Sister / Kanika Punwani. Birthday Spells / Monique Quintana -- The Face Reader / Bhaskar Caduveti Rao -- In Public / Kirin Khan -- Letter to My Body / Alycia Pirmohamed -- We Have the Endings / Alycia Pirmohamed -- Twisted Wood / Alycia Pirmohamed -- My Life is a Tapestry / Ramy El-Etreby -- Suicide Jacq / Gary Dauphin -- Nilscape / Laura Lucas -- Winning Prizes for Just Living / Vickie VeĢrtiz -- Unburning the Body / Natalie Graham -- Stranded / Pallavi Dhawan -- Loop / L. Penelope -- Cut A Hand From A Hand / Tongo Eisen-Martin -- may we all refuse to die at the same time / Tongo Eisen-Martin -- Channels to fall asleep to / Tongo Eisen-Martin -- The Girl and the Moth / Lin Y. Leong -- On Writing / Sarah LaBrie -- To Maria, Mi Fea, Love, Jesse / Cynthia Alessandra Briano -- To Jesse, Love, Maria Guadalupe A. / Cynthia Alessandra Briano -- In a Hard Man's Town / Tamika Thompson -- While looking at photo albums / Kay Ulanday Barrett -- Rhythm is a Dancer, Again / Kay Ulanday Barrett -- Sister / Kanika Punwani.
Summary:
"To create this inaugural anthology from artist collective POC United, the editors of Graffiti gave the contributors a special challenge: to write in a way that centers neither "whiteness" nor "anti-whiteness" and that is not limited by their struggle, their oppression, or how their characters will be received by the white imagination. The results are joyous and mind-expanding. Through poetry, short stories, and essays, the works in Graffiti expose lives that move in unexpected ways, rendering characters who don't fit the cultural tropes we cling to. Graffiti shows what writers of color do when they are invited to scribble, scrawl, romanticize, and speculate without being politicized or exoticized"--Back cover "Graffiti is the first installment in a themed, multi-genre anthology series called POC United. The aim of the POC United series is to foster literary spaces in which the work is drawn by forces other than the interests of the white imagination-interests that so often send writers of color down the path of centering oppression for exoticized consumption. In her introduction to the anthology, author and poet Elmaz Abinader says: "Graffiti hits like a playlist of street grinds, jigsaw puzzles, fairy tales and lyric dreams. ... Slashed on the wall of our literature, seeing it close in its moving colors and from afar in its searing declarations, Graffiti gives us just a taste of what writers of color do, unbound.""--Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.