Race

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“watching a production of The Tempest after a colleague asked about my relationship with white women” published in Terrain

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My poem “watching a production of The Tempest after a colleague asked about my relationship with white women” was published in Terrain.org as part of their Letters to America series. The link includes a reading of the poem.

The poem contains research on Caliban in The Tempest from The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race by Farah Karim-Cooper.

"the first letter of Paul to the Church of [name withheld on advice of counsel] published in The New Verse News

Another poem is now appearing in The New Verse News. This time some biblical fanfiction— what the apostle Paul might say to a certain Christian denomination within the US.

“the first letter of Paul to the Church of [name withheld on advice of counsel] is about the ICE detention of Pastor Daniel Fuentes Espinal and uses direct quotes from people my publisher wouldn’t allow me to use. But I still have them. They’re still public on social media. You can do a search.

Two poems in Cultural Daily

(The second poem is a sequel to my previous poem “when asked to read a poem for the Black History Month assembly” also published by CD.).

“There Is No God-Damned Metaphor Here” published in New World Writing Quarterly [CNF]

What started as an interesting physical writing prompt during my Kenyon Workshop Residency, turned into this creative nonfiction piece.

Poetry, the movie Sinners, the Duvalier regime in Haiti, The Cleaning Lady tv show, and more wrapped into this small package.

“There Is No God-Damned Metaphor Here” now appears in New World Writing Quarterly.


Three poems in Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age

I have three poems appearing in Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age, a free digital chapbook from The Chaos Section Poetry Project. Record of Dissent features 44 poems of protest, resistance, survival, and hope in response to the rising authoritarianism of the Trump era in America.

My three poems are:

  1. “misstra know-it-all” (p. 9),

  2. “when asked for help writing a satire” (p. 38), and

  3. “say what you mean” (p. 58)

“Okonkwo returns to Umuofia” at Menino Arts Center

My poem “Okonkwo returns to Umuofia” was on display as part of the Menino Arts Center’s exhibit Images Then Words (January 9 – February 14, 2025), which featured the work of 53 Word Artists responding to 61 pieces by 47 Image Artists. Images juried & curated by Sasja Lucas. Words curated by Holly Guran. View the virtual 3D gallery here.

“Okonkwo returns to Umuofia” is a doubly ekphrastic work, responding both to Sasja Lucas’ The Wrestling Match (pictured below) and Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart.

Sasja Lucas

The Wrestling Match

120mm film photography

8 x 10 in (h x w)

Okonkwo returns to Umuofia

seven years was a long time to be away from one’s clan,

but he would return to his fatherland and fan his fame—

a bush-fire beneath the stiff harmattan wind. he had a plan:

reclaim his land, rebuild his compound, regain his titles and place

among the egwugwu. but Okonkwo was not prepared

for what he found. his motherland was good to him in exile,

kind. but Mbanta was not filled with warriors. they were weak.

how else could they fall from the grand, old ways—the bonds

of kinship—and allow an abominable religion to fester

like an un-lanced boil or an untreated bout of iba? his Umuofia

was feared by her neighbors, known for her power in war

and in magic. her priests and medicine men possessing

the most potent rites and fetishes, the shrine of agadi-nwayi

among them. thus Okonkwo could not believe Obierika’s reports

of home. but by the second market week back, he began to see

the truth. how his brothers strut across the village square

in white shirts and dusky trousers, abandoning the loincloth

and wrappers worn since the founder of the clan engaged a spirit

of the wild for seven days and nights. how his kinsmen drink

palm wine tapped in Umuru from glass bottles, their gourds

and skulls gathering dust on their obi walls. how titled men

allow themselves to be dragged by kotma to the white man’s court,

to be beaten by his perverted justice. how even some elders dance

to the rhythm of the white man’s religion, deaf to the ekwe

and ogene talking across villages, across the clan’s history.

how supposed men stride—hatted heads held high—to and from

their abomination, their church, in the Evil Forest, believing

their Jesu Kristi will save them from the wrath of Ekwensu and Ani,

Amadiora and Chukwu. it was easier when the converts were only

efulefu—sheaths taken into battle, machetes forgotten at home,

the excrement of the clan lapped up by this mad-dog faith. but now

even Ogbuefis have severed their anklets, become as agbala, to join

the Christians’ meager feast of their god-man’s murdered body.

something must be done. but surrounded by so many such as these…

as cold water poured on a roaring fire, he stifles a sorrow, a grief

he has not known since the last days of the son whose name will not

be remembered in the clan and the one who will. his fist aches,

reflexively clenching around the machete resting inside his obi door.

he will shake out his smoked raffia shirt, examine his feathered headgear

and shield to satisfaction. he turns for home as if on springs, heels

hardly touching the ground. as the elders say,

whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight,

know that something is after its life.

Two poems in Lily Poetry Review

I am very proud that two of my ekphrastic poems were published in the latest issue of Lily Poetry Review , guest edited by Anthony Walton and Heather Treseler.


"The Most Dangerous Game" is after a poem by Candice Kelsey (and the short story) of the same name

“La Voix du Silence" is after a painting by Rene Magritte of the same name.

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The poems I never read in public (a virtual reading from said the Frog to the scorpion)

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I don’t read longer poems at poetry readings. However, I composed some of my longest poems in said the Frog to the scorpion. Months ago, I made an intention to record these poems because I slaved over them and wanted my physical voice attached to them as they are to the poems I read aloud regularly.

So here is a 13 min reading of longer poems from said the Frog to the scorpion

Poems:

1. "when asked why I believed Her"

2. "who She is" (I screwed up the title in the video)

3. “when asked about toxic amnesia”

4. “take your pick”

5. “when asked why I won't”

And yes, there are a lot of squirrels behind me...

"the Blue Envelope Program" published in The New Verse News

I don’t watch or read the news as much as I should. Probably because this is my mind goes when I do. That said, my poem “the Blue Envelope Program” was just published by The New Verse News

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A five minute reading for Black History Month, Valentine’s Day, and my new collection

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In honor of Black History Month, Valentine’s Day, and the publication of my new collection, here is a five minute reading from said the Frog to the scorpion and one other poem.

Poems read in the video (the first four appear in said the Frog to the scorpion):

Three poems in The Decolonial Passage

My first publications of the new year are from the Decolonial Passage. Each is an ekphrastic work, which will likely be a part of the collection I am slowly putting together. Read them here.

  • “Black Men and Women in a Tavern,” is after the painting by the same name from workshop of David Teniers the Younger (1650)

  • “casually and casualty share a Latin root” draws from Jackie Sibblies-Drury’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, Fairview.