Friday Feature: Jordan Bolden Majewski
- Jul 17
- 2 min read
Jordan Bolden Majewski (she/they) is a Black queer poet and essayist living in the Bay Area. Her work explores the embodied experience of Black motherhood in its full spectrum– the many dangers, surprises, and joys. Bolden Majewski’s work has always been grounded in the body– the places we touch and pull away, the ways we hurt and are healed, the things we carry inside ourselves that we hold apart from others. They write about the systems we must carry our bodies through– the medical system which fails Black women intentionally, repeatedly, and dangerously, and the education system which echoes the same failings with a callous neglect for Black children. Through the lens of motherhood, they are interested in the ways racism entangles itself in our intimate and daily relationships and routines, especially as they parent their three children surrounded by mostly white parents. Bolden Majewski seeks to highlight childhood from a place of agency and dignity, and wonders how that might change our politics. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Shenandoah, Crab Orchard Review, and The Panafold. She received an MFA in Poetry from New York University, and is currently at work on a poetry manuscript and a collection of essays.
Lot
His family flees, but Lot’s wife cannot
resist a parting look on her home,
the land where she walked dusty streets
each morning to pull water
from a deep well for her children,
her tears crystallizing into long white rivulets
down coarse salt cheeks cast in shadow.
I walk over one block and down Bedford,
sun bursting from concrete as I exit the train.
I’m walking quickly past another woman.
In her wake, I catch a man’s voice saying
… pussy! Ohh— you smell nice. I smell you!
I pass through words meant for her
and they hang in my hair like smoke.
What do you call the clean, round way
words spring from meanness?
If the lyric is a distillation of time,
let me break, for you, the sudden-quick
slap of another woman’s body
in a strange man’s mouth
against my skin. How to stop myself
from turning? In the bible,
Lot offers his virgin daughters
to the crowd of ravenous men gathered
rather than allow the men to harm
the angels bringing destruction on Sodom.
No one calls for help. This morning,
I turn a corner. A man fills
the avenue and grabs me as if
my body were a song he wanted to play.
This world, full of stories in which
someone turns and a woman disappears.
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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.
