Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935727

Diamond Forde

{"title":"Collard Greens & Ham Hocks: Or What to Do When the Bills Are Due, and: Pineapple-Coconut Cake, and: In Your Next Life, and: Acts of Submission","authors":"Diamond Forde","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935727","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> Collard Greens & Ham Hocks: Or What to Do When the Bills Are Due, and: Pineapple-Coconut Cake, and: In Your Next Life, and: Acts of Submission </li> <li> Diamond Forde (bio) </li> </ul> <h2>COLLARD GREENS & HAM HOCKS</h2> <h3>Or What to Do When the Bills Are Due</h3> <h4>INGREDIENTS</h4> 3 lbs. collard greens fanned like money 2 tbsp bacon fat pearled in a jar 1 onion 3 ham hocks cleft from rickety knees 4 cups chicken stock 1 dash of Lawry's & an equal amount of salt 1 big pinch of store-brand pepper 1 splash vinegar your deepest pot <h4>DIRECTIONS</h4> <ol> <li> 1. Ablute the bunches. Free the greens from their bitter spines, twine them 'round your finger, fret the rugged ends—your Daughters' heads: edges leafing their box braids already, dark hairs wilding like vines—you twist the hairlets, sulfur-handed, a tired thumb drumming their roots. Pray they bloom but not too soon. </li> <li> 2. Dice the onion squinting near the sill. Citrine-silky, the onion flirts, an acrid bustle from its bulbous skirt. Its sharp sting, Vidalia lye—see anyone but you in its blade-worn eye. </li> <li> 3. Start a pot no deeper than an empty pocket. Sauté the onion—clot of grease leaping in the heat. Ham hocks & their jointed knots sizzle drippings. Pray the gas guzzles long enough for the stove to wreathe with heat. </li> <li> 4. Your Daughters ask when they'll see you again. Do not tell them you hook each minimum-wage minute with the sharp end of their frowns. </li> <li> 5. Combine the collards & hocks, the chicken stock, the vinegar & spice. </li> <li> 6. Twice, you dined in the light of home's every candle. The Daughters, bowed heads flamed with wildness, held vigil for the sweat stringing their necks. </li> <li> 7. Braise the collards two hours. Holler for your Daughters pretending the patched toe of their socks struts a stiletto. The borough broadways in midday's spotlight. Who doesn't want to smell Italian leather? </li> <li> 8. Whenever the collards' iron perfumes pennies in the broth, measure the greens in heaps. Eat off whatever you have too much of: paper plates, the divet on the couch where you used to sleep, eat from the dog's ALPO-dusted bowl, eat from their school shoes, rubber peeling back from the soles. [End Page 80] </li> </ol> <h2>PINEAPPLE-COCONUT CAKE</h2> <blockquote> why didn't I celebrate you that night : when my cousins leaned across your nursing-home bed to paint your mouth bright pink : who'd know this'd be the last time I could count each opal tooth : pineapple bright as a beachside : tinned for home, aluminum hum still clung to the fruit : on birthdays, you ate the biggest slice of cake : your indefinite origins : doctors unsure if you'd ","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Mooshie Mooshie

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935736

NitaJade

{"title":"Mooshie","authors":"NitaJade","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935736","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935736","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> Mooshie </li> <li> NitaJade (bio) </li> </ul> Nana say it's called changes. Every time I stop by Auntie Junebug's, I go through changes. I walk into her place squeaky clean and leave greasy; Blue Magic-coated fingers pinch my cheeks and get away with it. Her couch feel like wet clay melted on sandpaper, feel like pomade when it sneak under nails. Her place tiny, like Uncle Sir's matchboxes. 'Bout time you walk through the door, your body halfway through the livin' room. Once in a blue moon when the windows open, it look like storm clouds done settled inside. I figure that's why she keep the blinds closed. Auntie Junebug started it, the name-callin'. She call me by the nickname I never asked for and never wanted: Mooshie. Everybody else took after her, callin' me Mooshie too. She say it's 'cause my granddaddy's name was Moo-Moo, and I was always under his frayed wing, but we know better. She call me Mooshie because I'm fat. I know it. The white boys at school always tell me so. I know what I am. Her eyes twinkle when she look at me. I see it. She try to mask it but ain't ever been one to try hard. I don't know which hurt my feelings more: the fact that they eyes call me fat or that they think I'm too stupid to notice. I don't think Auntie Junebug mean much harm, though. Her godliness just hide under the bed when the bottles come out. Her gaze scold my flesh. She say, \"Come here, Mooshie.\" I do as I'm told. \"Run these food stamps on down to Nana.\" I snatch the card with a \"Yes, ma'am\" and walk away from her eyes. I stride two steps and emerge onto a beige-stained, cigarette-scented porch. \"Don't drop that card, lil' girl!\" Auntie yell through the screen. She supposed to watch me goin' 'til Nana can see me comin', but nine times outta ten she go back to her bottle. I wade myself into a pool of sun and imagine the rays scrubbin' my skin free of scrutiny. Auntie Junebug got a twin, but he not a girl. Mama say that mean they in a frat. He come up the steps as I come down. He smell like Nana's gossip. She say he disappear for days, only come back when he want somethin'. I ask her what he do when he gone. She say he don't shower. \"Hey, Uncle Sir!\" I smile over the rail and hop down the last few steps. His sneaker scuffs the step, and he falls into the brick. The corner catches him. \"Hey-Moo!\" he slur, pushing himself up. \"How-my-Mooshie-doin'?\" \"I'm blessed,\" I say. Yeah, I say that. I think I say that. I can't think real well on account of his spit in my mouth. Not sure if it's mine or what's left on his breath, but I taste throw-up. Mama say nobody allowed to kiss me not nowhere 'specially not on my lips. He make ","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Blue Note 蓝调

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935726

Lolita Stewart-White

{"title":"Blue Note","authors":"Lolita Stewart-White","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935726","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> Blue Note </li> <li> Lolita Stewart-White (bio) </li> </ul> For Ernest Hunter of Savannah, Georgia What must it have been likefor a colored man to love his woman in 1958?His heart broken open,his words choked back,stifled by the heat from an indifferent Georgia sun.He hummed his blues for her,moaned under the blows of a billy clubuntil his very last note. Until his very last note,moaned under the blows of a billy club,he hummed his blues for her,stifled by the heat from an indifferent Georgia sun.His words choked back,his heart broken open,For a colored man to love his woman in 1958,that's what it must have been like. [End Page 79] Lolita Stewart-White LOLITA STEWART-WHITE is a poet and playwright who lives and works in Miami. She is a Cave Canem fellow, Pushcart nominee, and winner of the Paris-American Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Boston Review, The African American Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal. Stewart-White is a part of City Theatre's Homegrown Playwrighting Program which nurtures and supports Miami's BIPOC playwrights. Her play \"7\" received its world premiere at the Adrienne Arsht Center's \"Summer Shorts.\" Copyright © 2024 Johns Hopkins University Press ... ","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The Harlot at the Spigot 水龙头上的妓女

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935739

Enkeshi Thom El-Amin

{"title":"The Harlot at the Spigot","authors":"Enkeshi Thom El-Amin","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935739","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935739","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> The Harlot at the Spigot </li> <li> Enkeshi Thom El-Amin (bio) </li> </ul> The Bottom was quite impressive. In the low-lying, foul-smelling, lined-with-shacks, barely standing neighborhood where hunger and laughter made imprints on postures, Black people in Knoxville made a home. Homes made of wood too sparse, so they got holes in them. The rooms damp but the rooms full. Rolling hills and rolling tides and rolling herds of pigs and cows and cattle. Prayers always going up in the Bottom on somebody's lips, no matter what time of the day. Praying to God, cursing God, mad at whoever is praying or cursing God. Generation after generation, memories never washed away, not then and not now. And just as impressive as the place was, so too were its inhabitants. Remember down at the spigot? Every evening, buckets in hand fetching water, mud on ankles, fetching gossip? There was Henry, couldn't hardly find no job but was always down at that sanctified church whooping and hollering and shouting. Wille Bell sure couldn't stand it, but she loved him and he took care of her and all them kids. Then you had that one Negro police coming around asking questions, knowing good and well wasn't no answers. With too-big-for-him pants staring at everybody with them frog-like eyes, Dr. Brown came around sometimes. Nevermind him though, neighbors laughed at him, said if it's gon be a negro doctor, might as well not be a doctor at all. Can't forget the bully, mighta been called Big John or something like that, somebody said he killed at least two but probably three men. And in the midst of mud and lust, Bessie always stood with shoes on her feet. Her brain was as big as her dreams, and her dreams kept her walking at night, kept her lonely in the daytime, kept her close to the Bottom. She was born in the Bottom, raised up in the Bottom, most of them were. But mothers rolled their eyes, whispered at each other when she came around. Father turned their heads, the minister damned them all to hell. Damned himself right along with them. And as they washed away the taste of yesterday's dinner, the teenage girls noticed Bessie's clean shoes. Tip tap, tip tap patting the dirt as she walked, she got some red ones and some white ones too. \"She ain't washing no white lady clothes but she always got new shoes.\" Wonder where she got them from, wonder how many she got, wonder how they can get some. Ain't all God's children supposed to have shoes? [End Page 126] Enkeshi Thom El-Amin ENKESHI THOM EL-AMIN, a community sociologist, is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Agnes Scott College. Her current research examines and analyzes the contested experiences and meanings of urban Black space in Appalachia, a region conventionally represented as a domain of r","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142223927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Catching Magic: The Importance of Affrilachian Representation in Children's Books 捕捉魔法：儿童读物中表现阿夫里拉奇人的重要性

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935747

Tonya Abari

{"title":"Catching Magic: The Importance of Affrilachian Representation in Children's Books","authors":"Tonya Abari","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935747","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> Catching Magic:The Importance of Affrilachian Representation in Children's Books </li> <li> Tonya Abari (bio) </li> </ul> When I was six years old, I labeled a Mason jar \"magic\" and stashed it beneath my bed. It was for catching lightning bugs. A few of my classmates who spent summers down South boasted of evenings with their grandparents and the fireflies. I didn't know any of my extended family down South, and I also didn't have a relationship with my grandparents. However, I was ecstatic that, in addition to blue crabs and humidity, even Baltimore had lightning bugs. I'd catch fireflies one-by-one, watching the light flicker against my cocoa-buttered palms. Then I'd slide as many as I could into the 32 oz. glass jar. I marveled at their conspicuous glow and interpreted the light beneath their soft bellies as only a six-year-old would. \"They're making magic,\" I'd say to Ma, who only wanted me to \"let the flies free and do more girly things\" like play with dolls or her Fashion Fair makeup. As I grew older, the fireflies seemed to disappear. I'd like to think it has something to do with climate change, but I also know that my desire for catching lightning bugs was swallowed whole by the process of growing up way earlier than I'd wished. City lights, noisy buses, penny candy stores, corner boys, and extra tall buildings that soaked up the skyline were the backdrop of my adolescence. The youthful innocence of glow-in-the-dark beetles just didn't seem to fit into the daily grind of \"making it\" in Baltimore. I was taught early that survival took precedence over catching magic. Geographically, I was born in a city near the Appalachian region, but Baltimore isn't considered as part of it. However, the region includes areas of Mid-Atlantic states Maryland and Pennsylvania, and when I learned that Pittsburgh was Appalachia, I immediately thought about how the two blue-collared cities—Baltimore and Pittsburgh—were more alike than different. And in middle school, I placed a post-it note on a map of Pittsburgh in my textbook. I was enamored with descriptions of Appalachian life—a slower pace, farm-to-table food, foraging and canning, crisp mountain air, and a quiet that is often missing from major cities. However, I wondered why the descriptions in our textbooks didn't include the Black folks living there. \"Why do you care so much about them mountains? I bet it ain't no Black people there!\" a classmate inquired. Judging by that whitewashed textbook, she was right. I couldn't confirm or deny if there were Black folks in Appalachia. I've always known that we are everywhere, but the books we were given in school showed no proof. [End Page 160] In my late twenties, my husband's career as a football administrator landed us in another city on the ed","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The Soldier's Mother, and: For Loud Women Like Me, and: Grace & Kindness, and: To Keep From Crying 士兵的母亲》，以及给像我这样大嗓门的女人》，以及恩典与仁慈》，以及为了不哭泣

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935724

Amanda Johnston

{"title":"The Soldier's Mother, and: For Loud Women Like Me, and: Grace & Kindness, and: To Keep From Crying","authors":"Amanda Johnston","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935724","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935724","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> The Soldier's Mother, and: For Loud Women Like Me, and: Grace & Kindness, and: To Keep From Crying </li> <li> Amanda Johnston (bio) </li> </ul> <h2>THE SOLDIER'S MOTHER</h2> Fort Knox, 2001 In the PX, she tells me her son is joining the Army, and we share the face of birthing loss, the knowing that our children are not meant to live forever but not meant to die like this. A television flickers in the background with the sound off to not disturb the passing customers. Five dead, more injured. Overthere came home with him, another mother's son flailing against the ghosts of his demons. The voices, he said, the departments, he said, kill, they said, and released him to his mother when every face he saw blurred into a target. A mother somewhere collapses and thanks God. A mother somewhere collapses in search of God. Another mother in a hospital, at the morgue, in a church, prays to a silence in the shape of god. [End Page 74] <h2>FOR LOUD WOMEN LIKE ME</h2> when it's a good hollaand you can see my teethin the back of my mouthyou'll know you've foundthe best of me, rich with spiritsfull on good folkgoing on about somethingno one will remember butsomebody told the truthsomebody's testifyingsomebody's laughingthe salt to sweetsomebody found honeyin the marrow of the nightand passed the cup around [End Page 75] <h2>GRACE & KINDNESS</h2> for the congregation of Mother Emanuel AME Church Because god don't like uglyBecause make a bigger tableBecause build a bigger boatBecause all god's childrenBecause come as you areBecause mind your businessBecause do unto othersBecause they not all badBecause kill 'em with kindnessBecause laugh to keep from cryingBecause open-door policyBecause open-armsBecause what would jesus doBecause the more the merrierBecause the devil in the detailsBecause no questions askedBecause the devil stays busyBecause the devil you knowBecause we knew better the hell we did [End Page 76] <h2>TO KEEP FROM CRYING</h2> we know the many wayswe risk our lives breathing, sleeping, walking</","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Georgia Paranoia 格鲁吉亚偏执狂

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935723

Chiquita Mullins Lee

{"title":"Georgia Paranoia","authors":"Chiquita Mullins Lee","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935723","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> Georgia Paranoia </li> <li> Chiquita Mullins Lee (bio) </li> </ul> Star Point, Georgia, August 1937 Star Point Holy Church. Miss Alma worked steady there, becoming a woman strengthened and ripened and wizened by the grief and the grind and sometimes cautious joys of taking care of peevish, imperfect, and somehow precious folks. Cora was growing up there, a tight-lipped teenager in the background, relieved her mother's shadow blocked every ray of light. Folk always had something to say. \"Everybody knows he run off somewhere with another woman.\" \"Yeah, chile, don't no man want no preacher for a wife.\" \"That gal don't look nothing like him. You 'spect that's why he left?\" \"The child ain't right in the head. She don't never say nothin.'\" Miss Alma never heard it. Cora heard it all, the hateful comments pushing her further inside herself. Miss Alma never talked about Mr. Henry. Cora never asked. She kept close by her mama when the church folk weren't around, and when they were, Cora removed herself from the present and the premises through a mental escape into Miss Alma's shadow. \"Miss Alma,\" they'd say, \"My baby is already trying to out-talk me.\" \"Miss Alma, I crocheted this muffler myself, and I'm making another one for you.\" \"Miss Alma, did you love that pecan pie I sent you? Nuts came right off my backyard tree.\" They'd talk right past Cora to Miss Alma, as if Cora wasn't even there. Miss Alma would be so consumed with soothing the new mama too anxious to switch to table food, calming the loud-talking elder with selective deafness, and loving on them in spite of themselves, that she didn't notice how they treated her girl, how her girl retreated into herself. <h2>________</h2> Cora learned early to cling. She found comfort with Alma, only. Miss Alma had shared stories and always suggested books or newspapers for Cora. Even before Cora learned how, Miss Alma sat with her little girl and talked about the world. Amazing Cora was so quiet. Seems she would have inherited that talking spirit from her mama. Miss Alma and Cora had been sitting on the back porch one night when Cora was five years old. Star Point was deep dark and full of sounds. Every hoot and cricket gave a jolt to little Cora and she tensed into a knot, scared of every snap. Miss Alma could hear Cora holding her breath and drew her close. \"That's some music, right there,\" Miss Alma said. \"That ain't noise to scare nobody. Just the jazz of the night. It's better when you relax and let it surprise you.\" [End Page 68] Cora took a deep breath and heard an irregular drum beat of squawks, a flutish thrill of coos, a guttural something that might have been a lonely alley cat. \"Awww, looka there,\" Miss Alma pointed s","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Artist's Statement 艺术家声明

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935721

Marcus Morris

{"title":"Artist's Statement","authors":"Marcus Morris","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935721","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935721","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> Artist's Statement </li> <li> Marcus Morris (bio) </li> </ul> My work explores liberation via imagemaking. I am interested in the way photography and the moving image can be used as tools for personal and global liberty. I explore this with traditional and alternative photographic methods, video, installation, and performance. Elegance Is Refusal, my current project, aims to reimagine the past by making new images where trauma existed. Beloved by Toni Morrison provides a loose framework for engaging childhood trauma as a Black queer millennial in Appalachian Ohio. Elegance, to me a feminine of \"cool,\" long associated with Black culture, considers Black queer and femme identity as a source of power and refusal in a white supremacist patriarchal capitalist system. Elegance Is Refusal comes from the editor Diana Vreeland, who says, \"Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.\" The project employs theatrical costuming to set the stage of a Reconstruction-era landscape. Working with Xavier Cruz, cast to play my younger self, I engage race, gender, sexuality, history, class, and the promise of liberty via queer mothering. The series of images and video is made near land my family has occupied in Ohio since being emancipated in the early 19th century. Reclaiming history and identity in my art practice feels essential for liberation. Catharsis that happens in the photographic process, even without reconciliation, can be freeing. One can make a picture, find peace, and move on. It is an offering to the invisible Black, queer, and Appalachian people who were ghosts so I could be in the wild. [End Page 59] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 60] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 61] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 62] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 63] Marcus Morris MARCUS MORRIS is a multidisciplinary artist and imagemaker from Appalachia whose work centers queerness and performance. He is an MFA fellow in Photography from The Ohio State University and received his BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design in 2012. In addition, he spent six months studying art and photography at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. He has exhibited work at NoPlace Gallery, Herron Gallery, 934 Gallery, ROY G BIV and Urban Arts Space. He is a founder of Cineseries, an experimental film program series at The Wexner Center for the Arts, was recipient of the Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Flood Gates With Fangs, and: Collaring Our Native Tongues, and: Mahalia Sings to Freedom 有獠牙的水闸，以及领会我们的母语，以及马哈利亚歌唱自由

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935722

Khalisa Rae

{"title":"Flood Gates With Fangs, and: Collaring Our Native Tongues, and: Mahalia Sings to Freedom","authors":"Khalisa Rae","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935722","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935722","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> Flood Gates With Fangs, and: Collaring Our Native Tongues, and: Mahalia Sings to Freedom </li> <li> Khalisa Rae (bio) </li> </ul> <h2>FLOOD GATES WITH FANGS</h2> Momma say, \"Cross your legs in church, girl.\"& I'm not sure what she thought would flyout—a bee, a psalm, a moan, wet-fangedbeast running to where we lost ourselves, where we first sawthe light, come where the dew drops of mercy shine bright, shine all around us, a liquid call that says, I'm alive here, when I'm gapedopen & splayed like a fish platter. I'm sure that whatever will rushwill be a flood, a stampede, whatever Noah escaped from—thatthat's what we've got between our legs.They boarded that ark to get away from our wet jaws,they afraid of our flood-beast—our water be so scary. Close it up,chile, and follow the elephants into the boat likegood little girls. I notice church women wear cloths over their shortskirts to not to show their privateparts to the pastor, and I wonder why womenare always plugging their holes. Why we hiding the gushlike men be wolves without control? What if at night my vagina grew shark fangs & that's whythe mommas said to shut this feral flow–they worried about what my foaming, rabid lips will dowhen the preacher comes down from the pulpit. [End Page 64] <h2>COLLARING OUR NATIVE TONGUES</h2> Heard we rattle in the walls, smalland rat-tailed rumbles, peopleignore. They swear we're just the pipes— creaks in the floorboards. Our native tonguescrawl out of tight spaces and tumbleinto hushed cracks. We scavenge for substance, but settle for the need to be heard. Searchfor the words you tried to exterminate.We know the social norms set for us are a trap. Our dirt-road, desert storiesare called trifle, fleeting, when in the darkyou consider us rodent—hard to get rid of. You cannot lure us with moldy scraps.We've learned how to sniff out the risk beforeappearing full faced. Our accents are not welcome here, presence not loud enough to be heardover your King's English. We're trained to sneakout and go quiet to force you to listen closer. But sometimes we'd like to be domesticated,taken ","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

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To Be Affrilachian, and: Reflecting on a Dream in Which the First Boy Who Called Me Nigger Stabbed Me in My Right Lung Twice, and: Proper 成为阿夫里拉赫人，以及反思一个梦，在这个梦里，第一个叫我黑鬼的男孩在我的右肺上捅了两刀，以及：正确

Callaloo Pub Date : 2024-08-29 DOI: 10.1353/cal.2024.a935730

Torli Bush

{"title":"To Be Affrilachian, and: Reflecting on a Dream in Which the First Boy Who Called Me Nigger Stabbed Me in My Right Lung Twice, and: Proper","authors":"Torli Bush","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935730","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935730","url":null,"abstract":"In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:\u0000 <ul> <li> To Be Affrilachian, and: Reflecting on a Dream in Which the First Boy Who Called Me Nigger Stabbed Me in My Right Lung Twice, and: Proper </li> <li> Torli Bush (bio) </li> </ul> <h2>TO BE AFFRILACHIAN</h2> is to be the coon and the coon dog, tree myself on thehighest branch to jump noose tied, Judas:guts bursting to make love to the fieldcause kissing my brother is impossible.I am bothnot brown enough to be true& just brown enough to be target, and the white people I'velived around my whole life will ask why I putmy hands up, take a knee, can't breathe, want to light the starsand bars on fire:use the coal that killed my grandfatherand the sugar cane my mom's ancestors cut to burn it like Sherman,dust and ashesconsuming their \"blood and soil.\"The soil I grew up onwas West-by-God Virginia, which is to say we have a love affair withunions, which is to say we know how to teach old rich, white bastardsin suits a lesson.To be Affrilachian is to hold all of thisas a fire in my bosom pen it down as a poemunder Holy Ghost inspiration; call it a negro spiritual,cause my soul is still south of the Mason-Dixon [End Page 91] full of people whistling Dixie:it is the old white man with his four canine teethframing the black hole of his mouth calling me Nigger!on primary election dayin my hometown of Webster Springs for holding a sign in protest:We are all made in God's image and I stare into in his eyes wanting tobreak all four frames of that black holebut I clutch the sign bite my tonguebecause my black mother, a poet, left her muse to me as her dying giftafter my birth,and my white father, a sailor, taught me death is the only thing toweep over:her mother was political revolutionary in Grenada,his mother worked her whole life around food in Webster Springs, herfather was a tailor in Barbados,his father was a coal miner in Craigsville, and I am an engineer inBridgeport,but that old stranger knew nothing of this. Saw my skin and his eyeswent Fox News red, Fuck your Jesus. [End Page 92] <h2>REFLECTING ON A DREAM IN WHICH THE FIRST BOY WHO CALLED ME NIGGER STABBED ME IN MY RIGHT LUNG TWICE</h2> I don't know why dream deaths feel so tangible. I don't know why you appeared to me, Toby. We haven't spoken in years, and you are far","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142223926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

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