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Black Poetry Day 2023 – Mo Viviane

Take Back the Narrative


Happy Black Poetry Day!

This day means so much to me. As a teenager growing up in a small town in Kentucky, I was given the opportunity to attend the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts back in 2011. I was accepted into the Creative Writing program, where most of my focus was on creating prose and poetry. Many of my influences have been Black poets such as Bianca Lynne Spriggs, Alice Walker, and Frank X Walker. This experience changed how I sought out writing and dug deeper into myself as a poet. I studied under many outstanding Black poets, including Cave Canem fellows Kelly Norman Ellis and Mitchell L.H. Douglas. 

In my undergraduate studies at Northern Kentucky University, I was part of a small slam poetry group called S.W.E.R.V.E. (Spoken Weapons Engaged to Revolutionize Viewers Everywhere). I led many workshops and community gatherings for Black writers and allies at the university. Still, poetry has been something I use as a tool related to my spiritual practice in Hoodoo and many other avenues in my life. Poetry has always been about liberation, uplifting community, and making just for the sake of making. 

One of my favorite anthologies is Circe’s Lament: Anthology of Wild Women Poetry, edited by Bianca Lynne Spriggs and Katerina Stoykova-Klemer. There are many other influences on my writing, such as Crystal Wilkinson, Poet Laureate of Kentucky (2021-22) and the award-winning author of Perfect Black. Many of her works have inspired me to lean into my Blackness and be truthful to myself–as a writer and to my community. 

 

Most of my poems have turned into songs (that I hoard in my recordings app on my phone). Sharing this piece called “Gone” is super personal to me. It is a recording of my voice one year before starting testosterone and at two years on testosterone. This piece represents the memories that I hold with me and to remember that being Black and Non-Binary is not about erasing who I am, but recognizing every facet of my life and wholly leaning into myself in that.

I hope you enjoy it!

Black Poetry Day 2023 – Jacquii Cooke

Take Back the Narrative, Uncategorized

In 1827, the English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge defined poetry as “the best words in the best order.”  He further wrote, “When we write, we string words together like beads, ever mindful of color and shape, the powerful nuances of meaning each word conveys.” As a Black Trans poet in the 21st century, I find Coleridge’s assessment to be spot-on. I would add to his definition that poetry is not merely a collection of best words, but it is also personal. I describe it as a soliloquy in reflection: our needs and desires, our wishes, sorrows, and joys written for posterity. It is an emotional testament to our existence.

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that poetry is “the work of a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.” I’ve experienced a darkness so profound, the only thing I could see was the sweet song I longed to birth into the world. At one time, blocked from indulging my various curiosities, I turned to verse to hear my own voice. I found that I thrive when sharing my life experiences with whoever has a receptive ear. Thus is the transformative power of poetry.

 

In celebration of Black Poetry Day, I encourage all to unleash the symphony of our collective voices–to sing and allow joy to thrive in both the seen and unseen spaces of our existence. Shout (if you must) your experience using your best words in their best order, unlocking your profound wisdom, enabling a journey to self-discovery, and uplifting your community through testimony of how it was, how it is, and how it can be. 

 

Several Black poets have shaped me in my own journey. Langston Hughes was the poet, philosopher, and essayist extraordinaire whose genius shone through in his character Jesse B. Semple. Zora Neale Hurston, though not primarily a poet, wrote verse after verse on how to attain self-respect when the door has been slammed in your face. She schooled me on how to get that door answered and open. Black poets have always been philosophers. Their need to share wisdoms gleaned from their experiences gives many–including me–the courage to share their own. 

 

I discovered the tenacious Ntozake Shange and knew instantly that it’s okay to embrace my natural self, even when it comes to having “nappy edges” and an attitude just as unkempt. Then I found the rebellious words of Ai Ogawa, a Black poet and educator who won the 1999 National Book Award for Poetry for Vice: New and Selected Poems. Ai talked unashamedly and courageously about rape, not shying away from the dark and controversial stuff of humanity. She was known for her mastery of the dramatic monologue as a poetic form, “I want to take the narrative ‘persona’ poem as far as I can, and I’ve never been one to do things in halves. All the way or nothing. I won’t abandon that desire,” she said. It’s like she wanted to give a voice to the marginalized, impoverished, and abused, just as we do in our work at Trans Empowerment Project.

 

On this Black Poetry Day, we at Trans Empowerment Project challenge you to channel your inner poet, recognizing that you are seen and appreciated, and that your value is priceless. Take some time to read some poetry. Write or sing some of your own. There is value and empowerment in your words, not only for yourself, but others. We are committed to supporting and championing you to use your voice in order to foster equity, joy, happiness, peace, and love into your life. Moreover, we dare you to do the same for others.

 

I Am Not Tragically Coloured 

(about Zora) 

So the Moon shined in April, a half quarter gleam at your backside Zora. He was as dust tracks on your road, caressing you with His natural endowment 

for falsetto grace-hope. 

You knew that Ol’ Man Moon – He kept you lit when you were scoring the most beautiful Neale Hurston masterpieces. 

Well that Ol’ Man Moon steady hides behind, beyond thee like an unseen strata of cumulous clouds. 

He’s demure with songs of lust, his wind still yearning your silver-linings and your unkempt starry nights. Like tornadoes piquing in the eye of ecstasy: 

He wants you, your barefaced façade like an eclipse of Godâ€Ļ You wrote to him, “Tell my horse.” 

I laughed that frosted May. Giggled raucously. 

The Moon was full with springtime surprise, but no stars in the garden that night? Where lay those subtle orbs of fire?, their blatant sighs in an atmosphere filled with mocking. Must’ve slyly spied swiss upon my mahogany visage, an unwinked eye? Hooded? 

I smiled with you Zora; I kneeled beside the subtle of your blasphemyâ€Ļ I smiled poetry. 

I winked it actually, my left eye lazy 

and my right shining in jest – I steady smile 

the prose of questing for an entire humanity 

no longer mired in the muck of Jim Crow, no longer as the mule of young virile men. 

From terror to triumph I smile (for we are all vital) And you shine Zora. You shine on. 

Butterflies and orchids. Half-rainbows, stars at noon. Wine and green blades – Daffodils of yellow make you swoon.

And the chil’ren in sand boxes: NaïvetÊ amazed. Overalls specked – Slides and swings rathering spirits gay. Shall you comfort on benches like chaise lounge rooms? And fall in gardens: Honeysuckle, Azalia, Hyacinth blooms? Special aroma awaits you. (In the gourd vine of redemption.) 

Kittens claw seraph wings and dogs paw like loyalty. Eyes of golden green, a hazel teeming with malice. Defense blows in the wind as claws grasp. 

A face in moonlit shadow. A voice beckoning 

as rain drizzles in the pallor of an invisible orb. Stars ablaze; clouds rampantly gray: a great man deadâ€Ļ (dust tracks blown in the wind of perseverance; in the midst: reparation) 

â€Ļand her eyes, they laugh, they’re on the silver-lined, for she could never hold a grudge; grudges rot hearts. Plus she’s naïve-smart, loving child at thirty-one. Her eyes be watching God; They’re hungry 

and she’s queer. 

Copyright Š 2006 Jacquii Cooke

Black Poetry Day 2023 – Jack Knoxville

Take Back the Narrative, Uncategorized

 

Jack Knoxville is the founder and Executive Director of Trans Empowerment Project. In addition to his activism, Jack is also a prolific writer and poet. In celebration of Black Poetry Day, here is a sampling of some of Jack’s work.

 

I’m too Angry

I’m too angry about my 

Lived experiences 

You know, The ones that

Get the privileged

Likes on Instagram

For “standing in solidarity with”

My anger, 

no longer hidden by desperation, has made me a marked man

and will never get me heard over my Blackness or my Transness

Only discarded like the empty promises transcribed on protest signs 

Strewn across empty streets

 

The posters that these t-shirt collectors put together

For fun,

On a Friday while

Drinking wine and filling their bellies

 

While I starved

 

For food

For funds

For friends

For family

For freedom

To BREATHE.

 

These moments 

A movement, carried through the interwebs by tweeting birds

Drown out the sound of sorrow 

In the void of isolation while the afflicted wrap themselves in the familiarity of loneliness

After being 

tokenized, capitalized on 

by slogans on swag

Under this guise of solidarity

These words, 

Intentional splatters of ink

Meaningless to anything other than the page

Fall, and flop with a thud 

In front of me, at my feet

When they work so hard to keep me out of the room, let alone near the table

My life’s a drag to hear about

To have gone through, to have to heal from

Especially when the hurt won’t stop

Is only valuable when told through other people’s voices

A story that affords me space for the price tag, 

Of my soul for their swag, 

But when the conference is over, and they go home, I’m the one that’s left with the night terrors of reality while they get to sleep. 

 

Where in the hell are all of the solutions?

 

The weight of the world

rests not on my shoulders

but on my mind

It’s burning a hole in my throat

and tying my stomach in knots

as I think about all that I wish was not.

I need to be stimulated

not oppressed

I need to be educated

not distressed.

I need love

not guns

I need tolerance

not ignorance

I need excitement

not fear

I need food

not toxins

I need oxygen

not pollution

We need dreams

not nightmares

With so many problems

Where in the hell are all of the solutions?

 

Take Back the Narrative: The Work of K Pontuti

Take Back the Narrative, Uncategorized

A narrative on identity and art by artist, filmmaker, and professor K Pontuti

 I grew up in a small farm town in Ohio at a time where there wasn’t any language around queerness or transness—at least nothing positive. It was also a time without the internet so information wasn’t as easily available. I remember hearing phrases like “he’s really sensitive,” ”…so creative,” “…so sweet,” “…really insecure,” which  later gave way to “he’s a momma’s boy,” “needs toughening up,” “has to learn what is to be a man,” “must be a queer.”

I was quite sensitive, and I could feel my difference although I didn’t quite understand it. I was also creative and became immersed in my imagination through making things. I taught myself to draw by copying my favorite comics – Charlie Brown and Snoopy were top billed in my cast of characters – and some of my fondest childhood memories are of sewing and crafting with my mom. Soon, though, I was steered towards building model cars and airplanesâ€Ļ“boy stuff.” (My sisters’) Barbies were replaced with G.I. Joes.

Like I think many do, I managed by burying it all, and through determination, desperation, and the privileges of a “straight cisgendered man,” I was able to carve out a “good life” for myself as an adult. At least for a while.

Over the years and in hindsight, I remember sensing glimpses of my yet-to-be-recognized queerness through tinglings and fuzzy feelings but mostly just moments of seeing other people living and experiencing life outside of the cisgendered binary and thinking, “Huhâ€Ļ” and sometimes, “That’s beautiful.”

But life’s responsibilities and gendered pathways and norms didn’t leave a lot of room for me to pose these bigger questions to myself. Even though there was an unrecognizable emptiness, anxiety, depression, and

dysphoria  manifesting as eating disorders, self-medication, over exercising, and an insatiable drive to prove that I was worth something, I must have known subconsciously that someday this this slimy, hairy, shitball-of-a-person inside of me would be exposed—and I’d have to come to terms with it all.

A few years ago, as I was wrapping up post production on our film, The Yellow Wallpaper (not ever imagining that I may have been the tragic story’s trapped woman), I fell into a mental health crisis that landed me in the emergency room. I was fortunate to have checked myself in, and even more fortunate to have a supportive partner and family to get me there and back. I started therapy and a long process of excavating the why’s, how’s, and now what’s of why I had forever felt this way (and, of course, this was all happening through the start of the pandemic).

I also started drawing again which was the other thing that saved me. Immersed in the simple act of putting pencil to paper, the ideas started flowing, the dexterity came back, and then it just exploded and everything poured out.

Since then, I’ve been going all in exploring my identity, trauma, and past. Making new drawings and scouring through old ones. Doing more therapyâ€Ļand lots of shopping.

As might be expected, my artwork explores themes of gender identity, bodily autonomy, mental health, queerness, and trans rights, all from a very personal perspective. The work is very autobiographical and chronicles my transition as it unfolds, in real time. 

This past September, I had my first gallery show in ages and titled it Pray And Be Thankful 4 Everything. For me it was a title that walked a line between irony and authenticity. I was so very thankful for everything, but I was also sick and tired of being told that I should be. The exhibition was amazing on so many levels; personally, professionally, and in an incredibly affirming way. I did as many presentations as I could, especially once I saw the impact it was making.

The show provided a platform to start direct conversations about important topics, but definitely raised a lot of eyebrows at the university. Through it all, I’ve received many notes, read student and faculty-written reflections, and had conversations that have brought me to tears. I’ve also felt the ostracization and distancing that many queer and trans people experience. But the good absolutely outweighs the bad, and the joy and satisfaction of realizing who I am, and why I am, has made it one of the most amazing years I could ever imagine.

When I look back at my younger self, that sweet kid that liked to sew with mom, who had no idea what was coming their way, no language or support for what was happening to themâ€ĻI get really sad and feel an incredible loss. The loss of a childhood. And to think it was all spun so well that I thought something was terribly wrong with me. 

Now, that sadness turns to anger as I watch people, corporations, even my home state of Ohio, wage war on trans rights (as well as the rights of many others). That sadness turns to rage as I watch the stripping away of the tools, education, and medical care that kids and their families need in order to comprehend who they are and survive. 

I’m sure it’s not easy to be a trans kid today, but I never had the chance to find out for myself, and the alternative wasn’t so easy for me, either. I’m still doing my daily drawing practice, and I funnel all of my sadness and anger and rage and grief into my art where I can turn it into strength, hope, and self-affirmation. Deep down, I know

these are the things that I need, and I’m now receiving, so that I can continue my journey, and hopefully help others continue theirs.

So yeah, in that sense I am truly thankful.

 See more of K’s work on their website: https://www.kpontuti.com/

Take Back the Narrative: Alicia Arballo Expresses Trans* Grief Through Poetry

Take Back the Narrative

As an older trans woman, out of my myriad of experiences over the years, some of which includes working with veterans, I have found there is much healing through accessing and processing grief. I believe that much of what is going on with our current climate of transphobia in many states can be helped by listening to one another with depth. More important is an understanding that letting go of a systemic ideology of the gender binary means grieving the loss of those systems that were not questioned 40 years ago. It means that there is much work and discomfort ahead, both individually and collectively from a societal perspective, to let go and find greater acceptance and compassion for the trans and non-binary communities.

My poem, “Grief” speaks to that mindset.

 

 

Grief

By Alicia Sainz Arballo

 

In the early evening

a group of aging veterans

make their way up

the hill.

Flanked by the young

who know little of the

elders’ past.

 

Shoulders slumped, heads down,

the path anything but inviting.

 

Not the arduousness of the climb,

but the task:

 

To unbury the moment of loss.

Relive the trauma, the pain.

and fear.

Then fight through that,

and allow themselves time to grieve.

 

As the stars begin to peak through

the darkening sky.

 

Stillness.

 

Graying, weathered, aching,

They choose a spot to lie

facing the heavens

and invite the energy of the blackness

to surround them.

The hardened dirt,

a welcome mat

keeping each from sinking

beyond the depths into a

colorless,

feeling less,

void.

 

There,

they shout the names of those killed,

who fought beside them.

 

As the words leave their lips,

tears, then weeping,

bodies shaking.

Years of sadness and horror

locked away.

Unknowingly,

weighing each one down

with sickness, anger, and depression.

 

The youth surround them

laying their small hands on each.

Supporting

their energy

dissipating

the combined grief.

 

The last of them

pronouncing their loss,

streams of sadness

flowing down the corners

of their water filled eyes,

moistening the earth.

 

Gone now,

their pain

 

I say to myself

 

Is there a hill for us to climb?

A place to lay down,

yell at the stars

and let go?

 

Our perceptions of what has been,

For what is.

 

A child says to their mother

“I’m not a girl, I’m a boy.”

 

Let goâ€Ļ.

 

A man says to his wife of 30 years,

“I’m a woman.”

 

Let goâ€Ļ..

 

A woman says to her girlfriends,

“I don’t feel like a woman, and I don’t feel like a man,

I’m not sure who I am.”

 

Let goâ€Ļ.

 

Systems of gender that have held us as a society

without question

to understand the anger and fear,

and know grief is a path

 

where we may find a place of

stillness to

examine our feelings.

 

Where we may witness our discomfort,

our history of denial

 

and know,

without accessing this loss

and release,

allowing outstretched hands

to comfort what we’re afraid

may never be

again.

 

Alicia Sainz Arballo is a transgender woman who started her medical transition at the age of 62 years old. She is a life long educator who worked for the Los Angeles Unified School district as a counselor and teacher for 36 years. She facilitated her school’s GSA club and provided teachers with professional developments to better navigate the needs of her school’s LGBTQIA+ community. She is also a musician, playing guitar since the age of six, and poet, recently participating in the “My Life is Poetry” workshop through Los Angeles LGBTQ center, and is working at publishing a chapbook on her coming out process. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from California State University Northridge, and a Masters in Counseling from California Lutheran University. She continues to advocate for trans affirming health care for all ages.

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