Interrogations of the Mythical Norm: Using Endarkened Poetic Inquiry to Queer Black Motherscholarship

• In Event: Black Motherscholarship within and Beyond the Academy: Reconceptualizing Radical Futurity

Abstract

This paper examines the silencing and marginalization of Black queer women faculty in higher education, particularly in the context of early childhood teacher education. This poetic inquiry offers a personal and scholarly exploration of my lived experiences as a Black queer motherscholar and calls for a reimagining of higher education institutions toward a radical futurity that embraces these intersecting identities.

This paper was grounded in Black queer feminism (Bonsu, 2018). Bonsu (2018) described Black queer feminism as a theoretical lens and praxis that draws upon both Black feminist and queer theories. I applied a Black queer feminist lens to this inquiry by exploring how they have learned to mother themselves within academia as a Black queer motherscholar in search of a brave space to call my own (Gumbs, 2010).

Through an artful blending of endarkened feminist epistemology (Dillard, 2000) and poetic inquiry (Cutts & Waters, 2019), I developed endarkened poetic inquiry (EPI) as a methodological framework that reflects Black women scholars’ understanding of how the intersections of our identities impact our roles as educators and arts-based qualitative researchers. I utilized EPI to critique the societal and institutional positioning of Black queer motherscholars outside of both Black heterosexual and white women's experiences.

Evans-Winters and Esposito (2018) noted, women researchers of Color should not be forced to adhere to the dominant notion of objectivity whereby our lived experiences are separated from our results and conclusions. I rummaged through my previously shared public social media posts, text message exchanges with family and friends, emails, and private journal entries from June 2022 to January 2025 to find keywords, phrases, and sentences that captured my feelings in those moments. Then, I combined those found pieces into lyric constellation poems. After composing each constellation poem, I read the piece aloud and processed how it made me feel to activate the sacredness Dillard (2016) spoke of.

Within the found poems that will be included with the final paper, I explicate themes around how I used poetry to make sense of my first years as an early career scholar. Since 2022, I have processed my experiences as a Black queer motherscholar through three lenses: (1) writing as catharsis; (2) writing as protection; and (3) writing as testimony. The following poem is an example of the theme of writing as protection:

“In My Mother’s Eyes”
When the gods speak, heaven
Listens as a Black mother is forced
To bear the sorrow of burying her children.

Her world is ripped asunder as her
Steadfast dreams emphasize the
Interconnected nature of survival.

Crossing invisible borders,
She recovers her strength as the mold cools
And then shatters to reveal the final product:
The perpetuity of life for Black people.

The present work is significant because it highlights the necessity of holding space for memory and healing for Black queer motherscholars who enter the academy determined to (re)imagine community building outside of the mythical norm.

Author

• Meghan L. Green, Erikson Institute