Poems compiled by Maxwell Drati.
One of my favorite things about Black artistry and poetry specifically is it gives us a chance to hear perspectives we may have never heard before. People often see our community as a monolith but there’s so many different beautiful backgrounds and stories to each Black person. Black art is unifying in that way as it brings us together to hear one person’s perspective who may be radically different from our own. And in hearing their work we get to also hear how they learned from that experience, which may be different from how us as individuals would. But it’s still their Black experience. And it’s beautiful in its own right. Black Art unites.
Me and My Journal Entries
Madison Kai is a first-year nursing major
This man always talking about water,
Water in the form of H2O, saying one without the other is no longer water not in its normal form.
Then he talks about principles and,
yet again, how one without the other is not the same principle, not in its normal form.
We also talk about the depiction of the “real man” and how ones soul and body untied is no longer man not in its normal form.
However, I still feel like me when my soul and body are separated. I’m just me and not my body, not in the human form kinda way.
But my soul is still me and me without my body is still me in my normal form.
Now today (3/21/22) I use my pretty pink bunny pen.
I love my life, so, so much. I feel as though we take this life for granted,knowing that things could be so different or that they could change so quickly(for better or worse).
I am excited for what is to come and I know I don’t want to waste my life on things I find undesirable.
I want to do what’s best for me/my future, but I also want to do what makes me feel genuinely happy and fulfilled.
And yes, that means picking the right friends, right college, right major and career, but that also means putting me first and choosing to put me first and understand myself as time travels and things begin to unravel because I am my own hero.
I continuously learn that everyone is not for me (and vice versa) and that is completely okay, as long as I learn that I am for myself.
I have yet to be humbled, but I don’t feel like I need to be, as I understand the scarcity of goof. But, hey, yin and yang, good and the bad, it all balances me out.
Intimacy
Izzy Firtgald is a first-year Sociology major
Merriam-Webster defines intimacy as a noun.
A close familiarity or friendship. A private cozy atmosphere or an intimate act, especially sexual intercourse.
But I don’t think Merriam-Webster has seen Black intimacy and love before.
Because the thing about intimacy is…
that it’s not in the moment when their clothes finally hit the floor and it’s not in the second that both partners gasp for air in synchronicity.
Intimacy is simply not seen within an act
intimacy is seen through that colored TV screen presenting a not so coincidental rose colored tint
To these universal phenomenons of a love like poetic justice or a ride or die like “Queen and Slim”
And it doesn’t have to be as hard as Malcolm and Marie make it out to seem
But sometimes things aren’t so “about last night” in these intimate moments
Intimacy feels like that person is your human NyQuil
Because you know your soul is settled
and your heart is healing and at that time, that kind of intimacy makes you want to sing
at long last love has arrived and I thank god I’m alive you’re just too good to be true
Can’t take my eyes off of you
Prolific
Lorenzo Jáuregui is a second-year English major
A profit off the weapon
You still expect us to forgive and not to wanna step in
Expect me not to weep when another brother dies
My eyes are traumatized by the truth of these lies
The roots of these ideas are encrypted from endorsements
Weak mother f—er making sure there aren’t reinforcements
But why upset the balance when it clearly favors your plans
Zulu nation don’t create any ideas to remove your fans
You lucky we don’t retaliate and eliminate your people
Always done dirty but we never gonna fall victim to evil
Trying to silence our voices but we are to prolific
Go and insight violence just for your lucrific
Trying to run away from the new social gimmick
I fear the power that I know I can’t mimic
Fighting these evils got me questions my true strength
You a weak mother f—er if you think I fold at arms length
Had me second guessing thoughts that running through my head
look the line over that s— needs to be reread
Put me in between the crossfire trying to sympathy with both sides I’m tired of fighting for these weak ass lies
Dreaming of a land where a mother f—er can ascend
Is a grand what I need to go make history bend
I wanna step into a world where the throne ain’t empty
Gonna steal that crown before I turn twenty
Fight the evils of the world with a f—ing pen
Put you in a song turn your life around again
I rule the world with my f—ing mind ain’t that a trip
dreaming of a world where reality more than a clip
A clip in black in white cause I can’t imagine the real thing
Even in my fantasy I’m still second string
Is that my own fault or can I blame it on society
Second class citizen just let me practice piety
When I see rain I can only visualize my brain
Helping end the drought but not for my f—ing gain
The walls are closing in but I still chase the fame
Soon these ideas will let me make my own game
We are so prolific and yet my ideas feel horrific
I wanna fight this lucrific but I gotta learn specifics
S— I’m done with waking up and accepting my reality
Chin check mother f—er look at me and say I agree
Now lemme try one more time to escape this timeline
My pen is all is all I got it let’s me stretch a fine line
Hold a sign fight for my life but there it is again
My weapon it’s a pen it gonna carry me to the end
Hypocrites critique my words but the metaphor they speaks
Allows for shallow s— to look far to deep
Let the clip keep rolling and expand these plans I have
If I’m lucky I might just find own candy land
Keep putting out a new name cause your fear our colorific
These ideas are specific mother f—er we prolific
