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 [...]
My first blog post ever. Happy 9 year blogiversary to me.
I had a Chinese pen pal when I was in middle school. Her penmanship was meticulous. I tried to imitate it. I think handwriting is the most organic yet undervalued art—the kind most of us are capable of and don’t even realize it. You can tell such an honest story with it. It doesn’t have the affectations of most of the art we see hanging on the hallowed walls of galleries and museums. Words can be like that too.
My friend and I were joking that there are words among Black folk that are organically perfect. They just happen. In the process of just happening, they are honest and direct. And beautiful. Like when your grandmother asks you for “some sugar.” It’s sweet; it’s musical. And she warns you not to get on “that stuff.” Her directive is just as illustrative as…
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He took sex instead of your life; maybe the glass bottle he threw at you missed; you were named “bitch” and any other list of monikers that do not appear on your birth certificate; the old woman turned on the porch light and startled him and his pistol away; he left you in the street alone and lost in a city that was not your own. You made it out alive. None of those were missteps of the fragile male ego or drunkenness. They were not about how you lead him on or were rude or rash when you refused to comply to his demand for your attention. They were about the agency you have over your life and how you live it and being denied that agency so often
fellowship/publication submissions: 2 fellowship/publication acceptances: 1 fellowship/publication rejections: 4
5 years ago…
“Her father, a preacher, is already not happy with her first semester grades, but he’s allowed her to return to Richmond from Detroit to redeem herself. So far, she’s doing a bang up job and all because, ‘Ms. Scott, I guess I like the rush.’
I suggest she consider sky diving instead. It’s, at least, regulated.
Fast forward.
Today I ran like the fool child I am. 18.74 miles to be exact.”
Within a single semester I receive doctors notes from quiet, bright Simone-with-the-dimples to excuse her absences and allow her to make up missed assignments.
Today she returns to class after a week long hiatus with a new note: this one for an infection. She confides in me: “Those notes, Ms. Scott, are because I had to have 2 abortions.” This infection came from a glitch in the last abortion.
The second semester she returns to repeat my class. She starts missing assignments pretty early. This weekend she’s found herself at a party in some unsavory part of the city. She’s trying to change her ways, she tells me, and the guy who took her to the, erehem, gathering is angry that she won’t have sex with him. So he leaves her to find her own way back to the campus.
When I ask Simone how she finds these “friends” she…
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We know that the rules of engagement; the strategies for survival that Baldwin and Johnson try to outline are flimsy at best.
Can we give them our stories without curling their backs into it, yellowed pages crisp and crumbling like sepia snow into piles we sweep from in front of our bookshelves? Will we love them only; wait and watch them turn to men who fail themselves for want of recognition?
I enjoy sharing my work--writing, art, pedagogy but I do not like the public performance of it. (Artists be insular as a mug y'all; don't like you ain't know)! So I sometimes correct people when they call me "shy." I'm reticent; quiet; and nope, public presentation is not an activity I particularly enjoy. But I don't think "shy" is precise enough.
Look, we all perform ourselves; the version of ourselves we choose to present to the world is a performance. Hers seemed a performance of the worst kind—poorly played (she ain’t e’en have her script straight) and manipulative; the kind that seeks gain for itself at the expense of others.
Secret Shame: I don't feel like it.
darlene anita scott 