The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: HoodWitch by Faylita Hicks

Photo of X, 2007: HoodWitches

Somewhere, Somewhere

#hallelujah to the HoodWitches

to the shellac clapbacks & neck-roll snaps

of sistahs who snatch tracks & dodge ditches.

#blessedbe to they too small kitchens.

#blessedbe they dolla-tree gumbo.

#blessedbe they cokes & hot cheetos.

may the gawds smile down & rain money on some of us bxtches.

#imdifferent

descended from the truth-eaters,

i swallowed sarah saartjie baartman.

she buried herself in the slip of my hips

& now she lives in all the mirrors

of my apartment.

now she pats me on the belly

& begs for me to feed her.

so i search me out some rood boys,

those thick two-headed ox-men.

cook me up some fine soup,

roast sweet potatoes on parchment,

then i sucks me down them oxtails!

girl, i cost them! #hallelujah to the HoodWitches.

to the snapbacks & double daps

of qweens gone pedestrian.

#blessedbe to they children’s children.

may the gawds smile down & watch over the black naps

& snatched backs of black womxn

dragged into the system. of black

womxn survived outside the system. black

womxn survived despite the system. #asheashe

to my black girls gone missing.

to my sisters gone missing.

to our daughters & granddaughters.

to our mamas & grandmamas.

#asheashe to the crowned & uncrowned

to those

above

below

ground.

This selection comes from the book, HoodWitch, available from Acre Books. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Tierney Bailey.

From their website (https://www.faylitahicks.com): “Faylita Hicks (pronouns: she/her/they) is a queer writer and the Editor-in-Chief of the Austin-based literary journal Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University, and has received fellowships and residencies from Lambda Literary, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Tin House, Right of Return USA, and the Vermont Studio Center. Hicks’s debut poetry collection HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019) is a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award and the Julie Suk Award. Her poems and essays have been featured in or are forthcoming in Adroit, American Poetry Review, Cincinnati Review, Huffpost, Longreads, Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, the Rumpus, Slate, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, and elsewhere.”

Tierney Bailey is a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and studies Korean in her spare time. Currently, Tierney is an associate poetry editor at Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons, and a freelance graphic designer. Tierney earned a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Tierney is most easily found screaming into the void on Twitter as @ergotierney.