Even though I practically slept in the computer lab on campus so I could write, I still wouldn’t call myself a poet. I didn’t own a laptop. Real poets looked cool, spoke cool, and wore cool shoes– not to mention they were mega-talented and mysterious. 
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Becoming a Poet: I Choose You
I wasn’t a spoken word artist. The words moved out of me with a tangible rush as I read, but as much as I loved vowels I didn’t stretch them out over my tongue and colorfully use my hands and body while I read. 
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Becoming a Poet: The Side-Chick
At 17 years old I made a decision that would change the course of my life. I moved eight hours away from home (Charleston, S.C.) and began my college education in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I didn’t know anyone. My biological father lived in the same town, but he would continue to be MIA for as long as nine months at a time.
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Becoming a Poet: Just Messing Around
Maya Angelou was the balm to my loveless and desperate teenage heart. She knew what it was like to love and not be loved back. Continue reading
Becoming a Poet: Before I Found Poetry
This is the beginning of a series that tells the story of how I became a poet and why I love poetry. That’s me (second from the left) standing (very) awkwardly with a group of friends. 
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Is Black Motherhood Radical?
I have three young children. Whenever I have them in public it’s always a gamble. Continue reading
Don’t Wait (Bad title, I know.)
I’m 34, and I’m just learning how to swim. I grew up in Charleston, and visited the ocean often, but I never learned to swim. I walked on my hands near the shoreline, even spent time holding my breath underwater, but I couldn’t survive in the 6 foot end of a pool. I kept promising myself I would take lessons, but I put it off. Continue reading
Locker Room Talk
Now imagine you are a Carolina girl in a navy blue and rose-colored dress made of the softest fabric. Continue reading
On Boldness
I nursed my baby on the sidewalk. In the shadow created between two cars, I bent down and sat with her in the crook of my arm, lifted a breast out of my dress, and fed her. Continue reading
Lena Dunham and I
LENA Dumb, man. Continue reading
