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L-R: Lori Moses, Leah Tyus Torch Literary Arts is thrilled to announce our new Administrative Fellows, Lori Moses - Development Fellow, and Leah Tyus - Creative Content Fellow. During their fellowships, Lori and Leah will support research and outreach efforts as well as create content for TORCH's website and social media accounts. Additionally, they will learn about nonprofit management, digital marketing, and community engagement. Lori Moses majors in Psychology and Communication at the City College of New York. She has many interests, including creative writing, psychology, and nonprofit management. During her free time, Lori likes to read books on professional growth, cook for her family, and take care of her two cats. Lori states that one of her main goals as a Torch fellow is to “grow and become a sponge to understand what it’s like to help promote equity and come up with simple solutions. “ She would also like to expand her collaborative skills and marketing skills. Leah Tyus is a writer and VONA/Voices alum based in California. She received her bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in English Literature. Currently, she is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing from San José State University, where she is developing a novel-length project for her thesis. Her creative work has been published in the Berkeley Fiction Review and Orion Magazine. At SJSU, she works as the graduate assistant for the Center for Literary Arts assisting with internal and external communications as well as digital marketing; she is the Treasurer for the Diasporic Peoples Writing a collective; and lastly, she works as a freelance content writer for Grammarly and writing consultant at a local community college. 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. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Ambata Kazi-Nance is a writer, editor, and teacher born and raised in New Orleans, LA, and currently residing in the California Bay Area with her family. She holds an MA and MFA from the University of New Orleans. She is the Arts and Culture Editor at Sapelo Square. Her writing has been featured in Muslim American Writers at Home, midnight & indigo, CRAFT, Peauxdunque Review, Cordella, Mixed Company, and Love Insh’Allah (online). Currently, she is writing a novel. Visit Ambata's website and follow her on Instagram and Twitter. The Midwives by Ambata Kazi-Nance Stage brightens to reveal three Black women varying in ages from late 50’s to 70’s. They sit on throne-like chairs, wearing the clothes of regal African women. They are midwives, representing the Black American midwife tradition, known commonly as the granny midwives. The youngest is Candy Lynn. Like the sweetness her name implies, she wears a wax print blouse and skirt in a bright shade of pink. She clutches a hand-knit doll, also wearing pink, in her lap. The next is Jane. She carries a more aristocratic air. Her clothes are sapphire. The last is Ora, the oldest of the three. Gone is the gray dress and simple chignon. Now she wears a gown of emerald green, the color of wisdom. A high golden headwrap covers her hair. They look out boldly and assuredly at the audience. Candy Lynn is the first to speak. CANDY LYNN: The elder women, the midwives, they were always just…there in our community. Like the mailman or the store clerk, just an everyday fact of life. I never thought I’d be one, never saw myself doing that work. (Smiles and touches the doll in her lap) I only ever wanted to be a mother. From as young as I could remember, that’s all I wanted to be. (Primps the doll) Every year for Christmas, my mother made me a new doll. I had a little crib in my room just for them. Had them all laid up next to each other, nice and neat. I played with them too, picked them up one by one (she picks up the doll in her lap and holds it up lovingly, then snuggles it into her arms), talked to them, even got up in the night to tend to them. Had a little plastic milk bottle and cloth diapers and everything. Loved them like they were the real thing. (laughs lightly) Met James when I was sixteen. A blacksmith and a darn good-looking man, but it was the kindness in his eyes that won me. (smiles wistfully) Got married and set up house quickly, and got ready for the babies to come. (pauses, her voice turns sad) But the babies…they just…wouldn’t come. It was the strangest thing. I kept waiting and praying, praying and waiting…(shakes her head) nothing. Every month, watching the blood bloom, trying to read something in its scentless petals. Every month, cycling through hope, sadness, then grief. Over and over. When I reached thirty years of age, and still my womb was cold, I knew I needed to imagine something else, something different. It was during that time that a friend of mine, a sweet sister friend, asked me to sit with her during her labor. Said she saw it in a dream, clear as day, that I was supposed to be there. (looks matter-of-factly at the audience) You don’t argue with dreams. So I said yes. I was there with her for the whole thing. The midwife came and went, checking on her, but I stayed. Went on for days with hardly any rest. Fed her, walked with her, rubbed her back, gave her water. A cool cloth for her head and neck when she needed it. She rocked, I rocked. She swayed, I swayed along with her. Soon enough I was huffing and puffing and grunting along with her. (laughs) Her time came to let go. I don’t know how to explain it, it was just a shift in the air, a sudden stillness. Then the midwife pulled me over. She took my hands and pulled them down low where the head was coming out. Didn’t say anything, just thrust my hands down there like it was the most natural thing in the world for me to do. And the baby, he came out in a whoosh and I caught him (demonstrates with the doll). I caught him, just like that. (clutches the doll to her chest) And the feeling. The rush that spread through my body. It felt...it felt like I had given birth, just for a brief moment before I handed him off to his mother. I was crying. We were all crying. Mama, midwife, baby, and me. (laughs and wipes her eyes) Oh. (she shakes her head with nostalgia) (Sighs with satisfaction, then speaks starkly) Couple of things were born that day. A baby, a mother…and a midwife. (Looks directly at the audience) I never had a child of my own, no. But as a midwife, I became a mother of thousands. Pause. Spotlight moves to Jane. JANE: ‘Witches,’ they called them. ‘Conjure women.’ Never to their faces though. See, we had a little more than most folks at that time. Not a whole lot, but enough to make ourselves prideful. Enough to stuff some in our backbones to make ourselves taller, so we could look down on everybody else. Had no choice but to call on the midwives when their time came though, albeit grudgingly. Nobody else was coming out to deliver our babies. Or take care of the other things no one dared mention. They helped bring life into this world, but sometimes, maybe, they used ways to take it away too. Not every baby is joy, you see, depending on how it came to be. But we don’t like to talk about those things. For that reason, that suspicion, they were kept at arm’s length. Despite the names they called them, or maybe because of them, I was fascinated. They could look at the night sky and read the moon, and know who was about to give birth, and whose blood was coming. Often, they knew a woman was pregnant before she even knew. They could name all the plants, down to the littlest stubborn shrub bush, and tell you what each one was good for, and bad for too. ‘Magic’ the others called it. The word sizzled as it came out of their mouths. The heat pricked my ears and turned my eyes, carefully hooded, towards the midwives. I witnessed my first birth when I was twelve years old. By that point I was sneaking off whenever I saw the women walking determinedly through town with their black satchels firm at their side. They were always walking. I followed them as much as I could, except sometimes they walked so far I got tired or scared I’d get caught, and turned back. I followed one of them one day, an old woman, out to a little busted up shack, nothing but a few scrawny chickens pecking the dusty earth. I squatted down behind a tree a few feet away and waited, for what I don’t know. Must of fell asleep at some point. The bellows coming from the shack stirred me. The sun was going to bed and I knew I was going to get it when I got home, so I figured I’d make it worth my while and take a look-see. A fire was going at the hearth. The only light in the room. The birthing mother was on her knees clutching the back of a chair; the midwife hunched on a low stool behind her, kneading her lower back with her fists. I figured her arms had to be real strong to do that like that. Then she spoke. (her voice turns low and gravelly) “Girl, fetch some more water.” Couldn’t figure out who she was talking to since it wasn’t but the two of them. “If you’re gonna stand there in the shadows like that, you might as well do something useful.” She had seen me, but not with her eyes it seemed, for they never looked my way. I could’ve run, but I had no desire to. So I went and got a bucket of water. “And toss some more wood on that fire.” Soon enough she had me working. Setting up all the little pots that held different tools, little scissors and brushes, gathering freshly washed linens. Made me wash my hands real good before I could touch anything. Then the baby started making its way out into the world, bottom first, like it didn’t want to let go. Some might have been scared or turned sick, but not me. I didn’t flinch nor blink. I watched this woman open herself in a way that didn’t seem humanly possible and I knew then, women were magical beings. When my own blood came I took strength in it and told my mother I was going to train with the midwives. She had always accused me of being too womanish anyway, so what could she do? I certainly didn’t care what any uppity folks thought. I went with the midwives and I watched and learned the things they could do with just their hands. How they could reach into a woman and unwrap a caught cord without the mother knowing or feeling a thing. Use those same hands to mold and shape a newborn’s head and rub the life into them to free their cries. Caught my first baby when I was eighteen years old. By the time I was twenty, I was the one walking around town clutching my satchel. I could name all the plants and read God’s messages to the mothers in the night sky. (pause, she looks up to the invisible sky, then to the audience) Not everybody loved the midwives, you see, but they did respect them because, like me, they recognized their power. Pause. Spotlight turns to Ora. ORA: I was called to do this work when I was still in the womb myself. It was pressed into my soul by The Creator of All Things. Our ancestors that crossed the waters in chains carried nothing but their traditions. I am a descendent of the first Black midwives who stepped on these treacherous shores. I had to take our traditions and keep them alive. In a new world that didn’t love us, didn’t care for us, didn’t give a damn beyond the backbreaking work we did, we had to take care of each other. I learned the ways of the midwife from my mother. All us girls had a basic knowledge, but I was the only one who took to it, found myself within it. It was natural for me, foraging for herbs and roots with the women—chamomile and mint to calm the nerves, ginger to soothe the stomach, raspberry leaf to strengthen the uterus and prime it for birth. May apple and hot pepper to get the contractions going, black haw to ease pain. Sitting up with the mothers for long hours while they labored, it was where I felt most useful, most at home. (Gestures with her hands) My mother showed me how to use my hands to feel the baby inside the womb, how to turn the baby if it wasn’t in the right position. She could tell, just by looking at a woman, how she would give birth, and I learned, too. Twin babies, breech babies, feet first, we saw it all. We lost some babies, sure, some mothers, too. But it was rare. Midwife, partera, qabila (shrugs dismissively)…back home, we were simply called, healers. It doesn’t matter what you call us, really, for we have always been, and always will be, ‘with women.’ Ours was a time when we were everything: mother, nurse, doctor, and doula. These women weren’t strangers to us, and neither us to them. We knew them long before seeds were planted in their wombs. You do this work long enough and your hands are the first to touch two and sometimes three generations in one family. Our work is more than just catching babies though. Our work starts long before and continues long after the baby cracks the sky with that first cry. We have to be with the women every step of the way, making sure they are eating well and taking care of themselves. Give them a little gentle chiding when they aren’t. Mind the children and cook up a little something so she can rest. And make her feel good, too, pamper her a little. Comb her hair, massage her feet, rub a little rosewater into her temples, make her feel sweet. A mother needs to feel loved so she can give love. So we nurture them, and help them build up their strength for the hard work they have to do. And it is hard. Hardest thing a body will ever have to do. And maybe a fearful thing, too, but not so fearful that we can’t do it. Our history tells us we can and we have, from the very beginnings of time. CANDY LYNN: From Hawa, Eve, our first mother, we learned how to birth ourselves into this world. JANE: When Pharaoh called for the slaughter of the Israelite babies, it was the women, those blessed with the healing touch, who protected them. It was their chain of protection that shielded Moses from the slaughter, so that he could bring forth the divine message and save his people. The midwives feared no pharaoh because they answered to God, not man. CANDY LYNN: Maryam, alone and afraid, shook by pains that threatened to split her open, sought shelter and guidance, some means of comfort and assurance. The angel Gabriel brought her to a tree with leaves to shade her, and a trunk for her to rest her burden. From it dropped dates to strengthen her in her time of need. Sacred fruit to fortify her womb and her courage to birth the Messiah. She called to God and He answered, soothing her with the reminder that she had been chosen above all women to carry this gift to the world. Even the Creator is a midwife. ORA: Throughout time, through all traumas, we have been here, bringing the next generation into the light. The pulse of history sings an ancient, familiar song. Look within, and find your strength. Stage darkens. Note: The Midwives is an excerpt from the play M Power: A (Re)Birth Story by Ambata Kazi-Nance. ### 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. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Saida Agostini, author of Stunt and let the dead in, is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Her work has been celebrated in numerous publications and supported by the Blue Mountain Center and others. Photo by Kafi D'Ambrosi Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Her work is featured in Plume, Hobart Pulp, Barrelhouse, Auburn Avenue, amongst others. Saida’s work can be found in several anthologies, including Not Without Our Laughter: Poems of Humor, Sexuality and Joy, The Future of Black, and Plume Poetry 9. She is the author of STUNT (Neon Hemlock, October 2020), a chapbook reimagining the life of Nellie Jackson, a Black madam and FBI spy from Natchez Mississippi. Her first full-length collection, let the dead in (Alan Squire Publishing) was released in Spring 2022. A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, and member of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective, Saida is a two-time Pushcart Prize Nominee and Best of the Net Finalist. Her work has received support from the Ruby Artist Grants, and the Blue Mountain Center, amongst others. Visit Saida's website and follow her on Instagram and Twitter. notes on archiving erasure by Saida Agostini love does not begin and end the way we think it does. love is a battle; love is a war; love is a growing up - James Baldwin when I say I love my family what I mean is I worship the battle; you can’t wish away creation or re-order blood. childishly I thought we could re-tell story(ies) I mean to say, I can’t lie. in truth there are wretched days I call my sister and ask was this real? did this happen? she says nothing part of love can be called refusing to answer. my mother says let things lie she means murder it let our shame be a suffocating vine: we were made to believe that everything we bore was ugly: a family of shell shocked gods fleeing their own clay - yet, I will come back to the door of our own home sit at its steps, and fall in love with the slow order of our creation, the seasons it took to urge kindness into our natures. how we won glory even as the city fell. 2 fat black women are making love by Saida Agostini and the joke is right there, ready, shuddering and alive - rife with promise. there are so many paths that have been out worn out for a quick easy laugh: tyler perry strutting with a gun and wig, screaming rotund and loud like a madea would, martin calling out yo mama on television, or the meme of a young woman shot underhand her belly in love with a tight skirt, hands moving towards an open mouth, look at everything she devours imagine it: does it make you hungry too? 2 fat black women are making love, on a bed, on the floor, and they are weeping for joy - they are crying great folds of flesh flushing and shaking, one cannot look in the mirror save for thinking of her daddy - all this ugly and skin together, counts the men who say they hate her body as they do bitter cops and dead black boys. 2 fat black women are making love - and they touch each other like they can hold it. honeyed, profane, bawdy- like patriots, like their bodies have never been folded into freezers, screamed at on streets, coaxed or threatened sweet, like they have names, like we will know them. The Interview Your writing is rich with images of desire and love but also leans into the realities of pain and injustice. How do these subjects influence your work? Our bodies were built for pleasure. What a miracle of atoms. I think one of the prevailing tragedies of misogynoir and capitalism is that we as Black folks are constantly pushed to be divorced from our physicality and pleasure. Audre Lorde defines the erotic as a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. We have a right to our etiology, our chaos, our power. I want us to know the full scope of our power, and the history of it, what it took, what it continues to take to survive this beast called America. My work seeks to recount these histories, and offer a full-throated vision of Black freedom where our pleasure is never denied. Your poem “2 fat black women are making love” is a pixelated view of the ugliness hurled at Black women and the idea that they could be desirable. You even reference Tyler Perry’s character Madea as an example. Can you speak on the importance of art as a counter to negative stereotypes in media? I grew up hating my body. That’s not surprising. I’m a fat Black queer woman. A lot of my work is about asserting narratives that explore the wonder and beauty of fat Blackness. I have to admit I’ve stopped thinking about my art as a counter to mainstream media simply because I am tired of working day and night to prove I am worthy of the same humanity as whiteness. Rather, my aim simply is to celebrate and name what I know now to be an irrefutable and undeniable truth: I exist and so do my stories. In “notes on archiving erasure” there is a moment when a traumatic memory rises through the text - “there were wretched/ days I call my sister / and ask was this / real?” The response of silence is seen as a kind of love. The poem expertly demonstrates the lasting impact of trauma without naming the traumatic event. How do you prepare yourself to write through difficult subjects? Love. You know, trauma is a funny thing. I spent a lot of time running from it. I always wanted to be a strong woman, but I kept finding that these ghosts, the stories, and body memory of trauma kept haunting me. We talk a lot about possession and exorcism in Black religions, I remember my mother constantly worrying about the evil eye when I was younger, and how others might be seeking to harm us. I think she’s right in the sense that evil is always with us. How else could we explain centuries of state-sanctioned rape, enslavement, and family separation? We know evil like it's our kin. Truth-telling for me has been a practice of exorcism, laying hands. It’s been a way of building my own country where I am no longer at fault for the evil done to me, and the generations that have come before me, but a practice of honoring the great love it took for my people to survive here, on this land. It’s a glorious thing, to know and feel intimately that I am freer because my mother and her mother loved me. It’s a spell. Thinking of trauma as an evil that can be cast out has been a healing ritual. One that I keep coming back to right now, as we see so much evil wrought across our country. It helps me remember that we have lived through apocalypses before, and survived with joy. We have everything we need to be free. Both of these poems are from your latest collection let the dead in. What do you hope readers take away from the book? I hope folks take away a mandate to tell their stories. Silence is corrosive. We’ve got to find ways to name and rejoice in the complicated, weird, painful, and lovely histories that make us. It’s my hope that Black queer folks, survivors, and others navigating painful legacies find their way to this book, and remember that they are never alone. What is your must-have/do self-care practice? I always try to take time to just breathe each morning. It helps me come back to my body, connect to myself and remember that every great action starts with a breath. If you have $20, how are you treating yourself? Putting it towards a fabulous outfit! I love a good gown. You can travel anywhere in the world, where are you going and what are you doing first? I’m going to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I’d bring all my people - my wife, parents, sister, and best friends, and we’d rent a fabulous house right on the water, cook good food, go swimming, and dance to house music all day long. It’s a chill afternoon at home. What music is playing and what’s cooking? It will always be chicken curry, roti, and a roast mango custard pie on deck. I’m playing Try by Madison McFerrin, followed by the king, Luther Vandross’ Wait for Love and A House Is Not a Home. How can people support you? Buy my books, let the dead in, and STUNT. Follow me on IG and check out my website. If you’re in Philadelphia on August 6th, catch me and Teri Ellen Cross Davis for our reading at the African American Museum in Philadelphia Who is another Black woman writer people should be reading? Diamond Forde!!!! Her work is transcendent. If you haven’t bought a copy of her book, Mother Body, what are you doing with your life??? 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. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Torch Literary Arts is thrilled to announce that The Burdine Johnson Foundation has awarded TORCH a 2022 grant. These funds will support our fall 2022 programs including the Wildfire Reading Series, workshops, and artist fees for Monthly and Friday Features. We are grateful to receive their generous support that helps us fulfill our mission to create advancement opportunities for Black women writers. Every bit helps! If you or someone you know would like to invest in TORCH and the Black women writers we serve, email contact @ torchliteraryarts.org or click the button to donate. Motivated by the desire to enhance the quality of life for those in Hays County and Central Texas, the Burdine Johnson Foundation awards grants to local charitable organizations involving the arts, education, health and human services, the environment and historic preservation. 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. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Photo by Rebecca Bernstein Kameryn Alexa Carter is a black poet and assemblagist from Chicago. She is a founding co-editor of Emergent Literary, a journal for black and brown artists, and has an MA from the University of Chicago. Her work has appeared in 68to05, Bennington Review, Letters Journal, Puerto del Sol, Voicemail Poems, and elsewhere. Follow Kameryn on her website and on Instagram and Twitter. Self Portrait as Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy in the Style of Gentileschi by Kameryn Alexa Carter I retired the Mary Magdalene around my neck to a quaint embroidered box. The pressure of her devotion was too much to carry. I have trouble leveling and require a soft reminder of the double pole inside me. Seeking a refuge for my soul, where do I go but to the State Street preacher, who proclaims the word into a rattling portable microphone, flanked by Macy’s mothers shoving along their Dyson strollers. My phone is dead, so I ask if by chance he has the time, to which he replies now. Jesus is coming, been came, come back! Supposedly, the Son knows me by name. Supposedly if I call, he’ll answer. In the morning, having pushed on through the acute trouble, I acknowledge how far my mind has come from turning against and against itself. It’s too hot for anything but gazpacho. The trick is day old bread. Trouble don’t last. Not always. ### 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. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Award-winning author and former Seattle Civic Poet, Anastacia-Reneé has received residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, Ragdale, Mineral School, and The New Orleans Writers Residency. Anastacia-Reneé (She/They)is a queer writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, speaker, and podcaster. She is the author of(v.)(Black Ocean) and Forget It (Black Radish), Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere, and Side Notes from the Archivist forthcoming from Amistad (an imprint of HarperCollins). They were selected by NBC News as part of the list of "Queer Artist of Color Dominate 2021's Must-See LGBTQ Art Shows." Anastacia-Reneé was a former Seattle Civic Poet (2017-2019), Hugo House Poet-in-Residence (2015-2017), Arc Artist Fellow (2020), and Jack Straw Curator (2020). Her work has been anthologized in: Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature, Home is Where You Queer Your Heart, Furious Flower Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, Afrofuturism, Black Comics, And Superhero Poetry, Joy Has a Sound, Spirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden, and Seismic: Seattle City of Literature. Her work has appeared in, Hobart, Foglifter, Auburn Avenue, Catapult, Alta, Torch, Poetry Northwest, A-Line, Cascadia Magazine, Hennepin Review, Ms. Magazine, and others. Renee has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, Ragdale, Mineral School, and The New Orleans Writers Residency. Follow Anastacia-Reneé on anastacia-renee.com and on Instagram. Mothering by Anastacia-Reneé i. i never did think of motherhood as an act of rebellion (but) i wanted so desperately to be a rebel to throw my children across my breast & run with arrows in my cheeks picking off any dead thing trying to take my kids to hell piercing any rotting hand wrapping round their dangling ankles rubbing salt around all their edges circling every patchy part of kin ii. if i had known the body i spit out of my vagina was not big enough to hold your dreams i certainly would have stolen pieces of the sky & melted them down as gold to give you the blinging life your little heart beat for what a gracious shooting star you've become to let me see you born again your lipstick writing "do you see me" all over the fucking town iii. you took the talk so well we made eye to eye contact over macaroni & cheese all your anxiety curdling up around your elbows all my cheesy words melting around your hot brain we heavily analyzed a song from my 1988 teen mixed tape & sang like a made up rugged 80’s b-ban fuck the police but you were barely an 8th grader & i was mom so instead we said “eff the police” & we laughed so hard you said your neck hurt & when you got to a point where you laughed so hard you said mama, mama i can’t breathe what fun times they were how good it felt to send you off into the magical darkness of your safe bedroom to know that you’d be both happy & sleepy all in one shot & no residue of pain Look What I Made For You by Anastacia-Reneé i recall inside my little me how many times with loving child hands i made dandelion necklaces & matching bracelets for my mother i presented them with sweat & as an announcement me yelling tall though shorter than the blades of grass mommy look what i made for you look what i made for you look what i made for you look what i made for you & she took them so lovingly & never hesitated to put them on & if they didn't fit she'd take them apart remake them so that they would i recall inside my little me my third grade teacher lip pursing so matter-of-factly the words blowing out of her lipstick-ed mouth like a skinny cigarette dandelions are not flowers dandelions are weeds & they destroy all the good flowers yank them up whenever you see them so the rest of the flowers can really grow & just like that inside my little me i thought i had cursed my mother after learning the word curse from a walt disney character & then i wondered how many times i cursed my mother how many times did i put the noose around her neck & the shackle around her feet look look look how many times how many times how many times do we suffer even when the innocent are not to blame Videos of Anastacia-Reneé's Exhibition, (Don't be Absurd) Alice in Parts at FRYE Art Museum. Shared with the artist's permission. The Interview Your work as a multidisciplinary artist is deeply rooted in text. Do you build a performance or exhibition from the page out? Describe your process. Thank you. No one has ever asked me this question! I pour myself into the writing. When I notice that I am gravitating towards lengthier pieces of work, suites, or series and revisiting similar themes extensively, that’s when I say to myself “Perhaps this needs more attention and should live as a mixed-media installation or play,” then I ask the piece what it wants. The text then becomes an inhabitant of a stage or art space that I build my work in. Your exhibition and performance (Don’t be Absurd) Alice in Parts, is an explosive immersion into the interior and exterior life of Black women existing in everyday oppressive systems and experiencing the physical consequences of that experience. It’s tangible and unavoidable. What do you hope your audience will take away from the work? Alice is me. Alice is you. Alice is the put together and seemingly perfect woman “slaying it” in the boardroom or academia. Alice is the nonbinary person trying to get out of dark places using Audre Lorde and other writing ancestors as light. Alice is someone's preteen. Alice is the next door neighbor you never verbally speak to but throw a hand up at. Alice is the critical but fun auntie. Alice is your ex-best friend. Alice is a member of your sacred sister circle. That is the first thing I hope audience members take from (Don’t Be Absurd) Alice in Parts. I also want audience members who are not from the BIPOC community to “see” firsthand what many black women are moving through in the world on a daily, and hourly basis. I want to give statistics, social media posts and book club conversations an up close and in-person essence to experience. I also wanted Black women to feel seen, heard and understood though Alice does not represent all Black, her life experiences are shared by other Black women. Speaking for myself, I have been in very few spaces which center the multilayered experiences of Black women. I want deeper exploration as it relates to the systemic gentrification of black bodies. I understand you’ll be moving to New York soon. You’ve lived in Seattle for many years as a fixture in the arts and literary community. Why the transition now? It’s true, after living in Seattle Washington for the last 16 years, my wife and I are geographically relocating to New York! My wife was born and raised in Mount Vernon New York and their family is there. I have been a frequent visitor to New York and many literary community engagements have allowed me to be semi-bicoastal; however, in addition to those reasons I’ve been sitting with “knowing” that I need to expand my creative practices and visions to include an alternative energy. It’s been an “in process” thought for years but only recently have I decided to make the leap. I will miss lush-green-coffee-seen Seattle, and my child and my friends very much. In New York, I hope to build stronger community ties and make new connections that will push me to create, excavate and interrogate new multi-genre writing, art, and theater. I want more freedom to “play” and experiment as a mid-career writer and a somewhat late-stage emerging installation artist. I grew up watching “Fame” and I am a late bloomer. I am ready to dance on a few taxis and direct a flash mob. You have two new projects forthcoming from Amistad (an imprint of HarperCollins), Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere, and Side Notes from the Archivist. Can you give us a sneak peek into these projects? Sneak peek indeed! First of all, I am thrilled! I am so honored that Jennifer Baker (Senior Editor Amistad Books–HarperCollins) invested her time, energy, and expertise in me. I feel so honored to be a part of the Amistad team and she and Francesca Walker (Editorial Assistant–HarperCollins) have given my new work a safe and exciting place to live and grow. Side Notes from the Archivist (HarperCollins March 2023)is a poetry heavy book with emphasis on memoir, nostalgia, the body, and patriarchy from the archivist's point of view. Here in the Middle of Nowhere (HarperCollins 2024) is experimental prose with heavy emphasis on a “world” with vibrant characters and overlapping stories that all converge “(Here).” What advice would you give to those interested in building a diverse literary/performance career? Ten Things: You are on your own path so don’t compare yourself to others and their careers or paths. You may not always have a mentor-type, to “show you the way” but don’t be afraid to ask peers, colleagues, or folks/x you admire questions about aspects of your literary career. Embrace doubt. Self-doubt is part of the process. When you doubt that you are good enough, face it and say, “Hello doubt. I hear you but I’ve got work to do.” Don’t be afraid to edit and create new work while letting go of old work. If this is your career, of course you will write! You don’t need to hoard your own work. Make room for new ideas and new work. Know the difference between admiring and being positively influenced by someone's work and absorbing their work or style as your own work. Become a keen observer and frequent participant of all things creative: Read tons of books. Watch documentaries, Go to art museums. Travel. Learn a new language. Color. Paint. Listen to different types of music. Play an instrument. Dance. Cook. Less talking about writing and more writing. Know that some days thinking about what you’ll write, making lists or outlines counts as writing too. Stop waiting until you think you know it all and have done all the work before participating in “writerly” things. You are a writer whether you’ve completed a book or not. Participate or submit! Practice spiritual and earthly self-care and rest often. 10.5 Find an accountability buddy. If you find yourself in a creative rut, what do you do to get out of it? Every week I allow myself to become “obsessed” with topics. Preferably random subjects. For example: How mulch is made, the life cycle of dragonflies, or the most recent new creatures discovered in the ocean. These “obsessions” are kept in a journal full of vivid details, sometimes sketches and copious notes regarding my research “detours”. This way when I feel stuck or stagnant I have a whole world to turn to and I can pick and choose my topic and even use the material in new work I create. When you hear “joy” what do you think of? When I hear the word “joy” I think of my own steady heartbeat because for me I always have joy. No one can give it to me or take it away from me. What I work on is creating more moments of happiness, peace, and fun. In addition to your forthcoming publications, are there any other projects you’re working on? I’m writing a new play (think A Christmas Carol meets Butler, Simone and Lorde) , a series of photography and art around the subject of “chosen” family and “chosen” enemies, season four of The Deep End With Friends Podcast with co-star Reagan Jackson, and always, a book of hybrid work clearing its throat in my ear. How can people support you right now? Thank you for asking this question. People can support me by investing in other Black women and queer black women who are working hard! Buy their books, attend their plays, listen to their podcasts, collect their art, and fund their grants. They can email me if they are interested in taking one of my virtual classes, manuscript consultation or $30/30 monthly writing prompts @ anastaciarwriter@gmail.com Name another Black woman writer people should read? How much time do I have for this question? :) Just one? Lorraine Hansberry (playwright). I feel her work as a writer is often understated or overlooked. All which I feel I must write has become obsessive. So many truths seem to be rushing at me as the result of things felt and seen and lived through. Oh, what I think I must tell this world. -Lorraine Hansberry ### 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. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Summer 2022 Administrative Fellows Creative Content Fellow Through this role, the Creative Content Fellow will learn social media management, brand development, and digital content writing. You can expect to gain experience working on: ​ • social media content - from design to post - across TORCH accounts • writing content for TORCH’s website and print materials • researching marketing and advertising trends in publishing ​ Development Fellow Through this role, the Development Fellow will learn donor management systems, support community outreach efforts, and research government and foundation grants. You can expect to work on: ​ • updating TORCH’s contact database • creating surveys and compiling results • researching grants and nonprofit fundraising trends The average time commitment for these positions is 4 to 5 hours per week and runs from July 11 to August 5. Each fellowship is provided a stipend of $500 (the equivalent of $25 per hour). These positions work remotely. ​ Qualifications: You must be a college student and/or an emerging nonprofit professional to apply. Preferred candidates should demonstrate an investment in our values and mission statement, as well as an interest in literature, arts and culture, and/or nonprofit management through previous internship roles, projects, or experience. ​ How to apply: Send an email with a cover letter and resume to contact@torchliteraryarts.org. Deadline May 27, 2022

Faylita Hicks is the author of Hoodwitch, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry, and is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Black Mountain Institute, the Tony-Award winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Civil Rights Corps, and more. Self-portrait by Faylita Hicks Faylita Hicks (she/they) is a queer Afro-Latinx activist, writer, and interdisciplinary artist. Born in South Central California and raised in Central Texas, they use their intersectional experiences to advocate for the rights of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people. They are the author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry. They are the Editor-in-Chief of Black Femme Collective and a new voting member of the Recording Academy. Hicks is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Black Mountain Institute, the Tony-Award winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Civil Rights Corps, The Dots Between, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Lambda Literary, Texas After Violence Project, Tin House, and the Right of Return USA. Their poetry, essays, and digital art have been published in or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Ecotone, Kenyon Review, Longreads, Poetry, Slate, Texas Observer, Yale Review, amongst others. Their personal account of their time in pretrial incarceration in Hays County is featured in the ITVS Independent Lens 2019 documentary, “45 Days in a Texas Jail,” and the Brave New Films 2021 documentary narrated by Mahershala Ali, “Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem.” Hicks received a BA in English from Texas State University-San Marcos and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University. Visit their website FaylitaHicks.com and follow them on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and on Substack. The Literal Context for the Phrase “Bang! Bang!” by Faylita Hicks I. Definitions Ballistics: What we think we know of these things. Ballad: An oral hallucination of our fanatic histories. Blame: A reasonable exit strategy for the iron-fisted. II. Ballad It is a dead thing in the poet’s hands if it has no threat. If it’s without its teeth. If it’s without its grunge. If it has no pulse. III. Ballistics We lug ammunition in our larynxes; language is our artillery’s oxidization, at first utterance. Like a protestor’s cell phone disconnecting in the police station and reconnecting outside of our country’s deconstructed civility— poets are providing the network with the same alchemy used to conjure this nation up out of the colonies. We were born from war, so to war do we turn and return. IV. Ballad Every makeshift martyr, recently made coughed up the delineated design of a truly American death: guilty of being human, condemned for being less. V. Blame These days hold no respite for our children, no sanctuary has been found. We are still hunted— in our schools, in our hospitals in our kitchens, in our driveways in our bedrooms, in our grocery stores in our gardens, in our backyards in our churches, in our community centers —marooned are we Black womxn and men by the “Everyman” (what he means is white man) and his star-sick affections for Order & Law, a sickly homage to the so-called “sanctity of things being destroyed: our freedom of speech, our freedom of movement, our freedom of religion,” —and his freedom to gnash his teeth freely. His free sees me docile and kept; his free keeps us all chewing on lead; us all afraid to drive alone at night. Hence the fire. VI. Ballistics We seize Amen! with our lungs. So be the fire that curdles in our compressed throats, foams forever over the Black womxn’s bruised lips—a calligraphy of genuine love. We hold Hallelujah! in our grasps; a yellow tape slathered across the ghost of our dying radical. Hallelujah! jangles against our sun-cloaked skins, sweats down our knuckles, the melt of our bodies a new constitution set to drown the unfaithful in their own acrid bile. VII. Ballad There’s no easy way to say—when I die, no one will remember me, exactly as I was: an anxious Yes! For a change. But a change of the caliber kind. On Being Buried in the Hays County Jail by Faylita Hicks I only remember what little was left of my words, falling out of me, into pale sheets stapled & stiff. Meeting my maker on a tiny tv screen. My chin tacked to my chest, my lips falling off of me. I let them misname me— but what else could I have done? I only remember unfolding, exponentially. An infinite scream, dressed in gallows of orange, a pillar of smoke floating from one hole to the next. Here, I was more than a fetish— I was a recipe. Something savory & comforting in the cold. Everyone knew me from somewhere. I only remember staring into the gray muscle of this pauper’s house. A roach breeding in its ventricle, soothing itself in the semi-dark. Grafting my wounds with wool & ink, I fractured by the hour—knowing there would be more of me soon enough. I only remember the feral way I dug down, looking for a way out. Publicly acceptable forms of suicide. Any dignified version of self-mutilation. Any pithy metaphor other womxn could learn from when they read about my death in the paper. I daydreamed about bridges & highway lanes I could drift across, lift off & scatter. Always on a sunny day. Always on a weekend. Always with a big, blue sky. I dreamed I swallowed gallons of saltwater down. Swallowed until I didn’t have to anymore. Until my body relaxed & my eyes stared at the bluest black & I sank amongst the bodies of a thousand un-excavated pearls that passively strangled the pale, thin neck of the Guadalupe River. I remembered how even as a gxrl, I had known I would lay at the bottom. A secret or a salt puddle beneath the city. A spill of oil. Unseen & untouched & gone. The Interview You have been booked and busy! Congratulations on all of your success and recent honors. In the fall of 2021, you received a Shearing Fellowship at the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas. Can you tell us about your time there and any projects you worked on? Busy is an understatement! I will say, though, that I am currently doing my best to manifest some work/life balance. That’s actually a little bit of what I worked on during my time as a Shearing Fellow, finding the balance between working on the next thing and allowing myself to slow down to find some joy in the present. That said, I did manage to write and record my sixth spoken word album inspired by the work of Civil Rights Corps, A New Name for My Love, and scope out the structures and themes for my next two poetry collections tentatively titled A Map of My Want and A Storm of Butterflies in a Field of Terror, and work on essays for my debut memoir. It was a fruitful time for sure. Your most recent collection, Hoodwitch, is a triumphant declaration of survival and grapples with some deeply personal subjects. What was your process like for this collection? What do you hope your readers will take away from it? I often share that many of the poems featured in HoodWitch took over a decade to fully come into themselves. I did that thing almost all writers do in the beginning, tell myself I can’t say whatever I want to just because I feel like it. No one had said that to me, not that I can recall anyway, but it had been a fear keeping me from taking the necessary risks to turn my interesting ideas into fully-formed pieces. That being said, when the older poems finally did come into themselves, the rest of the work came easily to me. When the drafts were done, I entered into several months of editing feeling newly empowered to embroider literal energy into the work with daily rituals of dancing underneath the stars while sipping something, singing, praying to the ancestors, and lighting my candles. I slept with the galley under my pillow, carrying it with me everywhere I went. Technically, I still carry a first edition with me everywhere I go now, but back then, it was like trying to keep a child real close so I could keep an eye on it. If I forgot it for a little while, I’d look in my bag, see it, and remember that I had done what I had been called to do. Now, it’s like my best friend, reminding me it will always be there to hold me when I feel more than a little lost. I celebrated every part of the creative and publishing process, both publicly and privately. I wanted readers to feel what I felt when I was writing—so I treated the writing and publishing process as a relationship. I set the mood, I reached for honesty, and I tried to be unapologetic. I wanted to introduce myself to the wider world with HoodWitch. I wanted this first book to recognize and name the many minds of the Black femme, first and foremost. I said to myself, “If for whatever reason this happens to be my one and only, because life is what it is, it better be my very best work.” And it was. I can tell you, though, that I’ve grown. If there is anything I hope readers take from HoodWitch, it’s that if no one else sees you Black womxn, I see you. And ain’t we all we need anyways? As a multidisciplinary artist, your work arcs across creative and academic disciplines through poetry, essays, music, and visual performances. Do you feel there is a connective tissue between your artistic expressions? We were born in a spectacularly unique era, one that requires we learn to look beyond the identities we’ve inherited via the carceral system of this country. My first few attempts at trying to define myself for myself have involved embracing my natural inquisitiveness by learning how to play again. In this context, play means following my creative whims in any and every direction. Playing makes space for intuitive problem-solving and dynamic interactions which can transform one’s perspective on the world and the people that move through it. At the root of my work, there are several questions: What does freedom actually look/feel/taste/sound like? Who has access to it, if anyone actually does, and why? Is there a price and who sets it if, by participating in this society, no one has access to it? Post-liberation, how will our communities function? No—really. Where will I go for socks? What does accountability look like in circumstances of extreme harm? What drives us and how does the “human spirit” impact the policies co-creating our lives? With all that’s wrong in the world, will there ever be time to talk about joy again?! My projects are all, in one way or another, trying to answer or explore these questions and others like them. In the work that exists in the public forum, I feel like I’m still very much at the front door of a very large and unending expanse of questions about an undefined future for our world. I am trying, very hard, to translate the philosophical assertions about potential new shapes for our society into an experience or narrative that can be readily enjoyed by any and everyone. What does your ideal writer’s life look like? In my most lavish dreams, I’m partially off-grid in a cottage with a banging library, wi-fi, a well-stocked pantry, and wine cellar, a creek, and low-light pollution. Every day, I wake up and make brunch, read from the latest, take a nap, a shower, a glass of vino, and watch the sky till around seven. About that time, the music comes on, the dinner gets made, and the animals stop by for stories. Around ten, I finally pull out the draft as a well-fed, well-rested, and well-balanced writer who has spent all day thinking about the wonders of the world. You’re throwing a dinner party to introduce work to new followers. What’s on the menu, what music is playing, and how is the table set? I’ve always wanted to have regular dinner parties where each month, we get together and try a different meal created by regional chefs based on the theme of a book we’re collectively reading. This would mean there were no regular food items but, hopefully, we’d be supporting the culinary artists from around the area and getting the first taste of something new and exciting. If it’s warm, plenty of green lawn, and no neighbors for miles—we’re outside. Farm table all day. If it’s cool, there’s plenty of soft lighting, a large round table, and fresh flowers. My regular music playlists are chaotically delineated only by the year in which I have decided to listen to them as opposed to the artist, mood, or genre. Therefore, I’d probably choose some Robert Glasper and let the algorithm do its jazzy thing. How can people support you right now? I’m trying to make my Substack a weekly newsletter, so support there would be amazing. Besides my memoir about my odyssey-like journey through America and the next two poetry collections, I’m also working on a tarot and affirmations deck for currently incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people as part of my work with the amazing oral history archive group Texas After Violence Project, expanding my justice-focused docupoem “Bar for Bar,” and playing with the idea of a seventh spoken word album. General support keeps the wheels moving and the gears going, so all of it is welcome! Who is another Black woman writer people should read? Deborah DEEP Mouton Aurielle Marie Nicole Shawan Junior Deesha Philyaw To get you started… ### 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. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Nikki Patin has been writing for over two decades. She has taught workshops on performance poetry, body image, sexual assault prevention, and LGBT issues. Patin has performed, taught, and spoken at elementary schools, high schools, colleges, and universities such as the University of Chicago, Adler School of Psychology, Northwestern University, Nancy B. Jefferson High School (located within the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center), University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison and many others. Patin was featured on the fourth season of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, was voted one of 30 under 30 most influential LGBTQ people in Chicago by Windy City Times, and took the gold medal in the 2006 Gay Games International LGBT poetry slam. Patin was voted “Best Standout Performer” in the Dunedin Fringe Festival while headlining a tour of her one-woman show, “The Phat Grrrl Revolution,” throughout New Zealand and Australia. She has released several chapbooks, a full-length collection of writing and design, two EPs, and a full-length album entitled “Bedroom Empire.” She is the creator of Surviving the Mic, an organization dedicated to creating a safe space for the creation and telling of stories of survivors of all kinds of trauma, with a special focus on Black and female-identified survivors of sexual and domestic violence who also identify as performing writers. Nikki Patin is an MFA candidate in Creative Non-Fiction at Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine. Visit nikkipatin.com and phatgrrrlrevolution.com. Sestina for the Stars by Nikki Patin Born perfect Brutally birthed ethereal How else shall we describe the genesis of a star? Eyes searing jewels Reflecting every angle of the divine I dare you to bottle my light Heavy with every kind of light Rippling, undulating across my bulging skin perfect My goddess body is not only divine But flesh dripping down my bones ethereal As if my belly were stuffed with rare jewels Embodying refraction, I mirror convex, no shade, all star Can’t keep your eyes off the bounce of this star Skittering across the cosmos, a flashlight illuminating hidden jewels studding the gorgeous landscape perfect smile rich and full, buttery and ethereal like that last, creamy mouthful of ice cream, divine the last little bite of heaven one can’t get enough of, divine I dare you to dissect a star crack open trillions of years of ethereal no, not too many can’t stand the intensity of this light no, not many at all can keep company with this kind of perfect flaws abound in the promise of jewels I never cared for jewels Always borrowing their glamour from the divine While pretending to be perfect I know a rare gem still pales next to a true star Which can both shine and glare, depending on the angle of the light So, gorge yourself on my ethereal Behold my generosity in gifting you the vision of my ethereal Do use your tongue to savor my jewels Bask in my shameless light I am a channel of the divine Sauntering across the sky, I’m a star Intentionally throwing off well-worn orbits while naming myself perfect My light ethereal Perfect big belly full of jewels Divine refusing to be called anything except STAR ### 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. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Lynne Thompson is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles. Her most recent collection of poems, Fretwork, was selected by Jane Hirshfield for the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and published in 2019. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Thompson is also the author of Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press), winner of the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award, and Start With A Small Guitar (What Books Press). The recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Summer Literary Series (Kenya), and the City of Los Angeles, her work has been widely published and anthologized including in On Becoming A Poet-Essential Information About the Writing Craft, New England Review, Ploughshares, Colorado Review, Pleiades, and Best American Poetry, among others. Thompson serves on the Board of Directors of Cave Canem and the Los Angeles Review of Books and is the Chair of the Board of Trustees at Scripps College. Visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Among Peaches I don’t care that I’m old—I still want to fuck and I don’t mean some old lady “make love” as though I need a doily to perch my ass on. I want to fuck with fury and sweat rolling down the legs of us both, the mixture an emollient for brittle bones. And if my love-dog is old as I am, I don’t want him to show it or to complain or to say we have to wait for the Viagra to kick in, for desire to erect his nipples. I want him to be struck by a sudden urge (if I haven’t been struck first) then take me in the stock room of Pavilion’s Market. I want to be so surprised that when I reach out, I bring down a whole crate of peaches. I want to bite his lip to keep him from screaming his pleasure upon seeing my salt-and-pepper nest. I want him to drink the Joy I’ve daubed on just below both my breasts just in case and I want him to let me put my mouth everywhere and do what I declined to do in my youth—& twice. I need a nocturne to turn me around, that won’t turn me loose, to bring me to the hard edge. And when the stock-boy comes upon us, his arms full with boxes—the latest shipment of sweet fruit—when he can’t decide if he wants to take photos to post on Instagram or to run away in terror, I want to tell him: pray you get this lucky in years that will simply slip off & bruise you the way peaches bruise. 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. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Award-winning author and scholar, Toi Derricotte co-founded Cave Canem Foundation with Cornelius Eady in 1996. She is the recipient of the 2021 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets and the 2020 Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America. Photo by Heather Kresge Recipient of the Academy of American Poets’ 2021 Wallace Stevens Award and the Poetry Society’s 2020 Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry, Toi Derricotte is the author of 2019 National Book Awards Finalist I: New & Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), The Undertaker’s Daughter (2011), and four earlier collections of poetry, including Tender, winner of the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her literary memoir, The Black Notebooks, received the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her honors include, among many others, the 2012 Paterson Poetry Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement, the 2012 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, three Pushcart Prizes, and the Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award from the United Black Artists. Professor Emerita at the University of Pittsburgh, Derricotte co-founded Cave Canem Foundation (with Cornelius Eady) in 1996; served on the Academy of American Poets’ Board of Chancellors, 2012-2017; and currently serves on Cave Canem’s Board of Directors and Marsh Hawk Press’s Artistic Advisory Board. Visit her website for more. Laundry by Toi Derricotte At the counter, the pressed Elizabeth collects my cash, wraps my laundry & bends her head slightly to the left— from whence exudes a soft keening: “Baby wants to meet you.” She lifts a threadbare armful that sniffs a quarter-sized nose at me & licks my hand. Mommy pulls her back. They exchange mouth kisses. “Joy of my life,” she proclaims. Behind us the door bangs & Baby starts barking wildly. I turn to see a young black man. Elizabeth waves in a friendly way, “Oh Jeff, be right with you,” but pulls in close & mouths a silent explanation: “Baby doesn’t like black people.” She smiles— as if “dogs do the weirdest things!”— & Baby keeps barking as if he’d like to rip off Jeff’s skin. “I’m black too,” I mouth back at her, extravagantly shaping the “B.” She freezes— but not as if she said the wrong thing; more like she’s trying to figure out if it’s me or Baby that’s confused. THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Amanda Johnston and Toi Derricotte by Zoom on March 30, 2022. Congratulations on being the 2022 AWP keynote speaker and your many recent awards. How does it feel to be celebrated at this point in your life? It was a great pleasure and joy to get this gift from the universe, to have something that is able to do good for other people. That's a great joy. And I think that is the great gift of my life. Because, you know, I was always so self-criticizing. It just really taught me that this is a gift that I received. And I worked it! I could have put it in the garbage. Or I could have stayed in a place where I might have been crushed. But I kept knowing how to get out of those places. I wonder how Lucille Clifton felt about that. All my joy was in the connection. If I had just been standing up there as a thing it wouldn't have been fun. It’s the giving and receiving and giving and receiving. It goes both ways. That's where the fun is. You co-founded Cave Canem Foundation with Cornelius Eady over 25 years ago. Cave Canem recently received the inaugural Toni Morrison Achievement Award from The National Book Critics Circle. In the early days, did you think the organization would grow to be what it is today? I think Cornelius and I both thought that and that's why we did it. But we got a lot of help in the early days from people like Sarah, Father Francis, Carolyn, and all of the executive directors. And because of the fellows doing their work. So much power that comes from the fellows’ work. And that's how it is, we give back and forth. And I think that's very much a Black thing. You know, there's something in us. And I think it goes all the way back to Africa. I think we're so special as survivors and joyous people. I really think we have special gifts for that. And that's why, you know, white people are jealous. One of the other things I love so much about Cave Canem is that you don't have to be a certain kind of poet. You don't have to be a language poet or narrative poet or anything. You can do anything you want. You can combine them. And you know, that's another way we're so smart. There's no hierarchy of work here. I told Cornelius the other day I said, buddy, you gave me permission to be me. He said I feel the same way. Yeah, so what we want to do is give each other permission to be ourselves. As the author of numerous books, most recently I: New & Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press), a 2019 National Book Awards Finalist, how have you managed your professional career aka “the PoBiz” while nurturing your creative work? It's like everything else, you know, it's ambivalent. And the thing that Tyehimba and you and the board presidents have done for me is let me know that you love Cave Canem and you know what to do next. And I really don't, you know, I really don't. I can pass on what I did and what I believed in. But, you know, the world has changed so much in 25 years. And so, I learned to count on you and let go. And I really have learned that that's a process. And that takes time. And fortunately, you guys are giving me time. I'm almost ready to let go. And of course, I'm so fortunate because I’m still gonna be able to write and love my writing. I still have life. And I feel like poets are the best friends you can have in the world. Because they really, you know, have probed their own limits. I think poets tell you the truth. I think Black poets are just extraordinary. I always believed that. From the first time I stood up in that circle at the retreat to the last time, you know, I was standing there thinking what a phony I am. While they're thinking I'm the leader and all this crap, you know. But I learned, you guys understand me. And I understand you and I’m ready to know more and to love you for who you are. And, you know, with all my own feelings of unworthiness, there was something deep in me that thought we're no good. Just like they tell us we're no good. I'm no good. But every time I would still go into that opening circle, honey, all that was blasted to shit. Because deep down, I knew we were brilliant and beautiful. I knew it deeper down than even my unworthiness and self-loathing. I knew we were beautiful. And I could see it. I could see it with my eyes. And hear it with my ears. What a fabulous thing to know. In your poem “Laundry” the speaker is faced with a choice: to acknowledge they are Black or allow a stranger to assume they are white. Can you share why the choice went the way it did in the poem and what the risk may have been if a different choice was made? Well, I liked very much that I could joke around. That was a triumph. You know, I could’ve called her a bitch and walked out of the store and all that stuff, but the deafest people are the ones who don't want to hear. Why should I waste my time? If they don't want to hear it, I just go the other way. You know, and I have to make these decisions right now. Nowadays, you can decide what [race] you are on your medical records. When I was a young woman, you couldn't. The doctor just looked at you and decided. So, you know, it's a real world that we live in. And people pay terrible prices for racism. And we know how to dance. I understand you split your time between Pittsburgh and New Orleans. Can you tell us your connection to these two cities? Well, New Orleans, you know, half my family came from Louisiana, so I have family there. The man that owns Lil Dizzy's Café is from my grandfather's generation. We have baptismal records from that time to show that my grandfather was the sponsor of his grandfather at baptism. There's a lot of stuff, you know, back to music and Congo Square, and all of that. I feel very connected. When I'm in New Orleans, it's just so beautiful. Oh, my God, those live oak trees and the humidity, your face just kind of plumps up with humidity. And the people are so lovely. If you love New Orleans, you know the depth of what comes out there. I am so happy when I'm there. Just when I walk around on the earth. I just feel so joyous. I came to Pittsburgh and I thought I would really miss New York, and I do, but I've made friends here with poets. And I feel very loved and supported here. I think it was a good place for me because I could afford to live here and live pretty well with my job. As a professor, if I'd stayed in New York, I'd be running around to four different jobs. I think it was the right time in my life. I was about 50 and I had a secure life. And I was able to write and do Cave Canem. And I'm not sure if I had had to work so hard to survive economically if I would have been able to get all that in. Tell us about your writing space. What does it look like? Do you have any rituals or practices that help you through your creative process? I have two bedrooms and one is my office. And I have a big living room. And there’s a picture by Terrance Hayes and there's another picture by a Black artist from New Orleans, John Scott. I have a chair where I watch TV on the computer. And there's space for all my books and paintings and stuff. It is very, very comfortable. And I have a big huge window that I can look out of. I'm looking at the Cathedral of Learning on one side and St. Paul's Cathedral on the other. Writing exercises sure helped me. Sonia Sanchez told me she writes a haiku every day before she gets out of bed and sets her intention for the day. I tried it. I don't write it before I get out of bed and I don't follow the form strictly. I do 5-7-5, but I don't do image and all that, you know, I just write 5-7-5. And I do it in the morning, it is one of the first things I do. And then I set my intention for the day. After a while of doing that, I think I opened up. Every morning when something comes to me, I sit down and just write and I open the line for myself. I don’t try and use traditional forms. I've always found that for me, the end of a line teaches you a lot about what language goes with the most impact. What the mind responds to with impact. That sets the development of the dramatic tone and power, knowing what to put on each line. I learned a lot about the line after 50 years of writing, but it was time for me to take that and spread it out a little bit. I still use the sentence and my control of language, knowing what units of grammar and English to use to develop the poem and the power of the poem, but losing my attachment to the end of the line really opened up my ability to listen. I have been calling it pros, but when I read it to people, they call it a poem. And I think that's because the language is very controlled, just like in a poem. The form is in knowing how to structure sentences and what kind of language keeps surprising you. So it's very much like a poem. That's what I've been working on this past year. I want to do a book like that. What advice would you give to other writers? I realized I have two pieces of advice: Write the hard poem and don’t write the hard poem. Just sit in your chair and love yourself, take care of yourself, and stay who you are. And you’ve got to do both of those at the same time. It's about learning to live with ambivalence, tension, and opposites. That's what poems are about. Don't do one and not do the other because we need both of those things. When you’re feeling good, what music is playing in the background? Lately, none. I'm like everybody else watching the news wondering what’s gonna destroy us. I loved classical music. I loved a lot of classical music, and 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s music. Then I dropped out. But now I'm getting back to it. Lizzo! I'm getting back into it now. Sweet or salty snacks? Both! I’ll get some peanuts today and I have some Häagen-Dazs in the refrigerator for tonight. I could just put those peanuts on top of that. Maybe I’ll get some caramel sauce. Maybe some whipped cream. Why not?! How can people support you right now? Support Cave Canem and keep doing your work. Who is another Black woman writer people should read? Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste. It's a very difficult book to read but get through it a little bit at a time. She is doing wonderful work. And Elizabeth Alexander's book, The Light of the Word. I love how she puts together her love for her husband and her family with her love for art, food, and friendship. ### 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. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

C. Prudence Arceneaux, a native Texan, is a poet who teaches English and Creative Writing at Austin Community College, in Austin, TX. Her work has appeared in various journals, including Limestone, New Texas, Hazmat Review, Texas Observer, Whiskey Island Magazine, African Voices, and Inkwell. She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry-- DIRT (awarded the 2018 Jean Pedrick Prize) and LIBERTY. Click here for a PDF version of this poem. 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. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.