Majella Mark 10/30/20 Majella Mark 10/30/20

Featurism, not Colourism

The public praise for women who look “exotic” or “mixed” and the ridicule women with more evident African features have faced in the Black community have caused insecurities in Black women.

Maëlla Kancel 10/30/20 Maëlla Kancel 10/30/20

Ti Fanm An Mas-la (Young girl playing Mas)

I hate tights. When we moved back to Guadeloupe after a few years in Paris, I thought I'd never have to wear them ever again. Carnival is worth the discomfort, though.

Janielle Browne 10/30/20 Janielle Browne 10/30/20

Hookin’ Me

Imagine being 13 still just a little sprat

But the men you grow up ‘round

Can’t seem to see that

Your uniform ready for school

kevanté a.c. cash 10/30/20 kevanté a.c. cash 10/30/20

Today I am six years from 30

da bishop daughta in foreign

marrit to woman wit no babies?

Janielle Browne 10/30/20 Janielle Browne 10/30/20

Calypso Tingz

Imagine being 13 still just a little sprat

But the men you grow up ‘round

Can’t seem to see that

Your uniform ready for school

Nastassia Rambarran 10/30/20 Nastassia Rambarran 10/30/20

GET IN YUH SECTION

Years later, as my consciousness and understanding of anti-blackness and the race politics in Barbados improved, I would have discussions about how problematic this band is.

Amelia Badri 10/30/20 Amelia Badri 10/30/20

Purple Thyme: A Pantoum Poem

She wants to say something to him about how pretty the purple thyme grows this time of year.

Neisha Etienne 10/30/20 Neisha Etienne 10/30/20

Tout Pour Plaire

J’ai été conditionné à être un objet.

Il fallait à tout prix appartenir à quelqu’un. Mon

quotidien consistait à faire le beau, en espérant qu’on

me remarque et qu’on me choisisse.

Shannon Graham 10/30/20 Shannon Graham 10/30/20

my old foe

you make me a foreigner in my own country

where disbelieving citizens welcome me with open arms

because they think I bring tourism dollars.

you rear your sinister head every time i return

and make me wonder if this is why i left.

Carl Augustus 10/30/20 Carl Augustus 10/30/20

Live Free

Your thoughts and words are of no consequence to me.

I am free.

MX Leo 10/30/20 MX Leo 10/30/20

Blue Dream (I am just a descendant)

Inna mi dream -

a blue dream,

where we

trod through tanks of indigo

years upon years

with paddles,

hands wrinkled

bodies being burnt,

like your tar babies,

Kelia/Kelie 10/30/20 Kelia/Kelie 10/30/20

I am that little Black Girl

I can also vividly remember being told by somebody I loved that I was beautiful for a black girl. I can honestly say that I did not fully understand the implications of this comment. I now understand.

Denise Westfield 10/30/20 Denise Westfield 10/30/20

She Who Has Found Herself

Sitting straight-backed on a cluster of smooth rocks, not too far from Jonita, was a breadnut-brown woman with a sprawling afro enclosed in a circle of plaits decorated with iridescent shells at the base, and a lush body with a waist that curved into…

Jourdan "Riv-Ryker" Lobban 10/30/20 Jourdan "Riv-Ryker" Lobban 10/30/20

Don't Marry Us. Instead, Stand By Us.

The worst part of it all, is that there are deep roots of trauma still plaguing our families yet the outsiders only care about the resorts, the plantain, or the reggae that is overplayed on certain radio stations.

Gabrielle E. Mohamed 10/30/20 Gabrielle E. Mohamed 10/30/20

Pretty Little Bird

Caged

Pretty little bird,

I adore your coiled feathers

Pietra Brown 10/30/20 Pietra Brown 10/30/20

Invisible Scars

Here she was, head laid, in the lap of the boy who was her rising sun, the peas to her rice. A tender moment spoiled by a bigoted anecdote.

Rhonda Williams aka Indira Wills 10/30/20 Rhonda Williams aka Indira Wills 10/30/20

Untethered

The black woman has been shackled with the baggage of centuries of racial discrimination, religious and social control, censorship, as well as sexual repression.