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She said all it would take is $10

to sense the spirits around me

and read my future.

But I tried to tell her it wasn't me I was worried about

my prayers are blown to the

sunset gray ridden waves

that have washed my wishes and haunts

my prayers are for the

street prophets freestylin'

thinking they showed me love and let me slide

ignorant to the active place of genocide

in his backyard and her bosom.

I pray for abandoned children with two parents

I pray so long sometimes I fall asleep

and dream of the ancestors

I dream of heaven

I pray for women with deep

uterine itches

that only her missing child can scratch.

I pray poets with purpose

plant potent seeds for

progression with poise

I pray the baroque docks

so other poets can simply stop.

I pray this teaches those that know

that they don't

so we can hold each other.

The incense hypnotized the seconds

as she checked her clock

she ended up

giving me $20.

nikki skies, from the book, "Pocket Honey Wind & Hips"

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Gettin' a tighter grip on performance theory 📚📚📚

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THE Toni Morrison

“Nobody loved her and she wouldn’t have liked it if they had, for she considered love a serious disability.”

— Toni Morrison 

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Alice Walker’s Womanism

evettedionne.com

www.clutchmagonline.com

Alice Walker, a black feminist, is an award-winning author and publisher most famously known for writing The Color Purple.  Walker was involved with the civil rights movement beginning in her college years in the early 1960s and worked for the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP.  However, she also participated in the anti-war and women’s liberation movements.  Many black women who focused on other causes besides black liberation were frowned upon; still, Walker saw nothing wrong with having other political interests.  Because of her work with other social movements, Walker’s inclusion into the world of Black feminism was denied by some.   In 1983, Walker answered those closed-minded individuals with the start of a new type of feminism, womanism [2]. 

Womanism is a community based feminism that not only focuses on liberating black women, but liberating all of society.  Walker also created the term “womanism” because she believed that mainstream feminism did not cater to the needs of black women.  However, Walker felt it was important that people not confused womanism as simply black feminism.  Unlike, feminism, womanism does not assume a universal female type, but it paints a world of many women of all races and cultures.  Simply put, womanism stands for love. It strives for the love of thy neighbor no matter race, sex, or sexual orientation, and the betterment of community to put an end to all inequalities [2].  Black feminism works through womanism because it allows black activists to use their double consciousness to make a better society. 

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January 4: We Were Never Meant To Survive

“For those of us who live at the shoreline

standing upon the constant edge of decision

crucial and alone

for those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going

in the hours between dawns

looking inward and outward

at once before and after

seeking a now that can breed

futures

like bread in our children’s mouths

so their dreams will not reflect

the death of ours:

For those of use

who were imprinted with fear

like a faint line in the center of our foreheads

learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk

for by this weapon

this illusion of some safety to be found

the heavy-footed hoped to silence us

For all of us

this instant and this triumph

We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid

it might not remain

when the sun sets we are afraid

it might not rise in the morning

when our stomachs are full we are afraid

of indigestion

when our stomachs are empty we are afraid

we may never eat again

when we are loved we are afraid

love will vanish

when we are alone we are afraid

love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid.

So it is better to speak

remembering

we were never meant to survive.” Audre Lorde, “A Litany for Survival”

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“In a context in which we have been bought, sold and possessed many times over, black women’s will to self-possession is the ultimate rebellion.”

— from Scandalize My Name: Black Feminist Practice and the Making of Black Social Life by Terrion L. Williamson

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Lovesexy era rarities.

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Interesting shot.

Photography: Taras Kuščynskyj, 1971

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I'm not sure how much...

No, I take that back .. I'm sure I won't be using 98% of the stuff I'm studying in this theatre history class.

And if this is theatre HISTORY, why didn't we start with ancient Egyptian theatre?

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Yes, get this in your life!

The Combahee River Collective Statement 💜

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PODCAST CONVERSATION Take a listen to my conversation with Shaping the Shift podcast. We're talking Black Women Writers. Nikki in conversation with Shaping the Shift