Here

I am aloud to be a poet. Period. 

There is no such thing as a poet who is not yet a poet. 

Just poets trying to be the best poet they can be. 

That is the beauty of poetry. 


I came here and identified as a poet 

and was not compared to a BNV champion, 

I was not degraded to a hobbyist, 

and I wasn’t told that I wasn’t good enough 

to take the title and claim the name. 


This, is what it looks like when poetry has equality.

 There is no room for hierarchy, for the adoration 

of poets that make more money than they do change

more headlines than they do thoughts. 

Are there poets with more experience you may ask? 

Of course! 


But these are the same poets who will 

invite you to a pub after the event and engage in poetic discourse.

They will ask you to challenge, ask, and debate with confidence

that you are being heard as a poet,

nothing more, nothing less. 


These poets are the same poets that will book you for gigs 

and encourage you to do better, be better, and perform more. 

These are the same poets that will ask what works for you after the workshop– 

These are the same poets that will actually HOST WORKSHOPS!!


This is called accessible inspiration. 

Along with the many other amazing performers in the area

I hit the jackpot in Edinburgh, Scotland. 


So there I sat in a pub, 

with a bunch of amazing artists discussing

Poetry as she was happening in Edinburgh. 

As if she was living, breathing and 

wasn’t  picky in inhabiting everybody.

You felt the movement and Poetry 

opened her palm to you because you were 

especially invited. 


It was refreshing 

to talk about the poetry I was living; 

there was no obsessing over poets 

we will never get to talk to or work with 

Because they are too famous to spend time with us 

without a substantial fee.

All the poets here are poets by their own decree.


Here, a poet is active in adding to the canon

submitting theories to poetic action. 

No application is needed. A poet is a poet. 

Period. 


Only 5 months in this city/town

I can’t say I know every corner.

But I do know now

that I will hold proud my title 

as a Poet 

Performance poet

Spoken word artist

Extender of word

Tamer of thought 

Sharer of heart.


We don’t need slam championships and 

publishers to open our lips.  

And as I see the American horizon 

I know there are poets who are dying to speak

but they think they need the money and 

need to be famous

for people to give them a listen. 


I will tell them 

what I learned from Edinburgh

What I learned from Loud Poets

What I learned from Glasgow 

What I learned from Scotland 


If you are a poet. 

You are poet. 

Period. 

The privatization of education is daunting
To reminisce of the days of government funded
lunches and breakfasts will not ring true for my children.

They will look at me with their learning eyes
poking out of charming school uniforms.
They will have questions about my mystery meat
and free-reduced lunch is for who but
why mommy why? 
And I will be forced to forget that the checks
I signed their souls with were once not needed.

The merit that was pulled out of the public school fabric
was stained in hearsay. Only stories where public education
was failing when really it was a representation
of the country since the country is the one doing the funding
But still they yelled:
TEACHERS ARE FORGETTING WHY THEY STARTED TEACHING.
THEY STOPPED PAYING ATTENTION; THEY STOPPED CARING!!
People just stopped listening.

As I balance my checkbook subtracting
my children’s tuition
I will remember and shake my head:

I will think of my mother, the educator,
the assistant principal who fought for public education
but had to resign instead

I will think of Mr. Black who literally
had to fight for students' safety
but was put on leave for protecting     

I will think of Joey                        
who didn’t live long enough to see his advice
for my creative writing pay off

I will think of Madame Holden-Avard
who submits to getting the hope of quality education
drained out of her veins by her own colleagues 

I will think of Doug
The father of my world history class shenanigans
(He did not call me his daughter because of a paycheck)

and 

I will think of their silence.
The people who asked them to 
shut up, sit down, and find a new job
for protecting what was ours.
I thank them for what they have done.
and I mourn the fact that even then
it wasn’t enough.

I will pick my kids up from school,
wash their uniforms I pay way too much for, and I
will remember who was speaking up for
the public schooling in me. And I will pray 
for those who made it too hard for them to stay.

Dinner will be served to my family
on the deathbed of public education.
A moment of silence for those
who fought and still believe in it.
            Dig in kids, you have school tomorrow.

I wish I could protect you.

Mandate that every person who claims

you are addicted to racial issues take a class called:

Let It All Out Privilege Folks 101

So you don’t have to listen to the painful

curiosity they call innocent.


I wish I were there to give you a hug.

We could take a kickboxing class together

and silently beat the millions of micro-aggressions

that make our wrists hurt as well as our minds. If I had a

blood diamond for every time someone told me

I was intelligent and sounded white.

I would be filthy and rich.


I wish I could tell you it gets better.

Sell you on some post-racial society.

But seeing as this is happening at your college

as well as mine, I wouldn’t dare lie to family.

Instead I will tell you the truth. It gets worst.

The normative world is not going to pay you

one black cent for educating the masses.

But they will pay you billions

for holding those resentments.

                                                            

I wish your biracial skin could pass

so you wouldn’t have to nudge through

other people’s explanations of you.

But your hair speaks a language the other half cannot.

My hair– even braided up– causes controversy.

They assume I can do their heads as well,

gape and touch it like a discovery,

something to be documented with fingertips 

beyond comprehension.


The code-switching,

Nigga-saying (it’s in the song so I can say it),

Privilege-denying,

Stereotyping,

Hair-touching,

Name-dropping,

Sexualizing,

Objectifying,

and ignorance for ignorance’s sake

hold such a rhythm by itself.

You wonder why we poets even bother.

It could stand on its own like a song

So played out. How tiring is it to say that we are tired.


I wish this poem could tell you something different.

Deny your experiences as isolated or pass a bill that my

Let It All Out Privilege Folks 101 class be mandatory

at every PWC in the country. But reality is the one thing

that doesn’t taste sweeter the darker it gets.

Leave the ignorance. Take their education. 

The stronger we get, they will have no choice but to listen. 

Love even lives in an empty Sanctuary, 
shoe soles echo through heating vents
older than Jerusalem.  

Constantly moving, the air embraced 
the already sticky pews riddled with 
foreign fingerprints pressing for prayer.
A welcome pamphlet stuck out the pew number
askew to the left as if curious or pointing. 

The whole building seemed to travel cyclically, 
from the optical illusion of eternity in the ceiling 
all the way down to the powerful pillars 
that traveled back up through the organ pipes, 
resembling a giant baby's first recorder.


Not a sound in earshot but for the prayer pillows 
possibly knocked while taking a seat.
They were just wide enough for a knee and a tear, 
they hung on a hook at the ready, like a coat 
that finally can rest when you get home
and turn on the light. 

Yet how can illumination have diction? 
As if light bulbs didn't exist and stained glass 
had a wattage, the windows burst with colors 
not found in science or pigment; the story walked 
on walls to the pulpit and rested at the top 
in a column of three in gold.

I don't know exactly why I cried. 
Maybe it was because a sanctuary 
is never truly empty.