March 11, 2020

Part I: “I Am Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing”—Six Writers on Poetry and Protest

by Nailah Taman | in Literary

The lines from Audre Lorde’s poem “New Year’s Day” serve as an inspiration for a Poetry Coalition collaboration. By The Asian American Writers’ Workshop + Mizna. Image on left from Alaa Satir’s visual art series “We are the revolution”. Below is a link to the full blogpost and a snippet from each readers’ response.

George Abraham

Q: Resistance requires resilience. What are some ways you make space for joy and self-care?

I’ve been thinking a lot about a post a friend of mine shared on facebook about how, sometimes, self-care doesn’t look like bath bombs or scented candles, but is actually the hardest thing in the world – the thing I don’t want to do but need to do for my own long-term well-being. To have that emotionally troubling conversation I don’t wanna have so that it doesn’t make me anxious any more, to remove myself from a space despite the presence of loved ones when I need alone time, to step away from a writing project for a time if it’s putting me in a consistently bad head space. I guess the type of self-care I’ve been striving for as of late requires a radical honesty and Trust in myself, which has a lot of downstream effects I think.

Tarik Dobbs

Q: What is your reaction to Audre Lorde’s lines, “I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.”

Lorde’s line reminds me of how I’m most concerned with how a poem demonstrates its stakes. I’m caught up in poems that are braver than I can be; poems that are radical and name names. I want my poems to be more unafraid than I am. 

Roy G. Guzmán

Q: What’s on your nightstand? In your earbuds?

My nightstand holds books on poetry, magical realism, testimonios, and Indigenous practices. I also have a plush figure of Dante Alebrije from the animated film Coco, an empty glass because the spirits must have drunk all the water, and my engagement ring. From my earbuds the mellifluous voice of Argentine-Mexican singer Amanda Miguel helps pump blood and restlessness into my heart.

Marlin M. Jenkins

Q: Resistance requires resilience. What are some ways you make space for joy and self-care?

When I was in grad school, my therapist often reminded me to check in with how I felt in my body. I’ve always been good at figuring out what I think about things—how I feel has been much more difficult. So that’s step 1 for me for self-care: How does my body feel? What is it responding to? What does it need? And then the care comes from attending to the needs presented in the answers to those questions. As for joy, I do my best to make time for and rejoice in the things I love: my friends, video games, poems, dancing, music.

Yara Omer

Q: What’s on your nightstand? In your earbuds?

English: The Map of Salt and Stars (Zeyn Joukhadar), Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan), and Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year (edited by Mcmorland Hunter), Salt Houses (Hala Alyan). Arabic: ١٩١٩ (أحمد مراد) ، زمن الخيول البيضاء إبراهيم نصر الله

Maitreyi Ray

Q: What is your reaction to Audre Lorde’s lines, “I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.”

I can hear this quote when I think about feeling like a part of a collective creative resistance, cooking large meals with my queer and trans friends, art-making, rituals that ground me, communal experiences of grief, and the friendships in my life that have acted like salves for my restless heart. It makes me reflect on all the ways that I can be deliberate in the details of my life to fearlessly imagine the future.