Let’s connect please!

Always OBSIDIAN AF.

— KNLND

#poetry #ancestryresearch #becoming #blackmen #blackpoets #blackfaculty #afrocentric #onsubmission #manuscripts

So not only is Cienfuegos looking for a home, but I’m also looking to read with other poets and writers who are in conversation about ancestry, ecological memory, and their relationships to intergenerational trauma as we navigate a society hellbent on convincing us that our stories don’t matter.

& now, two poems included here are going to be in the Prairie Schooner at a time when preservation of memory is so important. Gratitude is a continuous outpour in this season of life & I wouldn’t be here without God’s grace, protection & the village he’s assigned to my life to love me.

▪️a heightened confidence to reclaim an identity I never knew was a part of me (thank you, Patrick A.)

▪️reimagining the ancestors who found their way to the states and established a family that would become my inheritance (thank you Jaquira D.)

Speaking of histories & roadmaps & humanity:

This is my completed manuscript. Almost 100 pages of poems dedicated to:

▪️a better understanding of my identity, its multitudes, and the memory that is passed from generation to generation (thank you Monica Jo);

But this creative writing space also allows me to be a better professor, to brilliant students who deserve to know the histories—no matter how uncomfortable—that contribute to their existence, so that they can make their own, responsible & healthy conclusions on how to use humanity for veritas.

Hey there! In terms of WIP, I’m putting a decent amount focus on my next manuscript which is an extension of Cienfuegos. It focuses on the voice of my great-great-grandmother (or what i imagine it’d be like) and weaves in ecological memory, ancestry, and intergenerational trauma.