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Mariama Savage, performing at The Roxbury Poetry Festival in Boston, MA.
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Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.
We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.
Dear rachel Do you know what it's like to be a Contradiction To be filled with so much light it's Amazing your oppressors don't see the Goddess in you You see being both black and woman is Far more than what the media makes it Out to be it's more than big lips wide Hips brown skin a fat ass and weave it's Generations of stories being intertwined Beneath the constellation of your skin a Bloodstream pumping with afrobeats Bearing a genetic cold less guideline And more a diaspora of possibilities Being embodiment a swiss chocolate come To life moving and having desire Ricochet from your limbs having a thick Yet of ebony curls so voluminous and Woolly even your thoughts get lost in Them it's learning To hate yourself It's learning that history hates you too Because you see we never really learned Of the serie bachmann or any of the Lacks of history rather were informed of A conflict between the confederates and The union a warfare over slaves never Really for them and told that bree was Wrong for making history when she tore Down that flag it's knowing you'll Always be the straw to break the camel's Back or at least that the cop at the Pool party had every right intention and
Warrant to break yours it's embodying The blues and being the epitome of Sorrow it's raising a generation of pain Instead of children who will grow up to Be in ethnic studies class and feel a Lot more minority than foreign it's Waking up to a world that's convinced That your pain is only relative and Being feisty sad confused angry and Ratchet because of it it's having a Cupid's bow so sharp that when Addressing your concerns all anyone ever Dares to hear is the venom in your Vernacular it's skin That looks and feels a lot more like Bruises than armor to be black and woman Is to be raped and abducted from your Homeland or killed in a jail cell and Only ever seen to make the news once and Experience a lot like being burning Water A strong struggle beautifully ugly Hateful and lovely prized but mistreated It's writing a poem that makes you cry Before the ink's done bleeding and Knowing You'll never be enough Not dark white enough for the italian Boy across the room to ever admit to Liking you and not daughter enough for The deadbeat daddy to want to stick Around is trying not to be the bastard Statistic that society's made you out to Be instead opting to be the roles that
Grew from concrete but first needing to Overcome the internalized self-hatred That's eradicating your very essence so Rachel what do you mean when you claim To be black but not african what do you Mean when you act as if you're willing To embody our struggle but not sit fully Into a struggle that comes along with it To be black a woman is not to be one Third convenient in two thirds cupid Shuffles no one gives a damn about Whether or not you know how much sugar To put in the kool-aid it's about Instead of imitating the voices of my Brothers and sisters just being the Microphone that amplifies us so When i ask you this It's not out of the idea of reverse Racism or out of black rage but out of Wondering Why couldn't you have just been more Ally Than imposter [Applause]
