Poetry

Speaking engagements and poetry readings in 2012

• February 28, 2012 – Lehman College, Bronx, NY
• March 1, 2012 – Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series @ Eve’s lounge in Brooklyn, NY
• March 8, 2012 - Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
• March 20, 2012 – Hostos Community College, Bronx, NY
• March 27, 2012 – Brevard College, Brevard, NC
• March 28, 2012 – Mars Hill College, Mars Hill, NC
• March 30, 2012 – National Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College
• April 6, 2012 – African Voices Celebrates 20 Years!  LIU Kumble theater
• April 16, 2012 – York College, Jamaica, NY
• May 1, 2012 – Adelphi University, Garden City, NY
• May 8, 2012 – Queens College, Schenectady, NY
• May 17 2012 – The Mom Egg Reading at M.O.M Conference and Expo.(7-9 pm @ Museum Of Motherhood, NYC – 5$)
• May 24, 2012 – Union College, Schenectady, NY
• May 27, 2012 – Afrikan Poetry Theater, Queens, NY (3-7pm)

Featured poetry

Badilisha Poetry Radio, the only poetry podcast platform exclusively dedicated to the voices of Africa and its Diaspora, featured me and  my poem “Learning to Swim” in this podcast.

Learning to Swim

She was the baby of the family

curious and neon

magic unraveling her singing braids

there was music coming off of her:

violins and batas

pianos and castanetas

sounds her momma couldn’t relate to

sounds that reminded momma of sin

imagine

sienna sunflower girl

knee high

southern tinged

tangos and rumbas tickling her feet

imagine

the first time the branch of the peach tree

ripped her skin because she’d been caught

moving to some rhythm

moving to some rhythm not born of the church

it was everything-her

sound, her scent, her earthspeak-

brought the hands, the belts, the switches down

and she tried,

when she left their house,

she tried to conjure her dance again

hear the whispers under her feet

she pulled watercolors around her waist

wore amber and amethyst on wrists and shoulders

she chanted and wound her way through jazz

but no one could read the smoke signals

of her cigarettes

“death would be sweeter than any of this”

and when we met

she was 35

and I was newly born

and she was still drowning

but she gave me studios to dance in

trumpets

screaming magentas

muted blues

congas

tarot cards

modeling clay

she kept judgement in a locked box too high for me to reach

she stepped aside

my mother stepped aside

she’d evacuated her own dreams

courted death many times

when I met her

she was still drowning

but somehow

she took me to the water

and somehow

she taught me to swim

—

Her Voice

For Dr. Nina Simone

Bowl of crushed

blueberries, knife

edge, cracked

calabash, heavy

truth, ancient

wine and renegade

bones, rise up

white wings of

doves, tapestry

of nerve, daughter

of well-aimed

lightning

Blinded compromise

nail like tongue

bitter root, burnt honey

tornado blackness

bent-backed women

walked up her throat,

flew straight arrow

from her mouth,

Mississippi, Gullah,

Baptism, the Nile,

Congo, belly of

Slave ships, Harlem

potent cocktail

of her

Pitch

black

notes

divined riots on piano

keys, exiled, and passion

and turbulent ritual.

She was that sound

in the racing heart

of thunder