These poems are part of a special section of the Mid-Atlantic Review, Celebrating Black History, and selected by editors Khadijah Ali-Coleman, Carolivia Herron, and Rebecca Bishophall. To learn more about this series read a blog post on the Day Eight website here.
Hair Braiding Salon (The Surrogate Sisterhood)
This knitting, precise
Narratives—woven just so.
Our crowns—queens, transformed.
Break-Dancing (The Boogie-Down Bronx)
Sculpture comes alive
Their moves—sharp, rhythmic, fluid
Poetry sans words.
Harlem Nightclub (1941)
Jazz: phrases, feelings
Sweet, smoke tinged halls. Bodies press
In love, fleeting joy.
Marta Holliday is an Associate Professor in the Department of Languages and Literatures at Alabama State University, where she has taught since 2011. Dr. Holliday earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English (with a concentration in Creative Writing) from Marymount College of Fordham University in 2004. She earned her Master’s and Doctoral Degrees in English and Literary Studies from the University of Iowa in 2009 and 2011, respectively. Her creative writing interest are centered on creating haiku collections that celebrate her experiences of growing up in the multicultural community of Uniondale, Long Island, and the Greater New York City area. She is especially influenced by the haiku of other writers of color, such as Richard Wright and Etheridge Knight. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama. She is originally from Hempstead and Uniondale, New York.
Featured image in this post is, “Hair Braiding Kinshasha 1” by Francis Hannaway, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
