Editorial Stencil Studio Lab comic by Noe Barba Mercado. Stencil Studio Lab es una editorial independiente de comics ubicados en Guadalajra Jalisco Mexico, fundada por padre e hijo.
Pueden encontrar sus comics en Alcon Media, LLC y el Centro de la Dignidad.
Also see our February 15 post: “The Sankofa Migration: Poetry from the Black Prisoners Caucus of Washington State Penitentiary”
One of those things that seems so obvious to me that I don't understand why everyone doesn't know it already
When are we going to stop pretending
That emotions are anything other than
Gifts of insight from our ancestors
Reaching into our deeper minds
Granting us wisdom that can't be sought
Through analyzing and intellectualizing?
— Sara Quinn
Carry The Torch
We often take this moment to recognize the greats of our lifetime.
We talk about Martin Luther King and his dream.
Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court ideals that he would redeem.
We speak of W.E.B Du Bois and the NAACP
Malcom X and the radical change that he would bring.
Rosa Parks and her persistence for resistance.
And the way that John Lewis would become one of the truest, and the good trouble that he would leave.
We honor the Fred Hamptons, Angela Davises, and Daisy Bates, of our universal family.
And we do so with power, grace, and dignity.
But today I want to acknowledge the spirit that came from them.
The energy that we all carry intrinsically within, that lights the way when we can’t see.
The small stitches on the tapestry that we’ve all been blessed to be included in,
the one that consistently reminds us to push forward.
To begin again.
So today I want to say,
Thank you to the Eugene Goodmans,
for pushing when you didn’t have to. For giving when your own blessings have been past due.
To the 5 Black queens in 2019 who all had a dream of wearing a crown.
Including Miss South Africa Zozibini Tunzi crowned Miss Universe, and who did so unconcerned about making a sound
You made it look so, but WE know, that it couldn’t have been easy.
That the world wasn’t breezy, what a metaphor for a Queen that looks like you to represent in a way that we already know to be true.
Thank you to the Nikole Hannah-Joneses, The Colin Kaepernicks, the Kimberley Joneses and Misha Greens.
To the Stacy Abrams who carry entire cities on their backs leaving no room for slack.
To make change that our country clearly lacks
Most times with not so much as a hand clap.
Rooms full of angry faces staring back,
At a woman determined to lead.
Thank you to the Judge Ketanji Brown Jacksons
For standing up when so many choose to sit down,
For barreling through a justice system that has been known to hold us to the ground
Yet you still reached up through glass ceilings to the top.
Thank you for choosing to never stop.
To the Amanda Gormans, Nippsy Hussles, Cicely Tysons, and Serena Williams,
To the Angelica Rosses, Issa Raes, and Little Miss Flint’s Mari Cepenys, of our lifetime
In a time full of darkness you shine anyways,
Reminding us all what it means to persevere
Beyond criticism, beyond challenges, and beyond roadblocks, you fight in your own ways for better days.
You stand in the gap for so many, carrying the torch of those that came before you with so much grace.
And to all of you right now, hearing me, or reading this in all of your beautiful shades of brown,
A thank you I also share to you,
Like the ones that I have named today, you too walk out the spirit of those that came before us, with every display of love, and in every breath that you take
With your own colors, painted in your own ways,
We carry the torch and we commit to bringing light the shades of grey
For the ones looking up to remember where they’re going, and for those that have gone forward to remember from which they came,
Roses grown from concrete of of a nation built from sin
And yet we still walk forward determined to win
Great men like Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote chapters in this book about Unity, about resistance, and about following the light within.
I am blessed to be a part of a global family that is determined to write more and more, to continue, and as many times as it takes to start over again and again,
Blessed are we,
despite every tribulation and triumph,
every low and every battle.
To be filled with magic, melanin, and thick skin,
to walk in the footsteps of those that pushed the needle, great women and great men.
At the end of the day it is not about whether or not our torch burns,
The light is obvious, bright, and like the sun warms regardless of who buys out or buys in,
But who will continue to carry it on,
Big or small a difference is being made,
When we decide to pick it up and walk with it throughout our days,
In ways that we might even deem as mundane
With every action we find a lane to pray
To display the fight within us all
To continue to strive for better days,
So today I sit in gratitude, making sure to give due praise.
To ALL of the greats, big and small, past and present, for the power that you portray,
For continuing to carry the torch.
Again,
Thank you.
- Daishaundra Loving-Hearne
Poet, writer, social justice advocate, and choreographer Daishaundra Loving-Hearne is no stranger to the arts or the power they hold. She is the CEO of Urban Poets Society and Loving Hearne, LLC, both organizations in our community centering the youth, art, empowerment, and mental and emotional wellness through a social justice & DEI lens.
EL AMANECER DEL HOGAR
Enclavado en la montaña con su corona de nubes y ruanas de bruma fina amanece la familia diversa de la naturaleza;
con sus trinos y rocío
abraza con rayos luminosos de sol a todos sus integrantes, y con los colores del arco iris va pintando una vida entera de esperanza;
el suave viento que murmulla alienta a elevar el vuelo de las aves, ejerciendo libertad de recorrer un cielo que agresivamente y poco a poco ha sido invadido por la modernidad.
Cada hijo, hija, abuelo, abuela
con su tiempo inicia labores de supervivencia
sin premuras y con la armonía que una matrona llamada montaña empieza sus labores hogareñas aparecen esos hijos humanos sin arraigo, donde sus valores son:
el tener, el poder y el explotar una madre que se enorgullecen al nombrarla escondiendo su esencia sombría del pensamiento mercantilista guerrero que manipula y desmiembra un hogar que con tanto amor le brinda la madre montaña.
Bien se ha dicho que todos los dedos de la mano no son iguales
pero qué tal si nos preguntamos cuál es el punto de enlace entre todos los diversos elementos del hogar natural, y cerramos contestando con simpleza y verdad
¿Cuál es nuestra esencia?
— Otto White
THE DAWN OF HOME
Nestled in the mountain with its crown of clouds and ruanas of fine mist, the diverse family of nature dawns;
with its trills and dew
it embraces all its members with luminous rays of sunlight, and with the colors of the rainbow it paints an entire life of hope;
The soft murmuring wind encourages the birds to take flight, exercising freedom to roam a sky that has been aggressively and little by little invaded by modernity.
Every son, daughter, grandfather, grandmother
With time he begins survival work
without haste and with the harmony that a matron called mountain begins her household chores, those human children without roots appear, where their values are:
having, power and exploiting a mother that they are proud to name, hiding its shadowy essence from the mercantilist warrior thought that manipulates and dismembers a home that the mother mountain provides with so much love.
It has been well said that all the fingers of the hand are not equal.
But what if we ask ourselves what is the point of connection between all the various elements of the natural home, and we close by answering with simplicity and truth?
What is our essence?
— Otto White
Otto es un poeta de Macondo, pueden encontrar más de él en Instagram: @ottowhite7
Otto is a poet from Macondo. You can find more of him on Instagram: @ottowhite7
Specific Details
Drowning in the time allotted for truce,
we manufacture spare hearts
in case we lose the hearts each of us has.
We’re uncertain of life’s worth
on the slipping edge,
yet it seems hope can’t be shelled all at once.
The minute details of war,
poison gas we can’t thwart
from settling our blood,
can’t even grab fear to toss it whole
outside our flesh. Dear God,
anxiety’s beat within us is louder
than a proximal bomb, but tell me
how will you convince the world
that the forest has no drum?
Specific details
fix our feet in place
as the house runs and runs
leaving its stones (its children)
behind: body parts,
fragments in memory.
— Hosam Maarouf, Gaza
Translated by Fady Joudah
Read more at:
thebaffler.com/logical-revolts/poems-from-palestine
