Yes!!!!! We are at the cusp where spring fever turns to hot sticky summer lust. I love this time of year...and all the bad and good decisions that come with it. And I'm so happy to be in black feminist intellectual lust with all of you!!!!
This week the Combahee Survival exercise is about completing a poem made from these words...
“Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s but because of our need as human persons for autonomy.”
Complete the poem:
above
sprang shared
liberation
need
Post your poems below or email us at brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com
For example: Alexis Charles who says she usually does NOT write poetry contributed this beautiful elaboration:
1. Not from ABOVE
But from within.
You gave life to words.
That gave me life.
Words that
SPRANG from our SHARED oppressions, fears, dreams and joys.
Calling for our LIBERATION.
Illuminating our NEED.
2. When I had lost faith in everything ABOVE.
What SPRANG from the depths of your hearts.
Let me know my pain was SHARED.
The not so quiet call for LIBERATION
Those words
“black women are inherently valuable”
Held me softly, tenderly, gently,
Quieted the dull aching NEED
Wrapped me in love and solidarity
3.
we
ABOVE
Where do exist?
below
I
Your words
S
P
R
A
iNto motion a well-spring of truth, knowledge and love gushing from the valleys of your thoughts,
G through the canyons of your silences, over the cliffs of your screams.
I SHARED my fears and dreams with you and I realized I’m not the only one
MyLIfeisnotanisolatedabBERATION
In moments of NEED you
answer.’
Cynthia bringing the light!
Cynthia Oka, radical mama and feminist indigenous rights organizer in Vancouver wrote:
5:47 am
pungent is the aching flesh over hard bone
it is no luxury to choose
liberation
rising dawn
droplets of sun on my skin
stinging like ice
i must search again
build dig tear from towers of tyranny
hope
all that demands our breaking
a million footsteps marching on my chest
fear not fear not
the arms of my mothers
spears sprang against cannons
today so too do mine
that is my blood spilled shared
that is my life-giving love
that is my claim
on freedom
above this colonial landscape
i embalm my body
and choose to grace this day
with my presence
i am no finely cut diamond
i am the raw earth
on which your build your throne
i desire no queenhood
i am higher than price
stars breaking in sky
this is my spirit
cage me wage me
snap every joint
i rewrite the universe
through my undoing
we are our prophets
persistent as dew
fear not fear not
we are all we need
