Praisesong for the People of Texas

Me and Amanda at her book launch for Another Way to Say Enter in 2018!

If you want to do something cool this weekend, I suggest you check out this amazing project by Amanda Johnston, Poet Laureate of Texas. Amanda and I met almost twenty years ago in the Austin Project, a collective of artists, activists, and academics led by Omi Jones and Sharon Bridgforth. Amanda’s been a poetry sister ever since. She started Torch Literary Arts while in the Austin Project, and it has grown into a highly visible organization for Black women writers across the country. She’s the author of the collection Another Way to Say Enter and has also exhibited her visual art at Prizer Gallery. A former President of Cave Canem, the national poetry workshop for Black poets, Amanda knows a lot about how poetry calls people together and makes moments of community into memorable rituals. When she was named Poet Laureate, she developed this amazing project, Praisesong for the People, in which she invited 70 poets from across the state to write poems that would honor and elevate ordinary Texans. I’m thrilled to have a poem included in this project, right alongside icons like KB Brookins and Naomi Shihab Nye. All praise to the people.