Writing my way through quarantine

Content warning: Mention of members of the Black community who have been murdered by police brutality or hate crimes.

As a spoken word poet, I (she/her) continually dig up my past, bring it to the surface, and perform it in front of others as if it is a movie I’ve written, directed, and produced. I absolutely love it. This process is easier said than done, yet I have been doing it for six years and counting. Seeing as I am rather extroverted, I enjoy speaking to people on a day-to-day basis. With all eyes on me, spoken word demands that I speak with control: what I say, how I emote, and how I sound are all predetermined. I am constantly editing every aspect of my performance, and it thrills me to know that I can say the same piece in a different tone and ultimately sway the audience towards whatever feeling I want to portray that night.

Due to the pandemic, my three to four minutes of “ultimate power” were stripped away. I like to think that I am continually growing as a writer, especially as I get older and gain new experiences. Through my reflections on 2020, I have noticed something concerning: I am not writing for myself.

You might be wondering, “Imani, how could you not be writing for yourself?” I thought the same thing! Prior to this year, I had been writing about situations that I would find myself in, not about myself as a person. I had not been writing about the components of myself that won’t change, like how I love to smile. Most of the time I smile with my teeth because my parents raised me in such a way that I can smile continuously and mean it. That is a portion of my being that likely won’t change. Do you know what will change? Feeling upset by someone who pretended to be my friend and turned out to be a snake. Believe me, that will change. I will not continue to be upset over that situation because I will inevitably be smiling again, and will become happier in the process. I have written poetry with the essence of a “woman scorned,” but I want to grow past that. I am afraid that if I do not move quickly, it will be a trap I fall into with my writing, thinking that’s all I can convey. With this epiphany, I decided something had to be done.

My desire to expand who I am as a writer led me to a summer poetry workshop: “Filter Through Skin.” This workshop was created and directed by my mentor and Canadian Spoken Word Champion, Joshua “Scribe” Watkis. I have participated in mentorship workshops for poetry before, but this one was specifically for Black writers to look into their Blackness from all angles. I embraced this opportunity, and I am so glad that I did. I learned multiple important lessons—not only about how to write better, but how to stay in touch with my Blackness.

To start writing for myself, I needed to look inward. Who am I? A university student with higher education aspirations, a spoken word artist, a carbon copy of my mother down to the Jamaican cackle. A Black girl! I’m a petite Black girl. What do I want to do with this? My first few thoughts included racism and microaggressions that I would rather forget. Throughout high school, I performed different types of poems in our annual Black History Month assemblies. From using cool concepts to stating the truth, for the last few years my Blackness has designated me as a public speaker. Aside from who I was around my family, writing pieces for these shows—which Black people, the smallest cultural group within my school, were running for our majority Caucasian demographic—was as far as my identity went. This was not a conscious decision. I loved creating and performing these poems, as they showed versatility within my community and my skill to say, “Don’t be racist” in different forms. I felt that I had a duty to write for these shows, not only because Black History Month is so important, but also because people would look to me for these poems. Yet the undertone of all those performances only reminded me that being Black is hard, and how that difficulty can rear its ugly head in an infinite number of ways. The saying goes, “The more you repeat it, the more you believe it,” and it was getting to me after four runs of the assembly for all four of my high school years. To make matters worse, I was not consistently performing in workshops or at poetry slams. I was not creating and practicing new, diverse content. This limited my writing, and I unknowingly put myself into a hole.

I realized that I was taking my Blackness and channeling it into educating non-Black people. Being a poet already comes with stereotypes, but being a Black poet immediately pigeonholes me; I’m expected to talk about racism and how I have been wronged all my life for simply having a darker skin tone. That in itself is dehumanizing. So, when I created a poem combining The Wizard of Oz and video games, people were shocked. I’m expected to be predictable; people are startled when I raise my voice in performances, even though the art of spoken word includes a lot of emotion and tone. I’m not meant to explicitly teach people through my poetry. I’m meant to have fun and express myself, no matter what side of me I choose to show. The only time I am meant to teach is once I earn those degrees.

Due to the unexpected turns that this year keeps taking, people have come to believe that it’s tough being a Black person right now. Don’t let this year fool you. It’s always been tough. Through the media’s coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement, non-Black people feel as if everything has suddenly become more intense. I’m sad to say that we’re used to the fact that Black people are constantly being arrested, harassed, and killed. The reason why other people feel that it’s so intense right now is due to quarantine: this is a time where you stay home and watch the news. It has always been this bad, and finally, non-Black people are forced to come to terms with it.

Along with yelling against police brutality, Black poets are also expected to have a few “racism poems.” An expectation for these poems is the use of names of people who’ve passed, such as Trayvon Martin, and more recently, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. These names will be listed and followed by “When will this stop?” in some form. Using these names as buzzwords is a very common practice. The events that happen every day to people who look like me seem to have no end, so the expectation of using those names as a literary device is something that I do not have any words for. As opposed to strengthening our craft, people expect us to recite a heartbreaking, never-ending list.

Earlier this year, following the pattern of high school, I fell back into the habit of teaching people through my words. This first poem is based on the poetry collection entitled Voodoo Hypothesis by Canisia Lubrin and my feelings after reading it.

“Voodoo Hypothesis – The Diversity of Black People” (February 2020)
We’re more alike than we think
Open up to page 48 in your edition, the poem “Up the Lighthouse”
The end of the first stanza says: “You must know/black isn’t always the void”
[…]
“Black isn’t always a void”.
It’s like a reminder
To be honest, I think this is one that I have kept in my mind since I was little
I wasn’t always ‘the Black girl, a great minority within my school’
Lots of times I’ve been me, I’ve been Imani
The girl who smiles a lot, loves to talk, loves to write and then talk
[…]
So, for my time, Voodoo Hypothesis is also a reminder of how diverse Black people are,
and how we need to actively see this because it’s been reduced so much
that it’s easy to forget
So even though I’m a Black girl,
I’m learning this too
And that’s why I’m a student in this room with you
Because I want to understand it too.

Currently, I am going past the surface level of myself, and writing about what I have been struggling to acknowledge. I’m being radically honest with myself through my poetry.

“Miss Pearl” (August 2020)
“Grandma, I’m downstairs”
I didn’t know how much this statement would come to fruition
If I knew that you were ready to go when I got to uni, I would’ve taken a gap year
Going to your house was always a time I set aside
From taking you grocery shopping with Dad, to watching soap operas and making tea
And you teasing me about “not eating real food” because I don’t eat yellow yam
I hope that you know sitting in your pink apartment for hours on end was such a good addition to my life story
Being able to reach the cupboard to make my own mint tea was our little celebration
I would dump out half of your sugar jar in my cup
I would call if I had club activities after school so that you wouldn’t think I was hurt or worse because I didn’t reach home by 3:30
Now I can’t even call you
Your phone number, memorized in my brain, engraved upon my fingers as if my fingertips know where they’re leading me
I haven’t deleted your contact out of my phone yet

I love both of these poems, but the first is an explanation for others, while the second is for myself. I was asked to create and perform the first poem and was given creative freedom. Even though I loved this performance, I fell back into the habit of teaching people through my words. Using Lubrin’s poems as evidence, I told the audience that the book would be confusing for anyone due to the fact that Black History has largely been erased or ignored in society. I spoke on how much this book meant to me by restoring history and showing the diversity of Black people, which normally does not receive its deserved recognition. (Again, another way I have said “Don’t be racist.”) As for the poem about my grandmother, I wrote it purely for myself. I didn’t explain every detail about why her passing was so painful for me. I know all of that. I just let it be pain. I was able to tap into how I would miss having her in my life through the time I spent with her, creating that specificity that no one else can repeat when speaking about losing their grandparent. I do not use my Blackness to qualify the points of my poem, and that is crucial to me. Losing her makes me sad, not because I’m Black, but because I’m human.

I’ve been able to write for myself by abiding by this lesson that my mentor, Josh, taught me: Black artists do not have to produce “Black art” all of the time.

Art from Black artists is Black art. Point-blank, period.

The added pressure of creating “Black art” is a barrier to creative expression. This barrier presents itself in many different ways, through the expectation of “racism poems,” the teaching stance, or just overexplaining to an audience. This is what holds Black artists back. Speaking to our struggles and becoming a perfectionist through our art is what society tends to value. Considering that I belong to one of the most marginalized groups in society, if I keep focusing on solely creating “Black art,” I will not be able to find joy anywhere. Choosing content for new work should be exciting, and I want to feel that way about each new poem I create.

Through this journey, I have allowed myself to be more honest than I was before with my feelings and through my poetry. I know that if I continue to leave behind the expectations, stereotypes, and trapdoors of being a Black artist, I can just create. I am excited for what is to come, and I am sure that twelve-year-old Imani is excited as well. In the meantime, I will be writing my way through quarantine.