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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.

photo by Coco Hubbeling With a B.F.A in Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Ka'Dia Dhatnubia works as a teaching artist for Deep Center’s Block by Block program, a creative writing and community leadership program for high school youth in the Savannah area. On the side, Dhatnubia has published memoirs with Blue Marble Review, poetry with Pandemic Post, and features with Savannah Magazine; she also freelances regularly for Do Savannah, connecting with the local arts and culture scene. When she’s not writing or teaching, she’s stress baking, reading anthologies, or binging whatever TV show or anime she’s currently obsessed with. Follow Ka'Dia on Twitter and Instagram. Purity, Promises, and Other Impossibilities by Ka'Dia Dhatnubia My 13th birthday Was a rite of passage. The women of the church, My mother Tugged the white ribbon From my hair And tied it Round my throat. They made me make promises To God And sign contracts Where the fine print Was in a fine script That I couldn’t read. The ribbon is a ring, Once snow white, Once polished silver, Now sullied, rusted By time and truth. The ring Burns the skin, Chokes the bone Of my finger. My curious fingers Confess sins and Keep secrets. My fingers, black rabbits, Slip down holes At night, Searching for the wonderland They called hell. ### 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 welcome Hallie S. Hobson, Jen Margulies, and Raina Fields to its inaugural advisory board effective March 2022. Hallie S. Hobson contributes to the vitality and health of philanthropic and nonprofit institutions by developing and implementing innovative planning, fundraising, and patron engagement strategies including: philanthropic strategy development and implementation; capital campaign and strategic planning; individual giving program design; major gift pipeline development; department buildout and optimization-staffing and systems; chief development officer coaching; board development. Clients include Art Basel, Cave Canem Foundation, Destination Crenshaw, The Ford Foundation, The Friends of the High Line, Junebug Productions, The Laundromat Project, the New York Community Trust, and NPower. Jen Margulies brings twenty-five years of experience with nonprofit organizations working for social justice, including ten years as an independent grant writer and consultant. She worked with Six Square to win a major National Endowment for the Arts “Our Town” grant to support cultural placemaking in historic Black East Austin. She is also an editor of several books of poetry through Evelyn Street Press, and of Voices for Racial Justice, a compilation co-edited with Sharon Bridgforth and published in collaboration with the Greater Austin YWCA. Raina Fields is a communications strategist, educator and writer with experience in the private sector, higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations. She is accredited in public relations (APR) and has degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech and Loyola University Maryland. Read their full bios on our About page. 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.

Dr. Robinson-Dukes is a Professor of English at the City Colleges of Chicago. She teaches African-American Literature, Women’s Literature, Introduction to Poetry, and all levels of English Composition. In addition, she is the editor of the annual poetry anthology Brownstone Barrio Bards. Finally, she has been published in The Carolina Quarterly, Atlanta Review, Meridian, Salamander, and other journals. I was raised with house music in the gay clubs of Chicago by Rochelle Robinson-Dukes On the north side, LaRay’s Disco hidden like a pimp in the shadows next to a Pepper’s Waterbeds that offered not one penny down to purchase a bed of buoyancy for your sex life. Those of us who had fucked standing up didn’t see the need for water or extra motion. We moved like a pride of pride dressed in neon and black, wearing suede bucks or leather penny loafers, which were better for dancing but horrible for snow, which lasted for three months, minimum. We sashayed through the doors after paying one whole dollar to dance to the melodies, melodies, melodies, to bring down the walls, to move as one big sexual wave of blackness and brownness, straight and gay because baby wants to rise for love, wants to be the godfather of house music while gyrating around sweat-drenched strangers and closeted friends who wore Wham’s Choose Life sweatshirts because gay men didn’t have children back then, couldn’t get married, but could dance and sweat and fuck in the bathrooms that security monitored sporadically like teenagers babysitting siblings. Then, at five am, before sunrise, between the clear line of black codes and white people, we filed out like exhausted zombies, felt the cold Chicago hawk hit us face first, reminding us that we were still black and queer and had to drive home quickly to our southside, to our barrios, to our ghettos, to the other places that taught us we were loved way before the music claimed us, we were loved in the marginalized silences of color and sex. 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.

The Torch Literary Arts board of directors unanimously voted to elect Dr. Sequoia Maner and Candace Lopez as its newest members. They begin their two-year terms in March 2022. Dr. Sequoia Maner is an Assistant Professor of English at Spelman College where she teaches classes about 20-21st century African American literature and culture. She is the author of the prize-winning poetry chapbook Little Girl Blue (2021, Host Publications) and co-editor of the book Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era (2020, Routledge). Sequoia’s 33 1/3 book about Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly debuts in summer 2022 (Bloomsbury). Candace Lopez is a non-profit professional with over 14 years of experience in Fundraising and Development. She is a Development Generalist with a specialization in individual giving, program development, and operational efficiency. She is humbled to have raised money for organizations in Austin, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Her fundraising portfolio is diverse and spans various causes including civil liberties, the arts, higher education, domestic violence, and gender equity. She currently serves as the Chief Philanthropy Officer for Horizons Foundation in San Francisco, the first community foundation of, by, and for LGBTQ people. Read their full bios on our About page. 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 featured in Austin Woman Magazine's "Give Back" series. L-R: TORCH Amanda Johnston, Ebony Stewart, and ena granguly. Photo by Cindy Elizabeth Give Back: Torch Literary Arts — Visibility & Representation Matter by Jess Bugg What was your thought process when starting Torch Literary Arts? I started Torch Literary Arts in 2006 to reserve a virtual space for Black women writers. As a Black woman writer, I’ve experienced the challenges of race, class, and gender discrimination. I wanted to provide an outlet where other women like me could share their work unapologetically and celebrate each other. Our mission has always been to publish and promote Black women writers on our website. Over the years, we’ve grown to include programs like our Wildfire Reading Series which features authors at local independent bookstores and workshops for writers at all stages of their careers. Torch Literary Arts recently celebrated its 15th anniversary. Speak about the relaunch and the importance of this milestone. The relaunch has been amazing. The pandemic has been hard for everyone. Over the last two years, I had time to think and assess how Torch was serving our community. What was needed. Along with my board of directors, we decided to relaunch and build on our years of experience with a stronger foundation and enhanced programs. We applied for and received our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, created a new publishing model to increase online [author]features to over 64 per year, continued our Wildfire Reading Series in-person and online, provided writing workshops and planned for a week-long retreat in Austin. We also pay all of our featured authors for publishing their work. Everyone should be paid for their work. But as artists, it is also an important sign of validation that will have a lasting impact on their writing careers. This relaunch is the groundwork to grow Torch Literary Arts into a destination online and in Austin for Black women writers and readers around the world. Read the full interview with TORCH founder/executive director, Amanda Johnston, online. ### 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.

Erica Nicole Griffin is a scholar and consultant. She holds a PhD in the sociological foundations of American system from Arizona State University where she won a writing year fellowship to support that research. Her academic background informs her ideas about love, revolution, retribution, eternity, and rest, and how those might show up in the Black imagination. Currently, she is building two collections. The first features short revenge fantasies and the second is a collection of love poems where the Black girl always wins. Erica Nicole was born and raised in Atlanta. She lives there with her two children. Visit her website and follow her on Twitter. As Cool As You Please by Erica Nicole Griffin Monday Self-care for Susan was coffee. Every morning. Step one: grab the door handle. Step two: enter the shop and quietly affirm what Susan hoped was ultimately true: I am worthy. I am loved. I am successful. Step three: feet square on the welcome mat, pause, assume a tadasana. Her feet were the base of the mountain, with her toes and heels acting as the four corners and her crown of blond curls pulled into a messy top knot - the apex. Step four: soften the spine and relax the jaw, the palms, and the brow. Take two breaths and release all thought, wonder, worry, and expectation. With that clarity and freedom, Susan was primed for step five: Kinesha. Kinesha was the favorite among the regular customers. She was attentive, memorized the nuances of their drink orders and nodded graciously at the broken mugs and puddles of vanilla milk that their dogs and toddlers left for her to clean. When Susan came into Coffee Shop six months ago, with her mascara in ribbons below wet, red eyes, Kinesha lit up. In a beat, she stepped away from the register and went to Susan. Kinesha clasped Susan’s hands in her own while she listened to Susan sputter on about her divorce, shitty friendships, and downslide at work. Since then, Kinesha was Susan’s lighthouse. And each morning this millennial, Black girl, with the endless braids would smile a smile that guided Susan safely to port. On the first Monday of the seventh month Susan spied a stranger. There were always two baristas at the registers. Susan recognized the skinny, ginger boy on the left with his fumbling fingers and wrinkled shirt; Patrick, or Pete or something. To his left was the stranger. She was a Kinesha-type for sure, but not. She didn’t have long braids. Instead, there were dreadlocks would have brushed her shoulders if they weren’t wrapped in a white cloth around her head. And she wasn’t smiling in Susan’s direction. She wasn’t unsure or frenzied in front of the busy line like Patrick-Pete and she wasn’t expecting Susan. She just was. Susan filled her belly with courage and breath and made her way over. On her exhale she a recognized a commonplace snobbery in affluent neighborhood stores. Customers who were in cue to order from the stranger were stepping out of her line and cueing up for Patrick-Pete. The upside of having regular customers was a fantastic tip rate. The downside was that they didn’t trust new baristas to perfect their orders. These people had been spoiled by Kinesha, and would rather order from Patrick-Pete than risk a bad coffee experience with the newbie. Pathetic. Susan judged her people. When it was Susan’s turn, she smugly slid up to the new barista’s register, met her name tag and then her eyes. “Hi, Maya. You’re a new face behind the counter!” “Welcome to the 16th Street Coffee Shop. Would you like to try the Pumpkin-spiced latte?” Maya’s boilerplate was forgivable. It was her first day, after all. She would learn soon enough that Susan would die before drinking anything pumpkin-spiced and that it was never necessary upsell to anyone here. In fact, the full tip jar depended upon making regulars feel like regulars. “Um, no! I don’t get how people can drink that stuff!” Susan smiled big and paused so that Maya could step into her clear opening for banter. Instead, Maya put her eyes into Susan’s and continued with the sell. “Okay. What can I get started for you today?” “A medium Earl Grey tea, with two packets of honey in the cup before it is prepared. Can you be sure to double cup?” Susan was now genuinely concerned about her order. “Yes, I will. That will be $2.69. If you have a chip on your card, feel free to insert ‘right there’.” Maya’s focus never left Susan’s face, but her expression seemed to not read Susan at all. Susan felt like she was talking to an AI panel on a vending machine. As she paid, Susan gazed at Maya. She certainly was a fresh, delicate thing. Her nose was dusted in freckles and there was just enough blush on her cheeks to match the pink gloss on her lips. She also had a tattoo tucked behind her ear. It was tough to make it out. Something like a circle with little bird-like feet. Maya’s voice interrupted Susan’s inspection. “Do you need a receipt?” “Nope. Thanks.” “Okay. Jude, down at the bar, will prepare your drink and have it ready for you momentarily.” Before Susan could step away, Maya called out “next” to emptiness. People were still avoiding her to order from Patrick-Pete. Tuesday Susan was late and took a millisecond to be a mountain. Then the sight of Maya soured the breath in her belly. She did notice, however that a few customers had chosen to give their orders to Maya. Mission accomplished, Susan thought. “Good morning. You want an Earl Grey, right? Honey. Double Cup?” Maya remembered Susan. “Yes, that is perfect. So, how is your second day here treating you?” “It’s fine.” Those eyes swiveled away from the Susan’s, to the screen, to the card reader and back. “That will be $2.69. Feel free to use the chip reader.” She gave the credit card machine a light tap. “So, are you at this store permanently? Have you replaced the other barista? Kinesha?” “Yes.” Maya then turned to Jude and called out the order. They exchanged smiles. Jude winked over his shoulder. Susan snatched her credit card from the reader and shoved it back in her wallet. _____________ “Yeah, she is the new register barista. She’s good on the bar, too though.” Jude was annoyed that Susan split his attention with messiness. After all she was just one pair of longing eyes in the bog of blondes pooling up against his bar. They thought he was cool. For some it was enough that his forearm flexed as he mixed drinks. Others would cut the angles of his jaw and the waves in his hair, stash them away and paste him back together in their sheets at night. Each one had laid next to her husband and still took her time thinking through the options with Jude. Some imagined climbing his spine and perching on his shoulders. Others wanted to come home and find him stranded on their stoops, hungry and in need of food and fresh clothes. Some delighted in an assault. His hands snatching up her skirt and so on. In reality, their breathy consumption every morning left Jude’s shirt dingy and his skin dry. “Well,” Susan was careful not to appear like a gossip, “What about Kinesha? Did she move away?” “Nah. She enrolled in State and sometimes picks up shifts at the campus Coffee Shop. But she doesn’t work here anymore.” Jude glanced toward the bog. “Oh, I knew she dreamed of graduate school. I just didn’t think she was enrolling this semester. I wonder why she didn’t tell me. We’re good friends.” Susan said more to herself than Jude. Jude chuckled. “Were you?” “Sure,” Susan was surprised by his snark. “You’ve seen us. We were thick as thieves.” “Nah, it’s cool.” Jude’s jaw flexed a bit as he devoted all of his focus back on the bar. Wednesday Susan spent her time in line evaluating Maya. Her dreadlocks were resting on her shoulders. She was objectively young. Her skin stretched along her cheekbones with a sheen. And those freckles. They dusted her nose and chin and even her lips. Her collarbone and jaw line were pronounced; she was thin. Ingenue thin. She also had several piercings with delicate studs and hoops rising up the ridges of both ears. She was beyond beautiful. She was elegant. It was a provocation just to look at her. The shop was in the middle of a rush and Maya’s line was now longer than Patrick-Pete’s. Her shoulders rose and fell as she handed each a customer a drink. Her head would glide to and fro when she called a new espresso order to Jude. Even her breathing seemed musical. Susan measured her inhales with the rise and fall of Maya’s bust. By the time they were face-to-face she had composed a hymn in her honor and was involuntarily swaying to the beat. “Welcome to Coffee Shop. Do you want your regular tea today?” “You’re very beautiful, you know that?” Susan instantly lowered her head in shame. It was a bid. A bad one. “I do.” Maya replied. Her barren intensity gutted Susan. “Well,” Susan began with a stutter, “That’s good. A woman like yourself should know it. You should be self-aware and confident.” “Will you be having your regular tea today?” Susan ignored procedure, “You know, you aren’t very friendly. Kinesha was friendly. And interested. She was kind!” This was an unplanned pivot. Susan hadn’t quite decided whether or not she would complain about Maya. But it certainly felt right. “This is my third day ordering from you, and you seem really annoyed or something.” Susan remained in place, staring back at Maya, fully aware that this manipulation was a gamble. What if this didn’t work? What if Maya lashed out in defense of her professionalism? Then again, it could all be worth it. And if the start of their relationship had to be Maya apologizing for poor customer service, Susan could live with that. She could work with that. “Would you like to speak to a manager?” “No.” Susan hissed and leaned forward for discretion. “I just- I just wondered if I had done something to offend you.” Maya had not even flinched at the idea of her manager getting involved. The gamble was a loss. Maya might never engage. Susan’s breath singed her lungs. “Here is your tea.” Maya connected with Susan’s watery eyes as she took eons to slide the cup of tea across the counter. “You cunt.” Susan whispered. This wasn’t a gamble. It was genuine. Here Susan was on the verge of tears Maya doubled down. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps Maya was just a piece of shit person who refused to engage the kind human beings around her. As the first tear fell, there was the slightest jolt in one of Maya’s eyebrows. It wasn’t affection or contrition. It was offense. Maybe even anger. Ah yes! Susan could work with that. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” Susan gushed and brought a jittery hand to her mouth in shock. “I can’t believe I just said that. I am just so upset because, well, because of my own issues and I took it out on you. I’m just so sorry!” Said the eyebrow, “Do you want your receipt?” “No, no. Please hear me out. Please don’t be mad.” Susan shook her head furiously causing her yellow curls to bounce out of her top knot. It wasn’t working. She was losing and executed an utterly ridiculous strategy. She reached up to Maya’s cheek and caressed it like she would the face of a heartbroken child. When her fingers landed Susan was scandalized by texture. It was silken. Susan hadn’t realized it, but the freckles had given her the irrational impression that Maya’s skin was grainy and rough. It wasn’t. It was sublime; almost as if she had brushed her fingers against cold cream. Susan’s eyes were still closed in awe when she felt the weight of Maya’s hand swat her face so hard that she was knocked to the floor. Later After Maya hit her, the whole shop fell into chaos and the manager intervened on Susan’s behalf. He collected her off the floor and pleaded with her to forgive and forget. For a reward, Susan was given a year pass to any Coffee Shop in the world and a lifetime pass to the 16th Street Coffee Shop. In addition, she could expect a call from corporate to negotiate further restitution. And although the manager made a public spectacle of firing Maya, she left angry, but without complaint or ceremony. The dilemma persisted behind every moment of her day and greeted her in the morning. For the first Thursday in six months, Susan went straight to work. She drank tea from the break room and repeated her affirmations in a bathroom stall. Friday Susan pulled on the door of Coffee Shop and stepped over the welcome mat and passed the registers. Her heart was already racing and joy was rising once again. Kinesha was there. She wasn’t behind the counter. She was sitting at a table in plain clothes. She was bent over a book reading and taking notes. Her braids cascaded over bare shoulders that Susan had never seen. Susan hung back a bit to watch her friend for a moment. She was as perfect as ever. And not alone. While studying she was also chatting with others at the table. Eventually, Susan bounded over to the table and let out an eager: “Hi stranger!” Kinesha glanced up and caught her old friend’s eyes just long enough to reply, “Sorry, this seat is taken.” And back down to her notes she went. “Um, Kinesha?! Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, Susan from 16th Street! Jude told me you worked at the university Coffee Shop sometimes, so I figured I’d drop by.” Kinesha glanced back up. “I know who you are. Seat’s taken, though.” Those eyes. That face. It was Kinesha alright, but she wasn’t the bright light welcoming Susan to shore. Susan’s knees buckled. She might have heard a laugh or two. She wasn’t sure. She was sure, however, that she was not Kinesha’s friend. She wasn’t Maya’s friend. She wasn’t married. She wasn’t loved or worthy or successful. She wasn’t a mountain. She was something else. It was that something else that quickened Susan’s spine and stiffened her palms. She lifted up off her heels and pressed her toes down as she towered over Kinesha and locked her hands around Kinesha’s neck. The squeeze was extraordinary. Her cells luxuriated in seeing Kinesha’s face animate from shock to anger to terror. Susan squeezed tighter. Surely there was more Kinesha in there. And she was right. Kinesha’s mood shifted to desperation as she clutched Susan’s wrists, hopelessly wrenching them outward. Kinesha’s friends joined in. They mauled Susan from every angle. For Susan, each impact was a revelation. In the midst of the scrum, she took note of the shades of brown around her. The hair, the voices, and bodies. They were a Broadway company, and she was the principal. She could hear chaos and smell her own blood as it broke from her face, dripped down and mingled with the sweat on Kinesha’s terrified brow. The breeze of the melee whooshed up and through her blouse. It cooled her skin. With her thumbs barely gripping Kinesha’s throat and the friends overtaking her completely, Susan took two breaths and closed her eyes and was made whole. ### 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.

In celebration of Women's History Month, Torch Literary Arts is proud to share this heartfelt remembrance on the power of sisterhood - both blood and chosen - in honor of our dear friend and 2006 & 2008 TORCH feature, Kamilah Aisha Moon. Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths. L-R: Lakie, Aisha, and Niya Moon Everyday Sisters by Elizabeth de Souza I got to experience the storied magic of Hedgebrook, a residency for women writers, only because the dearly-missed poet Kamilah Aisha Moon urged me and urged me and urged me to apply. We'd met at MacDowell in 2019 and became close. At some point, Aisha proposed that we exchange new writing each week, if only a few sentences. She called it Fresh Flow Fridays. She always sent me hers. Me—sometimes. One frantic Friday I sent her a flash-nonfiction piece that was far from fresh. I’d composed ”The Color of Nana’s Wish" almost a decade earlier. Writing it helped me process something unthinkably painful that another sister-friend had endured years ago. Aisha's response was lightening-quick. “You HAVE to submit this,” she said. “So many places will want it. Let me know if you need suggestions where to send.” Her words were a balm. Catching the cross-rhythms of the piece had been tricky, and I wasn’t sure it was hitting the right notes. So when Aisha called it “a timeless portrait of humanity at its best and worst, simultaneously,” it gave me peace. I thought of her when I finally took her advice and began looking for a home for “The Color of Nana’s Wish,” just as I had thought of her a year earlier while crossing the Puget Sound by ferry, my face wet with sea-mist, headed to Whidbey Island to join the sisterhood of writers at Hedgebrook. I think of her all the time, still in disbelief that she left us so soon, not long after her 48th birthday this past September. After the piece was accepted at Torch Literary Arts as part of the publication’s rebirth, I was perusing their website and came across a photo of Aisha, smiling at me from across time. Smiling because unbeknownst to me, she'd contributed to TORCH’s original launch more than fifteen years ago. Smiling because that’s how she always showed up to support her writer-sisters; with joy and luminescence. “The Color of Nana’s Wish” was published in January. It ran under a section called Friday Features, which I now think of as Fresh Flow Fridays. Seeing it among other works for and by Black women caused me to reflect on the timelessness of sisterhood: how Aisha was born a few years after me, yet still counsels and guides me as an older sister would. How she shares a love with her two blood sisters, both of them younger, that is vast and expansive as the heavens above. How impossible it seems that a word we both used like currency now belongs to her: “ancestor.” And how the word “sister” carries a special meaning among Black people, managing to be at once broad, specific, historical and achingly current. As a sister who never had one growing up, I cherish those I find along with way. Which is why TORCH is the perfect place to find Aisha, along with other sisters yet unknown, again and again, as we celebrate our forever-bond; one that changes with time, but never disappears. ### Elizabeth de Souza is a writer and curator with a special focus on the arts emerging from the African diaspora. She is particularly interested in the mysterious link between artistic genius and mental health. Elizabeth earned her MFA in creative writing from George Mason University and has received awards, fellowships, and grants from MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Twelve Literary Arts, and Creative Capital, among others. Her essays have appeared in print and online publications such as Southern Indiana Review, Callaloo, Surface Design Journal, Solstice, and the Journal of Baha’i Studies. Her first book, Sleeping in the Fire: Reclaiming the Lost Legacy of M. Bunch Washington and Other Seminal Black Visual Artists in America, is forthcoming. She is the Director of the Bunch Washington Foundation, which she co-founded in 2021 with her brother, journalist and filmmaker, Jesse Washington, to support Black painters and sculptors. Elizabeth currently lives in the Pittsburgh area with her husband and two young children. Follow her online at her website and on Twitter and Instagram. 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.