2020 rang in with 30 years of compartmentalized survival. Writing is both skill and passion. I'd forgotten how to stay sharp. Poetry had pushed it's way to the front. It dressed in cadence and cheap heels. It lusted after celebrity and recognition. It forgot who she was.
I could give some roundabout, long-winded, well-crafted, way rehearsed explanation about why poetry. I can lift up my grandmother's foresight. I can still smell the Negro Encyclopedia. I can hear the many, many stanzas I got wrong. Poetry gave me space. Poetry safely swelled me when the world refused to see me. Poetry masked my misfit. It didn't care about how I came to be. It gave my voice a direction steeped in tradition. It became the only friend an only child could count on.
Even still, I let poetry define me. I clung loosely to my Lorraine Hansberry dreams. More like, tucked them under the weight that death brings. My music teacher gave me Maya Angelou. She took me in. She showed me that my voice could take up as much or as little space, on a page, as I chose. I didn't need a stage or a church audience. I was okay without performative proof.
Poetry rescues me. It shouts my anger and sweetens my tears. It gives me the process nobody else does. I don't have to apologize. I do have to work at being a better poet. At relying on editing more than my ego. I don't think my work is great. I think it's okay. It needs the thai massage and a chiropractor. It has kinks. Knotted thoughts that can only be worked out in spaces where performance ain't on the table.
I love to read. To peruse the packed pages bound together. To examine. I don't read enough. I skim. I buy books to support. I skim, promising myself I'm coming back. I read like a writer. I'm in dire need of the surprise connection. I'm lost without books. What I read is important.
I'm building something exciting. It requires research. Articles that spread themselves across the screen feel like they are books in my lap, in a library corner. I'm at peace. My love of complicated writing is satiated. My undergrad degree was worth it. Why am I not writing like this?
What I've come to love isolates me, leaves me silo'd in an ivory tower. I need celebrity to pull me down those stairs. I need the rush of acceptance. I need the performance. You won't see me otherwise. I become a misfit, only befit to be a scholar. Scholarship ain't easy.
Poetry gives me platforms, connects me to past and present. It helps me help others. I'm mo' than a poet. I carry 3 decades of dreams. I've learned denial and survival coexist but they ain't happy. Who will love me if I am not doing poetry?
#mothanapoet Ase'
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