Tag Archives: Black Joy

The prompt: Write a List Poem; June’s Day 1 of 5

photo by: Kon Karampelas

My list came from various notes I’ve taken in response to the ways I live as a Black woman:

1. Adjust to make you more comfortable
2. Choose a gentler phrase
3. Smile to mask anger
4. De-center my voice from our conversation
5. Wait to see if you will move over
6. Move over first because you never do
7. Search online for images like me that I won’t find
8. Close windows to quiet your hatred
9. Wipe mirrors to see myself loved
10. Carry emotional weight I didn’t choose
11. Disrupt texts that violate me and my students
12. Stand proudly in intersections and margins where I live
13. Highlight abolitionist teaching strategies
14. Console a student who has fear for our lives
15. Call my sisterfriends who protest and speak up
16. Celebrate Black Joy
17. Pray for my son because he shows his feelings
18. Pray for my daughter because she doesn’t
19. Laugh and cry because I’m here
20. Add to my list called Anti-Black Racist Work