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.
untitled (over the mire)
by Kwadwo Alfajiri Shah
over the mire is a thick dense fog
it shields from sight those you don’t want to look at too long
beneath the fog is where hard hands toil
and tender dreams with supple leaves attempt to grow
now and again, a dream grows so tall
that the tips of leaves poke on through the fog
above the fog is a land of thieves and liars
when they feel they must (and they feel so quite often)
they pluck the leaves and scorch the land with fire
despite the blaze, the memory of a dream still flowers
enticing those beneath the fog with a cosmic power
and so the thieves must pull the dream up by its root
they contort the dream, distort its meaning
then put it on public view
now the dream, divorced from its soil
and the hands that tended
shrivels up, transforms strange anew, points
t’ward a different ending
as for those beneath the veil, who produced
a dream now stolen
where do they turn their eyes to now, what do
they put their hope in?
do they vest their trust in the lies
of those who live above
or would such a choice betray the dream
that sprouted from their love?
the best among them turn their backs on
the liars and the thieves
and turn toward their hands and soil to
cultivate again their dream.
Alfajiri Shah is a budding data scientist and Black studies scholar. Their poetry explores themes of relationship to self and community, along with social and political critique. They recite poetry at the occasional open mic and spend most of their time in various states of dreaming.
Featured image in this post is: “Thick Fog descends over Ibberton Hill” by Chris Heaton, creative commons, via Wikimedia Commons.
M. Nzadi Keita’s third poetry collection, Migration Letters, published by Beacon Press in April, 2024, centers her upbringing in Black working-class Philadelphia. Her second book, Brief Evidence of Heaven, shed light on free-born, illiterate abolitionist, Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass’s first wife. Publications including Poet Lore and anthologies such as The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, have featured Keita’s poems. Her prose publications include the journal About Place, and the volume, Women, Culture, and The Sixties. Keita served as a Professor of English at Ursinus College for 25 years, an adviser to the award-winning film, “BadddDDD Sonia Sanchez,” and a consultant with the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Foundation and Mural Arts Philadelphia. She is a member of the Black poetry collective, Cave Canem, and a recipient of grants, awards, and fellowships from the Leeway Foundation and the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, among others. Keita has presented poetry and scholarship in varied settings, including the Modern Language Association International Conference and the National Caucus of African-American Librarians.
Atena O. Danner is a cultural worker who imagines Black liberation, engaged in boundless curiosity. Her poems range from kitchen-table specificity to expansive relatability, covering topics including neurodiversity, human connection, and collective liberation. Atena is grateful to have work published online, in ‘understory quarterly’ and Raising Mothers Online, and recently in ‘Fwd: Museums [Redacted].’ She also has work published in anthologies such as Shelter in This Place: Reflections on 2020 and Struggle, Elevate, Celebrate: An Anthology of Women’s Voices, and her own book of poetry, Incantations for Rest: Poems, Meditations & Other Magic. She is a Roots. Wounds. Words. Fellow, and Anaphora Writers Residency Fellow, an alum of the Hurston/Wright Writers Week, and has been a featured reader for The Guild Complex Presents Exhibit B series, Chicago Poetry Center’s Poetry on the Green, and the annual Brooks Day celebration in Chicago. Atena is a founding member of Lifted Voices organizing collective and collaborates as a member of Surviving the Mic, a collective of survivors that hold affirming creative space for survivors of sexual violence. In their home north of Chicago, near the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires and of the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations, Atena lives with her partner, pets and 2 free Black children. Her first poetry collection, ‘Incantations for Rest’ was released in 2022 and was awarded a Nautilus Silver Award for poetry in 2023.
Sherri Mehta is a Maryland-based presenter, writer, homeschooling mom, and wife with over twenty years of English teaching experience . She holds both a Ph.D. and an M.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in Mass MediaArts, and specializes in African American Civil War letters and nineteenth-century African American and American Literature. She has several published articles and encyclopedia entries; has presented at various local,state, and national conferences; and continues to offer workshops and presentations at local museums, research centers, and universities. Her research allowed her the opportunity to serve as a historical consultant on the Grammy Award winning song “Juneteenth” by Fyutch and the Alphabet Rockers. You can find her teaching homeschool literature classes, reading good books, writing some poems, and enjoying her family and close friends.