— Joy As Resistance and Joy That My Dignity Demands, by Austin Channing Brown:

Historically, America has both been completely uninterested in the joyfulness, the happiness of Black women and has actively worked to villianize our joy. Our dancing. Our hair. Our laughter. Our desire for luxury and access and opportunity. Our sexuality. Our dress and jewelry. Our jokes and conversation. Our songs. Black girls and Black women alike have our joy misconstrued as disrespectful, arrogant, or perpetually inappropriate. Our joy is suspicious. And what right have we to joy when we have so much work to do? Ms. Derricotte, with the wonder that only poetry can unearth, gives an answer. We arent just pursuing racial justice when we are organizing or voting or protesting or speechmaking or volunteering or working… we are also pursuing justice when we indulge in joy.

5 Poems for Juneteenth

From joy as resistance to Langston Hughes’ dropkicking doors to a poem from a current High Schooler, here are 5 poems to celebrate Black excellence! Poetry is the perfect medium for freedom. It liberates language from the harsh confines of good sense, from the tyranny of perfect punctuation, from the endless grind of Logic and Reason. It gives wings to our voices; it lets us dream of new worlds,…

View On WordPress

"On May 19, the birthday of the late Malcolm X, join the GETTING WORD COLLECTIVE for a virtual celebration of the Black Literary Arts community, highlighting the work of five premiere literary arts organizations that are helmed by Black women:

The Hurston/Wright Foundation,

Cave Canem,

Furious Flower Poetry Center,

Obsidian Literature & Arts of the African Diaspora and

The Watering Hole

[...] This celebration features appearances or performances by Duriel Harris, Yolanda J. Franklin, Cornelius Eady, Toi Dericotte, Mars. Marshall, Khadijah Ali-Coleman and more."

This event will be held online. General admission is free (follow the link to register).