Black, Queer, Feminist Imperatives: Reading and Writing Poetry to Save Our Lives

• In Event: Black Queer World-Making and the Pursuit of Truth in Educational Research

Abstract

This paper reflects on the ways Black lesbian and gay poetry has contributed to the mattering of Black lives. It illuminates how poetry as a theoretical tool envisions Black queer worldmaking as a necessary and possible project. In particular, such poetry envisions a world which does not require the harm or premature death of Black, queer youth or our communities and where all Black lives matter. Engaging in literary, textual analyses (Christian 1987) of Black lesbian and gay poetry, we think with poets Pat Parker, Essex Hemphill, and Audre Lorde to rearticulate the conditions of our lives. Through critical creative and embodied engagements, we showcase the application of Black lesbian and gay poetry to understanding contemporary Black and queer educational experiences as they are (re)produced by anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and racialized homophobia. Throughout the paper we advance Black lesbian and gay poetry as useful theoretical and methodological interventions in research and practice for interpreting the lives and resistance of Black queer youth and communities. In doing so, not only do we center poetry as a site of Black queer worldmaking, but we also answer the call from AERA President Richard Milner’s Annual Meeting statement to extend beyond conventional sources of educational research in our production of consequential scholarly knowledge (Milner, 2022). Finally, we close with specific ways educational researchers and practitioners can foreground the creative and specifically Black lesbian and gay poetry within their own work for the purposes of revering Black queer innovations to systemic opppression and forging new directions for theorizing racial justice and Black queer matters in education.

Authors

• Durell M. Callier, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Dominique C. Hill, Colgate University
  Presenting Author