However, putting the book together and thinking about discussing something about the various essays was kind of a different process. There are so many different threads in this book. In a poetry collection, you can just lay out the threads, but for this book I felt like I needed to weave it together and figure out exactly what it would look like. I wasn't always sure what I was aiming for when I was writing, and there were times when I had an idea in my head and was trying to implement it, but because I had a plan for how something would turn out, But we know from the poem that it doesn't always work. That's what happens. It was also a process of having almost an outline of the essay, or an idea of what it would accomplish and accomplish, and then running with the language and allowing a kind of poetic process where the work took up space. Visit the page and deal with it as such.
What do you wish the public understood more about when it comes to Black women's physical and mental health?
I don't think it's important to know things because a lot of what I'm talking about is something we already know. How often does it come to your mind? I am calling for a more holistic, current and lasting consideration. Ah, I know that fact, but or I heard someone mention in an article that doctors are underprescribing to black women. I think sometimes we get lost beneath the facts. For me, it's really about paying attention to the person in front of you, because the physicality of an individual Black woman can be lost beneath that. I told a story about a time when I was walking to a reading and a white woman bumped into me. Then I saw her at her reading and I was like, “Okay, you're so into this and you're so passionate about this, and you.” You appreciate my words, but as soon as you leave this bookstore, you bump into a black woman and don't even apologize. Are you communicating that information to the world?
In this book, I cite works from the 1960s about black women struggling with low self-esteem due to the effects of slavery and the neglect of black women's bodies and minds. We have an understanding of that, but we don't really connect it to our daily life or anything. that It affects our daily self-esteem. I'm not really into online dating, you know what I mean? Really, what are my small daily interactions? How are they affected by these things? I think that's something that we don't really understand or don't really need to consider. Because it's easier to see the big picture than the details. Really, I want us to understand how much is required of us in terms of being strong and fulfilling our self-esteem. I was telling someone the other day that the only value I have is self-respect, because you can't get it anywhere else. That's another thing that's very irrational of us as a nation. To expect Black women to be so strong and resilient and yet not ask us to fill them in at all.
