The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

You Do, by Maura Alia Badji

11/10/2018

4 Comments

 
You Do
         after Kara Walker’s artwork by the same name

A midnight woman in the shape of a monster takes center stage.  Master of ceremonies
Shrinks in her radiant shadow, though still wields the sting of his tiny stick

Like a promise of rage unstrung. Is she revelation or divination?  Is she embodiment
Of her own, or our salvation?  Has she read the quilted maps of her own star-crossed palms?   

Master shrinks in her pulsated shadow, becomes little man gripped in one
Hand, while pinstruck voudou child rides the other. Mother/Destroyer, Mama Oya.

Her dual nature compels her still: squeeze the pale life from him, throw his husk to hogs.  
Be rid of his ever-present will; lift the chains of his privilege. She knows she can

Take his wand, break that hated stick by sleight of her gifted hand.  Her revenant laugh
Cracks the air, blows back the dusty curtain of history to reveal power: her long repressed,   

Her stereotyped, her hungry, her abandoned, her mythical sex. Once called succubus,
Wanton, witch, unsexed field-hand, now she channels hidden centuries of womb wisdom.

She’ll teach master his true size; this is not his show. The show must go on and will repeat  
Like syncopated refrains of ancient songs. Far from copasetic, yet it will do. It will do,

Cake-walking its steady road through cotton-pricked fields of pain. She tacks a scrap of her
Scarred heart to the magic doll:  pain she wants to give that little man, a sharp knife serving
 
Soured fruit. She knows pain can teach, reach beyond mere truth. She offers her own
Needled coming-of-age, keloided ebony skin as proof: pain alchemized her power.  Behold:
 
She is fabled vision, no mere ingénue. Her breasts should sag with weight of long labour, famine.
Her beauty, defiant rides high. Colossal, her sex yields rivers of pleasure above his shrieks.   


She speaks: I am a multitude, the only one, made anew each hour, each moon;
I eclipse your every imagination.  I birth myself without respite.

I name myself:  The Stillness and the Dance
I name myself:  Mother of Nations
I name myself:  Hope of Warriors

My name is Confluence, Convergence:  my powers multiply.
I transform the small world in my mighty, mighty hands.*

Maura Alia Badji

*Source for last two lines:  Lines 37 and 38, Exquisite Corpse  032015, Strange, and Tribble.

The poet was inspired by a particular work of Kara Walker, called You Do. Click here to view it.

Maura Alia Badji is a poet and writer. Her poetry and essays have appeared in many publications, including Cobalt, The Delaware Review, Pirene’s Fountain, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The Good Men Project, This City Is a Poem, Barely South Review, Red Flag Poetry, The Phoenix Soul, The Buffalo News, and The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. Her poems are in anthologies from Liberated Muse, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Night Ballet Press, Yellow Chair Press, and others. Maura earned her MFA from University of WA, Seattle where she was also an editorial assistant at The Seattle Review. She is a member of The Watering Hole, an online community for poets of colour. A NY state native, Maura lives in Virginia Beach with her son, Ibrahim.
4 Comments
Latorial
11/11/2018 03:07:36 am

I love the title and how it tells an unadulterated story of truth in triumphant and victorious way. The words prompt visualization and a discussion on history, race, gender, and where these intersect.

Reply
MAURA ALIA BADJI
11/13/2018 10:58:20 pm

Latorial, Thank you for reading and taking time to comment. Much appreciated. ~Maura

Reply
MAURA ALIA BADJI link
11/11/2018 06:14:58 pm

My poem was inspired by Kara Walker's art work by the same name.

Her work, that explores race, racism, white supremacy, and its attendant violence, is both simple and multi-layered. Her piece, "You Do" stayed with me long after I first saw it.

My poem includes two lines by, respectively, Sharan Strange and Jon Tribble. I thank them for allowing me to use their lines, which were part of an Electronic Corpse poem we, and several other poets, worked on in 2015 with M Ayodele Heath. Thank you, Sharan for reading an early draft.

Thank you to Ayo for his thoughtful counsel and advice about my Electronic-Corpse-inspired projects, and the best way to handle attribution when including lines from other poets or lines inspired by a group work.

Reply
Emmiasky Ojex
11/13/2018 07:03:13 am

I really love this artist, saw her works and started researching on them straight up.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY
    This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you.
    Join us on Facebook:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead