Kiese Says, Black People Deserve Beautiful Sentences, but a Fragment is the Best I Can Do / Songbook for the Names I Have Been Called
I might be
The most beautiful Black bitch you’ve ever seen
The least original sunrise
I might be
darker than the dark velvet of the moon
Might be the slow creep of comfort edging you back
Might be joy’s affirmative call to action
Be the huckleberry grown fat, fuck with sweetness
Be the ugly moan of pleasure bust open
Be
As lopsided as the bountiful branch of the fruiting tree
More fragile than the silence of untroubled water
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble
I might be
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Song of My Softening by Omotara James is available via Alice James.
Omotara James
Omotara James is the author of Song of My Softening (Alice James Books, 2024), featured on NPR’s "Morning Edition" and the Washington Post Book Club. She is a New York City-based writer, editor, and teaching artist. Her poems appear in print and online in The American Poetry Review, BOMB, The Nation, and elsewhere. James is the recipient of the 2023 J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from the Poetry Foundation, fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Cave Canem Foundation, Lambda Literary, and support from the African Poetry Book Fund.
