This selection, chosen by guest editor JJ Rowan, is from an identity polyptych by Tameca L. Coleman (The Elephants 2021).
You can’t just read your way out of racism. And yet reading with that aim
is a powerful and viable first step. And how strange when you pair that
against a Black man and his partner creating a space for communing and
intervention, full of informative and empowering books meant for the
communities they come from, for the communities whose safe spaces are
disappearing, for the communities who are being colonized and owned
all over again.
The young man who comes to speak to us has grit in his teeth when he
says “white liberals.” They are the ones who have money and they are
happy to spend it here. Spending their money here makes them feel that
they are doing something. They do not realize that even here, they are
co-opting intent. They do not realize that even here, in their earnest
desire to understand, they harm.
am i an ally?
you can’t read yourself
out of racism
but stacks of books line the desks
and tables,
the bedside dressers,
they line
the insides of my bags.
i take notes and carry
the weight of them.
i underline
and highlight. read with yearning.
the more i read, the more i know
i know
nothing
i bend over the tables, my shoulders
curving over my heart, eyes
strain and water,
my chest heaves.
each book
is a silent soldier
armed to the edge of the pages’
slicing corners see
see
see
how
my spine compresses.
see how
my fingers
bleed.
Meca’Ayo (Tameca L Coleman) is a queer poetry-centric multi-genre writer, singer and artist who currently lives in Denver Colorado. Their writing and photography have been featured in literary magazines, art exhibits, journals, anthologies, and other venues and publications. Their first book, an identity polyptych, a multi-part, multi-genre work that explores familial estrangement, identity as a mixed-race Black person, and movement towards reconciliation, debuted from The Elephants on the Salish Sea Fall 2021.
JJ Rowan is a queer nonbinary poet and dancer whose writing and movement practices have developed largely out of collaborative approaches and the pursuit of deep connection. They are looking for the places where the written line and the lines of the moving body intersect, where genre blurs and remixes and reboots, and where style and role reach maximum fluidity and deeper capacity. Their chapbook, a simple verb, is available from Bloof Books. You can follow their handwriting and movement projects on Instagram.
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