#black trans poetry

[howhowzine]

Calling all Black queer people!! We are a digital zine by @chiimeraangel and @tophgayfong99 designed to be a love letter to Black queer elders. Submit stories and pictures here or on Twitter (@howhowzine) to receive a free copy of the zine!

[lemursandsirens]

i keep wanting to see me

keep wanting to meet me

keep seeing glimpses, a hue, a sheen of that person

still disconnected from the “who”

but i see the focus 

i see the hyper awareness of this “new”

and i see the way you’re repelled

by this layer you’ve ordained as dirt

so i’ll scrub again

cleanse again

to dissolve the glimpses of me

for a few days at least

this constant pruning 

leads to regrowth

and you wouldn’t prune suddenly visible roots

of an old tree

so acquiesce

sooner rather than later

i don’t want glimpses anymore

[asoftepiloguemylove]

Cameron Awkward-Rich THEORY OF MOTION (4): ANOTHER MIDDLE-CLASS BLACK KID TRIES TO NAME IT (via @sweatermuppet) // Wayne Koestenbaum "Figure;" My 1980s and Other Essays // Mary Lambert "Why I Slept With Makeup on for Five Years;" Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across // Keaton St. James DYSPHORIA CREEK // Richard Siken "Birds Hover the Trampled Field;" War of the Foxes (via @newvision) // Greta Moran Slow First

[venus-light]

What we seek, however, is not power over people, but the power of control of our own destiny:

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

// Become Ungovernable, Medium // BLACK PANTHER PARTY’S FREE BREAKFAST PROGRAM (1969-1980) // The Genius of Huey P. Newton, CounterPunch // Abi Thorn’s Trans Power Speech Transcript // Nina Cried Power, Hozier ft. Mavis Staples // Jackboot Jump, Hozier // Backlash Blues, Nina Simone // Be, Hozier // Take Me To Church, Hozier // Tomorrow is My Turn, Nina Simone

[ceejthedeej]

[typewriter-worries]

There are at least two theories about love. Both begin as violence. The subject encounters the object & a slit opens inside him.

Essay on the Awkward / Black / Object, Cameron Awkward Rich

[peevesiehasasideblog]

"I often wonder if my diagnosis makes sense. Female to male transsexual is not a very good description of what is going on. It's too neat, too chronological. Too trapped between two states, man and woman. I find neither of these possible or desirable. I need the diagnosis for the surgery but I question the link between the two. I refuse the social construct of gender and desire a flat chest. I am forced to advocate that which is arbitrary and false. If I were to diagnose myself, I often think essay would be the better term. I am a piece of writing that I want to look and sound a certain way. I have this deep impulse to sculpt and shape my body. I think of the surgeon's scalpel like the squat nib of a fountain pen, marking up and crossing out. When I write, I am trying to say something true about the world. I am trying to polish language until it vanishes, becomes a window. I am not writing for the sake of writing, I am writing to bring the world into being. Living seems to be much the same process; I am not living for the sake of living, I live in order to carve, and sculpt and incise, wax/buff/burnish, weather/age/distill myself. To do this until I am a walking transparency, making the whole world visible. And people say I am an idiot for doing this, for carving up my body. I have two long scars where my breasts have been. Two dry rivers or else a tightrope with a gap. Maybe they agree with me about the fallacious sculpting of the fallen branch. Maybe the art was done when two fatty protrusions emerged, hanging from my sternum. Maybe nothing will be as masterfully mound as the glands I excised. Nothing as masterful as my big, fat areolas, my moving, hanging milk-works. If the artist is wrong-headed, then so am I."

— Jay Bernard, 'Idiot', 2021 Edinburgh International Festival

[genderoutlaws]

Marsha P. Johnson performing the poem “Soul” for the drag troupe Hot Peaches in 1989

[transcript below cut]

Jimmy Camicia: We have someone to sum it up for you, Miss Marsha P. Johnson.

Marsha: Hello ladies and gentleman, I’ma say a poem for you called Soul. You can count your karma if nirvana is your goal, you can shake and you can rattle, you can rock and roll. You can be a Clark Kent, or a Lois, or an Alice down a hole. You can be a vampire on a mountain with a heart of dull black coal. You can be a leather angel on a sleek black Harley bike, or a redhead screaming faggot, or a dazzling dyke. You can lock yourself in a closet in a fine mink stole, but it really doesn't matter if you ain't got soul.

[jay-kwellyn]

"Poetry in Motion" by Jay Kwellyn beat by OrenjiSoul

My name is poetry in motion I’m a collection of rambling thoughts and spoken words inspired by smokin herbs and unlimited devotion life has no filter I can see through the minutia The cold locomotion of this broken machine that stays unbroken The gears keep turning and the loops in the chain keep choking till they snap and get replaced all in the same day

In this ocean of pain I’m a storytellers nightmare So precise with my shots the limelight shatters In a few words What does a dime look like and what does it matter What’s the retail price on a girl who can mix sugar and spice to make bread dough while you bitches lucky just to make batter Over here we rise tho Built on a foundation we poured ourselves I chose my own name I ain’t need no help I cried a river of pain and got lost up the stream with no paddle Found my way up the bank where some people had gathered So colorful against the black and white backdrop Oh how did they sway? To and fro like leaves in the wind Freedom personified I took a breath through my skin for the first time I Took a step in the right shoes for the first time I Looked suicide in the face for the first time I Stop moving through this space with no direction Cuz now this poem has somewhere to go

[nonbinarymlm]

Inspired by @fixing-bad-posts I have decided to some the transphobic tweets I've seen.

[Image ID: Three images where everything has been editing away by soothing photos of water except for a few words. The first reads "non binaryism teaches that they can be if they don't match up to patriarchal expectations and teaches that being is positive" with a nonbinary flag filter over the background water. The second one reads "talking about having breasts estrogen induced cool" with a transfeminine filter over the background water. The last one reads "what people are can be a lot bigger than their bodies. There's no reason why you can't identify as what you actually are, other than patriarchy". End description.]

[ad-astra-per-aspera-2812]

poem #24 - mountain

we see the light even in the darkest night we won’t surrender – as long as we believe in us.

they keep us small, contained and lonely break out, break free too late tomorrow.

and we’ll keep up the fight no matter how or what or when just like those who came before us if we stop, there’s no new dawn.

wait, they say, wait for a new day they try to keep us small, divided we’ll come together anyway.

we climb the mountain, all alone the legacy, it weights us down we struggle, stumble, fall and hurt the choice is ours, will we get up?

this night is ours the fate will change we’ll beat the odds and win the war.

we see the light even in the darkest night we won’t surrender – as long as we believe in us.

[valintimes]

Righteous fire. Vindication, maybe. The darkness washed away in a single wave as moonlight settles in its place.

[dry-flowers-and-silent-yearning]

* leaning on a wall *

Any of you goth transmascs looking for a punk-academia boyfriend?

* trips and almost fucking dies *

[philosophicalstars12]

“I like you” he said, almost blurting it out.

“I like you too,” Regulus replied looking out the window, “I think I could learn to love you”. If James was surprised he doesn’t show it.

“We can’t be together can we?” James asked.

“Is that a question or a statement? Because i think you know the answer” he’s watching the rain fall

“I’m not sure”

“Whether its a question or statement? Because your grammar is terrible-“

“What the answer is”, James sighed, “im not sure what the answer is”

“James”

“Reg” after hours of talking, he finally looks over to James where he is sitting on the other side of the tower. He was begging. Begging not to say anything. Begging to let it be. Begging not to tell his brother. Begging to keep going on with what they had, risky as it might be.

James looked into his eyes and he was begging. He looked away, watching rain turn into hail.

“Why is my answer”

“You know why.”

“Tell me anyways”

“Why?”

“Otherwise I would love you” there’s a stifled silence, it’s loudness amplified by the storm.

“I’m your best friends brother. You are my brothers best friend. More importantly I am a Death Eater”

“ Not yet”

“You can hold on to empty hopes if you’d like but the truth is there James”, Regulus sighed again before continuing on, getting ready to leave the tower if needed.

“ I attend meetings, I have talked with the Dark Lord himself,” James flinches at the use of the ‘Dark Lord’, “I have go too far to back out, which I would never have done anyways no matter what could’ve happened in the past”

“Why?”

“Is that your answer for everything?”

“Can you truly understand something if you can’t understand the reasoning behind it?”

“You sound like me”

“You sound smart”, Regulus lets out a small laugh, a huff at most.

“You can’t tell Sirius this,”

“I know”

“I’m the spare. That was always how it was meant to go, the Heir and the spare. Sirius and I, the Charisma and the coward. When he left, I became the shoddy replacement, the one we all knew wasn’t meant to be there. If he came back after all this time they would still take him back in a heartbeat.” Regulus takes a breath before continuing,

“But he won’t and I don’t blame him. However If I left with him, they would come looking for an heir, their biggest priority being the child who could play the part.”

“They would try to get back Sirius before you,” James understands

“Correct, and they would try their hardest for him, because in some fucked up twisted way, they love him, much much more”

“So you stay so they won’t go after him”

“you’re getting it now”

“I thought they hated him.”

“Hate and love are not opposites, in fact they are very similar. It means you still care,”

“So indifference is the opposite?”

“I would say so, yes” they sit there for hours, days, minutes, a lifetime, stumbling through memories of past lives.

Lives where they lived, lives where they died, lives where none of this existed, lives where they never met, lives where they hated each other, lives where they loved each other.

“What you do if it wasn’t here?” James asked

“What wasn’t here?”

“What would the answer be, if there wasn’t a war on, if Sirius was okay with it, if none of this,” James gestures around them, “if none of this ever happened”

“I’m not sure”

“You’re not sure you would want that?”

“Of course I would want it, I want it now, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

“Suppose we dont”

“I think I would refuse, at first” Regulus looks up the roof, leaning against the wall. James looks over at him, just watching.

”I think you’d then try to persuade me, ask me if that’s what I really wanted. Then you’d pull me into a room and try to snog the living daylights out of me” James lets out a laugh

“And why’s that?”

“You love that question don’t you,”

“Just tell me”

“I think you would snog me to prove that I did want to date you, because I would kiss you right back.”

“Aw”

“It’s gross, too happy”

“You just love depressing shit”

“I won’t lie about it”

“Why?”

Regulus looks over at him, hanging his head at an angle to see him. His eyes wander over James’s body for a moment before continuing on.

“Sadness, bitterness, anger, they’ve all been there throughout my life. Happiness is rare, rare enough that it feels slightly off and creepy when I am happy, like it’s unwelcome. Like something bad is about to happen. “ James goes to speak but Regulus cuts him off before he can say anything. He goes to stand up near the door, ready to leave,

“Sadness becomes comforting after a time, like a chance to rest. If it isn’t there I will probably miss it and long for it because it is the only thing i know”

“Thank you”

“For what?”

“Answering”

“I always will, if you call”, Regulus slips out the door, leaving James to watch the rain turn into snow.

[violottie]

When You Know You Know - a poem in which a lesbian falls in love

the smile that wears you

the prickling thrill of your heart

the twin moons of their eyes in your mind

sunbathing in gold

a stormless ocean; a rainless storm

lightning lashing over a lake of ice

the sigh of retreating tides over stones

the good ache after its over

the pressure of unkissed lips left longing

the tentative almost touch of fingertips, and the gravity between them

the dizzying

the softening of hours into a river of glowing laughter

the quiet between the world

the warm darkness cradling endless starlight

by violottie

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Deer Black Out by Ulrich Jesse K Baer

goodreads

Deer Black Out is a(n obsessional re) mediation of violence and trauma through the trans/coalescence of identities surfacing and resurfacing within a manuscript of serialized poetry, influenced by HD, Zukofsky, and Ronald Johnson. It's sort of like a body, the movement of which you can only recognize emerging within a field of static. Just the outlines. A deer! In ramifying lines, this poetry creates a self-reciprocating dialogue with the very act of self-replication. The language exists as the prosthetic support that co-creates and conditions the Baerself's emergence into the real.

Mod opinion: I found this one through a goodreads friend and I'm so excited to read it at some point! It sounds incredible.