176 Search results for "poetry"

Numerous accounts have come from the survivors of last weekend’s tragic shooting at the Pulse nightclub that left 49 people dead and many others injured. Each of the accounts are terrifying and give background on what can only be described as hours of horror. This survivor shares her experience through both poetry and personal interactions […]

Lamont Lilly is a writer, activist, and father whose work echoes the struggles for justice and ambitions of our generation.  These four poems push us to think differently about blackness in the contemporary moment. From the author: “Each piece is a reflection of the people, places and experiences of struggle that have shaped who I […]

“You remind me of my father, a magician. Able to exist in two places at once.” I was barely three minutes into Lemonade and already craving more. But I could not have possibly imagined the vulnerability that was yet to come throughout the remainder of the HBO premiere of Bey’s visual album. I watched it […]

“Oppression doesn’t disappear just because you decided not to teach us that chapter.” If those words were not strong enough, I do not know what words would be. Clint Smith III examined the role that the Founding Fathers played in oppressing black people in his new poem “History Reconsidered” which he performed at All Def […]

It only took two minutes for this slam poet to sum up the devastating emotions that are involved with police brutality, and the interesting part was that she did it through Mad Libs.

You just don’t wake up one morning and start enacting social change. There is a moment when you become racially conscious and from that day on, you cannot shake this political awareness–it sticks with you. Everyone’s path to wokeness is different. No matter the different paths that are taken, young Black people are doing good […]

I’d left the hospital a few days before 2015 New Year’s following an overdose. If you’ve ever been hospitalized, you know that leaving doesn’t make you magically well or even wholly interested in living. I wasn’t.

We all know that the writing and entertainment industries rarely uplift and empower Black queer voices. To help challenge that fact, we have compiled a list if writers you need on your shelf this holiday season.

Gabriel Ramirez’s poem, “On Realizing I Am Black,” performed at the 2015 National Poetry Slam in Oakland, CA is an eloquent oration on personhood at the margins. 

By Jayy Dodd Black poetics has been a stronghold and foundation for language as we know it. From flips and cuts in grammar, Black folk (globally) have taken back colonized tongue forming new and necessary vocabularies. We hear it in hip-hop, opinion piece and every other Black medium; poetry is an invaluable resource for the […]

By L.G. Parker For black and queer persons alike, much of the realities of our lives are considered “made up” by those who don’t and won’t understand us. Black, queer poets have access to new ways of approaching language as a result of this reality. As self proclaimed black lesbian warrior poet Audre Lorde said […]

A powerful poem by Crystal Valentine, student at NYU and activist, has been captivating watchers since it was posted on YouTube last week. Valentine performed the poem at the 2015 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational where her team won the competition. In the poem, she gives a very raw and emotional account of Black life […]