September 3, 2020

do your best but maybe not sometimes seventeen

by Admin

And if there are other things about me that make my life public, I semi-wanna be a sex siren, political, or interesting in some type of way. When I became poz, [there] was [never] really a question [about] if I was going to write about it and be up front about it. I’m fighting alongside my diagnosis, like I’m a bad bitch. Come on, now! I felt a lot of ways [about] this decision for a bit, like maybe it was just a half-step from going far enough. It lays the foundation for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.” For Danez Smith, poetry has been the bones, skin, melanin, and water of the Black aesthetic. I’ve been writing in earnest since I was 14; I think that’s the first time I ever called myself a poet to somebody else. Can you just talk a little bit about your sexuality? I love theater. The online stuff doesn’t really feel like too much of a purpose or like I’m doing this with intention. Things have finally started falling in place in a way where I think about long-living with HIV. There’s this weird kind of stigma. There was a long time where I couldn’t stop writing poems, so then I was a poet. Why was it important to not give power to folks who aren’t Black to use the term “my nig”? I’m 30. But [the book] gets us thinking about language—how it’s beloved, how it’s dangerous, [and how] it has long histories. The first one is “dogs!,” a strange crowning jewel that contains the taste of many of the cohesive elements that make this collection read like a whole: anger, humor, rhythm, and a message that’s stretched on top of the words like a cat, waiting for you to acknowledge it, to recognize its existence. love, memories, regret), but also brings other elements to the table, elements that are timely and important: bigotry, poverty, culture, and family. Instead, I’ll give you glimpses of those that have stuck with me for weeks and are still with me now, a month after turning the last page. I write for my family and my friends, and I write for poets who excite me, who tend to write like me. It’s like, why Black? On a different day in high school, maybe it could’ve been nonfiction and maybe I could’ve been writing novels. There does seem to be this disconnect between a lot of queer artists, especially Black queer folks, and our ancestors who died off in the 1980s and ’90s and left us with these books, poems, and ballads. In her 1985 essay “Poetry Is Not a Luxury,” self-described Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet Audre Lorde wrote, “Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. Understanding the diasporas of my homies; it’s the lens that I wish to see the world [through]. Can you talk about your experience as a Black queer HIV-positive poet and the importance of showcasing the totality of who you are? You’ll get exclusive perks and members-only swag, all while supporting Bitch’s critical feminist analysis. Sign up for the Weekly Reader: I often think about the different ways that Black queer people choose to tell our stories, whether it’s through an op-ed, a documentary, or photography. I’m writing for Keisha. Why do we do anything that we do? Help make more pieces like this possible by joining Bitch Media’s membership program, The Rage. Homie, which is the title of this book only for the uninitiated, is a celebratory dance, a slap in the face of complacency, and an invitation to a revolution. That’s over half my life now. hands, dry and stretch their skins, build the drums, call everyone together for If I’m going to be engaging in this kind of confessional work, then it’s up to me to let my people see themselves in the pages of my work. How do you get it? I was blessed to meet the right people that made me fall fully in love [not only] with the craft of poetry, but with poets. I’ve been publicly HIV-positive for more than five years, and a lot of my work still references the epidemic, the state of HIV now, and its future. I couldn’t keep it from people and keep it out of my work. I like other people’s naked bodies. I don’t think too much [about] the hate that goes behind it. HIV did leave a gap in a lot of ways, and we have folks talking about surviving that experience. I have been very vocal from jump because I’ve always missed those ancestors who I’ll never know, all the people—Assanto, Saint, Essex Hemphill—the poem mentions. Go read it. It came to me at the right time, and I love it fiercely. You obviously need a little more. Thank you, white critics who talk to each other about what they like, but I’m not writing for the New York Times or the Washington Post. I would like to say that. 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