From February 2015...
Conversations that happen in my head…
From February 2015...
Author: darlene anita scott
...yeah, the one you met the other day in the grocery store. She made you wanna say something to her. You did. And now you can’t remember her name. But that wasn’t really the important part of the meeting anyway.
I'm an excellent tryer and dedicated if not so-so runner. I’m probably too old to still play on the monkey bars. But I do. Maybe too young to groove to Sam Cooke. But I listen to him. I'm powered by plants, a pacemaker, and anything creative.
I like making collages, making up my mind and sticking to it, and making up recipes; almost anything by James Baldwin; almost anything with black beans in it; and probably more than is healthy for the average human: I like alone time and homemade popcorn—not necessarily together.
I daydream constantly. I write poetry and prose. Sometimes I teach it to people. Sometimes I read or recite it to people. And even less often I publish it.
I could be more tolerant of overpriced grapes, people who drive with parking lights on, and deafening car stereos.
I like to laugh but don’t do it as often as I should. Some people think I'm shy. Some think I'm a mute. I'm happy to be here and try to make the most of it.
50 Books I’ve Loved (in no particular order)
1. Browngirl, Brownstones – Paule Marshall 2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith 3. Segu – Maryse Conde 4. The Secret of Gumbo Grove – Eleanora Tate 5. No Easy Place To Be – Steven Corbin 6. Long Distance Life – Marita Golden 7. Sweet Whispers Brother Rush – Virginia Hamilton 8. Assata [...]
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[vintage UtR] If you have ever loved a black boy
Reblogged on WordPress.com Source: If you have ever loved a black boy
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[vintage UtR] Dear John (for the brothers)
Dear You,
I told myself that it was because of my father that I fell in love with you.
I loved him in the unconditional way children typically love—without acknowledgement or understanding of flaws. My father’s flaws became part of my definition of all men.
Once I stopped loving you all by default, I started loving you out of obligation.
According to history you were wounded and incapable of functioning at full capacity due to those wounds. I wanted to love you to wholeness. So I would not participate in any behavior that might further infect those wounds. No “brothers ain’t shit” poems would come from my pen; I turned up my nose at that venom.
I could not bring myself to say anything to or about you that I thought might reduce or call into question your masculinity. I figured that was being done to you already from all…
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[vintage UtR] rethink: The Politics of Black Self Love
Diggin’ in the crates…
Vanity – n. excessive pride in one’s appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements; character or quality of being vain; conceit
Recently, the question of Black male vanity (or confidence depending on who you ask) has evoked discussion thanks in no small part to the release of Kanye West’s album in which he identifies himself as Yeezus and visually confirms his intention to personify himself as Jesus, the Christian deity, messiah, savior of all mankind.
That’s a pretty bold assertion of one’s importance, but not an uncommon practice in the self-aggrandizing style of hip hop music. In fact, several years before his friend and fellow rapper Jay Z identified himself as Jay-hovah—a play on Jehovah, god and savior, and began referring to himself as “Hov” for short.
This self-aggrandizing is a familiar response to the systematic stripping of Black manhood, a familiar vestige of slavery and oppression. The arrogant and/or hyper-masculine posturing…
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[vintage UtR] Between the Lines
Trust me, I am not hiding anything in my art, my writing most specifically, any more than when it was layered in imagery. It is all there. Pause in the white space and you’ll see that you get it after all. Okay so maybe I would rather people not pause because that art is my heart and soul on Front Street
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Black Rage and the Invisible Black Body
I am here to talk about silence. And the violence of it. How it traumatizes the body that practices it as well as the bodies it is imposed upon. I want to talk about how it (silence, I mean)—and I made up this word—invisibilizes. And how that act—to render someone, a body, invisible is violence. [...]
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AWP 2016 — I’ll be there, so come through and say hey
I'll be on a panel called "Written By Ourselves: The Craft of Immobile Corporeality" on Friday, April 1 at 12 noon (Rm. 51o of the L.A. Convention Center). Stop by and hear me talk about the lovers of Jonestown and how they use the stillness of intimacy in defiance of their circumstances in that Guyana [...]
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My Vivid Imagination Paints You, Instead, Grey
Why, yes, another poem! **curtsies** This is from a chapbook-on-hard-drive known as Invitations Not To Be Denied. I'll show it to y'all one of these days, but for now... MY VIVID IMAGINATION PAINTS YOU, INSTEAD, GREY Your breath in the morning—sour milk like a baby we knew would never happen but dreamt library cards and [...]
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HELP…please.
I have the opportunity to travel to Denver, NYC, L.A. and Paris in the next two (2!) months to present my creative work and I couldn't be more excited or anxious--like anxiety anxious but in a good way-- and of course humbled. I can't go to all the conferences not only because three of the [...]
darlene anita scott 
