A Place for Theory: Finding Ceremony at the Black Feminisms Forum
On the opening night of the 2024 “Global Black Feminisms Forum: Building Black Feminist Worlds,” the first of its kind in Barbados, Amina Doherty offered a politics of gathering punctuated by rituals of speaking and movement.
I Can’t Stop
image after image of ash, of smoke
of babies broken and split
of mothers wailing and wailing
and I refuse to look away,
refuse to give away
my humanity
a reconciliation of realities
The oppression of the Palestinian people is wrapped up in the oppression of marginalized communities all throughout the world and squarely all the communities I am apart of. black, woman, queer, from a small Caribbean island.
This is the danger of white supremacy and colonialism, it oppresses many of us in many forms, all insidious. Be not deluded.
I save nothing - 22/10/23
This is a place of terrible things.
We are terrible things.
When I look around me, I do not know what to save first,
in my dreams I see everything burn in the fire,
I save nothing, not even myself.
original sin - 09/10/23
There was once a girl whose father had heavy hands,
Now all the heavy hands in the world couldn't hurt her, move her, sway her.
all the lovers - 10/11/23
All the lovers are dead in Gaza.
I was made with the heart of a poet and so,
all I know to write
Is of love and flowers,
gentle touch and betrayal.
Reverberations
Ashes unnatural, missing marks of time
names scribbled hopefully instead
to be recited over and over by the living’s
attempts at resurrection
Triptych
The heat erupts on my skin
into buried bodies,
rubble engulfing their delicate bones
caring not if they are young or old
panicked echoes of their last breath,
chanting freedom songs,
trapped, their ashes now rise
haunting us all
My heart holds on
Witnessing the Palestinian genocide on this large a scale and remembering that this is how they see all of us . . . .
What will happen when we become useless to Western interests?
What will become of our culture?
Because they will take our land and our lives and build memorials generations later to admit guilt.
Or they will let the ocean swallow us up and say we weren’t loud enough at policy conferences.
After the damage has been done, they will give us a day to recognize the sins of the past.
All with the intention to repeat history.
I don’t see beauty where I used to
The moon, glowing in full, still inspires awe
But then I wonder,
Can they see the moon in Gaza?
Or are the skies too choked with smoke?
Is its glow overpowered by the flashing of bombs?
There is liberation in the groundswell
Not only are we the waves, but
we are the storm itself.
It is we who have storm winds spinning in our lungs
It is we who have salt stinging our eyes
It is we who have choppy seas nauseating our bellies.
It is we who are coming for those who think
their peace matters more
their peace requires violence
their violence is justified
their violence is the only one justified.
A New Day
A new day
To fight
To light the darkness
our remembrance
The fox.
Who steals into the fowl coop,
will meet his match,
when the flock turns,
to see his hands, wet and crimson.
May the Sun Shine on a Liberated Palestine
Reinforcing this idea of resistance through art and dress is the headscarf that she’s wearing — a keffiyeh, which is a symbol of Palestinian resistance, revolution, unity, and solidarity.
Statement in Solidarity with Palestine
We will not look away. We must raise up a cry of transnational feminist solidarity, a polyphony of rage and dissent, against the ongoing violence against Palestinians by the settler colony of Israel and its allies.