poetry is not a luxury club featuring UNRULY (july 13th)

"For within structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. Feelings were meant to kneel to thought as we were meant to kneel to men. But women have survived. As poets." Audre Lorde, Poetry is Not a Luxury

First the good stuff…there is a space called the POETRY IS NOT A LUXURY CLUB, curated by Sasadya Jayde as part of The Gathering. The club is featuring my poetry collection, UNRULY, for its first meeting on July 13th and I am beyond excited for so many reasons.

One, I have always always always said that UNRULY should be held in a collective container where we come together to explore the pages of UNRULY, and to also explore how she moves through us. I have held this desire to create community around my book, though I have not had capacity to do so. However, that a sister is out here creating this space 🥹🥹🥹. And then also featuring my work. 🥹🥹🥹. This is both a prayer and an answer.

Then, to ground this poetry club in the framework of Audre Lorde is manna. Though I read Lorde's essay "Poetry is Not a Luxury" when I taught Narrative Medicine, I have not returned to this offering while focusing on publishing. I needed to return to Lorde to remember and honor the work I have been doing on the page with UNRULY. How my work denounces sterility and word play. How my work emerged from my own body being broken open, how I could not be contained, how poetry met me on the surgery table encouraging me to come back to my body so that I could tell it. How language had been cut out of me and I had to reconstruct language in multiple acts of survival.

The Antoinette who was writing to save her life would never have imagined that as she learned to respect and transcribe the language of her body, she would create work that embodies ancestral and collective permission to feel, and feel deeply while being in community.

Thank you to my mothers.

Register: Poetry is Not a Luxury Club, featuring UNRULY
7/13 from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST

Purchase UNRULY at bookshop.org

Read more about the Poetry is Not a Luxury Club.

Listen to my What is Collective Healing? Podcast interview about UNRULY

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Support my debut book UNRULY, Legacy Book Press, LLC 2025

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