Last night called and called and called on the oracle of the Lorde.  We lifted up the name Korryn Gaines.  We remembered how long we’ve been sayinghername.  We affirmed the power of our communities and reclaimed our bodies from the state.  We investigated our own practices and positions of power.  We shared our fears, insights and dreams.  We remembered that the difference is being ready.  Being present.  Being here.  Together.

If you are looking for more opportunities to get and stay ready, join us next Friday for Maybe: Afro-Pessimism and Revolutionary Mothering or the following week for our next intensive Last is a Verb: Archiving After the End of the World.

Here are the poems we created. With love.

Reclaiming Power (in honor of our communities of accountability)

by the participants in “The Difference Between Poetry and Rhetoric: Responding to Police Violence”

 

I believe in the power of black mothers

I believe in the power of black women historians

I believe in the power of immigrant women

I believe in the power of black girls

I believe in the power of our bodies

I believe in the power of incarcerated youth

I believe in the power of black femmes

I believe in the power of South asian & brown femmes

I believe in the power of poetry

I believe in the power of our political prisoners

I believe in the power of the water of the world

I believe in the power of griots

I believe in the power of afro-xicanxas and afro latinxs

I believe in the power of collective Black Girl Magic

I believe in the power of real, authentic solidarity

I believe in the power of radical, collective healing

I believe in the power of the people of Durham, NC

I believe in the power of women of color mothers

I believe in the power of queer people of color

I believe in the power of those at the bottom of the ocean

I believe in the power of those who speak our mother tongues

I believe in the power of our ancestral and spirit guides

I believe in the power of libraries

I believe in the power of collaboration

I believe in the power of curiosity

I believe in the power of sisterhood

I believe in the power of those people and places that helped raise me up

I believe in the power of my Philly Community!

I believe in the power of my nieces

I believe in the power of poor people

I believe in the power of “rioutous cities” like Baltimore

I believe in the power of black beauticians

I believe in the power of our cultural currency

I believe in the power of my homegirls

I believe in the power of my faith family

I believe in the power of the people of south side of chicago and troy, alabama

I believe in the power of my son’s liberation.

I believe in the power of galaxies and outer space

 

Between

by the participants in “The Difference Between Poetry and Rhetoric”

 

“the difference

between poetry and rhetoric

is being ready

to kill

yourself

instead of your children.”

-Audre Lorde in “Power”

 

“been

black

black

been

but

between”

– from the “b” oracle in the Lorde Concordance of “Power”

between black and black

between living and surviving

between ancestors and dreams

between proximity and possibility

between a comma and a period

between reclaimed freedom and self-imposed prison

between sanity and survival

between theory and practice

between me and us

between ice creamed surprises and “good cops”

between my body and his story about my body

between resistance and existence

between been and fitting’ to

between the lesser of two evils and choosing no choice at all

between our lived reality and the fairy tale

between childhood and tallness

between not another and never again

between my faith in myself and the glory of acting on faith

between Black mothers and Black children

between safety and trust

between compassion and implication

between justice and Black Girl Magic

between us and ourselves

between power and foresight

between i and i

between hatred and collaboration

between yes and yesterday

between love and privilege

between hardness and the journey to softness

between ancestral and elderly wisdom

and the leadership of our emerging freedom fighters

between the healing power of plants and the healing power of your hands

between love and the capacity for more love

between the veil and it’s being pulled back

between gone but not forgotten