I had the privilege last month of working with the poets and performers who make up WordPlay Cincy’s Scribe Poetry Team. Led by spoken word artist, Desirae Hosley, Cincy Scribes is a positive, upbeat community to explore identity, culture, current events and the media through poetry and creative self-expression. I loved their commitment to words—and to each other. Check out all of WordPlay’s work on their website. Here’s the poem we made.
We Are From WordPlay
Where are you from?
you ask.
I am from tears and mess and compromise.
I am from Cincinnati, the land of granite,
from sunken eyelids and bony hips.
I am from those places caught
between past and present lies,
from the split moment terrors
I get when I think of how my rapist is free.
I am from the powerful words
my mother made sure were in my lungs
since she knew that with the color of my skin,
people wouldn’t listen when I had to speak.
I am from a place where an orange runs a country—
no tea, no shade, but isn’t that funny.
I am from a crowd surf
of different hands and ideas.
In this beautiful fictional far off place,
every day is a gift to live and grow,
borders dissolved and no one owns the land.
I am from sticky rice and vinegar,
from teaching fish to dance,
from individuality and the correlation
between different and unique.
I am from the crack in the picture frame
that lets you reach inside to touch it.
WordPlay Cincy Scribes: Anais, Cat, Daphne, Keshawn, Lilly, and Sol
September 16, 2017
with Cincinnati Poet Laureate Pauletta Hansel
(Look for our poem, too, on the I am From Project’s Facebook Page. This national project, co-founded by former Kentucky Poet Laureate George Ella Lyon, aims to build a quilt, a scroll, a multimedia display, a swell of voices, a collection of poems “in celebration of the diversity and beauty of who we are.”)
I will take this opportunity, too, to share a little about “where I’m from” in my tenure as Cincinnati’s first Poet Laureate! As I enter my final six months in this role, I invite you to view a list of all we have done together during this time, with links to the many poems co-created with Cincinnati’s writers, here.
Pauletta Hansel 