Friday Feature: Cynthia Manick
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad-HarperCollins, 2023), which received 5 stars from Roxane Gay, was named among the “Best Poetry of the Last Year (2023)” by Ms. Magazine, and was selected as a New York Public Library Best Book of 2023. She is the author of Brown Girl Polaris (a Belladonna chaplet), editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry; and winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry for her first collection Blue Hallelujahs. Manick has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Château de la Napoule, among other foundations. For 10 years, she curated Soul Sister Revue, a quarterly reading series that featured emerging poets, poet laureates, and Pulitzer Prize winners. Her poem “Things I Carry into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems, and her work has recently featured in VOICES, an audio play and sisterscape by Aja Monet and Eve Ensler’s V-Day. A storyteller and performer at literary festivals, libraries, and museums, Manick’s work can be found in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus and other outlets. She lives in New York but travels widely for poetry.
The Reality Show of My Dreams
Features Black women
lounging on goose down pillows.
The air is a mist of cucumber lemon
and pumped soul jams,
that pull them all to nod
and go wheww chilee.
Mouths twist in delight.
They are of course being hand fed ─
plantain chips for the crisp
peanut brittle for the salt
and mango chunks on the side of ripe.
Fully hydrated these women are in love ─
with the colors aubergine and macaroon.
They wear church hats so wide,
spirits don’t need to hover
to hear what’s going down.
Instead, they curl in hat brims –
dozing off and on
to the sound of female voices.
Some teaching girls
how to unlearn burden,
where melanin was fear
then scolding
then brass knuckles.
Others describing dreams
of continents forming
and the oldest trunks of bristlecone trees.
In this reality select women
are surrounded by foreign
dignitaries and leaders,
who trail behind an every-
day parade of afros and braids
styled with white lights
butterflies, and marigolds.
They ask the right questions.
Answers are in a constant state
of blooming.
Black women are also regulars
at parks and merry-go-rounds.
They read books and rate travel destinations
based on soul food menus
and pictures of baked biscuits,
to see other brown women at ease.
In this reality women stride
through major cities –
New York, D.C., and Boston –
like a herd of black
Friesian mares.
On their feet are designer shoes
that feel like butter
but only cost 10 pennies.
Some wear an Aunt Jemima’s crown,
red and checkered,
with a pocketed maroon dress to match.
Others favor the fedora,
knowing it’s a different
type of blade.
Walking by like a sigh,
they are followed by a trail
of black felines, crows, and canines
who love them so hard,
they sometimes forget
about oxygen.
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Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.