9 780578 867861
ISBN 9780578867861
90000
International Women’s Writing Guild
- Janee Osterheldt
“THERE IS NO VOICELESSNESS, SISTERS. There are just systems that suppress and silence and create the illusion that says our words don’t matter. Because the minute you discover your truth and begin to write your own story, the elders call to the water within you, they ignite the spellcaster inside of you, and as you ride your power you begin to radically imagine who you are outside of injustice.”
Heels into the Soil Stories & Poems Resisting the Silence International Women’s Writing Guild
2020 MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
WRITTEN BY THE MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S WRITING GUILD
Stories & Poems Resisting the Silence
Heels into the Soil
Heels into the Soil Stories & Poems Resisting the Silence WRITTEN BY THE MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S WRITING GUILD 2020 MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
Heels into the Soil
Book Printing by The Country Press, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.
ISBN: 978-0-578-86786-1 Copyeditor: Angelina Vallejo Designer: Courtney Moy
Heels into the Soil copyright 2021 by The International Women’s Writing Guild. All rights reserved. This book was produced in partnership with author and educator Nakia Hill. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews and for education purposes.
Black Girl Magic
9
of Injustice
Interrogation
6
Foreword
1
Contents
Table of
Untitled
42
Dear White People
38
Letter from the Executive Director
32
Untitled
29
Untitled
22
PSA
14
The Space Between Us
62
Secrets in the Soil
61
The end from many angles
58
Justice
52
Of Blood and Bones
50
118
Root Chakra Check
To Our Readers
Untitled
116
Identity of a Daughter
112
Letter to Asiyah
108
Stepping Up to the Plate
102
98
Community
94
Dear White People
88
Letter from the Book Project Director
82
America
78
From My Roots, You Grow
76
Acknowledgments
130
Carving Space
122
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
FOREWORD
We cannot live in our richness until we write the revelations of our hearts. 1
We do not know ourselves until we know our story. We cannot live in our richness until we write the revelations of our hearts.
Gatekeepers, too often white and male, have shrunk our sisterhood and wrung out womanhood to fit into a limited view of what it means to be a lady. They have erased the beauty of our Blackness and the power in our voice. They’ve drawn us to sit at the bottom of their hierarchy. But dearhearts, our story is not theirs to tell.
Have you cast a spell lately, sisters? Words are not the nouns, adjectives, and verbs we speak. They are the ingredients of our story. We do language. And when you do language, your narrative becomes yours to own.
-Toni Morrison
But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives .”
Foreword
“We die. That may be the meaning of life.
2
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
Have you cast a spell lately, sisters? Your words are your magic to use.
Language, when it is yours, can break the bounds of what society said a woman could and could not be. Language allows you to dig your heels into the dirt supremacy sought to bury you in and bloom where our ancestors planted you. Your story, your voice, your language is where you keep the truth of you. And a woman who knows her truth is watering a revolution.
Heels into the Soil: Stories and Poems Resisting Silence is a book of freedom spells. For we do not belong to this country’s narrators. We belong to each other. Our stories, a harmony of many gospels and trap beats, are protest songs and victory dances.
There is no voicelessness, sisters. There are just systems that suppress and silence and create the illusion that says our words don’t matter. Because the minute you discover your truth and begin to write your own story, the elders call to the water within you, they ignite the spellcaster inside of you, and as you ride your power you begin to radically imagine who you are outside of injustice. You see yourself as free.
What words do you use to paint the multitudes of you? We do not have to believe the lies we’re fed about who we are. We can measure ourselves in our own words, by our own choices, by the long line of women from which we descend who knew they had magic.
What is freedom if someone else defines you for yourself and the world to believe? What is equity and justice without the language, without the story of past, present, and future? What is liberation without the language to color our lived experiences and mark our moments and time?
Jeneé Osterheldt
FOREWORD
3
Christie A. Cruise, PhD is an author, educator, and social justice advocate. In 2019 she released her first book, It Don’t Hurt Now: My Journey of Self-Love & SelfAcceptance. Her poetry and self-portrait photography has been published in Remington Review, Gallery & Studio Arts Journal, and Sunspot Literary Journal (forthcoming).
Christie A. Cruise
6
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
Is not life something to be cherished?
Is not life beautiful?
Why would you want to?
Why would you want to?
because of the color of their skin?
INTERROGATION OF INJUSTICE
How can you justify the slaying of a people
to shield their eyes and face from the mist of the rain?
7
walking home from the store with candy and iced tea?
a tornado of thoughts interrupt my sleep, causing me to become a perpetual insomniac.
How can one discount human life?
How is it standing your ground when you stalk a child
questions swirl in my brain until
Hoodies can only be worn by white children
When did it become a crime to defend your home against unlawful entry?
Sleeping peacefully in your own bed in your own home is now a crime?
A neck is not a water hose.
Releasing your knee from it won’t cause the air to begin to flow again.
You do know what happens when a knee crushes a trachea, don’t you?
when it cannot escape.
to observe the water build up, wondering what will happen to water
in the way a child holds their foot on a water hose,
and with such ease, pressing down on flesh
of how one could keep a knee in the neck of another human being,
Is there even sense to be made
this free substance needed to sustain life?
Who is worthy to live, to breathe in air,
As my mind attempts to make sense of what my eyes see,
there are some things for which I am grateful for ignorance.
To say I want to understand would be false,
of Injustice
Interrogation
Christie A. Cruise, PHD
Or, is it that only some lives are counted as worthy?
Little Black girls have it hard.
women by the vagina instead of voting for the candidate who has one?
of emotional strength and resilience in the face of constant
to effect immediate change.
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
What else could explain society’s expectation
I only wish it were the one with the power
8
Little Black girls are expected to perform magic.
I guess one of us must be concerned.
childhoods, BLACK GIRL MAGIC
if little Black girls came through the traumas of their
It would be nothing short of a magic trick
adversity?
They are expected to be everything, except little girls.
These questions interrupt my sleep.
They are not safe.
I am afraid for little Black girls.
Magic
Black Girl
Christie A. Cruise, PHD
Why would you rather vote for a candidate who advocates grabbing
ty?
Why do you feel no remorse for committing such crimes against humani-
bathing?
that they have willingly left a city with sewage water for drinking and
How does one sleep peacefully at night with the knowledge
when children sleeping in feces and urine filled cages can be justified.
to find peace within their soul
I can only imagine to whom one must pray
to hunt their fellow human as if they were prey.
to convince themselves that it is reasonable
I can only imagine that one must lose a piece of their soul
9
despite the evidence of abuse so easily spotted in other little girls, ignored when it presents in them.
Yes, they are magic.
They create the illusion of well-being
when, in fact, it is absent.
Other little girls receive a grace little Black girls know nothing of, the color of their skin has erased their innocence. Their trauma ignored
A society that wants them to disappear.
Abracadabra! Pull the curtain back.
No secret door or drop-down compartment.
After all, that’s how Black women behave.
They are expected to safely navigate
Not a healthy one anyway. And, when they become women, the neglect and disrespect will continue.
when they are unable to successfully navigate
the landmines of sexual predators, of poverty, and of adults
with grown-up expectations.
10
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
I worry about little Black girls,
and their trauma manifests as bad behavior.
when they attend school,
BLACK GIRL MAGIC
They were once little Black girls too.
inflicted on them from every corner of society.
I am afraid for them
Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Atatiana Jefferson.
I am afraid for little Black girls who carry trauma
11
We need only to say their names to know how it ends for little Black girls:
No childhood.
I worry about little Black girls,
the family child molester and neighborhood pedophile.
even when they are 7 years old.
Little Black girls are responsible for their own safety.
because little Black girls are sassy and bossy,
Surely someone will take notice of these behaviors and understand.
in a society that wants to perform magic, too?
How can they maintain a sense of well-being
in the absence of safety and comfort,
of this life, unscathed.
Nakia Hill is a writer, journalist, and educator who focuses on empowering Black women and girls to use writing as a tool for healing + resistance. She was named a Boston Artist-in-Residence in 2018 by Mayor Walsh. Hill is the author of two books: Water Carrier and I Still Did It.
Nakia Hill
14
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
Our innocence lay dormant
From being stolen from our mothers and our land
Is it too much work to protect us?
when we are constantly
We walk away because you refuse to stand in your rightful place
the same ceiling that we are
at the bottom of that that glass ceiling
Down
holding you down
You fail to lift us up
Burning our daughters traumas at the root
Fertilizing our wombs with holy water + oil
Protecting our sanctity
We are uprooting generational curses with our bare hands
What happens if we return home to ourselves?
What happens if we let go?
PSA
From villages, to continents, in the workplace and relationships
We have been carrying this generational trauma
without complaining about the heaviness
Black girls are raised to carry the world on our shoulders
Because you are afraid that we will walk away
You shoot us in our foot
We shield you
words we’ve never had in our vocabulary until today
Protect us
PSA
Nakia Hill
Our damsel is never allowed to be in distress
15
We pretend to live this life with ease And then get called out for speaking up when our kettle becomes hot and we start singing
Why don’t you look for us?
Why aren’t there petitions?
Why aren’t there policies?
Taking what is rightfully ours
But do you recite them?
16
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
est woman out of us
Due to us for the years and the time you wasted without making an hon-
Due to us for cooking food that we can’t even devour
Due to us for cleaning houses that don’t belong to us
Due to us for breastfeeding white babies
Due to us for stolen intellectual property
Due to us for wombs housed by masters babies
What happens if reparations are paid in full?
No knock warrant in sight
We will continue to kick down doors
You see our names
Do you rap our lyrics around your tongue like you do misogyny?
Redemption songs.
Where are the alerts inspired by our pain in our names?
Where are the bills?
We stand poised
We stay silent to avoid disappointment
We are silent to appease you
When we are missing
will benefit from our labor once again
and you, you, and you too
working tirelessly to shatter
PSA
17
Asiyah Herrera, 19, is an author, poet, and teaching artist. The most important thing to her is writing. Before writing poetry, Asiyah wrote six novels. Her biggest aspiration is to publish her writing and work at a nonprofit like 826 Boston.
Asiyah Herrera
20
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
call
it
a
Have
funeral and birthday
a
to sleep a black woman and wake in a casket
Go
21
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
Bondage, White power, A monster over man And which side of the whip Our bodies belonged. Crowns crushed under foot, Decomposed into dirt, Cotton bled fingertips, The negro, No longer glorious. Just an object, To be sold, stolen, bartered or bought.
3000 BC - Ancient Egypt Birthplace of Moses, The building blocks of the later Greek and Roman cultures and empires, Painted white in our textbooks. But the color of sand and sun, Builders and inventors. Black Pharaohs, erased. Before Slavery, We were kings, queens And everything in between. Queen of Angola Kushite Dynasty, Mali empire. Musa Keita. 744 to 656 BC. Black gold, Sandstone and glory.
22
slav·er·y |ˈslāv(ǝ)rē | noun the state of being a slave. the practice or system of bondange of a persons or people.
Exhibit B: Slavery
free·dom |ˈfrēdǝm | noun One who has freedom has the ability to do what he or she pleases without being stopped or hindered by a separate power. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” Malcolm X
Exhibit A: Freedom
Asiyah Herrera
UNTITLED
23
24
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
There was a woman by name of Moses, And against the current, Towards the stars She lead them to freedom, The way Moses led the people of Israel, Across the ocean. And a man by the name of Douglass, Who wore his fro the way his ancestors Wore their crowns. And a woman named Truth Who laid bare justice, Excavating the bones of bondage In her thunderous voice.
ab·o·li·tion·ist |ˌabǝˈliSHǝnǝst | noun a person who favors the abolition of a practice or institution, especially capital punishment or (formerly) slavery:
Exhibit C: Abolitionists
To march, To speak, And light the flame. To die, A King. To be murdered for believing. To be killed precisely at the age of 39. Do you not find it strange? X marks the spot To excavate the truth behind your beliefs, To let you speak for yourself, Dispel the lies that still tarnish your name. Because history replenished itself by destroying Your name, Erasing your final years. UNTITLED
25
“Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.” Martin Luther King Jr
the rights of citizens to political, social freedom and equality.
civ·il rights |ˌsivil ˈrīts | plural noun
Exhibit D: Civil Rights
26
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
Until what remained was simply X after your name, Until what remained after your name was Jr. However uneducated history - not matter how hard it tried could not extinguish what you incited Among the people.
UNTITLED
How to account for the Generations of families Destroyed? Of the trauma inherited, Languages and lineages lost. Of history obliterated and erased? To become the curator, To preserve, Recover, And restore. My family tree is making itself known to me one fragment at a time, Upon an unearthing of remains after cremation. To prevent history from restoring itself, Feeding itself among our blood and bones. To reclaim those very bones and wear them upon my head, like a crown.
a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection
cu·ra·tor |ˈkyo͝ orˌād ǝ r, kyo͝ oˈrād ǝ r, ˈkyo͝orədər | noun
Exhibit E: The Curator
27
28
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
To allow their stories breathe within my every breath. To put the ghosts to rest within a mausoleum of Sandstone, gold and glory.
No returns.
No receipts.
No exchanges.
UNTITLED
The only life a black body can hold is the one he was given.
How painful it is to remember that
Staining the canvas?
What would America be without both blood and body
And will be tomorrow.
Just as he had yesterday
A Black man was killed today,
Untitled
Asiyah Herrera
29
Without the opportunity to make America great again.
Feeding off the roots of trees watered with tears of blood.
As he will tomorrow As he did yesterday, To feed the beast living in the belly of its master.
Watch it swing.
Dance under the wicked branches
Sway under a cruel canopy
30
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
To create a kingdom atop a graveyard?
And isn’t it like the white man to build upon bones,
Bury us under the construction of a skyscraper,
Shoot us on the nearest street,
But lives on only to
What would America be without a reminder that the beast never died
Basking in the glory of his pedestal.
As if he were drawn under his own spell,
Enthralled by the magic his own hands sent forth.
A Black man died today,
for their sovereignty
Watch it hang,
Hang them in the nearest tree,
Isn’t it like the white man to be captivated by black bodies?
UNTITLED
To believe our blood to be their only sustenance for survival.
Have a funeral and call it a birthday. Correction:
To tell us to cradle our own wounds,
Go to sleep a black woman and wake in casket,
31
plague its land?
Lies beneath the ground in burrow.
And isn’t it like the white man to write emancipation as a death decree?
What would America be without the opportunity to hunt the beasts that
There is a beast, who never slumbers,
32
Listen.
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
There are so
33
everywhere
many beautiful voices
IWWG Executive Director Letter
34
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
IWWG now shares the poignant and promising results of our pilot Mentorship program. I ask every one of you to read and reflect on this compilation of their writing. Their voices and words speak to all the possibilities for justice and equity. But also for the need to listen. So I invite you to continue reading, and listen and learn.
Parallel to the global crisis, the U.S. is witnessing a resurgence of social and racial inequities that cause us painful pause: Who are we as a country? Who are we as humans? Amidst the fear and anxiety, I recalled meeting with a writer in Boston and asking if she could help IWWG launch a mentor program for young writers of color. With the skillful and soulful direction of Nakia Hill, we matched mentors and mentees who wrote together throughout the summer.
Listen. There are so many beautiful voices everywhere and yet so many we never hear. In April of 2019, I became Executive Director of the International Women’s Writing Guild - IWWG. One year later, the world was torn by a pandemic, causing economic upheaval, personal loss, and isolation for far too many.
Michelle Miller LETTER FROM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
35
Ayelen Herrera
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi
Ayelen is a 15 year old girl who lives in Dorchester, Massachusetts with her mother and older sister. She loves writing, reading, playing her viola, and cherishes spending time with family. To her, justice is equality and true peace for everyone in the world. Writing helps Ayelen express her feelings and be creative. When she is not writing you will find her reading a book or enjoying a movie. Ayelen finds happiness in her family who support and love her unconditionally which makes her feel very blessed. She is inspired by the strong and loving women in her family. Her goal in the future is to become an independent innovator, touching people’s lives by making life easier forthem. Ayelen enjoys quotes and one of her favorite quotes is:
if you don’t, then no change will come. You have to be grateful for the little things your skin color gives you. Like respect and “purity.” Acknowledge the fact that you indeed were born into privilege and that so many others
with privilege in this world. Whether you realize it, like it, or acknowledge
it, it’s there. Honestly, it will probably always be there if you don’t end it.
We cannot end racism alone. We must work together.
isn’t ok.
achieve the same level of value that you might receive with just walking
38
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
road to success is easier because of the color of your skin.
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
39
If you want to live in a little bubble of everything is great or everything
color and therefore treated differently than you which isn’t ok. Racism
were born with? We have to try harder, work harder, and be tougher to
around with your whiteness. You’ve been given a head start in life and the
you are better than us. It just means we were born with a different skin
Do you know how hard it is for racial minorities to get the privilege you
are not as fortunate as you. That doesn’t mean we’re less than you or that
judgments and stereotypes? You have to recognize your privilege because
is for some people to love their skin color or culture because of societies’
it is who you are and you should embrace it. Do you believe how hard it
into. But, you learn to love and appreciate everything you have because
No one can decide the skin or family or amount of money they were born
think that’s fair? How can we be silent?
you feel if you were killed just because of the color of your skin? Do you
Everyone matters in this world. Everyone deserves a fair trial. How would
don’t have a voice. But we do. And it matters. Everyone’s voice matters.
achieve their dreams. Without a chance of pleading their case. As if we
even a chance to make their mark on the world. Without a chance to
or appearance? Too many. Too many innocent lives, lost. Some without
Do you know how many lives have been lost just because of our skin color
Do you ever feel unsafe because of the skin you wear? Every day, you walk
Dear white people,
Dear White People
Ayelen Herrera
should all be treated equally, regardless. To be treated fairly.
everything will not work out eventually. The problem with racism isn’t
40
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
We’re all different, whether it be the color of our skin, the wealth we
Know that we can all do more to help end racism. Especially you.
because of who they are. We need your voice. Every voice matters.
that some people wake up scared just because of the color of their skin or
you’re scared of us or what would happen if you spoke out, understand
acknowledge it, the farther we can get on this journey of ending racism. If
see how you can do better. Because we can do better. We can. The more you
find out more, catch yourself, remember your mistakes from the past and
think you’ve changed something. No, educate yourself, read, learn, listen,
go to a protest or be against racism and then go home to your bubble and
movement yourself. Everyone has a role in this movement. You can’t just
Think about what kind of role and actions you have done to help this
less understanding, less love, and less success. Do you think this is just?
and excel just like you, we are given less. Less support, less opportunities,
Your fellow humans, POC
41
prejudices + ideas first.
need to get out of your white bubble, and see how some people, just like
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
bringing justice. You can’t change society without changing people’s
Maybe in your world you believe it will, but not in the real world. You all
To an equal future,
yourself. It’s the very first step we all can take to ending racism and
you’re not helping. Speak out and act out. This can’t be fixed with silence.
you, are not treated fairly. Though we work just as hard and love and give
With all that being said, we leave you with this. Listen and educate
supporting the end of the-racism movement by staying out of everything,
just within our community. This issue starts with you. If you think you are
come from or the education we have, we all deserve the same chance and
will eventually be ok, stop, and look around. Everything is not great, and
42
planet.
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
to come. I want you to reflect on the part you have on bringing peace to our
see in the world. We must hold hands and listen to each other for change
Martin Luther King. This will inspire you to be the change that you want to
These quotes should make you think. From powerful influential people like
justice. Understand that peace cannot exist without justice.
deserve to be heard, we’re just as human as you. Read these quotes about
No justice no peace! We chant in the streets. Won’t people listen to us? We
Ayelen Herrera
UNTITLED
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.” -Aldous Huxley
“Seeing is not always believing.” -Martin Luther King
“If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.” -King Solomon
“When we all see justice, we’ll all see peace!” -Micheal Franti
43
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” -Martin Luther King
“If you want peace, work for justice.” -Pope Paul VI
always be a great illusion.” -Dom Helder Camara
“Without justice and love, peace will
“Justice can not be for one side alone, it must be for both.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
“We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.” -Martin Luther King
44
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
“We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.” -Martin Luther King
“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.” -Anne Frank
“Comfort is the enemy of progress.” -Selena Gomez
“The longer we listen to one another - with real attention the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.” -Barbara Deming
“Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” -Eugene Ionesco
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are” -Benjamin Franklin
“ I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.” -Charles Bukowski
UNTITLED
“Often people are waiting for a leader to come along, you don’t have to wait for someone else.” -Bettina L. Love
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” -Ayn Rand
45
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” -James Baldwin
“If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.” -Francis Bacon
“Our lives begin to end the day we are silent about things that matter.” -Martin Luther King
“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” -Martin Luther King
“Delay in justice is injustice” -Walter Savage Landor
“To ignore all evil is to become an accomplice of it.” -Martin Luther King
46
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
“To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.” -Confucius
-Indira Gandhi
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
“There is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.” -Martin Luther King
“You can kill the dreamer but you can’t kill the dream.” -Martin Luther King
“The time is always right to do what is right.” -Martin Luther King
“Truth never damages a cause that is just” -Mahatma Gandhi
“It is never too late to give up your prejudices.” -Henry David Thoreau
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi
UNTITLED
47
“It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” -Robert F. Kennedy
Camarah, 16, is a photographer and a writer. She wants justice for the black community in all aspects of life. She wants Black people to be able to do anything without society hindering or harming them. She wants to one day aid in changing the social and economic inequalities in America’s systems through her writing by highlighting it. When not writing, you can find Camarah drawing, reading or playing video games.
Camarah Oates
50
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
Fundamentally,
Will change that
Or the outside,
And nothing on the inside,
We are human
Underneath it all
We are children of blood and bone
Or anything, really
Or beliefs
No matter skin color
Bone
Of Blood and
Camarah Oates
We are children of blood and bone
We are equal
Or below you
We are not less than
We are human
No matter what you say,
Your opinions will not change that
We are children of blood and bone
You are no different from me
OF BLOOD AND BONE
51
The sweetness of justice I imagine it’ll taste like the first bite into a piece of ripe fruit Or the sweetest of iced teas in the summer heat I don’t believe anything can beat The sweetness of justice
We will never get to see
We will never be set free
From the shackles of racism
And the hatred that plagues us as a people
All for the shade of our skin
52
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
For them to do what they did
Which makes it right
Because the offender was white
That trial
JUSTICE
I hope we get to taste
Is equality
Because we will never win
One day,
Unbothered by the harsh sunlight of the world
Will we ever get our moment alone in the shade?
Will it be in another century?
We so crave?
When will we get the equality
Without being brutalized?
For us to walk in the day
When will it be okay
Doing something they weren’t supposed to
They were probably scheming
Meaning
Justice
Justice
Camarah Oates
Because the other was Black
53
Jacquinn Sinclair is a Boston-based freelance journalist and poet. Her writing seeks to highlight creatives, organizations and initiatives at the intersection of art and activism. Jacquinn’s work has appeared in various publications including WBUR, The ARTery, Boston.com, DigBoston and The Philadelphia Tribune. When she’s not writing, she can be found curled up reading a good book.
Jacquinn Sinclair
56
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
57
That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise: Her bandage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes. - Langston Hughes
without audience without empathy or accountability and that too is another kind of dying
hot tears on cheeks,
knees on necks and lives stolen
by an America that declares it’s a meritocracy
but pushing ahead to a future forged by
good grades and better behavior
58
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
coaxed into boxes and into submission
pulsing with black and brown bodies
intent on a pipeline to prison
or wage war on a system
THE END FROM MANY ANGLES
we die often
waiting to benefit from the system
isn’t enough to battle batons on bones
plundered; blood wet and muscles torn
through police brutality, kicked, shoved and maimed
there are many ways of expiring
accosted in cities carved with red lines
decaying from disparities in healthcare
falling into widening wealth gaps
worn down by poverty’s plague
there are many ways to succumb
hear his dreams, but don’t recognize his humanity
promise a soul and never deliver
work a man and don’t pay
there are many ways to die
when I think of justice, I wonder if it’s just us
The end from many angles
Jacquinn Sinclair
forcing death from every angle
59
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
rendering death as judgement
of open-mouthed mobs
flattened by the footsteps
into blade-sharp grass
spilling our stories
into the pulpy earth
bleeds
the bark of ancient trees
let us walk free
though emancipation
SECRETS IN THE SOIL
61
Secrets in the Soil
Jacquinn Sinclair
years old. I turned the pages so carefully. I didn’t want to rip them. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to read them, so when I heard mama’s footsteps
she took care of an older white woman who had Parkinson’s disease. Often,
she took me to her second job with her.
age. The staircase was wide and creaked with every step. I got good at
in this home for several years.
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
skin had tan circles like polka dots on his body and he had the kindest
The man of the house, Mr. Dwight* seemed ancient to me. His pale white
loomed majestically, but inside, the space was gripped by sickness and
were peppers, tomatoes, greens and potatoes. We spent every Friday night
THE SPACE BETWEEN US
stair’s edge or tiptoeing in the middle of certain steps.
63
figuring out how to make the least amount of noise by jumping to the
The house scared me at night. From the outside, the Dwight’s home
end of the garden there were red and pink flowers and on the other, there
The house was in Chestnut Hill, a mansion with a beautiful garden. On one
books with yellowing pages. It felt like the books were thousands of
day job in Boston as an insurance claims manager and on the weekends,
coming towards our room, I’d rush to put the books under the bed.
TV. But often, I was captivated by the shelves bursting with first edition
house, Mrs. Dwight, I would stay in the room for the workers and watch
Upstairs, while my mother worked to feed and turn the woman of the
counter packed into little bags.
above water in mason jars and mounds of herbs from the garden on the
kitchen, there were all manner of growing things on toothpicks hovering
I was fascinated by the Dwight’s life. It was so different from my own. In the
workers.
up for her shift at night. Mr. Dwight was good to my mom and the other
birthday and whatever little details I let slip when mama and I showed
During the summer, I felt like my mom worked even harder. She had a
The Space Between Us
Jacquinn Sinclair
ice blue eyes. He didn’t talk much to me, but he always remembered my
other women who worked for Mr. Dwight were brown like mama.
I used to hold my urine because it looked like the family members in the
home. I would try to sit very still, but the sweat would run down my face anyway. The floor seemed to be a little cooler so I would sit or lay on the ground. When it became unbearable, my sister and I would open the refrigerator and the freezer and put our faces inside for a while. I’d inhale deeply and then pour myself a solo cup full of Minute Maid fruit
they were ready to come alive and pounce on me if I messed anything
up. There was also a big white tub as smooth as marble with its own
four feet that lifted it off the floor. I got in it once just to feel what the
cool porcelain was like against my skin. I had all my clothes on, but I
wanted to lay down in it fully.
apartment building had a red brick façade and each group of buildings had its own courtyard. There weren’t swings or anything in our court, but we had a brown, stone tortoise and short, barrel-shaped tunnels made
white walls, a queen-sized bed to the left of the door and a small dark
wood side table that the tiny television rested on. The wall to the right of
the door was lined with bookshelves.
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
*** THE SPACE BETWEEN US
65
lived someplace like that. But my mom worked two jobs. I wondered: did
to me, tired from working both of her jobs on the same day.
In the mornings, we would sometimes run into the next woman who was
paid rent according to their income. It sounded fair to me. I was glad we
that. I wanted to say goodnight when she crawled into the bed next
she have to pay twice as much?
the tortoise. My mom told me that the diverse families who lived there
Sometimes, I’d fall asleep before she finished working. I hated when I did
of concrete to hide in. They were painted brown and white to match
We lived in an apartment complex where all kinds of people lived. Every
lineup of TV shows in the room we stayed in. It was quiet with bright
While I waited for mama to finish at night, I would watch the TGIF
Dwight’s house. In the summer, the oppressive heat seeped into our
Two monstrous, crouching gargoyles sat in the bathroom. I was sure
punch before going back to my perch on the floor.
Our apartment in the South Shore was a lot smaller than Mr. and Mrs.
was a large rocking chair of dark wood, just like the banister and stairs.
I would pause. Then, I’d race to the bathroom on the right. Inside, there
***
for his wife, who was unable to talk or do anything for herself. Both of the
felt tiny beside them as I crept upstairs to the third-floor bathroom.
portrait were following me with their eyes. Once I reached the landing,
starting the day shift. The man of the manor had around-the-clock care
Huge oil paintings and portraits adorned the soaring, sky-high walls. I
sisters in an affluent neighborhood in southern New Jersey. My mom was convinced that I’d have more opportunities there. In hindsight she was correct. My dad owned a beautiful four-bedroom house. It was yellow with baby blue shutters and a two-car garage that sat atop an inclined driveway.
of an outsider I was in Mr. and Mrs. Dwight’s world. Their large house had
more rooms than people and rang with silence. In the few years that my
mother took me to work with her when I was a kid, I never reached the
end of discovering whatever I could about the house. There were so many
white doors with clear crystal-like knobs on them. I ventured into the
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
***
Sometimes she’d let me keep the money.
us go to the soda can redemption place to get the .05 cents per can.
commercial sized dryers. On those laundromat Saturdays, my mom made
didn’t have to go to the laundromat and fold clothes to the whir of the
fill up. But, no matter how long it took, I remember being so glad that I
the kitchen sink and we’d have to wait for what felt like hours for it to
to buy a washing machine. To make it work, she would hook it up to
Every Saturday we went to the laundromat until my mom saved enough
the Dwight's home, but the space was filled with the light of our family.
and spotless. There was no window above the stove or sink like in
Our three-bedroom apartment with its galley-ish kitchen was compact
THE SPACE BETWEEN US
67
In my room, the furniture was dark wood, and I had a full-sized bed. It
had lived much of their time without me.
of the hall. I felt the need to separate myself from this busy family who
beneath my feet. Often, I would escape to my room upstairs at the end
where the cream-colored tiles with maroon lines felt cool and smooth
I remember walking barefoot in the foyer and through the kitchen
the top of my lungs. I felt free surrounded by the art.
out running errands, I’d stand in that room and recite poetry or sing at
picture. The den was the best room in the house. When everyone was
surrounded by yellow flowers. Later, my stepmother gifted me that
and a computer. My favorite picture was of a brown skinned girl
was a den, which mostly housed art by African American artists, a piano
the foyer where pieces of mail would end up. To the right of the table
between our worlds was unfathomable. ***
Once you opened the front door, there was a table with flowers in
kitchen. There were so many things I never got to see. The distance
library, Mrs. Dwight’s room, our room, the upstairs bathroom and the
In high school, I went to live with my dad, his wife and my two younger
When I think about those two opposing worlds now, I can see how much
they did, and if it mattered. Some of the kids in that group had parents who were successful lawyers, neurosurgeons and podiatrists. Their houses were vast with pillared porches and sprawling lawns with tennis courts and pools. During the summers, some of those families headed to their second homes on Martha’s Vineyard. Each of their houses rivaled the Dwight’s and some surpassed it. I wondered if the same was true for their fortunes.
and clubs. My days were filled with school, basketball and piano lessons
from an eccentric white woman who had several pet cats. Once a week
she’d come to the house and we’d sit in the den and practice on the
wooden piano. She’d show me how to place my hands on the keys with
her bulbous fingers. She’d say “5,4,3,2,1 again 5,4,3,2,1,” as I’d fan my
thumb first and the rest of my skinny fingers one by one over the ivory
keys as she taught me to play “Ode to Joy.” I also took voice lessons
on Sundays and the sound of laughter from the kids outside. I missed her hugs.
and write poetry. I covered my folders; book covers and scrap paper
with my feelings. I spent a lot of time alone discovering and cultivating
69
mom’s pound cakes baking, her dancing and singing in the living room
I could. In between all of the singing, I started to journal more seriously
THE SPACE BETWEEN US
I was loved. I missed the brick and the concrete. I missed the smell of my
got into several groups in and out of school and performed whenever
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
I was far away from my mom and sister, where I knew for certain that
At school, I participated in the robust music program. I auditioned and
68
Despite all of these new experiences, I missed home.
place my tongue when singing and showed me the beauty of Italian arias.
me to opera. She taught me how to use my diaphragm, where to
***
I wondered if they could tell that I started off in a different place than
environment he planted himself in was shaped by various social circles
from an older, fair skinned African American woman who introduced
of place with these kids of privilege. All of them were very kind, but
Upon my arrival to my dad’s, I was thrust into a new world. The
American history and attended other organized events. I often felt out
museums, saw films like “Sankofa,” that centered African and African
dedicated to nurturing future African American leaders. We went to
fabric. ***
I was also in a group called Jack and Jill, a membership organization
the artist in me.
watch my peach comforter turn orange as my tears seeped into the
few months, I cried every night for my mom, my sister and my life. I’d
was the biggest bed I ever had all to myself up to that point. For the first
grandmother, whose family members were farmers, only went as far as the fourth grade. My mother finished high school before getting married and starting a family, and I was fortunate enough to finish graduate school.
othered, of being offered or allowed more. Internally, I raged at the
circumstances of my father’s carefully cultivated life. He was the sole
provider for a household of five. How could he amass so much while my
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
dance and sing in the living room like we used to when I was a child.
she’d have Diana Ross and The Supremes playing—her favorite—and we’d
Canada while eating some of her famous pound cake. In the background,
nights after work, we’d have steaming cups of orange pekoe tea from
were apart and spent the time getting to know each other again. Most
larger space filled with sunlight. We talked a lot about the 14 years we
with her. By then she had moved to another neighborhood and had a
I reunited with my mom when I finally returned to Massachusetts to live
THE SPACE BETWEEN US
71
selflessness is the richest gift I’ve ever received.
plenty. But I had to ask myself, am I poor? And if I was poor, what was the
***
she couldn’t provide, has allowed me to do and see so much. And that
as far as possessions. Before living with him, I always thought we had
cost of ascension?
Her willingness to let me go so that I could have access to resources that
somehow, his success revealed how little me, my mom and my sister had
My father’s house wasn’t as big as Mr. and Mrs. Dwight’s house, but
I remember most. Her endless toiling, her giving heart and her love are the
two jobs most of my life.
things that have and continue to propel me.
Of all the opportunities I’ve been afforded, it’s my mother’s hard work that
never had any help, she never took any handouts and always worked
mother worked so hard and so long just to end up with less? My mom
When I think about where I’ve come from, I remember that my
I wrestled with my feelings of losing my mother and my sister, of being
J.B. Hunter, Minvenet liqui blaboraectem restiumquae vernamus imusdae sape eos simet molupta tiassi volupta epeditium sam volore pligni qui velicipsundi cullicid utendis de venihil igendi con et vellaut autatus ium rae atiatempor solessi nvendunt ipsam, ut que cuptatur? Evelias peditam anis utem ex eicataq uaestiur? Qui nis illest landamet aut alis sant officati corem reprae doluptaquid ut harcium dit utem serunda qui sit ut restia con cor reperibus eiunt est prem ut arum auda qui ipsunt
J.B. Hunter
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
75
I live in a land fertilized with the bones of my ancestors. With your false history, planted in the minds of the masses, we fall
Concerned with the looting of stores, but it is our spilled blood you willfully ignore. Convenient that our outcry was never heard unless it affected you. When in reality, the pain of others should have an impact. The fact that we are supposed to love one another but we never do leaves us trapped. Cycles of senseless hate repeating for years, We are the last generation to bow down to fear.
As if slavery was accepted willingly.
We do not know a majority of our history but you proudly boast yours-
one filled with the pain of those who fought before me.
You find pride in your lineage while I do not know mine.
Proud of what we represent, you find discontent.
You are inconvenienced by our pain, yet inconvenience and oppression
are not the same.
We are not living in the past. Our troubles are a continuous struggle.
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
77
of labor that was not yours.
We are descendants of warriors and yet we are taught differently.
FROM MY ROOTS, YOU GROW
generations
With your false history, planted in the minds of the masses, we fall.
Generational trauma being broken by a new generation filled with people
Born into privilege for which others have worked for. Bearing the fruit of
us from dying.
Listen to our music, copy our style, but you do nothing to stop any one of
Our movement is not a trend.
Your performative activism has never helped, so why pretend?
upon to maintain,never to see their own harvest.
and died
Planting corrupted seeds into stolen land -- land that my ancestors lived
they never knew.
culture
I live in a land fertilized with the bones of my ancestors.
From my Roots You Grow
J.B. Hunter
who raised themselves out of ashes from a fire that burned out the
“O’er the land of the free” holds no meaning, At least not to me and my family.
Our skin is a weapon that is always locked and loaded, yet there is no
permit for it.
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
within it.
We have become indifferent to the world and the cruelties that exist
cannot afford.
AMERICA
Resorting to a hashtag to save lives, while our “protectors” are silent.
While millions witness.
Taking children and doing nothing to stop the villain
You give us a promise that you have yet to keep.
in your eyes.
Separating someone’s level of importance, based on the things they
America, the land of the free, how deceiving you can be.
“My existence is resistance!”, Is that why they hate me?
treated equally.
79
Punished for their resistance that only occurred because they weren’t
They are trapped by a government who never wants to set them free.
Cages aren’t the only place that our children are imprisoned.
of the oppressor.
We do not acknowledge this as the land of opportunity, but rather the land
nothing to call our own.
Brought into an economy to make it grow, and for centuries we have had
Our suffering did not worsen, it became documented.
We are criminals solely based on our skin’s pigment.
Convince me of your lives, and I will fight for the truth behind the hatred
How sweet your poison can seem.
You sing of equality, and we foolishly believed.
America, how cruel you can be.
America
J.B. Hunter
Society has turned a blind eye to the pain in black lives.
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America, oh how much I want to make it better.
A country capable of beauty shows nothing but cruelty.
AMERICA
81
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
Say her name: Sandra Bland, Atiana Koquice Jefferson, and Breonna Taylor
hard to get.
83
We deserve justice. We are still seeking justice. Say her name: Sandra Bland, Atatiana Koquice Jefferson, and Breonna Taylor. When I think
Justice. She has always played hard to get. She is rarely fair. She lacks righteousness. She runs for dear life especially when Black people, Indigenous people, immigrant people, and fellow women, seek her for refuge. Justice, please extend your grace upon us. Why do you starve us of that right? Women find themselves gazing up at justice from the bottom of this glass ceiling. This glass ceiling exists because justice won’t grant us access to equality. We have spent centuries smashing the glass ceiling with our bruised and bloody bare hands. Some of us have crushed other women with the heels of our shoes just to get to the top of that ceiling by any means necessary.
Letter from the Book Project Director
Justice. She has always played
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
As I put the finishing touches on this book, I am in awe of what we were all able to produce together. It took us less than eight months to produce this book focused on justice through our eyes. On each page, you’ll continue to delve into reading more stories written by young girls grappling with the concept of justice from society and within themselves. There are some women who acknowledged their white
I found healing in writing. I vowed to God to make it my life’s work to share my gift producing books to preserve our stories. Heels into the Soil is the first book produced by the International Women's Writing Guild (IWWG). In the spring of 2020, I was asked to lead writing workshops for young girls during the Guild’s writing conference for the weekend. Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic forced the Guild to cancel their conference. The IWWG decided that they still wanted to expand their membership and programming to young people and members of color, so they invited me to partner with them to produce an intergenerational anthology inspired by my first book I Still Did It. As the book project director, I facilitated a six week virtual writing mentorship program. I matched teen girls with seasoned writers. The women and girls entered the virtual space eager to learn, build community, and they were open to becoming vulnerable on the page. The writers chose the theme of the book: justice. They also participated in writing workshops where they shared the concepts of their pieces, wrote first drafts, revised and completed their poems and essays.
of the betrayal of justice there are many names we may never know because their bodies, their cases, and legacies were buried in the soil. Until Black women are respected and protected I will forever fight for justice until my dying day. Black women deserve to feel safe in our homes. Black women deserve to feel safe in our cars without the fear of being pulled over and not making it home.
LETTER FROM THE BOOK PROJECT DIRECTOR
85
privilege and publicly sought forgiveness from people of color. This book was courageously written. We hope that our body of work leads you to self reflect. We hope that this body of work sparks conversations amongst you, your family members, coworkers, neighbors, and friends. If you don’t know where to begin, start right here on the pages of Heels into the Soil.
Nakia Hill
Marangela, 18, is a freshman at Wesleyan University. She is fun, intelligent and inspires to be the best that she can be. Marangela is undecided on what she wants in the future whether it be with writing or not, but she enjoys using writing as an outlet to express what she is feeling. She hopes that her pieces will relate to others so they know they are not alone.
Marangela James
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
UNTITLED
89
picture. Yeah. You don’t understand and maybe you never will, but can
that is no more than a means to keep us below you? Do not tell me this
88
years of brainwashing that you have endured stop you from seeing a clear
more melanin in my skin enough to divide the world into subsections
resides in each and everyone of my neighbors.
you ask these questions because you wonder what it would be like to be
the challenges we face each and every day. Or maybe it’s because the
From the outside point of view it’s hard to see the heart of Mattapan which
beautiful dark chocolate complex too much for you to handle? Or do
it’s cute, but when a Black person has short hair we are bald? Is having
local shops that surround the area and the people it took to build them.
the fact that it is impossible to run a comb through these “naps”? Is my
skin doesn’t define who we are. Maybe it’s because you don’t understand
never understand what Mattapan is. Mattapan is the people. It’s the small
Is it funny to you that I wear head wraps at night to protect my hair? Or
this now make me ugly? How come when a white person has short hair
just Black people tired of fighting a war from decades ago. You will truly
Knowing it’s not. Or when the lights go down and you ask where I went?
Maybe this is because you won’t take the time to understand that our
about Black lives. You think we are just angry Black people, but we are
Do you find it funny when you ask questions like: Is that your real hair?
Black? Can someone really not love me because of my skin ? And does
you, but it is real life for me. You say, “All lives matter”, but could care less
never acknowledges this fact. Gentrification may be a foriegn concept to
committed at almost the same rate as black on black crimes, but the media
in our communities. It’s also no coincidence that white on white crime is
in an area full of Black people. It is no coincidence that violence exists
make anything grow. You call it black on black crime, but I call it crime
potential is waiting to be tapped into. With a little love and time you can
You see a broken down area of town, but I see a place with endless
them folks struggling” cause the way I see it, y’all are the ones struggling.
I wonder if you ever walked through Mattapan and thought “look at
think I don’t see what society says is a beautiful young woman?
that the U.S had their first Black president a little over five years ago. You
Dear White people:
Untitled
Marangela James
isn’t true because I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. You think it is just a coincidence
were a real thing that people actually believe in? And what would it be like to live it? I wonder if you just chose to not care about something because you find it easier this way? I wonder what you will teach your kids and what your kids will teach their kids for generations to come. It’s a never ending cycle of systemic racism all because you would rather shelter your children than actually educate them. Don’t think by sending them off to the most expensive boarding school they will have the best education because if that were true you would have actually raised leaders instead of oppressors. And the last thing I want to say is, “I can’t breathe."
A baby has no choice on how they come into the world. We’ve been
underprivileged since the day the clumps of cells in our mother’s womb
came together. We were taken from our home in Africa to serve oppressors
in an unfamiliar region. Our ancestors feared you. They were forced to
work day in and day out for no pay and no respect. They were treated
like animals for just having a little color, for having different facial
features and for having too much love in a world that hated them.
They were beaten, raped and killed. And because of this my generation
will be tied to this earth by the blood of our ancestors, so whatever they
couldn’t accomplish my generation will.
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
ground up? I wonder if you will ever give the power to the uncredited
I wonder if we’ll ever be accepted to a world we built from the
Dear white people:
#staywoke
is no such thing as being too young to know about something nowadays.
like you need to hear. We hope you listen and learn from us because there
UNTITLED
91
Marangela James
Our power comes from our tech savvy ways that people might frown upon,
but our generation uses these platforms to spread relevant news that people
Sincerely,
are a headstrong and determined generation that won’t and can’t give up.
We will be the generation to get rid of all the hate in the world. We
people? I wonder what the world would be like if equality and equity
you imagine being marked with that burden from the day you were born?
Elisa Rowe (she/her), is a neurodivergent immigrant, writer, educator, and poet. She was selected both in 2019 and 2020 to be a part of the Boston Mayor’s Poetry Program by Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola. Her work can be found in Fathom, Sojourners magazine, and Boston City Hall. She has pieces forthcoming in Sugar House Review and SAND Journal Berlin. You can find her on Twitter @elisacwrites.
Elisa Rowe
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
our streets, lowering their bodies into a ditch.
summer preachers, rabbis, priests blessed
One summer the cameras came. That one
while stylists braid ladies’ hair.
pupusas, men laughing in chairs outside a salon
We are the forgotten West Roxbury. Arepas,
The coyotes sleep there during the day. The shaking ground, a lullaby.
I live in a sea of cemeteries, by an island of quarries.
rainbow slick oil, a barreling train underneath my house.
I sleep unsure if a quarry’s rumbles will spark
What I mean is, they still built the pipeline. Each night
or all the people I ask, won’t you help me remember?
Community
Elisa Rowe
how could you not have known?
then we are history. My city echoing back,
Me, learning that if justice is a trend
We forgot them, of course.
singing about light. They were arrested, of course.
COMMUNITY
Their swinging feet drumming a metal pipe, their mouths
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97
Their swinging feet drumming a metal pipe, their mouths singing about light.
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By Elisa Crawley From “To Our Readers Regarding ‘ Scholls Ferry Rd.’ by Michael Dickman” by the Editors of Poetry Magazine
To Our Readers
Elisa Rowe
and that
TO OUR READERS
99
the editorial process , and we apologize. Our commitment to this work is ongoing and changes in the magazine’s structure and process
our readers. We regret not taking serious action sooner to interrogate
work to do in considering how poems center certain voices and affect
of racism within white families; this was a mistake. We clearly have more
and wrong. We published this poem because we read it as an indictment
This poem centers whiteness and employs racist language, which is hurtful
criticisms of the decision to publish this poem.
are grateful to readers who have reached out with their questions and
Black, Pacific Islander, and Asian people, and we are deeply sorry. We
such language is insidious, and in this case is particularly oppressive to
We acknowledge that this poem contains racist language
Leslie Neustadt Leslie Neustadt is a poet, writer, visual artist, and the author of Bearing Fruit: A Poetic Journey . Her work is inspired by the beauty and power of the natural world, mortal joys and struggles, and an unwavering commitment to human and civil rights. Leslie left a career in law as New York Assistant Attorney General to focus on her health after being diagnosed with blood cancer. She has found the restorative power of the creative process instrumental in helping her to thrive while living with chronic illness. A passionate advocate for the rights of children, Leslie cherishes family and dreams of a day when every child will have the opportunity to reach his or her potential through unfettered access to good nutrition, healthcare, safe housing, and quality education. A board member of the International Women’s Writing Guild, she is honored to be partof its inaugural mentoring project. Visit www.leslieneustadt.com.
Mourner’s Kaddish for James Chaney, Michael Schwermer, and Andrew Goodman, murdered while trying to register Black voters in Mississippi.
I’ve been rerunning the movie of my life as a 70-year-old Jewish woman
through the lens of white privilege. Of admitting that I have looked at life
justice, justice, shalt thou pursue,” as well as the obligation to perform, Tikkun Olam, repair of the world. I am involved with the social action
I learned that some people have black skin around the same age. For a
brief time, we lived as if we were wealthy. Ernestine came to live with us.
103
obligation to make a difference. I was raised with the exhortation,
stoned by three parochial students, who yelled, you killed Christ, you kike!
STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE
understand the sordid underbelly of American society and my
Ira, pounded on our door, head bloodied, screaming for help. He had been
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
marches in the sixties. He played a seminal role in my coming to
introduced to anti-Semitism as a four-year-old when my brother’s friend,
102
He knew the dangers of hatred and fascism and joined the civil rights
Both religion and race have informed my sense of social justice. I was
Rabbi Zimet escaped the Nazis and fled to America in the late 1930’s.
white bystanders rejoiced. I remember the day my rabbi had us chant the
Teshuva, the Jewish obligation to confess one’s sins and resolve to do better.
through a black and white TV.
and hoses wrapped in barbed wire. How tear gas clouded the air while
Saw state troopers set upon peaceful protestors with batons, whips
I was 15-years-old when I watched the events of Bloody Sunday unfold.
white and could pass even with my frizzy hair and Semitic features.
the stark contrast in how Jews and Blacks were treated. I was considered
me to pull down my bathing suit to show them I was white. I understood
Allowed. We were tan and the guard wouldn’t let us enter. My uncle told
I went to the ocean with my Uncle George. There was a sign, No Blacks
I was seven when I went to visit my grandparents in Miami Beach, Florida.
was beautiful.
I have spent my days since George Floyd’s death in reflection, making
Stepping Up to the Plate
Leslie Neustadt
She was the first woman of African ancestral heritage I met. I thought she
white skin. I realize that Americans of African ancestral heritage and other people of color, have had to cope with being judged on the basis
I understood that my education had been as segregated as in the South.
Meritocracy was an illusion.
every day because of police brutality. To be imprisoned in greater proportions than whites, sickened in greater numbers. To live in polluted areas. Isabel Wilkerson, in her new book, Caste , suggests that caste, in addition to race, is a useful way to see how much class and color have
father, who had a raging temper. It broke me open in a way that allowed
me to develop empathy. As Rumi wrote, the wound is the place the light
enters. However, over my lifetime, I allowed residual shame and PTSD to
stand in the way of my effective advocacy.
people of African ancestral heritage, and other people of color, who have succeeded. They have made invaluable contributions to our
courts could help dismantle systemic racism and sexism. We have failed
in a myriad of ways.
is richer for their contributions.
Stephanie Alston Nero, Uzuri Amini, Juanita Kirton, Cynthia Manick, and
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE
105
racism, indifference and ignorance of white people, continue to corrupt
of Black poets, novelists, historians and journalists, as well as writers from
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But the vestiges of enslavement, the veneration of the confederacy, virulent
have read journals of enslaved peoples, and immersed myself in the writing
Pamela Sneed, as well as other teachers who helped shape me as a writer. I
technical and industrial advances as well as in sports. American culture
I have studied with Black writers at IWWG, such as Dorothy Randall Gray,
society. Opened our eyes with literature, music, films, scientific, medical,
There are hundreds of thousands of men, women, other gendered
at Temple Law School gave me hope that congressional action and the
Racism infuses all aspects of American society. Taking civil rights courses
in housing, education, health care, and employment. To risk their lives
a child that filled my marrow with shame. I was sexually abused by my
determined peoples’ opportunities in American society.
and experience erased. To be deprived of a multiplicity of opportunities
I was moved by the suffering of African Americans. I carried secrets as
of their skin throughout American history. To have their unique gifts
In focusing on white privilege, I don’t want to be judged solely by my
of Black, Indigenous, and other writers of color.
other cultures. I’ve come to appreciate the rage, brilliance and spirituality
studied with Black students and professors in college and law school,
Throughout my schooling, I was placed in enrichment classes. Once I
arm of Reform Judaism.
devastation, and climate crisis, demonstrate the danger of systemic racism and poverty. We are faced with a corrupt and autocratic regime that has
I weep for Black families for the anguish and anger they carry because of
white people’s prejudice and cruelty.
that women must play a central role in the fight for justice.
racism infects health care. I’ve had the means and opportunity to go to
empowering young women of color and encouraging the interchange of ideas. I am humbled by the brilliant young women and mentors, led by Nakia Hill. My searching self-examination has been fueled by my involvement in the mentoring program. I come with cultural humility, knowing that I must divest myself of white privilege if we are to create a just society.
I have been mourning John Lewis. He warned us that democracy is not a state, but an action. He risked his life for the right to vote. It is long overdue for us to cross thebridge with him and work toward the Beloved community envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King.
His symptoms had been ignored. His illness misdiagnosed. His heart,
severely damaged. He had just been told he was dying. His life was no
less precious than mine. He died while I survived. The pandemic has
highlighted the egregious discrimination people of color and impoverished
people face in the health care system.
While we elected Barack Obama as President, systemic racism remains
firmly in place. The backlash that brought us President Trump is
terrifying. As if it was the last gasp for whites seeking to maintain
control. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court defanged the Voting Rights
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voting laws that threaten the fairness of our democracy. It is the 55th 107
agency. IWWG, under theleadership of Michelle Miller, is committed to
was bowled over in his wheelchair, his daughters weeping at his side.
STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE
color, as well as other marginalized communities, are given power and
illness. One day I met a Black man and his daughters at the hospital. He
Act, and many States immediately re-established discriminatory
I am committed to ensuring that Black, indigenous, and other women of
cancer. Diagnosed early, I have fared better than 90% of patients with my
research meetings and learn about the nature of my rare form of blood
and immigrants. This election is the turning point in our society. I believe
Being ill with a rare illness has given me an understanding of how
fueled hatred of Muslims, people of color, refugees, the LBGTQ community
There is urgency in the fight for racial justice. The pandemic, economic
anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the right to vote is imperiled.
going out to jog or walk to the corner store. As a mother and grandmother,
still have to give their children the talk. They face the possibility of death by
our society. No matter how educated, successful or talented, Black people
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I often scare the lyric from my pen. While my keyboard sleeps,
but will it serve your voice?
Leslie.
Yours,
Asiyah, As-Salaam-Alaikum.
sliced open by being alive?
As a mentor, I questioned if I was up to the task, what with the pale
drape of my skin? The rhythm of my poetry may fit my tongue
What do I have to offer you but a heart,
Wordsmiths, we meet in sacred space.
LETTER TO ASIYAH
You entrusted me to witness your righteous anger.
Mama, Mama, Mama—Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead.
The horror of George Floyd’s last plea—
This spring, I couldn’t breathe.
He’s been busted, but he’s alive.
Ben, my baby, wears a hoodie at night.
I’m someone’s mama, too.
Privilege has given me flight: Leslie B. Neustadt, Esq.,
I’m always learning, Asiyah. Curious. And willing.
I, too, just want to live — wrinkled and wizened—and write.
Sick much of my life, this body is a riot, rebellious, then besieged.
But my arches have collapsed, my bones are turning to dust.
I’ve tried to find the path to your house.
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I talk to trees, hear stones whisper, believe in the divinity of sweet peas.
If only I were a hummingbird, I’d drink the honeysuckle dry.
The first time I heard you recite a poem, I was left breathless.
Shalom, Asiyah.
by Marj Hahne
After “Letter to Madeleine and Cassidy from Longmont”
Letter to Asiyah from Niskayuna, New York
Letter to Asiyah
Leslie Neustadt
I flit faster than my bird’s-egg body can handle.
Lara Miller Lara Miller, 13, is a Chinese-American middle school student, born in Jiangxi, China,raised in Southern California and Boston, MA, and currently residing in Providence, Rhode Island. She is proud of her heritage and committed to racial equity in the U.S. and around the world. She is a cellist and loves dance, martial arts and the serenity of the ocean in Martha’s Vineyard and Truro, MA. She is constantly inspired by the philanthropic goals of her mother, and the diversity efforts of the Wheeler School, where she is in 7th grade, in Providence.
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
An intimate member of a lineage from Ireland to Denmark.
A stranger to my birth parents in the Central Kingdom
I am torn down the middle with no patch to sew me back up.
The blanket is torn, hugged by a patch.
Am I yellow or white?
Beautiful Country
Central Kingdom to
Carried with white arms from Zhong Guo to Mei Guo
Born in China, wrapped in a pale yellow blanket
Identity of a Daughter
Lara Miller
IDENTITY OF A DAUGHTER
And the Beautiful Country to bless me with holy water.
Waiting for the Central Kingdom to welcome its daughter
A pandemic of dynasties crushing nomads.
A virus of torn blankets, forbidden history, forgotten blood
Simultaneous worldwide transmission
Transmitted to America
Born among exotic animals
I came from wet markets
Civets and bats breed global panic
Wet markets smell of smoke and fire
Vulnerable to foreigners. Exposed to a virus.
I am unprotected.
A Great Wall protects dynasties from nomadic invasions.
A Forbidden City is inaccessible to ordinary citizens.
Blood matters. Belonging matters.
I am forbidden a history that belongs in my blood and bones.
American-Chinese
Chinese-American
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Kristyna M. Young Kristyna M. Young is a photographer, photographer, filmmaker and artist. They have a passion for documentary and narrative filmmaking. Kristyna specializes in directing, production design, cinematography, lighting, and postproduction editing. They are currently broadening their creative expression by exploring new mediums and learning more in-depth about different artistic disciplines such as animation, architecture, creative writing, sewing, painting, and printmaking. Kristyna graduated from Boston University’s College of Communication in 2019 with a bachelor of science in film and television and a minor in psychology.
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Because they want to steal it for their benefit.
I’ll let you run with all your power and your might,
Because they want you to stay silent.
I’ll let you scream at the top of your lungs,
Because they want our roots severed.
I’ll be patient with brushing your hair,
Untitled
Kristyna M. Young
UNTITLED
117
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
1
Not always
I May not be able to see.
(and even sometimes, yourself,)
the surface, where others
You are expanding beneath
Do you feel grounded?
Root Chakra Check:
Kristyna M. Young
On the surfaces, you walk upon?
The textural changes,
ROOT CHAKRA CHECK
the remains of saying good morning to the earth.
Footprints on your yoga when washing away
Free feet only to leave slightly muddy
with your bare Fingers and
Or did you dig in the dirt
Are you wearing comfy socks?
Do you feel nourished?
2 Have you felt with your bare skin
The dew-covered blades of grass
Maneuvered themselves through
Have your toes touched the ground?
Can you still feel yourself expanding?
I feel. Can you?
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Do you feel secure?
Janika Oza, 26, is a writer and settlement worker based in Toronto. She has received fellowships from VONA, Tin House, and One Story, and is currently at work on a novel. She finds joy in growing food and nurturing community with other writers of colour.
Janika Oza
a name to the belonging, to the generations of movement and migration that have allowed me, for the first time, to come back. When I share the image, I am aware that it is 4 A.M. back home,
Services stamp, as I withdraw the single sheet of paper informing me that
my work visa renewal application has been denied, a letter reminding me
that I should not have gotten comfortable here, that I cannot stay.
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push. In pushing, to cross borders.
present.
CARVING SPACE
boundaries of that space. To find the seams of the boundaries, and then
am consumed by the blank page, unable to see beyond the most uncertain
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
I know this is why I write: to make a space for myself. To discover the
on stable ground. I open my journal to write and find no words. Instead, I
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---
space of my own.
distance best friend. I am hungry for connection and belonging, to stand
That night, I Skype my parents, text my brother, call my long-
My ancestral village, I write. In writing, I make a claim to something. I put
My fingers are steady as I tear through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
that few will be awake to receive it. Still, I send it out, needing this
phone, my reflections slipping out as quickly as my thumbs will allow.
and family weddings. Instead, I make a tiny space from the screen of my
the moments I usually steal for writing consumed by family and weddings
weight of what I feel. For the last two weeks I have spent not a minute alone,
favourite photos of the village, write a caption that I hope will capture the
As we drive away through miles of desert grit, I slide filters over my
that is and isn’t mine.
mother if they feel it too. This is ancestry, I think, coming back to a place
the dust, the land all pulse as if alive, and I want to ask my brother, my
across the crumbling alcove where my grandfather was born. The stones,
my family’s home. There are no walls, and the light of the setting sun falls
In a village in Rajasthan, I stand amidst the rubble of what was once
The envelope is thin enough that I know what it will say. Still, I hope.
Carving Space
Janika Oza
---
smile and an endless well of care, says to me, you’re so cute. I can find you someone to marry. Then she opens her arms. A place for me between them. I laugh, tears leaking from my eyes.
my eyes. I have never done this before, and I do not know if it will work.
But I have come to understand that my students, first-graders, five and six-
year olds, notice things like swollen eyelids, a voice rusted from tiredness,
violent as cleaving a country in two. My line of fathers settled in Uganda for generations before they were forced under a dictatorship to flee. Seeking asylum from a home they could no longer inhabit. These are histories I do not remember, though they live in my bones. Ancestry surpasses memory, I think, as I roll socks into neat piles, wipe the refrigerator clean. The weight of the suitcase in my hand is a privilege I am afforded because of my histories.
apple sauce and tell stories about my new kitten, as I do every day. Routine,
too, is the warm melt that settles over my chest, watching crowds of black
and brown faces eating, yelling, laughing. The school was founded by a
group of parents who felt that the city’s public schools were not serving
children of colour adequately, pooling together to build their own space of
focused support, care, and growth. This school is no haven, not sheltered
from the realities facing racialized youth in Boston. Still, it is a space that is
choices and the trauma from when there were none. I am finding ways to hold both.
privilege in this: I can finish the school year, pack my apartment, and
travel back to Canada, where my family migrated years ago. I can make
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125
but decisions no less. When I write, I carry both the intention behind these
government has decided it no longer has space for me. I understand my
CARVING SPACE
of a job. A series of calculated risks, perhaps, decisions under pressure,
I think of this as I walk into the principal’s office to tell her that the
choices, take things, settle back into a comfortable life. Still, I ache. The
My parents’ choice to move to Canada, baby in tow, following the promise
leave India for London, searching for an elusive place to build a better life. ---
it is a space of survival.
I also come from a long line of choices. My grandfather’s choice to
British during Partition, my family one of millions displaced. A reality as
the tilt of my world. At breakfast duty, I wipe milk spills and tear pods of
theirs, a community formed around common needs and dreams. For many,
in Karachi, finding herself on the wrong side of the border carved by the
I come from a long line of displacement. My grandmother, a Hindu born
My classroom the next morning is alive as if a letter has not shifted
my hair.
---
of a life that I cannot take with me. The principal, a woman with a wide
The night I receive the letter, I place waterlogged chamomile tea bags over
a heavy heart. It is them that I think about as the leftover tea dribbles into
relationships, the places, the subway routes and daily details are fragments
---
my photo, my chai growing a milky skin beside me. Thank you for sharing , they say, grateful for your insights. Can’t waits to hear more. I am reminded of how I feel each time I publish a story or an essay, every poem shuttled into the world. Each piece a mouth. Each a shoot, roots burrowing back and face unfurled to the sun. In this scene I am surrounded, a forest of us. There is no unity in our voices, but there is collectivity.
can be valued for their full selves. As a teacher, I worked to make my
classroom safe and familiar, filling the shelves with storybooks by Edwidge
Danticat and Yangsook Choi and Maya Angelou. As a writer I seek out
communities that value voices from the periphery, communities founded
on shared understandings, that choose to listen first, that strive to lift each
other up, that thirst for more stories, our stories, ours. This is sustenance,
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
CARVING SPACE
127
displacement means to hunger for belonging. My lineage tells me where I
to someone, something, as solely theirs. A belonging so expansive it defied
126
from a dictator, a thin envelope arriving in the mail. To have a history of
loud, here.
slipped down into the waiting soil. My mother grew up not knowing who
family, without having to lay claim
to define us. We find one another and press our heels into the soil, visible,
rained they threw their sleeping mats into the courtyard and, laughing,
in the space of a moment, a new border erected, a radio announcement
that wasn’t always ours. In writing, we resist erasure, the forces that seek
the lot. At night the siblings would sleep up on the rooftop, and when it
require walls, an innate knowing that each of them could exist in this
their own stories, offering their truths. On the page, we reenact the agency
of aunts and uncles who were all their parents, enough grandparents for
Fault lines live close. My ancestry teaches me how everything can be undone
come from. It connects me to the present, to so many others who are telling
dozens of cousins who were never anything but brothers and sisters; tens
was a borderless family and home. A space so much their own that it didn’t
Still I do it. It guides me back to my own histories, to understanding where I
mothers, fathers, siblings were fluid, interchangeable. She was raised with
---
it brings reflection, invites others to share. Always, it feels naked, unready.
My mother grew up with many mothers. In her family home in India,
her birth mother was, because that kind of claiming didn’t matter. Theirs
woman across the city, who I later meet over coffee and cake. Sometimes,
---
Sometimes, writing brings connection. An email sent to me from a
I catch a few bars of service and scroll eagerly through the comments on
As parents and educators, we build homes and schools where our children
nourishment. This is necessary.
---
is what it means to be free.
boundaries. I remind myself that this is where I come from. I imagine this
carving out a space for ourselves, swaddling our existence in community.
I do not say survival lightly. For many of us on the margins, survival means
---
---
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HEELS INTO THE SOIL
On the page, I continue. I write to belong; I write to endure. I write to stay.
They defy the logic imposed on us, that we must split apart to thrive.
borders, boundless, uninhibited by the confines we navigate every day.
and yet, has made me. If these spaces exist for us, they also exist beyond
soil under forest and rain filling oceans. A cycle that moves without me,
write in order to tell this story, but this story informs all that I write. It is
Each time I write, I tell this story, even when I don’t. That is to say, I don’t
refuse to disappear.
a space to fill and overflow. In telling our stories we resist the silence, we
the spaces between, we search for connection, for safety and validation,
uproot and resettle. Of choices, pressures, actions driven by survival. In
come from and I where I can no longer go. Each generation tells a story of
CARVING SPACE
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Boston College Neighborhood Fund
Beacon Hill Civic Foundation
Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture
International Women’s Writing Guild
Funding for this book was made possible by:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Kristyna M. Young
Jacquinn Sinclair
Camarah Oates
Janika Oza
Leslie Neustadt
Lara Miller
Marangela James
J.B. Hunter
Nakia Hill
Ayelen Herrera
Asiyah Herrera
Elisa Crawley
Authors
Acknowledgements
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Cathleen O’Connor, PhD, Chair
Nakia Hill
Catharina Coenen, PhD, Director
Angelina Vallejo
HEELS INTO THE SOIL
Executive Director, Michelle Miller
International Women’s Writing Guild
Cynthia Manick, Director
Courtney Moy
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Paula Scardamalia, Director
Leslie Neustadt, Director
Marisa Mok-Unger, Director
Juanita Kirton, PhD, Director
Designer
Kelly Dumar, Director
Christie Cruise, PhD, Director
Caridad Pineiro, Secretary
Copyeditor
Hope Player, Treasurer
Laura Kieley, Vice Chair
IWWG Board of Directors
Book Project Director
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We’re creating a place where we craft our stories, grow our souls, and change our world.
We’re also growing our digital village where we can gather in community from anywhere we are in the world.
We’re ushering in a movement of mighty, soulful women writers. Together, we’re changing the way women writers’ stories get heard, crafted, and spread around the globe.
We refuse to let the voices of emboldened women writers go unheard.
We’ve been listening to women writers around the world. Many of us yearn for writing and publishing resources, friendship, self-expression, professional writing guidance, and development of craft. Many of us yearn for a community, but may not have the means or time to travel to a Guild event in person.
Now, after 40 years of enriching women writers’ lives, we are still growing and changing with the times. We have a robust membership, a membership publication, a signature summer conference, and a dynamic and growing list of established regional conferences.
We wanted to make a place where all women writers feel welcome, inspired, and empowered by skills, resources, and mentoring.
The Guild was founded in 1976. As a women’s writing guild, we are culturally diverse.From the beginning, we’ve represented women from many backgrounds.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S WRITING GUILD MISSION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
135