Brown Girl Love

Twenty-four year old Pearl Quick was born and raised in New York City. A spoken word poet, she co-teaches poetry all over the tri-state area and in many states around the nation. She hopes to start small, self-sustainable programs in the Bronx for young women of color and to complete the first draft of her memoir speaking about her weight in 2014, when she graduates. She is currently attending Sarah Lawrence College where she studies Language, race and poetry and carries around the documentary To Be Heard in which she stars. It documents her life and the lives of two of her friends as young slam poets, finding their voices and speaking out against inequalities close to their hearts. She considers the film a great accomplishment and hopes to use it as a platform to teach high school students all over the world to find their voices through performance poetry.

POEMS BY PEARL QUICK:

Warm Drums

Play our war drums.

Allow the beats of this body,

these bones

to cover bruises held like a second skin from wars that lay out blue prints imprinted in between our hips.

Brown skin hold black and blues like lost identities and society says

“I wanted it”

Stigmas are injected into flesh,

leaving us paralyzed and sensitive

steady tracing our roots on a rotting family tree

and while licking our wounds find security in words crumbled in fists,

under feet

and on the backs of hands

Which one of us planned to hide from the Big Bad Wolf.

Sheep’s clothing holds signs of a militia that wages wars in missionary on the bodies of Congolese women

and after they have taken turns

her husband turns away ashamed

because a woman of “decency” wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

Our vaginas no longer birth babies but taboos.

Take a good look!

This is what it looks like when a woman “Asked for it”

her soul being ripped from tendons left heavy and hanging from a virus that rivered her wrists like lead.

Savagely discarding mothers, daughters and sisters

leaving us bitches,

whores,

paramours?

Isolated and marginalized

We women hide, blame ourselves for what is taken, accept the beatings for refusing to have sex without a condom

Left used by men who have gotten what they came for,

being called a whore must be some kind of position

possessions don’t have voices!

Property weren’t given choices

and rape in a marriage doesn’t exist.

You can’t sweep a generation under your rug; the bodies are beginning to smell

Her beauty left dribbling from swollen lips

her intelligence left on white pages

with red ink [POSITIVE],

we are tested,

placed in a box labeled double standard and told to

“Act like a lady”

So for your sake, I hope I remind you of your mother,

and your daughter watches as her skin begins to bruise

cause see we are your greatest resource.

I may have been made from your rib

but We are the backbones of this foundation,

slowly tracing your vertebrates like crumbing bricks!

so be careful…

You wouldn’t want all of this to crumble down around you… would you?

Imaginary Friends

He is a afraid of the dark.

The dark exposes something inside him he isn’t ready to explore.

He used to speak through inebriated words of success and fears and now all that is left are hopes and wishes.

His smile leaks of misery like molasses the color of his skin made up of rough housing and mistakes.

He waited so long to be heard now he stays silent afraid uninteresting phrases or ignorant thoughts would expose his secret insecurities.

He is afraid of the dark.

They expose the diagnosed inferiority that slides between his conscious as if he were slipping into a transfixed state of remembering.

Childhood wasn’t toys and naps; they were midnight movements, abuse and seeds. Dirty floors piled high with forgets and now his turmoil is exposed.

Misery begins to attach itself upon his spirit and pull him into directions he is unable to name.

He sits in his room afraid to move, or to stay so songs on repeat replace movement for melodic and I sit by the door hoping he will see the worry in my eyes and begin to remember that his sister loves him.

My brother is lost.

Can you help me find him?

My brother is searching, are there any words that can retrieve him?

He is afraid of the dark.

The dark exposes something that is too sensitive to explore so I write this for him for his words have since been lost under lashing out and dreams.

I want to penetrate his.

Plant seeds that will grow into ideas.

He is so afraid to fail he refuses to wonder anymore.

My brother is waiting

Will someone come?

I am too afraid to ask “when”? Too afraid to have him answer… ” I am not sure ”

Time is but a lover that gives us brief moments of pleasure followed by less and less time to stay in moments worth keeping.

He is stagnate. Promised to a world that never claimed him he wanders aimless around hidden agendas and want.

My brother isn’t safe here, will you take him?

Catching him when he falls only gives resentment a home.

I am weak.

Overshadowed by a deep sense of dread.

After all Why can’t I save him? Why do I think I can? Why do I feel guilty that I no longer have the strength to even elaborate on this circumstance?

He is afraid of the dark and last night I heard his thoughts. Silently they slipped through his window and into mine.

Held me close like a lover, swept my thick curly hair behind my ear and whispered ” Allow us to speak through you ” How do you mediate between a man and his emotions?

My brother lives inside himself and I’m afraid I can not reach him.

He is afraid of the dark.

He embraces his fears.

They are much easier than dealing with greatness.

I want more for the guy who speaks of futures like Fairytales.

My brother is tortured.

My brother is talented.

My brother isn’t afraid of the dark… He is afraid of the light.

Ciara  Darnise  Miller was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago. After becoming a  Louder than a Bomb poetry slam champion, she performed at various high schools and colleges throughout the United States, including: Lane Tech, North Side Prep, Berkeley High, Chicago Academy of the Arts, MaryMount Manhattan College, Milliken University, and Sarah Lawrence College. She has also been a featured performer at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Her work is published in numerous Young Chicago Authors anthologies, and it has appeared in StarWall Paper, What I Know Is Me—Black Girls Write about Their World, The SLC Review, as well as her self-published a chapbook Black Dorothy.  She is a Cave Canem Fellow, a graduate from Sarah Lawrence College, a lyricist/rapper, playwright, and winner of the Graduate Scholars Fellowship at Indiana University where she will be attending school to receive her MFA in poetry. She approaches writing by taking influences from any speck of truth she can find.

Says the Weapon

-By Ciara Miller

 

She dislocated me from my pole body.

I no longer mop, just metal

hurled at her daughter’s light-skin,

smooth as wax, puff face. I bloodied,

now the blade: weapon flung

to replace smiles with pink-gutted agony.

Mother bought me to clean kitchen floors.

Now trails of gore blotch brown, hardwood.

I, dirty. Floor, dirty.  I, trash.  I, criminal.

Screams & voids mark spots of ugliness

& womanhood.

I, placed in plastic Ziploc bag by police.

I, silenced from saying:

Mother’s delusional,

I, innocent. Daughter, innocent.

We demand our bodies back.

 

 

Tanka for Every Man

-By Ciara Miller

 

Every man has tried

on his mother’s dress. If not:

coward. Who’ll never

know woman? She is every-

thing bravado never taught.

 

 

Spilled Guts

-By Ciara Miller

 

Never compare two eggs

That both spill yolks

That both crack ooze

That move into your home

Cold and waiting to be opened

Fingered feather soft

Smashed against the wood

Slithered seasoned stirred

Spread into your pan

Laid flat like an omelet

Heart of red peppers

Green bells screaming

If one don’t stick to your pan

You’ll scramble her loose

Scrape her onto a plate

Wash that plate white

& prepare for next day’s dish.

 

The second egg always hears

The splash of guts

Wants to prove she’s tough

Waiting to be banged

(in that rotten way)

When you’re bored and starved

&  she’s eager to know

If she’s better than yesterday’s dish.

 

Servants of Sin             

John 8:44

-By Ciara Miller

 

Even sinners sing soprano

in choir sections First Sundays,

chugging cracker & cranberry juice.

Beneath  gowns: fishnets,

the stink of late night & cock.

David, to my left, unbolts bible

Places it on my lap. Says

            Here, Please Stare

& I do,

not at my own fullness,

more, the yellow stain on his white

slacks. Victoria, to my right,

peels peppermints from purse,

winks, not at me,

but the curve  straightening

between my thighs.

Both their fingertips fondle

the hard brown

cover of The Word.

I’m flanked by their sweet breaths.

Bowing heads, holding hands in prayer

we lift glimpses to catch each other

in question.

I duck behind podium,

unzip choir robe & cover David

for his solo. His psalm song,

as shrill as parrot. Victoria,

shouts back Hallelujah!

But who gave her that word?

That loosened garmented word,

sagging below the waist

like extra skin & belted

to fit.

Mya G. studies poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, where she is an MFA student. Originally from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Mya has lived and traveled all over the world. While attending law school, she started an open mic reading series in Jacksonville, Florida and has participated in several readings in New York, DC, and Florida. You can find her work published in the literary journal Dark Phrases.

American Girl I

 

Harlot lips. No words.

Cardboard boxed, plastic-

wrapped. Plastic screenveiled,

 

for easy viewing, just laser incisions,

man-made mechanical arms, opposable thumbs, ready

 

to make some one money

and an other someone

smile.

 

And no way to gesture without aid

or add texture to the inelastic, no tripping

 

over next steps, there are no steps.

Where are my feet?

More outsourced decisions. Not the beauty

 

of Dali’s Rose or Grecian urns. An insignificant thing

in a neat package, smothered with greasy fingerprints

 

and stale breath. Left. Dented box and crushed

edges. No mirror kind enough

to play wishing well.

 

How did Joan ever conquer

Orleans, how did Truth ever go back again,

and again, alone?

 

A: Alone.

 

American Girl II

 

I.

It seems the bridge of my nose dips

too low for fancy; cheeks sit high

as the Creek, overflowing; I am bronzeBlack,

therefore I am blueBlack confederate–

Alabama. And the homeless woman

pushing the Old Cart is yelling

from down the block–– the block that turns

into a circle–– it doesn’t matter

what shade of brown I am–– she will call me

that because I am that.

 

II.

I tell you this violence permits & disallows,

I tell you this violence inherits, I tell you I

keep it. And the execution will come

right out of my mouth; whoever you are, I’ll reveal it.  Crowd here

for the Lights Show; I’ll spit a moving picture:

trees, strung with bodies like paper lanterns.

 

 

Swung Open & Separated

 

Me, I am the Door ––

a sanded Truth ––

woodflesh exposed –– almost

Hollow –– enough to keep Light still

Interested in Passing though ––

 

I want that –– Unsaid

–– Immortal –– to whisper Me ––

won’t run too fast –– out the Wilderness ––

sweep Me up,

I won’t run.

 

 

Kinesiophobia: ℞only

 

The orthopedic specialist has a two-pronged theory

for Pain–– injury vs. sensitivity; and how I am a victim

of the latter; my back, an infinite sequence, of reaction,

requires a mood stabilizer and seperate ℞ for a book

on Sensibility.

 

Cymbalta on the kitchen table, with a box of tampons,

and rotten red wine, recorked two months ago––

 

my greatest fear, manifested––Fear

of Movement, this quiet vacuum lifting nerves at the root, left

leg numb down to the smallest toe.  I am no longer the Door

but the bathtub; open container; full with a family.

Melanie Brown has been writing for as long as she can remember. She recently performed for the first time in five years at the Ruckus show in New York, NY. She writes for release, for therapy, and for those who don’t have a voice. The greatest compliment she ever received was from an audience member who approached her and said “you say what people want to say- but can’t.” Heavily influenced by the grace and sincerity of Suheir Hammad’s love poems: Melanie’s work has been called raw, passionate, and brutally honest. She grew up in the suburbs just outside of NYC and has been living in Manhattan since 2001.

Hands open

 

when nightfall brings

yells

screams

unconsciousness

suicidal hints

I’m eleven. I can’t take care of someone else.

I need to take care of myself

 

later I replicate this

with somatizing tricks

so authentic

I believe I have the same sickness

now I suffer from an unknown illness

 

so I hold you closer

to keep an eye on you

meet your push with pull

then call it “love”

(knowing its other stuff)

 

childhood robbed

later I sobbed

I’m scared of this

I don’t exist

I live for you

I hold you up

 

till I fall to the ground

(without any sound)

hold out my hands for the next bit

knowing heaven will surely come for this

 

I drink too young

so you don’t die too soon

now I’ve become obsessed

with my own potential death

choking on my own breath

I push away

till I’m the only one left

 

now all that’s left are

yells

screams

hits

unconsciousness

suicidal hints

I’ve spent all my life taking care of you

now I just want to take care of me too

 

hands open for hope

holding out for heaven

hell, I can’t take care of you

I’m only eleven.

 

Covered

 

 

I fall into her dimples and my hair

covers her face when I lay on her

she loves the smell of it

I love the feel of her

 

I drown head first into her body

she feeds me the best parts of her

I eat and drink her empty

she is plenty

I love her

sure of who I am.

I.love.her.

 

over and over

till we get tired

sleep in each other

and then leave each other

knowing that when we

see each other again

we still feel the same

we greet distance and

it loves us back

time melts into our hands

separately

intentionally

 

communicate with hair on skin

body to body language

her eyes speak to me

and my hands follow her gaze

with trust

with honesty

with all I have.

 

All of Herself

 

 

sparkly slutty blue haired girl

sipping blowjob shots & chasing Cocaine dreams

I have not forgotten that selfish spring night

when your lips became mine

& I regretted the touch

 

you pranced around nice hotels

drinking wine and toxic words

so many times we

swallowed evenings full of

shouldn’t-haves & why-dids

till you reached out

like scared snowfalls

frozen right in front of me

 

you’re just a giggly giddy greedy girl

seducing him & her

and finally me

at last I could really see you

& it was like you and I

were getting see-through

 

time spent with you

regrets itself repeatedly

it moves across an edge where

you & I should be

 

but you never slipped

& I kept on falling

you threw back all of me

& all of us

I can’t catch

but I bet

you remember past nights

full of threesomes and car rides

how many times

will you burn my eyes?

 

cuz your eyes tear

but not for me

or us

 

you came

scuffed

scarred

emotions cut up

 

but I never touched them

& you never bled

you masqueraded aimless

never sexless

the oversexed chick

running through hers and hims

like love was still free

but I never promised forgiveness

& you never paid for me

 

so don’t love,

take

take & keep taking

from him & from her

& from me and from me

 

no don’t love,

fuck

fuck & keep fucking

fuck her & fuck him

but you will never fuck me

over or again.

 

 

A Bronx Native, Becca hit the stage when she was sixteen and has since performed at such venues as the Nuyorican, The Bowery, NYU, Brown University, and Sarah Lawrence, where she received her BA in writing. She has been blessed to share the stage with Stacey Ann Chin, Saul Williams, Sonia Sanchez and many, many more. She is proudly on the Brown Girl Team as the Featured Artist Manager and Editor.

.Rapture.

Harold Camping is a radio minister and the president of Family Radio Ministries. He has predicted the rapture will happen on October 21st, 2011. On his website he has listed the success of Gay Pride as a sign of the world’s end. Check it out at http://www.familyradio.com/index2.html it’s good stuff and then check out http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/harold_camping.htm which will lead you to an article labeled “Harold Camping’s Heresy exposed!”

I.

I fear the second coming—

hot, broken sidewalks

and a split red sky the

twisted hue of blood oranges—

I fear a white Jesus with telekinetic powers

tugging devout souls

to ride with him on a golden cloud

I fear getting left behind.

I fear my own sin

swallowing this bed

with its wet, wrinkled sheets

and our tangled bodies

and your shoulders—

broader than a woman’s should be—

and my mouth—

louder than a woman’s should be—

and our hips—

closer than women’s should be.

I fear these college years I’ve wanted since

kindergarten

being pointless

this life I’m so convinced should be lived,

should be famous

just crumbling to dust

to ash

to end.

I fear Her hearing this and running

sacrificing our love

for my peace of mind

deleting Herself

from my inbox

so I’ll stop getting spammed with anxiety

I fear my own tongue’s stillness,

that I won’t tell Her “no,

I just want us to get through this

get free,

I’ll write about it.

 Just kiss me

and show me a different God”.

II.

If I must die

let this poem condemn me

let all the lightning tonight

gather in my bedroom

and illuminate my bones

let all my marrow melt to ink

and stain the floor with this one message:

God Is Love

and I love

so forgive me, Deity, if I don’t stop

I did not grow to know you

as this petty

with nothing to do but

scorn me for an emotion so pure

it fuels people’s entire existences;

they pine for it in lonely beds,

they teach it to their children

and give it to their grandchildren,

nieces, nephews—even those who

gather in your House are taught

to give it to complete strangers.

If I must die

let it be in Her arms,

while these church walls crumble around us

while the ground parts and breaks our ankles

while the fire rains from an happy heaven

and the people I know rise to meet

that man with the long brown hair,

that carpenter who may have fucked a girl or two

in the missing years of his life.

If I must die

a death without heaven

let me be happy with the God I translated.

He will be found between our lips

he will be pressed between our palms

and woven between our fingers

and stain my graduation gown.

If I wake on Saturday morning and

have to join the millions of people—

the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Wiccans—

I will walk the noisy, broken streets,

watch the riots, the mental breakdowns,

listen to the too-late prayers of the left-behinds.

I will not stop holding her hand.

She is worth every flame in hell.

The Wake

It was a sunny day when Randy died. That is to say when he was killed.

This means to mention his blood drowned the ants that had gathered

around a squished Hostos cupcake. Renee saw it first.

Said she heard a noise, an unfinished scream. She turned her head,

those beads on her braids echoing like an army of rattlesnakes.

She saw his body fall and she told us he looked like a piece of

old newspaper. She said “newthpaper” because she’s missing her two front teeth.

Her mother Patty rushed her inside and called her neighbor before 911.

We made a circus of his body. Gathered along the sidewalk

watching his red blood all specked with ants like watermelon and it’s seeds.

We never would’ve guessed blood smelled sweet. But Randy was always

a good boy. That’s why his Grandma, Ma Louise, cried so loud when she saw him.

She fell right on her knees, right there on the concrete. Right there and

the sun lit her face up till she looked just like honey. Crying honey.

She kept sayin’, “Randy! Randy, oh my sweet baby boy!” And we all knew Ma

Louise was losing it. She had been thinking Randy was his father for some years.

We never said anything. People need to believe what they need to believe.

And we all cried, some of us let out big wails, some of us just let the tears roll

Some of us were quiet. Some of us were loud. We stared

at Randy’s arm, folded under him, clutching the hole born between his ribs.

We stared at Randy’s back, his spine jerked with every breath. We stared at his

eyes the same color brown as coffee with not enough milk, his head

a little split at the temple where it kissed the concrete. We stared

at Randy’s leg, the pants rolled up a little to show that scar he got when he fell

off the monkey bars and broke his shin bone. He screamed so loud we heard him

from a block away. We signed his cast and teased him for months. He never touched

the monkey bars ever again, unless it was to sell a little weed after school to the middle school kids. Or that one time Ms. Jedson said she saw him kissing

her fourteen year old daughter. We never believed that one. Randy wasn’t no pedophile. Everyone makes mistakes. We knew Randy must’ve made someone

too mad, though. That they would run by him with a knife. Guns were quick,

easy, flashy. You only stabbed when you really wanted someone to feel it.

Maybe Randy deserved it. Maybe that’s why no one ran up to his body.

No one hugged him. We just watched him blink, his mouth all-open

that little red stream pushing ants down the hill. We just stood there waiting

for the ambulance. We knew, Randy too, that they would be too late.

So when Randy’s eyes froze open we started walking back home. We stopped crying.

We helped Ma Louise back toward her house. We let the sun get on with it’s shining.

Toni Stuart, 28, is a poet, writer and journalist, from Cape Town, South Africa. In 2010 she co-founded a youth organization called I Am Somebody! with storyteller Nicole le Roux. I Am Somebody! uses storytelling as a means of mentorship and integration work with 18 to 25 year olds, across communities in Cape Town.

Toni started writing poetry at fifteen, and it was her love for writing that led to a career in journalism. After matriculating, in 2000, she studied journalism at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. During that time she was awarded a scholarship to a three-month program at Fonty’s Hogescholen Joernalistiek, in The Netherlands, around African and European relations. She worked at Cape Community Newspapers, part of the Independent Newspapers stable, for five years, as a reporter and sub-editor.

In 2003, she started performing poetry with Dala Flat Music and in 2004, with the record label, held 38 Special words and music: a monthly event of poetry and music collaboration. She was a member of the And Word Was Woman Ensemble: a performance poetry group which featured at Cape Town Book Festival, Woman’s Parliament and Cape Town Festival among others. In 2010, with photographer Kent Lingeveldt, she founded and co-organized a monthly multi-genre arts event called Expression Session for young and up-and-coming artists. That same year, she performed at Urban Voices International Poetry Festival, sharing the stage with Patricia Smith, Beau Sia and Lemon Andersen. Her first solo performance, Listen, was a collaboration Lingeveldt, in which he interpreted her work through photographs.

With I Am Somebody! Toni aims to create a community that supports young adults to explore and create their life visions. She has a passion for bringing people together and using creativity to help people find their innate strength, gifts and develop these to overcome life’s challenges. Poetry is her medium, and through words she explores the quiet magic of life – those unspoken moments that often define us and make us who we are.

to the Tate

from Waterloo station

walk the length of the Southbank:

feel your nose and cheeks

harden

in the icy November sun.

the river is calm today

the bank is too

…quiet footsteps

trace their own paths:

winding ways with worn feet

walk slow

walk with your head up

and watch the breath from

warm bodies paint Christmas wishes in

the fading light

walk slow

walk mindful

and hear the silence of the cold

dance with the noise of your thoughts

across the still river

catch your mind

as it wonders on summer legs

to your land far

and the people

whose hearts you know the insides of well

catch your mind,

call it back to this river bank,

to your cheeks pink and your nose

numb

keeping walking now

along Oxo Tower

peer into the boutiques

and then,

turn your heard

slow

to that river as your feet fumble

along Jubilee walkway

keep walking.

warm yourself for a moment

as you pass under the bridge

and fill your ear

with the busker’s xylophones

playing worn-out Christmas carols

that pull a smile across your face

and draw

an ache of longing

across your chest

keep walking

keep the river

on your left

and your chin thrust out

against the cold

once passed the bookshop,

look up to your right

and you will see it: a brown

expanse of nothingness

rising

into

grey clouds

wind your way

right left

right

mind the grey-haired coat and his dog

side-step the Spanish students

as you find your way

to the entrance

resist the gift shop

descend the flight of stairs

to the Turbine Hall

now, you are here:

stop.

gasp .

as you take in

the crack

running through your heart

which Doris Salcedo recreated

on the Turbine’s floor

for all the

world to see.

*written in response to Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, part of the Unilever Series for 2007, at the Tate Modern Gallery.

© Toni Stuart, London, 2007

the busking harpist

at the Plaça de Sant Lu

she sits:

red hair

clothed in black

under bleak Sunday sun.

her fingers coax

lonely music from long strings

sweet lonely music my

ears do not understand

but the heart dances,

the soul sighs.

she plays just one song

that calls the sun out

slows a minute to now stretches it to tomorrow

and lips are quiet

minds are still

as soft talkings of nothingness

fill each soul

she plays just one song

then red hair bows gently

and packs giant strings framed in wood,

away.

Toni Stuart – Madrid, 2006