girls,
I’d have nowhere to step,
Nowhere to play, nowhere to pray, no school to attend,
no babysitter, no boyfriend, no best friends,
Nowhere to eat, sleep, or shit.
And they never give enough detail
about the soul that has left the Black female body.
They don’t show the communities mourn;
they don’t capture the emptiness of her former classrooms and hallways,
or show a montage of the doodles in her notebooks,
a neighbor on the news saying she was such a sweet child
or a spirited child,
but nonetheless a child,
connecting her to someone’s womb.
I don’t think a decade from now there will be a documentary about each of the missing
Black girls
who were Resurrected as Black female bodies.
No, they may instead make one big documentary
about the epidemic of Black girls gone missing between this year to that year
and how nobody really knew
and we only read news of it in Instagram comments;
perhaps a single docuseries where a handful of the country full of Black female bodies
receive souls and names.
I don’t know which of them will truly get to rest.
I can’t say for sure what God may greet them.
So many missing Black girls
become Black female bodies;
who knows what the bodies become.
I instead found images of Black girls gone missing.
2 Black girls gone missing from campus 2 Black girls gone missing from
church
2 Black girls gone missing from a playground 2 Black girls gone
missing from DC
2 Black girls gone missing from Chicago
and to disconnect the missing from the discovered,
2 Black female bodies
they would often phrase it.
Sometimes one body may have collapsed a few feet away from the other,
and they would be presented as separate unrelated incidents;
as if they were not near to one another,
tethered together by cracked bones and dried blood;
dear to one another,
with families waking together,
filling their bellies with similar contents of soul food;
as if their homegoings wouldn’t be at the same missionary Baptist,
sermoned by the same pastor who is exhausted of funerals.
2 Black female bodies;
the missing girls who were missing too long.
If there were really such strength in numbers
they’d call out to each other
and ascend their way home.
If I avoided the footsteps of all the missing Black girls,
I’d have nowhere to step,
Nowhere to play, nowhere to pray, no school to attend,
no babysitter, no boyfriend, no best friends,
Nowhere to eat, sleep, or shit.
And they never give enough detail
about the soul that has left the Black female body.
They don’t show the communities mourn;
they don’t capture the emptiness of her former classrooms and hallways,
or show a montage of the doodles in her notebooks,
a neighbor on the news saying she was such a sweet child
or a spirited child,
but nonetheless a child,
connecting her to someone’s womb.
I don’t think a decade from now there will be a documentary about each of the missing
Black girls
who were Resurrected as Black female bodies.
No, they may instead make one big documentary
about the epidemic of Black girls gone missing between this year to that year
and how nobody really knew
and we only read news of it in Instagram comments;
perhaps a single docuseries where a handful of the country full of Black female bodies
receive souls and names.
I don’t know which of them will truly get to rest.
I can’t say for sure what God may greet them.
So many missing Black girls
become Black female bodies;
who knows what the bodies become.
"Black Questions"
By Jasmine Harris
By Jasmine Harris
Can someone?
Can someone tell me why I buried my brother today?
Tell me why I was clawing at the casket trying to capture our last moment?
I couldn’t look away.
Couldn’t tell you the number of times
I begged him to be careful.
Couldn’t tell you the number of times
I was fearful.
Our calculators could only count so high
and as high as we used to get just to get by,
just comprehend how we had lost another friend.
We didn’t have the space to lose him, a hole deepening within
Cause I would lead 1000 squared troops into war over you,
cause I would teach a class telling our story just to get through
to a generation tryna be realer than the next,
tryna get bodied and buried as if street cred cashed life insurance checks,
as if the burden laid on moms wasn’t heavier than that casket.
I keep asking,
Can someone tell me why I buried another son?
You see, I poured into him from my empty cup
‘cause my glass was passed as if the cracks glistening were silver and I had enough luck.
Thought I cried enough tears,
thought I lost enough.
I keep telling the universe I am not that tough.
I cannot endure,
continuing to give hope when even hope is unsure
that the seeds I have sown will flourish before the fields set flame
and ablaze.
My soul is on fire as I stand in hell.
Can someone tell?
Can someone tell me why I lost hope?
Why I’ve been grasping onto threads like this was the rope
that could pull us all up,
could supply us all with silver spoons and china-ed cups?
Yet I put the mask on my face,
hell we all do as a race,
cause no one can answer our questions...
Can someone tell me why I buried my brother today?
Tell me why I was clawing at the casket trying to capture our last moment?
I couldn’t look away.
Couldn’t tell you the number of times
I begged him to be careful.
Couldn’t tell you the number of times
I was fearful.
Our calculators could only count so high
and as high as we used to get just to get by,
just comprehend how we had lost another friend.
We didn’t have the space to lose him, a hole deepening within
Cause I would lead 1000 squared troops into war over you,
cause I would teach a class telling our story just to get through
to a generation tryna be realer than the next,
tryna get bodied and buried as if street cred cashed life insurance checks,
as if the burden laid on moms wasn’t heavier than that casket.
I keep asking,
Can someone tell me why I buried another son?
You see, I poured into him from my empty cup
‘cause my glass was passed as if the cracks glistening were silver and I had enough luck.
Thought I cried enough tears,
thought I lost enough.
I keep telling the universe I am not that tough.
I cannot endure,
continuing to give hope when even hope is unsure
that the seeds I have sown will flourish before the fields set flame
and ablaze.
My soul is on fire as I stand in hell.
Can someone tell?
Can someone tell me why I lost hope?
Why I’ve been grasping onto threads like this was the rope
that could pull us all up,
could supply us all with silver spoons and china-ed cups?
Yet I put the mask on my face,
hell we all do as a race,
cause no one can answer our questions...
"Dame Jere"
By Gayle Bell
By Gayle Bell
Still small voice saw him first.
There be angels.
Ma’am would you mind putting these things on your walker?
I don’t get around so good.
His attaché had faded green party stickers,
the Jamaica flag, rainbow stickers,
Mondale vs. some obscure nemesis.
He offered his half a turkey sandwich
to a woman trying to sleep
on the anti-vagrant benches near the AA center.
He gestured to the crowd gates set up on Olive St.
Think they’re going to have the pride parade down here ma’am.
I laughed. I doubted it.
You going to the parade tomorrow?
Been there, got the shirt, I’m too old.
Well, he preened, raised a bit of his shorts
with a practiced dainty hand
to reveal a pair of orange panties
frillier than the ones I was wearing.
We slow-walked to the rail.
He regaled me of floats,
he, the queen of the regalia,
satins pearls taffeta
unforgiving in this lone star heat.
The train broke me from the enchanted tales.
Like my momma use ta say,
just cause you’re an angel you don’t have to be a fool.
Since I was neither, I told him I had to dash.
He grabbed his belongings,
thanked me for the assist.
I curtseyed and wished him a gentle journey.
He blew me a kiss
that in times past would have held
a jeweled glove.
There be angels.
Ma’am would you mind putting these things on your walker?
I don’t get around so good.
His attaché had faded green party stickers,
the Jamaica flag, rainbow stickers,
Mondale vs. some obscure nemesis.
He offered his half a turkey sandwich
to a woman trying to sleep
on the anti-vagrant benches near the AA center.
He gestured to the crowd gates set up on Olive St.
Think they’re going to have the pride parade down here ma’am.
I laughed. I doubted it.
You going to the parade tomorrow?
Been there, got the shirt, I’m too old.
Well, he preened, raised a bit of his shorts
with a practiced dainty hand
to reveal a pair of orange panties
frillier than the ones I was wearing.
We slow-walked to the rail.
He regaled me of floats,
he, the queen of the regalia,
satins pearls taffeta
unforgiving in this lone star heat.
The train broke me from the enchanted tales.
Like my momma use ta say,
just cause you’re an angel you don’t have to be a fool.
Since I was neither, I told him I had to dash.
He grabbed his belongings,
thanked me for the assist.
I curtseyed and wished him a gentle journey.
He blew me a kiss
that in times past would have held
a jeweled glove.
"Eminence"
By Essah Cozett
By Essah Cozett
My body
is a mountain
many have not known.
I am mud,
rocks and rivers
fortified by untwisting trees.
The world
rotates around me.
I do not bow to anarchic winds.
When I rub
my hands together,
valleys of veins arise
leading me
to an all knowing
of myself. As if the sea
still waters
beside green pastures
restore my shifting soul.
Darkness is
a myth of the abyss,
and I defy g r a v i t y.
is a mountain
many have not known.
I am mud,
rocks and rivers
fortified by untwisting trees.
The world
rotates around me.
I do not bow to anarchic winds.
When I rub
my hands together,
valleys of veins arise
leading me
to an all knowing
of myself. As if the sea
still waters
beside green pastures
restore my shifting soul.
Darkness is
a myth of the abyss,
and I defy g r a v i t y.
“Façade”
By Zuri McWhorter
By Zuri McWhorter
We are just children
pretending to be lovers
and sisters and brothers
A façade for the weak
and tortured
A broken support system
for one another
We’re all just children
playing a game
with broken plastic pieces.
pretending to be lovers
and sisters and brothers
A façade for the weak
and tortured
A broken support system
for one another
We’re all just children
playing a game
with broken plastic pieces.
"Figures Spread Densely Across a Target Range"
By Retta Lewis
By Retta Lewis
With strong dark lines
That weave life
Out of invisibility,
We unsettle a nation,
Unhinge a paradise.
Not viewed as more than atmosphere
In an exchange of discord,
Nor more than figures
Spread densely across a target range,
We puzzle a planet,
Trouble a universe.
But we are not the obstacles.
We perch beneath the threat of them,
As history carves out a place for us
Across a plain of competing events.
All major concerns have gone unaddressed
On the one clear path that lies ahead;
And around what we take to be our names
There has been carved a message of pain.
Already our fates appear decided.
We seem left with no choice but to battle.
No choice but to litter the landscape
With the symbols of our oppression.
That weave life
Out of invisibility,
We unsettle a nation,
Unhinge a paradise.
Not viewed as more than atmosphere
In an exchange of discord,
Nor more than figures
Spread densely across a target range,
We puzzle a planet,
Trouble a universe.
But we are not the obstacles.
We perch beneath the threat of them,
As history carves out a place for us
Across a plain of competing events.
All major concerns have gone unaddressed
On the one clear path that lies ahead;
And around what we take to be our names
There has been carved a message of pain.
Already our fates appear decided.
We seem left with no choice but to battle.
No choice but to litter the landscape
With the symbols of our oppression.
"How They Killed My Father with No Guns"
By Alexis Clare
By Alexis Clare
My father wouldn’t want me to tell you this.
He was too proud for you to know this on his terms.
If my father, black child in the early 70’s,
told the police that older black boys molested him,
what do you think they would say?
If my father told his father,
absent black man of the 70’s,
what do you think he would say?
If my father,
black child in the 80’s,
got sent to a better school, a private school,
predominately white, what do you think the other kids would say?
Do you think they would have made him feel like he belonged?
Do you think they pushed him around the halls?
If my father dropped out
because he felt out of place,
do you think people said it was always going to happen?
Do you think anyone but his mother ever told him he was good enough?
If my father made it to college,
came south in the 90’s,
do you think they would give him a charge,
maybe two,
to get him off campus?
If there was a woman’s word against a black man
with no degree, no accolades from white people,
do you think anyone would listen to him?
If he had to get a public defender
for every one of those cases he should have won,
do you think they would fight for him?
Do you think once this man had a record list full of charges,
do you think the last woman to accuse him
would have to tell the truth?
Do you think they would give this man,
abuser on paper, felony burglar, armed man,
a chance to tell his story?
Do you think they would care if he had daughters?
Do you think they would believe they were keeping him safe from us?
Do you think he would start to believe it too,
that we would only be happy and safe without him?
Do you think if this man got a drinking problem
somewhere in all of this,
do you think his friends,
other black men fucked over by the system,
would tell him to stop?
Do you think he would listen
to anyone who told him to stop?
Do you think he believed
that he could be a good enough father?
Do you think he ever knew
he made my life better
every second he was around?
Do you think if he was driving
at 2 am on Christmas Eve
and cop cars cut on their lights,
do you think he would pull over?
Do you think they would call more cops
on this charged sexual offender,
domestic abuser,
felony burglar,
charged armed man
for speeding, for swerving?
Would you be surprised
if I told you it turned into a chase?
I can’t tell you that they physically forced him to,
that they pushed his cars into the tree,
but do you think they wanted him to?
Do you think they wanted him gone?
Don’t you think through half a century
of them pushing him around,
shoving him to the ground,
he thought he deserved
to die on that road?
Don’t you think he would have rather died on that road
rather than spend another decade behind bars?
Don’t think that he thought his daughters
would be
better off without him?
Don’t you think they made him believe
the world would be better off without him?
He was too proud for you to know this on his terms.
If my father, black child in the early 70’s,
told the police that older black boys molested him,
what do you think they would say?
If my father told his father,
absent black man of the 70’s,
what do you think he would say?
If my father,
black child in the 80’s,
got sent to a better school, a private school,
predominately white, what do you think the other kids would say?
Do you think they would have made him feel like he belonged?
Do you think they pushed him around the halls?
If my father dropped out
because he felt out of place,
do you think people said it was always going to happen?
Do you think anyone but his mother ever told him he was good enough?
If my father made it to college,
came south in the 90’s,
do you think they would give him a charge,
maybe two,
to get him off campus?
If there was a woman’s word against a black man
with no degree, no accolades from white people,
do you think anyone would listen to him?
If he had to get a public defender
for every one of those cases he should have won,
do you think they would fight for him?
Do you think once this man had a record list full of charges,
do you think the last woman to accuse him
would have to tell the truth?
Do you think they would give this man,
abuser on paper, felony burglar, armed man,
a chance to tell his story?
Do you think they would care if he had daughters?
Do you think they would believe they were keeping him safe from us?
Do you think he would start to believe it too,
that we would only be happy and safe without him?
Do you think if this man got a drinking problem
somewhere in all of this,
do you think his friends,
other black men fucked over by the system,
would tell him to stop?
Do you think he would listen
to anyone who told him to stop?
Do you think he believed
that he could be a good enough father?
Do you think he ever knew
he made my life better
every second he was around?
Do you think if he was driving
at 2 am on Christmas Eve
and cop cars cut on their lights,
do you think he would pull over?
Do you think they would call more cops
on this charged sexual offender,
domestic abuser,
felony burglar,
charged armed man
for speeding, for swerving?
Would you be surprised
if I told you it turned into a chase?
I can’t tell you that they physically forced him to,
that they pushed his cars into the tree,
but do you think they wanted him to?
Do you think they wanted him gone?
Don’t you think through half a century
of them pushing him around,
shoving him to the ground,
he thought he deserved
to die on that road?
Don’t you think he would have rather died on that road
rather than spend another decade behind bars?
Don’t think that he thought his daughters
would be
better off without him?
Don’t you think they made him believe
the world would be better off without him?
"I Don't Dream of Poets"
(for Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917-2000)
By Ellen Wright
(for Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917-2000)
By Ellen Wright
If I did dream of poets, I'd dream
of Gwendolyn Brooks whose name
is the same as my mother's,
and she was second mother to me;
first black, female poet I loved.
I walked the streets of Bronzeville in my head,
met all the characters in the neighborhood
like the unforgettable Satin Legs Smith,
and later The Bean Eaters (dwellers of tenements),
and the seven doomed schoolboys,
cool pool players at the Golden Shovel,
and The Mother whose choice I cannot forget--
grieving children she got but did not get.
I follow in the poet's footsteps the way
I never did my mother's. Weeks before her death,
she signed books for me. That day, I watched her
grace as she signed for hours, signed too long outdoors,
draped in a blanket—giving gifts to strangers
like a Bronzeville mother feeding hungry children.
I wasn't the only one who loved her. She was poet mother
to us all. She loved us all.
of Gwendolyn Brooks whose name
is the same as my mother's,
and she was second mother to me;
first black, female poet I loved.
I walked the streets of Bronzeville in my head,
met all the characters in the neighborhood
like the unforgettable Satin Legs Smith,
and later The Bean Eaters (dwellers of tenements),
and the seven doomed schoolboys,
cool pool players at the Golden Shovel,
and The Mother whose choice I cannot forget--
grieving children she got but did not get.
I follow in the poet's footsteps the way
I never did my mother's. Weeks before her death,
she signed books for me. That day, I watched her
grace as she signed for hours, signed too long outdoors,
draped in a blanket—giving gifts to strangers
like a Bronzeville mother feeding hungry children.
I wasn't the only one who loved her. She was poet mother
to us all. She loved us all.
"Igbo Landing"
By Akua Lezli Hope
By Akua Lezli Hope
We are incomprehensible
to you who feel only fear
when you hear us, spider
silk on face, chill up back,
which is a success perhaps
to have both sugar and fat,
to die of excess and sloth,
not like we hungry wraiths
whose forgotten flesh was sinew,
whose nonexistent options were
to live death or die living,
whose path was clear:
undo or be undone.
Our drowned captors are silent;
their injustice muzzles them
We sang the song of home-going,
a freedom bound journey as we
down-drowned with determination,
deliberation, avowals to never surrender,
to die and return from whence we
came, from where we were stolen,
to resist and not submit, calling to
our God, Chukwu, for escort, for conveyance,
for admission to the next phase,
existence beyond this abominable land
out of reach of horrible hands:
Those who would eat our souls, bite
bit after bit, daily flay flesh
from our backs, lynch us,
take our babies, steal their milk,
rape our young ones, remove our tongues,
and in that terrible future in which you tremble
by our whispers, lingering laments,
you would believe such theft was chosen?
And that is what frightens you.
We refused to languish in longing;
you hear our reverberating answers echo
through the water, slow lapping sounds,
waves creeping on the land, our avowals.
We consecrated our commitment,
how we said no with our lives,
for our lives, how we refused
that hell on land, making generations
of grist for the hideous mill of rogue
capital, the codified caprice of robbers
we brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, clear-willed
strong-souled, liberty-led, freedom-fed,
returned to mother water, singing a way
open.
Out of 75, only 13 were found
drowned, the rest of us lifted,
transmuted, flew.
Author's Note: Igbo Landing is a historic site at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island in Glynn County, Georgia, where, in 1803, 75 Igbo captives, after drowning their captors and running the ship York aground, marched ashore, singing, and walked into Dunbar creek, committing mass suicide. 13 bodies were recovered. The rest remain missing. In 2002, the site was declared a holy ground.
to you who feel only fear
when you hear us, spider
silk on face, chill up back,
which is a success perhaps
to have both sugar and fat,
to die of excess and sloth,
not like we hungry wraiths
whose forgotten flesh was sinew,
whose nonexistent options were
to live death or die living,
whose path was clear:
undo or be undone.
Our drowned captors are silent;
their injustice muzzles them
We sang the song of home-going,
a freedom bound journey as we
down-drowned with determination,
deliberation, avowals to never surrender,
to die and return from whence we
came, from where we were stolen,
to resist and not submit, calling to
our God, Chukwu, for escort, for conveyance,
for admission to the next phase,
existence beyond this abominable land
out of reach of horrible hands:
Those who would eat our souls, bite
bit after bit, daily flay flesh
from our backs, lynch us,
take our babies, steal their milk,
rape our young ones, remove our tongues,
and in that terrible future in which you tremble
by our whispers, lingering laments,
you would believe such theft was chosen?
And that is what frightens you.
We refused to languish in longing;
you hear our reverberating answers echo
through the water, slow lapping sounds,
waves creeping on the land, our avowals.
We consecrated our commitment,
how we said no with our lives,
for our lives, how we refused
that hell on land, making generations
of grist for the hideous mill of rogue
capital, the codified caprice of robbers
we brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, clear-willed
strong-souled, liberty-led, freedom-fed,
returned to mother water, singing a way
open.
Out of 75, only 13 were found
drowned, the rest of us lifted,
transmuted, flew.
Author's Note: Igbo Landing is a historic site at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island in Glynn County, Georgia, where, in 1803, 75 Igbo captives, after drowning their captors and running the ship York aground, marched ashore, singing, and walked into Dunbar creek, committing mass suicide. 13 bodies were recovered. The rest remain missing. In 2002, the site was declared a holy ground.
"Like a Prophet Whose Hour Has Come"
By Latorial Faison
By Latorial Faison
As necessary as a healing, a memorial day flag, a tributary kneeling. On a killing field,
your knee is strong as a freedom song. Your hands hold a rock ready, stoning those yet
un-accused. A new Jim Crow threatens, while you, a new Negro, shall not be moved
through this multi-million dollar joy in standing up for innocence persecuted, for all the
martyred men, women & children with a single month to praise them.
After four hundred years, the beat goes on, blue lights descend on blackness with red
demons terrorizing the audacity of hope, the audacity of a white dream. You are
sacrificial to stand, notable to kneel, honorable to open up this can of ‘we are tired of the
world watching as they silence our black asses to all kinds of death.’
What tomorrow brings has been written in a scroll. If ‘God loves a cheerful giver,’ God
also loves a cheerful giver of truth & justice. Keep carrying this torch we were born to
carry & watch them come with billy clubs & fire hoses to extinguish the flame of
freedom because you, like a prophet on a crucifix, are strong enough to raise the issue of
the dead.
your knee is strong as a freedom song. Your hands hold a rock ready, stoning those yet
un-accused. A new Jim Crow threatens, while you, a new Negro, shall not be moved
through this multi-million dollar joy in standing up for innocence persecuted, for all the
martyred men, women & children with a single month to praise them.
After four hundred years, the beat goes on, blue lights descend on blackness with red
demons terrorizing the audacity of hope, the audacity of a white dream. You are
sacrificial to stand, notable to kneel, honorable to open up this can of ‘we are tired of the
world watching as they silence our black asses to all kinds of death.’
What tomorrow brings has been written in a scroll. If ‘God loves a cheerful giver,’ God
also loves a cheerful giver of truth & justice. Keep carrying this torch we were born to
carry & watch them come with billy clubs & fire hoses to extinguish the flame of
freedom because you, like a prophet on a crucifix, are strong enough to raise the issue of
the dead.
"Mama Sang the Blue"
By Latorial Faison
By Latorial Faison
I.
Mama’s bottle tested illusion. Therein was a holy
Water from a great river that healed the sick,
Raised the dead. She sipped small sips with her Black
Lips, hummed hymns nice & slow, in & out of contralto,
Like Mahalia Jackson. Tell the angels that I’m on my way,
Toe tapping, head rocking & all hard working,
Poor & saved. Bittersweet like a one-room school,
She came together like an old Negro textbook--
Missing pages yet heaven sent. The god of white evil
Couldn’t have created a strong, Black woman like this.
Like a daystar, she appeared in indigo skies, orphaned
& unknown. From a dying womb to a tenant room,
She came like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby Jesus
In a brown-skinned country; it didn’t make no sense.
The poison she picked—a balm that delivered her from evil,
From lying white tongues to the lynching of Black sons.
Mama grew stronger than Samson on Friday nights
Every time she stole away to grab pieces of her
Humanity back. It was a happy sadness that dealt in
Pain. For when white folk got your tongue, you
Can’t tell nobody but Jesus & when Jesus got you
Singing like Mahalia, you can’t trust nobody but God.
II.
Mama was serious about her religion, the Baptist
Church down the dirt road & choir rehearsals on
Thursday nights. With songbooks, hand-written
Notes & a third grade education, she impressed
Her own self. Standing in the choir on the promises
Of God, all robed & righteous, she was worth more
Than white women. Her voice, like a whippoorwill,
Could whistle a song all through a dark night, all through
The struggle. When she sang from her midnight,
I knew she was light. Mama was a voice of dark brown
Reason—calling out to God, crying out for freedom.
I listened with every hope that had ever come between us.
She sculpted me into me with a melody she hummed
Through all kinds of hell. Mama was a nuance, a renaissance
Inhaling & impaling grief, exhaling peace of mind, a piece
Of mine. She was a professor of arts & letters & God
Quilting me with all the pieces she was. Like every strong
Black wise woman who ever was a warrior, whoever came
Before her, she came bearing gifts, bequeathing songs.
She came; they came. I, too, have come to raise the dead.
Mama’s bottle tested illusion. Therein was a holy
Water from a great river that healed the sick,
Raised the dead. She sipped small sips with her Black
Lips, hummed hymns nice & slow, in & out of contralto,
Like Mahalia Jackson. Tell the angels that I’m on my way,
Toe tapping, head rocking & all hard working,
Poor & saved. Bittersweet like a one-room school,
She came together like an old Negro textbook--
Missing pages yet heaven sent. The god of white evil
Couldn’t have created a strong, Black woman like this.
Like a daystar, she appeared in indigo skies, orphaned
& unknown. From a dying womb to a tenant room,
She came like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby Jesus
In a brown-skinned country; it didn’t make no sense.
The poison she picked—a balm that delivered her from evil,
From lying white tongues to the lynching of Black sons.
Mama grew stronger than Samson on Friday nights
Every time she stole away to grab pieces of her
Humanity back. It was a happy sadness that dealt in
Pain. For when white folk got your tongue, you
Can’t tell nobody but Jesus & when Jesus got you
Singing like Mahalia, you can’t trust nobody but God.
II.
Mama was serious about her religion, the Baptist
Church down the dirt road & choir rehearsals on
Thursday nights. With songbooks, hand-written
Notes & a third grade education, she impressed
Her own self. Standing in the choir on the promises
Of God, all robed & righteous, she was worth more
Than white women. Her voice, like a whippoorwill,
Could whistle a song all through a dark night, all through
The struggle. When she sang from her midnight,
I knew she was light. Mama was a voice of dark brown
Reason—calling out to God, crying out for freedom.
I listened with every hope that had ever come between us.
She sculpted me into me with a melody she hummed
Through all kinds of hell. Mama was a nuance, a renaissance
Inhaling & impaling grief, exhaling peace of mind, a piece
Of mine. She was a professor of arts & letters & God
Quilting me with all the pieces she was. Like every strong
Black wise woman who ever was a warrior, whoever came
Before her, she came bearing gifts, bequeathing songs.
She came; they came. I, too, have come to raise the dead.
"Mother Tongue"
By Cheyenne Marcelus
By Cheyenne Marcelus
My mother tongue is at the mouth of the
Mississippi and she sings the blues and
spews blessing oil. 102 miles north of the
coast, she grows collards and turnips. She
rears six chickens and a rooster. She is an
entrepreneur with a husband who pays the
bills. Her money is for the grandkids, the
collection plate, and the biweekly press-and-
curl.
My mother tongue has a drawl. Like y’all
and finna and ain’t God good. Ain’t she
beautiful. She is nurturing and steadfast and
don’t take no shit. She soaks her beans the
night before, and there is no such thing as
unsweetened tea. She doesn’t sit her purse
on the floor. She doesn’t spare the rod. She
doesn’t miss a Sunday.
My mother tongue is the sound of fresh
flowers and neatly folded napkins, honey
baked ham adorned with pineapples, five
inch heels and coffee-colored pantyhose.
She is soprano on Sunday and alto on
Monday. She sings blessings or curses
according to the occasion. She yells PUSH!
or Hallelujah! or Don’t shoot! according to
the occasion.
My mother tongue resounds. From
Mississippi to Chicago, she resounds. From
generation to generation, she resounds. She
is Harriet, and Fannie, and Sarah, and Nina.
She is Ruth, and Gussie, and Dorothy, and
Jeannie, and Barbra. She is my mother today
and daughter tomorrow. I whisper her name
and shatter a mountain.
Mississippi and she sings the blues and
spews blessing oil. 102 miles north of the
coast, she grows collards and turnips. She
rears six chickens and a rooster. She is an
entrepreneur with a husband who pays the
bills. Her money is for the grandkids, the
collection plate, and the biweekly press-and-
curl.
My mother tongue has a drawl. Like y’all
and finna and ain’t God good. Ain’t she
beautiful. She is nurturing and steadfast and
don’t take no shit. She soaks her beans the
night before, and there is no such thing as
unsweetened tea. She doesn’t sit her purse
on the floor. She doesn’t spare the rod. She
doesn’t miss a Sunday.
My mother tongue is the sound of fresh
flowers and neatly folded napkins, honey
baked ham adorned with pineapples, five
inch heels and coffee-colored pantyhose.
She is soprano on Sunday and alto on
Monday. She sings blessings or curses
according to the occasion. She yells PUSH!
or Hallelujah! or Don’t shoot! according to
the occasion.
My mother tongue resounds. From
Mississippi to Chicago, she resounds. From
generation to generation, she resounds. She
is Harriet, and Fannie, and Sarah, and Nina.
She is Ruth, and Gussie, and Dorothy, and
Jeannie, and Barbra. She is my mother today
and daughter tomorrow. I whisper her name
and shatter a mountain.
"Movie-Making"
By Gabrielle Oliver
By Gabrielle Oliver
In a flash of confidence, you captured me
mouth parted as if about to say something
impertinent, churlish even
my call for space though common
in our ruffled sheet music, made sense told you
all sweet no-
things rot. Your body wanted
satisfaction with motion pictures taken
in my bedroom and like that ‒
our dynamic fell on a final bar line out of nowhere.
mouth parted as if about to say something
impertinent, churlish even
my call for space though common
in our ruffled sheet music, made sense told you
all sweet no-
things rot. Your body wanted
satisfaction with motion pictures taken
in my bedroom and like that ‒
our dynamic fell on a final bar line out of nowhere.
"Oz (Africans in America)"
By Retta Lewis
By Retta Lewis
Did they never talk
Or dream of this?
Or even imagine the possibility
Of these men?
A net was tossed
And some chains introduced.
A giant leap into a small fire
And then the landing into this Oz.
This began the struggle of conversation
And the veils of defense.
This has defined the battlelines
Along which we fight this hour,
This century.
Did they never talk
Or dream of this?
Or even imagine the possibility
Of these men?
Or dream of this?
Or even imagine the possibility
Of these men?
A net was tossed
And some chains introduced.
A giant leap into a small fire
And then the landing into this Oz.
This began the struggle of conversation
And the veils of defense.
This has defined the battlelines
Along which we fight this hour,
This century.
Did they never talk
Or dream of this?
Or even imagine the possibility
Of these men?
"Seeing Colors"
By Jerrice J. Baptiste
By Jerrice J. Baptiste
October wind vibrates trees,
colors multiply, fall to earth
for final sleep.
How sad, trees can’t keep
honeyed orange leaves.
Our eyes enriched by color,
a growing enchantment.
Cinnamon skin called brown
Chocolate is black
Now, brown & black
seen & heard.
A sky seen
through naked branches.
colors multiply, fall to earth
for final sleep.
How sad, trees can’t keep
honeyed orange leaves.
Our eyes enriched by color,
a growing enchantment.
Cinnamon skin called brown
Chocolate is black
Now, brown & black
seen & heard.
A sky seen
through naked branches.
"Stone Inferno"
By Star Anderson
By Star Anderson
For weeks now, and for more to come,
I have been intensely warmed by the sun
Slowly roasting to a more reddish brown
The tears my skin cries running all around
But, still, right now, I could use a good fire
As tall as the horizon, a monumental pyre
Oppressive facades shouldn't be glorified
I revel in their destruction being televised
While I know this is far from the solution
There is a time for cosmetic ablutions
Some small measure of healing to hold
As the momentum continues to grow
Savor what the ancestors didn't live to see
Press on for those still unable to breathe
Get the kindling, strike a match and let it be
Time is dwindling, can't come back from 1500 degrees
Disperse the remains, no service or casket
Allow no phoenix to rise from these ashes
There's much work to be done, this we know
But, at least it has begun, stone inferno
I have been intensely warmed by the sun
Slowly roasting to a more reddish brown
The tears my skin cries running all around
But, still, right now, I could use a good fire
As tall as the horizon, a monumental pyre
Oppressive facades shouldn't be glorified
I revel in their destruction being televised
While I know this is far from the solution
There is a time for cosmetic ablutions
Some small measure of healing to hold
As the momentum continues to grow
Savor what the ancestors didn't live to see
Press on for those still unable to breathe
Get the kindling, strike a match and let it be
Time is dwindling, can't come back from 1500 degrees
Disperse the remains, no service or casket
Allow no phoenix to rise from these ashes
There's much work to be done, this we know
But, at least it has begun, stone inferno
"The Autobiography of the Color Yellow"
By Rose Maria Woodson
By Rose Maria Woodson
I have called spines & sunrises my own,
marked roads & lanes for all lost
in the fog of vanity, thinking they knew
their own way.
I have slept on orchids,
the silk of petals sublime slipping
me from symmetry to subtlety,
easy as babies’ breath.
I have danced on top of candles,
piled darkness in corners
like nothing more
than dirty laundry.
I have painted peppers & corn,
posed in pastas & salads,
drenched myself in adoring ummms.
I have tattooed papers &
pages of favorite books, marked
time’s passing so quietly
on cherished passages.
I have spent myself on feathers,
soared brightly with finches & orioles
over budding trees, falling leaves,
serendipity over all momentary importance,
suspended in an extraordinary grace
of distance, delighted, knowing
I am not done.
marked roads & lanes for all lost
in the fog of vanity, thinking they knew
their own way.
I have slept on orchids,
the silk of petals sublime slipping
me from symmetry to subtlety,
easy as babies’ breath.
I have danced on top of candles,
piled darkness in corners
like nothing more
than dirty laundry.
I have painted peppers & corn,
posed in pastas & salads,
drenched myself in adoring ummms.
I have tattooed papers &
pages of favorite books, marked
time’s passing so quietly
on cherished passages.
I have spent myself on feathers,
soared brightly with finches & orioles
over budding trees, falling leaves,
serendipity over all momentary importance,
suspended in an extraordinary grace
of distance, delighted, knowing
I am not done.
"The History is Still Being Written"
By Retta Lewis
By Retta Lewis
Analyze it, if you will,
But do not bury me beneath its chains;
And when we celebrate,
Must we be compared to you?
Our history--
When the truth is said of it--
Was more than death to us.
We had our victories, too.
The terrain was fraught with peril,
And there were walls to navigate;
A thousand miles of thought,
And the remains of a battered landscape.
More than a few centuries out,
And the history is still being written.
How do we tell it, and when?
Who can tell it, and why?
We’ve had our share of debates,
But it is the names they call us by--
To say nothing of the language barrier--
That we must rectify.
It is only now that we can speak
Of what we did not know--
The roads erased,
The paths destroyed,
The maps burned,
The edicts carved in stone,
The laws ratified.
It was not the standard fairytale
That the books would have you believe;
Nor was it quite the end of times,
For we have had our moments.
All neatly framed and carefully
Discussed, discarded,
And expounded upon.
More than a few centuries out
And discussions are not all that far removed
From the onset of events--
Four hundred years of uninterrupted crossings.
Will any of it signify?
We weave a fate out of uneven destinies--
And out of a conspiracy of silence, a new people.
But do not bury me beneath its chains;
And when we celebrate,
Must we be compared to you?
Our history--
When the truth is said of it--
Was more than death to us.
We had our victories, too.
The terrain was fraught with peril,
And there were walls to navigate;
A thousand miles of thought,
And the remains of a battered landscape.
More than a few centuries out,
And the history is still being written.
How do we tell it, and when?
Who can tell it, and why?
We’ve had our share of debates,
But it is the names they call us by--
To say nothing of the language barrier--
That we must rectify.
It is only now that we can speak
Of what we did not know--
The roads erased,
The paths destroyed,
The maps burned,
The edicts carved in stone,
The laws ratified.
It was not the standard fairytale
That the books would have you believe;
Nor was it quite the end of times,
For we have had our moments.
All neatly framed and carefully
Discussed, discarded,
And expounded upon.
More than a few centuries out
And discussions are not all that far removed
From the onset of events--
Four hundred years of uninterrupted crossings.
Will any of it signify?
We weave a fate out of uneven destinies--
And out of a conspiracy of silence, a new people.
"This is Your Love Letter"
By Lena Hamilton
By Lena Hamilton
for all who helped me in the chase
:this is your love letter
:this is your love letter
This is for you:
those who shared
makeshift beds
in
apartments /bare of furniture
but
full of laughter.
Those who helped fashion toy chest
of diaper boxes
in shared room/a communal nursery.
Those who remember that five dollars bought us dinner/a plate of fries
& coca cola
crowded cross tables/
edges of straws kissed deep red/
it was enough.
Remember:
that attic apartment
it was always too hot/
or
too cold
&
there were too many stairs up &
too many roaches
& the boys shooting guns in mozart park
kept us up at night
but
it felt like home.
This is for you:
Girl-warriors
armored
with black eyeliner, tight jeans
and attitude
[we] like gazelles
lept as one
across tar black streets/
fragile beauty
slicing the air
skipping
through subway corridors/
wild & loud
our eyes always on each other
we/were
we were everything.
You must remember night
if left to silence
we battled fear of
dark
and
curled
three to a bed
[twin-sized mattress on the floor]
whispering secrets
not yet swallowing regret.
You/
a makeshift family
a fortress
holding off
Self-doubt
and [private] despair
[curled three to a bed].
[I should have said]
you were so fucking beautiful
all of you
[we were so young]
there was no deciphering where you left off and I began
[I was beautiful because of you].
We created our own language
[I’ve asked
not one of us now remember the words]
just the catch of eye explosive laughter/
forever within our private world.
We were electric/a current
always/humming/vibrating
only functioning when complete
each
counting on the next
do not
do not
let go.
We saw ourselves
larger than life
while
mining coat pockets
and bottoms of backpacks
for loose change
[five dollars bought us dinner/a plate of fries
& coca cola]
that was enough
we were full on each other’s dreams.
I have a polaroid
taken in the deep of Boston winter
we crowd together and smile
one almost indistinguishable from the next
[all these years later we have faded]
I squint to see
was that you
or me
at the front
smiling/
& so impossibly young?
Remember:
you called at 4am
& Jackie and me
we headed to you
through snow and stinging wind
confounding the nurses [they had no need for our brood]
we circled you calling your son into this world
and Legga:
bomber jacket zipped tight to cover growing mound of flesh/
we snuck out of biology
to smoke cigarettes
she/balanced on edge of rail
blowing smoke rings
that I scattered with lazy hand/bored
it was just a game
[we/so amused that no teachers had even guessed]
a tiny thing, just four pounds
we took turns holding her at graduation
and you Emily,
remember how I called
and you came at once
catching last plane from New York
the pilot holding on runway/
you like wind through concourse
taking off to a round of applause
arriving in time
to call my son into this world?
I was in shock when
one
by
one
you drifted
[you had named me
most courageous
always ready to leap]
the truth is
I was afraid
I was heartbroken/
had not anticipated
that this love could end
I had no idea how to live without you.
This is your love letter
there is so much I owe you
[can we ever repay the debts of our youth]
I have not forgotten the safety of your eyes/
the steady presence of you
your loyalty
the sound of your laughter entwined as one.
I release you now:
I am no longer afraid
I am no longer afraid.
those who shared
makeshift beds
in
apartments /bare of furniture
but
full of laughter.
Those who helped fashion toy chest
of diaper boxes
in shared room/a communal nursery.
Those who remember that five dollars bought us dinner/a plate of fries
& coca cola
crowded cross tables/
edges of straws kissed deep red/
it was enough.
Remember:
that attic apartment
it was always too hot/
or
too cold
&
there were too many stairs up &
too many roaches
& the boys shooting guns in mozart park
kept us up at night
but
it felt like home.
This is for you:
Girl-warriors
armored
with black eyeliner, tight jeans
and attitude
[we] like gazelles
lept as one
across tar black streets/
fragile beauty
slicing the air
skipping
through subway corridors/
wild & loud
our eyes always on each other
we/were
we were everything.
You must remember night
if left to silence
we battled fear of
dark
and
curled
three to a bed
[twin-sized mattress on the floor]
whispering secrets
not yet swallowing regret.
You/
a makeshift family
a fortress
holding off
Self-doubt
and [private] despair
[curled three to a bed].
[I should have said]
you were so fucking beautiful
all of you
[we were so young]
there was no deciphering where you left off and I began
[I was beautiful because of you].
We created our own language
[I’ve asked
not one of us now remember the words]
just the catch of eye explosive laughter/
forever within our private world.
We were electric/a current
always/humming/vibrating
only functioning when complete
each
counting on the next
do not
do not
let go.
We saw ourselves
larger than life
while
mining coat pockets
and bottoms of backpacks
for loose change
[five dollars bought us dinner/a plate of fries
& coca cola]
that was enough
we were full on each other’s dreams.
I have a polaroid
taken in the deep of Boston winter
we crowd together and smile
one almost indistinguishable from the next
[all these years later we have faded]
I squint to see
was that you
or me
at the front
smiling/
& so impossibly young?
Remember:
you called at 4am
& Jackie and me
we headed to you
through snow and stinging wind
confounding the nurses [they had no need for our brood]
we circled you calling your son into this world
and Legga:
bomber jacket zipped tight to cover growing mound of flesh/
we snuck out of biology
to smoke cigarettes
she/balanced on edge of rail
blowing smoke rings
that I scattered with lazy hand/bored
it was just a game
[we/so amused that no teachers had even guessed]
a tiny thing, just four pounds
we took turns holding her at graduation
and you Emily,
remember how I called
and you came at once
catching last plane from New York
the pilot holding on runway/
you like wind through concourse
taking off to a round of applause
arriving in time
to call my son into this world?
I was in shock when
one
by
one
you drifted
[you had named me
most courageous
always ready to leap]
the truth is
I was afraid
I was heartbroken/
had not anticipated
that this love could end
I had no idea how to live without you.
This is your love letter
there is so much I owe you
[can we ever repay the debts of our youth]
I have not forgotten the safety of your eyes/
the steady presence of you
your loyalty
the sound of your laughter entwined as one.
I release you now:
I am no longer afraid
I am no longer afraid.
Art
"African Ballet Dancer"
By Monique Harris
By Monique Harris
"African Sunflower"
By Monique Harris
By Monique Harris
"Dreamscape"
By Shanell Kitt
By Shanell Kitt
"Imagination"
By Jennifer Armstrong
By Jennifer Armstrong
"Jas is Healing"
By Vayunamu Bawa
By Vayunamu Bawa
"Marley is Healing"
By Vayunamu Bawa
By Vayunamu Bawa
"Rainy Day"
By Verneda Lights
By Verneda Lights
"Saved by the Message"
By Shanell Kitt
By Shanell Kitt
"Self Portrait"
By Jennifer Armstrong
By Jennifer Armstrong
"Sunday Morning"
By Jennifer Armstrong
By Jennifer Armstrong
"Surrender"
By Pietra Dunmore
By Pietra Dunmore
"The Dance"
By Jennifer Armstrong
By Jennifer Armstrong
"The Glow of the Night"
By Shiela Scott
By Shiela Scott
"Waiting"
By Jennifer Armstrong
By Jennifer Armstrong
"Wings"
By Shanell Kitt
By Shanell Kitt
Reviews
Book Reviews
|
Semiautomatic
by Evie Shockley Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017 111 pp. Paperback The brutal executions of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery were just a few examples of the systemic racism that permeates the United States in 2020, but Evie Shockley’s Semiautomatic was putting forward a nuanced discussion about these—and many other issues affecting Black, feminine, poor, and/or abused people—back in 2017, which serves as a poignant reminder that these atrocities of justice have been raging on for much longer than one crappy year. This is a book that showcases heartbreaking moments of hopelessness and frustration. It unflinchingly portrays feelings of claustrophobia, paranoia, and fear—all of which hampers the development and expression of Black joy. It also discusses the commodification and exchange of female bodies, which does warrant placing a trigger warning on this book for those sensitive to prostitution and/or sex trafficking.
However, while much of the text is centered around these unpleasant truths, one of the greatest surprises in this collection is how exceptionally varied the pieces are in their subject, form, and style—which makes each poem feel like a unique aspect of an overarching narrative. From nutritional facts about what “makes little girls,” to disjointed words discussing the Fukushima tsunami, the book never feels bound to a single subject. This may come off as disjointed or unfocused to some readers, but I feel that everything works together to showcase the wildly chaotic nature of the world. There is a voice—or perhaps it is more accurate to say a tone of timeless authority—present throughout, one which seems to stand amongst a surging crowd and sees all the beauty and injustice of the world with unblinking accuracy. In her poem, “supply and demand,” Shockley writes that “most people don’t know how to save black boys. / black boys don’t grow on trees” . . . which is deeply disturbing when one remembers America’s history of cultivating “strange fruit.” While not all of the works featured in this book express sorrow, it is difficult to walk away from the book and not find yourself musing over certain-hard hitting moments. For example, in the poem “keep your eye on” there is this line: “trayvonimartinmjordanpdaviserenisharmcbrideimichaelabrownlism.” At first glance, this may appear as a simple jumble of letters, but upon reading between the lines you’ll realize that the word imperialism is threaded through the names of Black murder victims. The string of letters comes off as initially overwhelming and confusing, but once you open your perception, you begin to see the hidden message beneath, which is a wonderfully clever analogy for deciphering institutionalized American racism. This is merely one of the more straightforward examples of Shockley’s outstandingly clever writing style, a single line pulled from a remarkable poem. There is a density to her work that demands the poems be read and re-read repeatedly. Shockley also demonstrates a comprehensive awareness of supplementary material and often creates widely intelligent juxtapositions. One of the longest pieces, “Sex Trafficking Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in the USA (or, The Nation’s Plague in Plain Sight,)” is composed entirely of excerpts from Chapter X of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs and from “Sex Trafficking in the USA” by Yamiche Alcindor. It is difficult not to feel that you are being confronted by something larger than yourself, a presence that looms over the world and sees everything with a clarity that can only be expressed through the lens of Shockley’s wit. As is probably obvious by now, I was quite overwhelmed at times and consistently struggled to wrap my head around everything being expressed. These pieces are simply layered with so much good stuff that attempting to take it all in at once may leave you reeling or with a nagging sensation that there is even more undiscovered subtext. This is all to say that Semiautomatic is an utterly fantastic book of poetry, one that jams its fist into America’s chest, yanks out its damaged and corrupted heart, and asks the reader: “why wasn’t this heart filled with love instead of hate? Aren’t we better than this? Will we ever be better than this?” with the answers left for us to decide. Bravo Evie Shockley, bravo! — Jarred White California State University, Stanislaus |
FIlm Reviews
|
Antebellum (2020)
Directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz Antebellum was only released in September of this year, yet it’s already made a big splash. Directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, the film is a commentary on the evils of racism, and its characters struggle with the desire to speak out against their oppression. This movie’s trailer hints at time travel and horror; the film leaves viewers amazed at the impressive visuals and acting and encouraged by its anti-racist message.
The film begins the story on a plantation in Louisiana. We see a young Black woman known as Eden who has found herself working as a slave during wartime as inferred by the sound of cannons in the background and the military unit stationed near the plantation. The audience is unsure exactly how Eden’s gotten there, but they do know that the general of the military unit has taken a special interest in her. She’s forced to share a cabin and bed with him when he visits the plantation, and she and the other slaves are subjected to hard labor and swift punishments for any rule breaking. The most significant rule—don’t speak unless given permission to do so. The plot takes a sudden twist when Eden wakes up in an expensive apartment in modern time. In this time though, she’s Veronica Henley, a well-known sociologist and American History expert. She travels to a conference where she speaks about her newest book and the lingering challenges for people, especially women, of color. She urges the women at her presentation to be fearless in speaking up for themselves and others, a challenge made that much more difficult when Veronica ends up on the plantation. Janelle Monáe plays the lead role(s) of Eden and Veronica. As the movie progresses, we slowly realize that the two are one and the same. The plight and abuse Veronica and the other slaves experience on the plantation already elicits a visceral reaction from viewers. It is magnified once we realize that Veronica is experiencing these horrors with the foreknowledge that there’s a better world out there somewhere. By juxtaposing this strong female character as she is in modern Louisiana, speaking out against racism and to promote Black women’s empowerment, with her time as a slave on the plantation, the movie makes a clear statement about how outdated and ugly the racist worldviews are of the soldiers and plantation owners. Monáe does an excellent job portraying Veronica, seamlessly shifting between the outspoken and strong sociologist and activist, and the abused but fearless slave determined to rebel even in a system built to keep her down. Janelle Monáe has even made comments in interviews saying that she was drawn to this role because of her character Veronica and the movie’s agenda to combat racism and start a dialogue. The one complaint viewers could make is for the rapidity with which the film passes through Veronica’s time on the plantation to when she makes her attempt at escape. There is not a lot of build up or signs that time has passed; the audience must make that assumption. Even so, the film’s pacing stays balanced between scenes filled with action and those that allow us to slowly understand the upcoming plot twist. Though this film expects such work from its viewers, it more than makes up for that with the vibrant images that both take your breath away and inspire a dialogue about racism and inequality. There are a number of striking shots in the film, one being a slow shot of Veronica marching with a lit torch while walking away from her defeated tormentors. Viewers will find themselves in awe of the strength and grit Monáe’s character displays to overcome her situation, and will hopefully find themselves discussing with friends and family the remnants of racism still haunting our country today. This movie opens up a dialogue desperately relevant in our present moment. It’s an excellent film for anyone looking for a movie that keeps its viewers captivated, inspires them to reflect and challenge their opinions and understanding, and showcases a talented cast that highlights Black female actors. — Hannah Neeley California State University, Stanislaus |
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Mudbound (2017): The Inescapable Quagmire of Racism and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Directed by Dee Rees and co-written with Virgil Williams Mudbound is a drama written and directed by Dee Rees, with Virgil Williams acting as a co-writer. Based on the novel of the same name by Hillary Jordan, this film explores the relationship between two Veterans, one black and one white, returning from World War II to rural Mississippi. The narrative arcs are split four ways, two broad and two narrower. One of the main plot lines focuses on the McAllan family, a white family that buys a farm in rural Mississippi with tenant farmers, an evolution of the sharecropper in which the poorer families do not own the land they are working. The other family is the Jacksons, tenant farmers on this same farm. The subplots follow Jaime McAllan, a man who becomes a pilot, and Ronsel Jackson, who becomes a tank commander. This sets the tone of dual narratives inside dual narratives which, creatively, creates a duality that the characters themselves experience.
Rees starts the film with a grave digging followed by a burial, and the film cuts back from there. This style of direction, having one of the last scenes appear in short in the beginning of the film, causes the viewer to question how they arrive at that scene, acting as a fantastic plot hook. Throughout the film, we cut between the families when they are facing similar woes. Both Ronsel and Jaime return from the war and experience rejection, Ronsel from the city of Marietta and his landlords, and Jaime from his racist father. Conversely, the town seems to accept Jaime at first, and Ronsel’s family is thrilled to have him back. Ronsel and Jaime meet in town after a car backfires, triggering a Post Traumatic reaction from Jaime which Ronsel witnesses; Ronsel offers platitudes to console Jaime, thus starting their budding friendship. The film follows their growing friendship based on mutual respect and shared trauma all the while their families are at disparate odds. The Jacksons want to move off of the property and become landowners, escaping from this unfair and racist situation by being independent. The McCallans, specifically Henry, the Husband of the family, and Pappy, the excessively racist grandfather, constantly clash by making demands of the Jacksons’ time and services outside of the typical tenant-landlord relationship. By framing the conflict this way, Rees showcases a growing respect between unlikely friends while also documenting the growing discontent between the two families, which ultimately comes to conflict. When we finally return to the penultimate grave digging scene, we can feel a tension between the two groups of characters that was only hinted at before. Rees masterfully crafts the relationship between Ronsel and Jaime, both of them bonding over stories of their fallen friends. At first, Ronsel is suspicious of Jaime, as in Marietta, Mississippi, it is very out of character for a white man to befriend a black man. Ronsel, however, knows he cannot be too contrary and so slowly builds up to questioning Jaime. Throughout this film the racism of the characters is explicit, and so overcoming not only an absence of racism but even a growing respect between two characters who, contemporarily, should have been unfriendly at best is a hard feat to pull off, but Rees manages to do so. You witness throughout the film a genuine friendship form, and this friendship supersedes the pressures put on the characters by the culture within which they exist. Rees’s film evokes strong emotions and is very relevant in today’s political and cultural climate. Recently, the political divide in the country has seemingly gotten worse, and this film can be said to mimic this divide. By showing two characters overcoming this, specifically characters from opposing families in a tenant-landlord relationship based on sharecropping, Rees promotes a powerful message that we are not defined by our families or cultures. Mudbound seems to say if these two men from such diametrically opposed backgrounds can overcome hatred, maybe the rest of us can as well. — Bo Locke California State University, Stanislaus |
Music Reviews
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I Used to Know Her (2019)
Released by singer-songwriter H.E.R. The 2019 album of singer songwriter H.E.R. I Used to Know Her combines music from prior E.P.s, expanded interludes, and added songs to make up this 19-song full-length project. With an album cover consisting of her holding up a frame of a polaroid of her adult self looking over the shoulder of herself as a child, the album's storytelling even flows through its cover art.
The album opens with the track “Lost Souls” featuring DJ Scratch, and the fact that Lauryn Hill is a writer on it can be distinctly heard stylistically through the beats and backing vocals underscoring everything, along with the rapping and singing performance. The message of the song resonates as well from lyrics such as “what you gonna leave with your legacy, it’s like we don’t believe in longevity” and “a lost soul can’t lead the people,” reflecting the time it was released while continuing to stay relevant. Next comes “Fate” with a slower R&B style that holds a more haunting melody from the piano. H.E.R.’s strong vocals are drawn to the forefront along with the church choir like backup vocals in a manner that reverberates like the strings early on. This song reflects in a more personal manner as she questions herself and what she controls. “Carried Away” bounces back to upbeat guitar riffs and a chilled-out tone giving more lines listeners can easily connect to about being carried away in relationships. The next song “Going” feels like it could be a continuation as she goes into all she can really give when focusing on her own life. Flowing down into the song “Be On My Way,” the echoes in the backdrop of the music produce a sense of not just leaving, but leaving an empty space behind. The lines “I’ll be on my way / I’m no good if I stay” echo in the same way. The transition from this song into “Can’t Help Me” drives those stresses home as she sings about not recognizing herself in the moment. Entering the song “Something Keeps Pulling Me Back,” the track is back to more solid beats being tapped out behind the lyrics. There is a steady pumping drawing the listener into the song and pulling on their senses. Building up on that style comes “Feel A Way” which fades more tones into those beats while folding in more sensation from H.E.R.’s lyrics. “21” carries on the 90’s R&B style from the opening track and combines with the style of the other songs of the album, once again mixing more of a rap, singing style. H.E.R.’s contemplation of herself at 21 fits in well with the album's representation of her story. “Racks” featuring YBN Cordae keeps up the tale of that time mixing with the introduction of fame and money. As the album slides into the song “I’m Not OK,” slow piano is reintroduced into the beat-based backing drawing out the emotion of separation and slipping away. The follow up of “Against Me” re-affirms her sense of feeling lost internally. The airing of the issues is drawn forth once more in “Could’ve Been” featuring Bryson Tiller as she almost reminisces and contemplates what was done in the past and possibilities that were not the reality. From there comes “Good To Me,” one of the longest songs on the album at a little over 7 minutes as the lines of questioning come forward. The end of this song has her speaking out about her thought process and where things are taking her back to as she writes. “Take You There” layers her voice over itself, making the lyrics reverberate in the listeners mind and taking them into the sensations being painted, almost like they are being put into the place of another. Then “As I Am” raises the tempo back up as she feels herself in the song in a way that the listener cannot help but to move along with. As the album begins to close out with the last three songs, “Hard Place” leaves the listener just as absorbed in H.E.R.’s experiences as she herself seems to be. “Uninvited” backed by strings carries an intimacy into the song that provides a sense of listening in that couples incredibly well with the way the album exposes more and more how H.E.R. communicates her thoughts and life. Closing out the album lies “Lord Is Coming,” featuring YBN Cordae whose opening comes across almost like slam poetry, directly expanding on the message of the time introduced in the opening track. As she starts singing, the music reflects the biblical imagery of trying to come out over the damage building up in the country. The storytelling of this album beautifully exposes in detail how she sees the world and her life with a musicality that resonates wholeheartedly with the listener. — Essence Saunders California State University, Stanislaus |
Interviews
Author Interview with Linda Trice, PhD
By Mo Gudino
By Mo Gudino
A note from Linda
WHO AM I?
I write fiction and nonfiction for adults and young people.
I received my BA in history from Howard University, a MFA from the Writing Division of Columbia University, a PhD from the Center for Minority Studies, and a JD from Brooklyn Law School.
I taught lower grades in public schools in New York, Connecticut and Washington, DC and undergraduate and graduate students at Trinity College (CT), Lincoln University (PA), City University of New York and the State University of New York.
*******
Linda Trice courteously agreed to the following author interview with PenumbraOnline, which took place via email in December of 2020.
On creative process and writing:
Q: Does any of your inspiration come from children’s literature you read or that your parents read to you?
A: I was born and raised in New York City. As a young child I could find no books about people who lived in cities until I discovered A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN and LYLE THE CROCODILE. I embraced those books.
I read Robert Lawson’s BEN AND ME when I was a child. It was my introduction to historical fiction. I was amazed and delighted when I realized that an author could take a real character and add fiction.
Several of my historical fiction stories for young people have been published. You can read some on my website: www.LindaTrice.com
Sadly, a few of the library books I read when I was a child had negative, racist images of Black people. I remember the hurt I felt then and try to dispel that ignorance as I write for any age.
Q: How do you decide on subject matter for each of Kenya’s stories?
A: One of the questions authors are asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” I’ve been asked that question so much. I recently used it to create a humorous short story. A literary journal, Crack the Spine, will publish the story next year.
Let me give you another example of how I got an idea for a short story.
When I go to a new place, whether it is for a few years or for a few weeks, I read up on the history of the area, especially its Black History.
I am a native New Yorker but spent a few years in Sarasota, Florida. The history of the Seminole people of Florida intrigued me.
Enslaved Black people living in some of the Southern states escaped to Florida where they were sheltered by the Seminole. Some of them married and had babies by the Seminole. When the Seminole refused to give their Black children to the slave owners, enraged Southerners convinced the United States government to invade Florida which was then controlled by Spain.
Florida is also known for legends of the Swamp Ape, the Bermuda Triangle and other paranormal tales. I decided to combine Seminole history and some Florida supernatural myths into a story, "REMOVAL AT SEMINOLE MOUND." It was recently published in Penumbra.
Q: Your website states that you hold a Ph.D in Black Studies and that you were a Fellow at multiple artist colonies. How does your educational history inform Kenya’s book series?
A: I was a history major at Howard University, the historically Black university that produced our new vice president Kamala Harris, Toni Morrison, Chadwick Boseman and many Black achievers.
When I was a student at Howard, African countries were getting their independence from European countries. One of the first was Kenya. That inspired many Black people in the United States to name their children Kenya.
One of the things we learned at Howard was about the beauty, intelligence and strength of our people. I try to carry those lessons into my writing.
We learned too that our people lived in many countries. My Black classmates were from Canada, South America, the Caribbean and Africa.
Q: Kenya’s Song and Kenya’s Art have wonderful illustrations by Pamela Johnson and Hazel Mitchell, respectively, that amplify the beauty of the messages therein. Do you have a particular art style in mind for particular stories, or do you collaborate with artists in some other way?
A: When I write biographies and other nonfiction works for ages 9-12, I submit photographs that will help the reader understand the times, the characters, etc.
My picture books and short stories for ages 4-9 are illustrated by professional artists. For this age group, publishers expect the writer will also include a “dummy” with the submission of the text.
A dummy gives the artist an idea of illustrations the author thinks will be good for the book. According to author Lisa Cinelli, “A picture book dummy is a three-dimensional work-in-progress to organize the text, illustrations, pacing and rhythm as a prototype for the final, published picture book.”
Q: Both books feature a diverse cast of characters from many different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Kenya learns the music and dance of other cultures in Kenya’s Song, and Kenya shares experiences with her multicultural classroom in Kenya’s Art. How does race inform your creative decisions as you write?
In my picture book for ages 4-10, Kenya’s Song, my character Kenya learns the music and dance of various Black cultures.
I hope readers of Kenya’s Song will understand that all Black people are not the same. We come from different cultures, experiences, etc. In Kenya’s Song, I concentrated on people of West Indian and Caribbean ancestries. In the United States, many of them are often called Black.
The characters in Kenya’s Song speak different languages, have different dances but in many ways are culturally united. One is that their ancestors came from Africa.
I interviewed elderly people from the Caribbean as part of my research for Kenya’s Song. All of them said, “Linda, remember, it all begins with the drum.”
Q: How do you hope readers of various backgrounds will respond to Kenya’s loving, Black family and her culture?
A: I hope to dispel negative and foolish beliefs about Black families through my KENYA books. I want to show that Black families, like many families in the United States eat meals with each other and in many ways enjoy spending time with each other.
In KENYA’S ART for instance, we see Kenya’s family doing crafts together as they try to find ways to recycle toys and other objects in their home.
On Kenya’s Song and Kenya’s Art:
Q: Although readers frequently see Kenya interact with family and friends, Kenya’s Song and Kenya’s Art both distinctly feature tender moments between father and daughter. In the stories, Kenya’s father joins her on her whirlwind adventures and helps her find her passions. Why do you find it so important to emphasize father-daughter relationships in these stories in particular?
A: In KENYA’S ART and KENYA’S SONG, I show the strong bond Kenya and her father have. I hope adults who read the books to children will understand that many Black men are devoted to their families and enjoy spending time with them.
.
The Father –Daughter bond is important in a young girl’s life. Some social scientists believe it gives little girls a template of how males should treat her as she grows older. The relationship teaches her that she is smart, capable, cherished, protected and loved.
My friend, psychotherapist Lurline Aslanian, L.C.S.W., told me that the Father –Daughter bond gives a girl the confidence to be herself, to enjoy and flourish in being herself, and to use her voice.
She said that Black girls, especially, need to be able to learn to speak up when something does not feel right, when there are micro aggressions and when there is discrimination or injustice. The close connection with her father's strength and support for her provides a substantial foundation for living freely and successfully in a world that may not always appreciate her.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about Kenya’s Song, Kenya’s Art, you, or any other projects you have in the works?
A: The book I am working on now is WHEN CHARLOTTE FORTEN MET HARRIET TUBMAN AT THE PORT ROYAL EXPERIMENT, THE SUN CAME LIKE GOLD THROUGH THE TREES. It is a nonfiction book for adults and young adults.
THE PORT ROYAL EXPERIMENT is a part of Civil War history that few know. Both Charlotte Forten, a wealthy Black abolitionist and Harriet Tubman helped newly freed people on South Carolina’s Sea Islands while the Civil War was raging around them. The American government asked Harriet Tubman to go there as a spy. She was paid as a secret agent.
People who saw HARRIET, the recent movie about Tubman or Denzel Washington’s movie, GLORY, will recognize some of the historical characters.
I hope readers will understand the diversity of the Black experience better through this book and much of my published writing.
THANK YOU!
Thank you, again, to Linda Trice for agreeing to this interview with PenumbraOnline. If you haven't already, check out her works and look forward to more from her in the future.
WHO AM I?
I write fiction and nonfiction for adults and young people.
I received my BA in history from Howard University, a MFA from the Writing Division of Columbia University, a PhD from the Center for Minority Studies, and a JD from Brooklyn Law School.
I taught lower grades in public schools in New York, Connecticut and Washington, DC and undergraduate and graduate students at Trinity College (CT), Lincoln University (PA), City University of New York and the State University of New York.
*******
Linda Trice courteously agreed to the following author interview with PenumbraOnline, which took place via email in December of 2020.
On creative process and writing:
Q: Does any of your inspiration come from children’s literature you read or that your parents read to you?
A: I was born and raised in New York City. As a young child I could find no books about people who lived in cities until I discovered A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN and LYLE THE CROCODILE. I embraced those books.
I read Robert Lawson’s BEN AND ME when I was a child. It was my introduction to historical fiction. I was amazed and delighted when I realized that an author could take a real character and add fiction.
Several of my historical fiction stories for young people have been published. You can read some on my website: www.LindaTrice.com
Sadly, a few of the library books I read when I was a child had negative, racist images of Black people. I remember the hurt I felt then and try to dispel that ignorance as I write for any age.
Q: How do you decide on subject matter for each of Kenya’s stories?
A: One of the questions authors are asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” I’ve been asked that question so much. I recently used it to create a humorous short story. A literary journal, Crack the Spine, will publish the story next year.
Let me give you another example of how I got an idea for a short story.
When I go to a new place, whether it is for a few years or for a few weeks, I read up on the history of the area, especially its Black History.
I am a native New Yorker but spent a few years in Sarasota, Florida. The history of the Seminole people of Florida intrigued me.
Enslaved Black people living in some of the Southern states escaped to Florida where they were sheltered by the Seminole. Some of them married and had babies by the Seminole. When the Seminole refused to give their Black children to the slave owners, enraged Southerners convinced the United States government to invade Florida which was then controlled by Spain.
Florida is also known for legends of the Swamp Ape, the Bermuda Triangle and other paranormal tales. I decided to combine Seminole history and some Florida supernatural myths into a story, "REMOVAL AT SEMINOLE MOUND." It was recently published in Penumbra.
Q: Your website states that you hold a Ph.D in Black Studies and that you were a Fellow at multiple artist colonies. How does your educational history inform Kenya’s book series?
A: I was a history major at Howard University, the historically Black university that produced our new vice president Kamala Harris, Toni Morrison, Chadwick Boseman and many Black achievers.
When I was a student at Howard, African countries were getting their independence from European countries. One of the first was Kenya. That inspired many Black people in the United States to name their children Kenya.
One of the things we learned at Howard was about the beauty, intelligence and strength of our people. I try to carry those lessons into my writing.
We learned too that our people lived in many countries. My Black classmates were from Canada, South America, the Caribbean and Africa.
Q: Kenya’s Song and Kenya’s Art have wonderful illustrations by Pamela Johnson and Hazel Mitchell, respectively, that amplify the beauty of the messages therein. Do you have a particular art style in mind for particular stories, or do you collaborate with artists in some other way?
A: When I write biographies and other nonfiction works for ages 9-12, I submit photographs that will help the reader understand the times, the characters, etc.
My picture books and short stories for ages 4-9 are illustrated by professional artists. For this age group, publishers expect the writer will also include a “dummy” with the submission of the text.
A dummy gives the artist an idea of illustrations the author thinks will be good for the book. According to author Lisa Cinelli, “A picture book dummy is a three-dimensional work-in-progress to organize the text, illustrations, pacing and rhythm as a prototype for the final, published picture book.”
Q: Both books feature a diverse cast of characters from many different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Kenya learns the music and dance of other cultures in Kenya’s Song, and Kenya shares experiences with her multicultural classroom in Kenya’s Art. How does race inform your creative decisions as you write?
In my picture book for ages 4-10, Kenya’s Song, my character Kenya learns the music and dance of various Black cultures.
I hope readers of Kenya’s Song will understand that all Black people are not the same. We come from different cultures, experiences, etc. In Kenya’s Song, I concentrated on people of West Indian and Caribbean ancestries. In the United States, many of them are often called Black.
The characters in Kenya’s Song speak different languages, have different dances but in many ways are culturally united. One is that their ancestors came from Africa.
I interviewed elderly people from the Caribbean as part of my research for Kenya’s Song. All of them said, “Linda, remember, it all begins with the drum.”
Q: How do you hope readers of various backgrounds will respond to Kenya’s loving, Black family and her culture?
A: I hope to dispel negative and foolish beliefs about Black families through my KENYA books. I want to show that Black families, like many families in the United States eat meals with each other and in many ways enjoy spending time with each other.
In KENYA’S ART for instance, we see Kenya’s family doing crafts together as they try to find ways to recycle toys and other objects in their home.
On Kenya’s Song and Kenya’s Art:
Q: Although readers frequently see Kenya interact with family and friends, Kenya’s Song and Kenya’s Art both distinctly feature tender moments between father and daughter. In the stories, Kenya’s father joins her on her whirlwind adventures and helps her find her passions. Why do you find it so important to emphasize father-daughter relationships in these stories in particular?
A: In KENYA’S ART and KENYA’S SONG, I show the strong bond Kenya and her father have. I hope adults who read the books to children will understand that many Black men are devoted to their families and enjoy spending time with them.
.
The Father –Daughter bond is important in a young girl’s life. Some social scientists believe it gives little girls a template of how males should treat her as she grows older. The relationship teaches her that she is smart, capable, cherished, protected and loved.
My friend, psychotherapist Lurline Aslanian, L.C.S.W., told me that the Father –Daughter bond gives a girl the confidence to be herself, to enjoy and flourish in being herself, and to use her voice.
She said that Black girls, especially, need to be able to learn to speak up when something does not feel right, when there are micro aggressions and when there is discrimination or injustice. The close connection with her father's strength and support for her provides a substantial foundation for living freely and successfully in a world that may not always appreciate her.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about Kenya’s Song, Kenya’s Art, you, or any other projects you have in the works?
A: The book I am working on now is WHEN CHARLOTTE FORTEN MET HARRIET TUBMAN AT THE PORT ROYAL EXPERIMENT, THE SUN CAME LIKE GOLD THROUGH THE TREES. It is a nonfiction book for adults and young adults.
THE PORT ROYAL EXPERIMENT is a part of Civil War history that few know. Both Charlotte Forten, a wealthy Black abolitionist and Harriet Tubman helped newly freed people on South Carolina’s Sea Islands while the Civil War was raging around them. The American government asked Harriet Tubman to go there as a spy. She was paid as a secret agent.
People who saw HARRIET, the recent movie about Tubman or Denzel Washington’s movie, GLORY, will recognize some of the historical characters.
I hope readers will understand the diversity of the Black experience better through this book and much of my published writing.
THANK YOU!
Thank you, again, to Linda Trice for agreeing to this interview with PenumbraOnline. If you haven't already, check out her works and look forward to more from her in the future.
Author Interview with Lisa Braxton
By Jessica Charest
By Jessica Charest
Lisa Braxton is a writer based in Boston, Massachusetts, best known for her debut novel, The Talking Drum, which was published in May 2020. She has also published short fiction and nonfiction in various literary journals in the past, including PenumbraOnline's Summer 2020 edition. She courteously agreed to the following author interview with PenumbraOnline, which took place via email in November of 2020.
Q: In terms of writing in general, are there any authors who have inspired you over the years on your path to becoming a novelist?
A: There are many authors who have inspired me. My favorite novel from childhood is Little Women, which I read when I was 9 years old. Louisa May Alcott’s story about the four March sisters and how they went about their lives on their own terms evoked so many emotions in me as I read that I said to myself that I wanted to provide readers with those same emotional experiences. At a young age I set about writing my own stories and got much encouragement from my family. Later on, I discovered Langston Hughes. So many of his short stories resonated with me. Some actually made me cry, they were so powerful. James Baldwin is another of my favorite authors whose work I find inspirational.
Q: Every author has their own process while writing. What did your typical writing routine look like while working on your novel? Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?
A: I had no typical routine. I wrote wherever and whenever I had a moment. I was working full-time while writing The Talking Drum. Sometimes I would stop at the shopping mall on the way to work and write for about an hour in the food court. Then I would write at lunchtime at my desk, do my workout at the gym after work and write at the library on my way home. On Saturdays, I would carve out 3 to 4 hours at the library for writing or at home. If I had time, I would also write for a couple of hours on Sunday evenings. If you were to ask me about any of the television shows popular from 2008 to 2012, I probably wouldn’t know what you were talking about. I watched almost no television during that time to prioritize my writing.
Q: On your website, lisabraxton.com, you explain that much of your inspiration for your debut novel, The Talking Drum, comes from your parents’ story owning a clothing store and dealing with redevelopment in their neighborhood. What does it mean to you to have been able to draw upon the experiences of close family members? Drawing from such personal experiences, were there any scenes that were more difficult to write than others?
A: It meant having my parents be part of my dream of becoming a novelist. It meant having them unwittingly give me consultation on making my novel as realistic as possible. My mother passed away in October, so having her experience help to inspire The Talking Drum means that a part of her will always be with me in the form of the book. One scene that was difficult to write because it was painful based on watching my parents operate the business together, was the scene in which Sydney has reservations about renting out the basement apartment to the older couple. She thinks that their references should be checked. However, Malachi, her husband, bulldozes over her and listens to his best friend, Kwame. I witnessed my mother trying to have her voice be heard regarding business decisions with the clothing store, only to have my father do things his way, which led to some big mistakes and setbacks for the business and their relationship.
Q: The Talking Drum is filled with a variety of characters including upstanding citizens, arsonists, con-artists, and individuals trying to overcome painful pasts. Yet you’ve done an excellent job of giving each character their own distinct voice and personality. How did you approach creating your characters?
A: The story’s plot laid out for me the situations each character faced based on the larger issues of the fires and the planned demolition of the Petite Africa neighborhood. But their inner struggles were drawn from the experiences of people around me and research I did. For example, I had to do quite a bit of research to create my Senegalese drummer, Omar. I read the biographies of African drummers who emigrated to the United States during the late 1950s and 1960s to get a sense of what their lives were like in their home countries and their impressions of the United States and also the impressions Americans had of them. In addition, I took drumming lessons from a master drummer from West Africa. Some of his demeanor, confidence, cockiness and swagger ended up in Omar and Omar’s best friend and “frenemy,” fellow drummer Khadim.
Q: Which character was the most challenging for you to write, and why?
A: Sydney was the most challenging to write because she was so much like me and my mother. She was a composite of the both of us. It’s challenging to create a character who is like yourself because you can’t step outside of yourself to see yourself in all of your dimensions. Because Sydney also shared some of my mother’s characteristics, I struggled not to make her too nice and give her a generous amount of flaws and foibles to make her interesting.
Q: Which character did you enjoy writing about the most?
A: Kwame. He’s a mover and shaker in town, has the ear of the mayor, a jack of all trades, property owner who flips properties and also owns a record store. But we know he has another layer to him. He’s slick. We know he’s scheming. We don’t know if we can trust him, but he’s so charming.
Q: In your novel, we meet Mustapha Mendy, an immigrant from Senegal, as well as a restaurant owner and activist. He plays a key role in the story as a community leader respected by the majority of people who meet him. Which qualities would you say he possesses that are particularly important to solid leadership? What trait about Mustapha did you find most admirable?
A: Mustapha is a “salt of the earth” kind of person. Family is important to him. His wife has died and he keeps a framed picture of her on his bedroom bureau. She is forever in his heart. His nephew, his grandchildren, his goddaughter are his life. The people of Petite Africa consider him the “mayor” of their neighborhood. He is a father figure to the community who would help anyone who came to him for assistance, and that is to be admired.
Q: A major theme throughout your novel depicts the importance of family and community staying strong together in difficult times. It also expresses the pain of seeing some characters focus on the individual, betraying that sense of community. How important has community been to you throughout your life?
A: My parents instilled in me the importance of community at an early age. My parents were part of The Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North. They left rural Virginia for Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1956. They knew few people in Bridgeport--my father had sisters in the area--and had to start pretty much from scratch to build community. There were only certain neighborhoods where African Americans could easily move at that time, and as a result, they established community early on with many of their African American neighbors. They joined a church, got involved in church ministries, joined business and professional clubs, civil rights groups, and charitable organizations. When we were children my parents got my sister and me involved in groups as well, and sometimes we accompanied them to various fundraisers, galas, banquets and dinners, which instilled in us the importance of community. I am active in my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, of which Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris is a member, president of the Greater Boston Section of the National Council of Negro Women, Boston Chapter of the Women’s National Book Association, Boston Association of Black Journalists, and Women’s Fiction Writer's Association. I’m also a member of a church and participate in Bible study.
Q: Toward the end of the novel, we see Sydney and Malachi expressing their concerns for the future of their business and the neighborhood. Malachi’s perspective seems more optimistic, claiming that the community will support their own, while Sydney’s perspective is slightly more skeptical. If you could meet these characters and speak to them, what would you say about their concerns?
A: I would not say anything to Malachi because he has the right to have the opinions he has based on his 1970s perspective. I would not tell him that in time there would be more integration, which would present challenges for black-owned businesses. Once people could shop anywhere they wanted, they would have more choices, leading to black-owned businesses being neglected and suffering. Malachi seems to think that black people will only purchase books by and about black people from a bookstore like The Talking Drum Bookstore and Cultural Center. But he of course would have no knowledge of the big box bookstores of the future and Amazon.com and other online booksellers. I wouldn’t want to pierce his optimism. However, I would applaud Sydney’s skepticism and encourage her to watch industry trends and plan to grow and allow the business to evolve based on societal shifts.
Q: In writing, authors often have to revise or remove some scenes. Were there any scenes that did not make it into the novel that you were particularly attached to or any scenes that changed radically from the first time you imagined them by the final draft?
A: I had a lot more description of Omar’s life in Senegal, growing up, learning to drum with his father, going through rites of passage with other boys once he reached a certain age, drumming at the big festival in Dakar, impressing Duke Ellington. I initially created a couple of chapters on Omar’s early life. One of my beta readers said that all that detail was rich, but it took away from the plot. It seemed to be a digression. I ended up sprinkling those details here and there so the story wouldn’t become weighed down.
Q: After The Talking Drum, do you have any projects in the works for your readers to look forward to?
A: Yes. I am working on another novel. This one takes place in the mid-1800s in the Beacon Hill section of Boston. It is an interesting period in our history and fun to research.
I would like to thank Lisa Braxton, once again, for taking the time to answer PenumbraOnline's questions. Please look forward to more from her in the future, and, if you haven't already, take some time to check out The Talking Drum.
Q: In terms of writing in general, are there any authors who have inspired you over the years on your path to becoming a novelist?
A: There are many authors who have inspired me. My favorite novel from childhood is Little Women, which I read when I was 9 years old. Louisa May Alcott’s story about the four March sisters and how they went about their lives on their own terms evoked so many emotions in me as I read that I said to myself that I wanted to provide readers with those same emotional experiences. At a young age I set about writing my own stories and got much encouragement from my family. Later on, I discovered Langston Hughes. So many of his short stories resonated with me. Some actually made me cry, they were so powerful. James Baldwin is another of my favorite authors whose work I find inspirational.
Q: Every author has their own process while writing. What did your typical writing routine look like while working on your novel? Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?
A: I had no typical routine. I wrote wherever and whenever I had a moment. I was working full-time while writing The Talking Drum. Sometimes I would stop at the shopping mall on the way to work and write for about an hour in the food court. Then I would write at lunchtime at my desk, do my workout at the gym after work and write at the library on my way home. On Saturdays, I would carve out 3 to 4 hours at the library for writing or at home. If I had time, I would also write for a couple of hours on Sunday evenings. If you were to ask me about any of the television shows popular from 2008 to 2012, I probably wouldn’t know what you were talking about. I watched almost no television during that time to prioritize my writing.
Q: On your website, lisabraxton.com, you explain that much of your inspiration for your debut novel, The Talking Drum, comes from your parents’ story owning a clothing store and dealing with redevelopment in their neighborhood. What does it mean to you to have been able to draw upon the experiences of close family members? Drawing from such personal experiences, were there any scenes that were more difficult to write than others?
A: It meant having my parents be part of my dream of becoming a novelist. It meant having them unwittingly give me consultation on making my novel as realistic as possible. My mother passed away in October, so having her experience help to inspire The Talking Drum means that a part of her will always be with me in the form of the book. One scene that was difficult to write because it was painful based on watching my parents operate the business together, was the scene in which Sydney has reservations about renting out the basement apartment to the older couple. She thinks that their references should be checked. However, Malachi, her husband, bulldozes over her and listens to his best friend, Kwame. I witnessed my mother trying to have her voice be heard regarding business decisions with the clothing store, only to have my father do things his way, which led to some big mistakes and setbacks for the business and their relationship.
Q: The Talking Drum is filled with a variety of characters including upstanding citizens, arsonists, con-artists, and individuals trying to overcome painful pasts. Yet you’ve done an excellent job of giving each character their own distinct voice and personality. How did you approach creating your characters?
A: The story’s plot laid out for me the situations each character faced based on the larger issues of the fires and the planned demolition of the Petite Africa neighborhood. But their inner struggles were drawn from the experiences of people around me and research I did. For example, I had to do quite a bit of research to create my Senegalese drummer, Omar. I read the biographies of African drummers who emigrated to the United States during the late 1950s and 1960s to get a sense of what their lives were like in their home countries and their impressions of the United States and also the impressions Americans had of them. In addition, I took drumming lessons from a master drummer from West Africa. Some of his demeanor, confidence, cockiness and swagger ended up in Omar and Omar’s best friend and “frenemy,” fellow drummer Khadim.
Q: Which character was the most challenging for you to write, and why?
A: Sydney was the most challenging to write because she was so much like me and my mother. She was a composite of the both of us. It’s challenging to create a character who is like yourself because you can’t step outside of yourself to see yourself in all of your dimensions. Because Sydney also shared some of my mother’s characteristics, I struggled not to make her too nice and give her a generous amount of flaws and foibles to make her interesting.
Q: Which character did you enjoy writing about the most?
A: Kwame. He’s a mover and shaker in town, has the ear of the mayor, a jack of all trades, property owner who flips properties and also owns a record store. But we know he has another layer to him. He’s slick. We know he’s scheming. We don’t know if we can trust him, but he’s so charming.
Q: In your novel, we meet Mustapha Mendy, an immigrant from Senegal, as well as a restaurant owner and activist. He plays a key role in the story as a community leader respected by the majority of people who meet him. Which qualities would you say he possesses that are particularly important to solid leadership? What trait about Mustapha did you find most admirable?
A: Mustapha is a “salt of the earth” kind of person. Family is important to him. His wife has died and he keeps a framed picture of her on his bedroom bureau. She is forever in his heart. His nephew, his grandchildren, his goddaughter are his life. The people of Petite Africa consider him the “mayor” of their neighborhood. He is a father figure to the community who would help anyone who came to him for assistance, and that is to be admired.
Q: A major theme throughout your novel depicts the importance of family and community staying strong together in difficult times. It also expresses the pain of seeing some characters focus on the individual, betraying that sense of community. How important has community been to you throughout your life?
A: My parents instilled in me the importance of community at an early age. My parents were part of The Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North. They left rural Virginia for Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1956. They knew few people in Bridgeport--my father had sisters in the area--and had to start pretty much from scratch to build community. There were only certain neighborhoods where African Americans could easily move at that time, and as a result, they established community early on with many of their African American neighbors. They joined a church, got involved in church ministries, joined business and professional clubs, civil rights groups, and charitable organizations. When we were children my parents got my sister and me involved in groups as well, and sometimes we accompanied them to various fundraisers, galas, banquets and dinners, which instilled in us the importance of community. I am active in my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, of which Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris is a member, president of the Greater Boston Section of the National Council of Negro Women, Boston Chapter of the Women’s National Book Association, Boston Association of Black Journalists, and Women’s Fiction Writer's Association. I’m also a member of a church and participate in Bible study.
Q: Toward the end of the novel, we see Sydney and Malachi expressing their concerns for the future of their business and the neighborhood. Malachi’s perspective seems more optimistic, claiming that the community will support their own, while Sydney’s perspective is slightly more skeptical. If you could meet these characters and speak to them, what would you say about their concerns?
A: I would not say anything to Malachi because he has the right to have the opinions he has based on his 1970s perspective. I would not tell him that in time there would be more integration, which would present challenges for black-owned businesses. Once people could shop anywhere they wanted, they would have more choices, leading to black-owned businesses being neglected and suffering. Malachi seems to think that black people will only purchase books by and about black people from a bookstore like The Talking Drum Bookstore and Cultural Center. But he of course would have no knowledge of the big box bookstores of the future and Amazon.com and other online booksellers. I wouldn’t want to pierce his optimism. However, I would applaud Sydney’s skepticism and encourage her to watch industry trends and plan to grow and allow the business to evolve based on societal shifts.
Q: In writing, authors often have to revise or remove some scenes. Were there any scenes that did not make it into the novel that you were particularly attached to or any scenes that changed radically from the first time you imagined them by the final draft?
A: I had a lot more description of Omar’s life in Senegal, growing up, learning to drum with his father, going through rites of passage with other boys once he reached a certain age, drumming at the big festival in Dakar, impressing Duke Ellington. I initially created a couple of chapters on Omar’s early life. One of my beta readers said that all that detail was rich, but it took away from the plot. It seemed to be a digression. I ended up sprinkling those details here and there so the story wouldn’t become weighed down.
Q: After The Talking Drum, do you have any projects in the works for your readers to look forward to?
A: Yes. I am working on another novel. This one takes place in the mid-1800s in the Beacon Hill section of Boston. It is an interesting period in our history and fun to research.
I would like to thank Lisa Braxton, once again, for taking the time to answer PenumbraOnline's questions. Please look forward to more from her in the future, and, if you haven't already, take some time to check out The Talking Drum.
Podcasts
POP!: Interview with Michelle Moraa
Produced by Bo Locke and Hannah Neeley
Produced by Bo Locke and Hannah Neeley
Video Recorded: November 14, 2020
POP!: Interview with Reaa Puri
Produced by Bo Locke and Hannah Neeley
Produced by Bo Locke and Hannah Neeley
Video Recorded: November 21, 2020
