VISUAL ART

“Infinity: 1991-92”

Grambling State is a historically Black university in northern Louisiana. Their mascot is a tiger. They once bioengineered their own strain of catfish. The theme of their 1991-1992 yearbook was "Infinity." That year, students protested the senate campaign of Klan leader David Duke and the acquittal of officers who ripped Rodney King from a Hyundai. I purchased “Infinity” for $2.99 at Savers in Kansas City. This poem uses images and text from the yearbook.

Full poem at Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art / Southern Humanities Review

“Light Attire”

This collage is composed of descriptions and photographs of Black women and girls found on police missing flyers and the FBI’s Most Wanted list. The piece reflects on the ways Black women and girls are neglected, reduced, and fused together; how we are violently sought after and violently forgotten.

first published in Poetry Magazine and displayed at Charlotte Street Foundation’s With Liberty and Justice exhibit in 2021.

“March 16, 1991”

Published in Asian American Writers’ 'Workshop’s Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities

“6888”

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was a collective of Black women deployed overseas during World War II. They processed a two-year backlog of wartime mail in the course of a few months. Using Oulipo's N+7 game, this poem reimagines the history of the battalion.

Find full poem published in Georgia Review

*Photographs sourced from National Archives and the U.S. Signal Corps.

Other visual art:

“Triple Threat” and “Perfect Finish” Ninth Letter