In the Dark

The artist’s duty is to “reflect the times,” said Nina Simone. Poets too, have this political duty. As a queer Black woman, I share my lived experience(s) as a political form of engagement and resistance, both in writing and onstage. Inspired by Audre Lorde’s (1984) text Sister Outsider, this piece of personal performance poetry explores Della Pollock’s notion that performative writing is citational. Blending references to white poets such Emily Dickinson with allusions to writers, artists, and theorists of color, this piece makes space for black culture in the academy and recounts my return home after a period of self-imposed exile. It surveys the liminal space between the dark of writing and the light of performance and also critiques the hierarchal academic structures that subjugate knowledge, people, and spoken word poetry. It was originally written and performed in a show entitled Greyscale: Performing Across Difference, in the Marion Kleinau Theatre, in March 2017.