THEM POEMS

When I first set out to write this blog, I was in a very different place.

The spring semester had just ended, and with it, the whirlwind of teaching multiple courses across my communities. I had only just moved out of my old place and into a new one days before flying to Boston for my final showcase with Castle of Our Skins.

Them Poems Alone Won’t Save Us took place on Saturday, May 24th at the Goethe-Institut Boston. My time there as the 2024–25 Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative-in-Residence had begun months earlier, when I joined composer Montathi Masebe for a collaborative talk on the eve of her musical premiere. Together, we explored what it means to be artists reckoning with the ruptures of western history and the displacement of Black identities in the archive. This final event marked the end of my residency—and pushed me, in all the right ways, to center my own artistry in my curatorial practice. I had found favor in championing the work of others, I had become unsteady in just holding space for my own.

The idea behind Them Poems—part exhibition, part live showcase— came to me because I believe that poetry should be accessible to everyone. That my responsibility as a writer is to stir something in someone else: a quiet feeling, a new thought, maybe another work of art. Years ago, I imagined placing poems wherever art could live. Not just in books. My poems filled two rooms at the Goethe-Institut, alongside textiles I’d gathered during my travels, and miniature excerpts arranged on high-top tables.

Photo Credit: Nikolai Alexander (F Point Productions)

Guests arrived to the sound of live keys from pianist Zahili Zamora Gonzalez, whose playing brought a jazzy, dinner-party feel to the space. As folks wandered, talked, and took it all in, dancer Miranda Lawson moved through the rooms in white sweatpants and a durag—graceful and grounding. As planned, there was no formal announcement when the live poetry set began. Ashleigh Gordon, director of COOS, stood at the front of the room and welcomed everyone as Zahili shifted into the rhythm we’d rehearsed. I stepped behind the mic, and together—Zahili, Miranda, and I—began. No easing in. Just poem after poem. All in. Each one landing where it needed to.

Performers Zahili Zamora Gonzalez, Carmin Wong, and Miranda Lawson (Photo Credit: F Point Productions)

The title of the event was a demand. In a time when many artists are swept up in the pursuit of prizes and prestige, I wanted to remind us that art is a tool for liberation. I know it’s a heavy ask to expect that poets do more than write. But I ask anyway. Therefore, proceeds from Saturday night went directly to the Community Art Center in Cambridge in support of organizations fostering brave spaces and nourishments for young creatives.

What I could not have known then was that the energy of that night—the urgency, the insistence on poetry as both mirror and call to action—would follow me across borders in the weeks to come. From Boston to the Caribbean, back to central Pennsylvania, and then to East Afrika, I found myself in a constant state of movement. Not just travel, but transformation. Each place demanded something new of me: as a writer, a witness, and a person living through the layered crises of our time.

I landed in St. Maarten less than a week later for the annual Caribbean Studies Association Conference, where I presented my work on Malcolm X and Dub poets on his centennial and was invited to share my poetry at the literary saloon. Later on that week, I had the honor and privilege of joining the St. Martin National Book Fair on a panel discussion on reparations—reminding us all that many parts of the Caribbean are still fighting for sovereignty and economic, agricultural, and epistemic justice from the exploitation of colonialism. The conversations I had there expanded  the ones I had been having through my art and role as the Creative-in-Residence by grounding the role of the artist in collective memory.

After the conference, I returned to State College, Pennsylvania, where I’m based as a doctoral student at Penn State, just in time for our annual Juneteenth celebration. My hope is that, as we continue to celebrate emancipation, we also continue the long-standing fight for reparations and restorative justice. 

Not long after, I was in Nairobi, Kenya, where young people filled the streets—demanding freedom and justice. 

I remember the day I left for Nairobi: the u.s. president had launched missiles into Iran without congressional approval.

I remember the morning I landed: Mamdani had won the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City.

Even though I had flown to Nairobi to attend the African Literature Association Conference, I, too, found myself in the streets, tear gas bursting through the air around me in vibrant clouds. My eyes stung behind dark shades until I was rushed back inside by a wave of fleeing protestors and hotel security. The Kenyan government had issued a directive prohibiting all television and radio stations from broadcasting live coverage. So, I retreated to my room on the sixth floor, set up my phone, picked up a pen, and wrote about what I saw unfolding—and undoing—in front of me. The news I read had already distorted the story, recasting protestors as threats. I felt I needed to write about what was and is going on. 

The sound of gunshots and gas bombs outside was frightening. The police were riding in army tanks and firing rounds. Several people fighting for freedom were killed by the police. And if I had been from anywhere else but New York City, I might’ve admitted to others how scared I was. Truth is: no matter how many organized efforts you find the courage to plan, execute, or attend, the sight and sound of genocide shatters any sense of disillusion; we are forced, always, to confront ourselves.

My mind rushed to Gaza. To Haiti. To South Sudan. To the Democratic Republic of Congo—how we find whatever strength we can to parent, protect, and love under conditions of life or death.

And all the while, I kept wondering how much to share. I want people to understand that what was and is happening in Nairobi isn’t isolated—it echoes the political struggles we face against a growing fascist government in the U.S. I want people to see Afrika not as distant, but as home. To consider repatriation not as ideological but as real and possible.

While in Nairobi, I was honored to share my poetry at the Nairobi Literary Festival. I met powerful poet-activists using their art as resistance against political violence, police brutality, and systemic corruption—voices like Willie Oeba, Dorphanage, Michelle Ngwenya, and A. Amari. Their bold, unflinching work—in english and Kiswahili—brought me back to myself. I was joined by my sisters in poetry vangile gantsho and Kai Diata Giovanni.

Carmin Wong at the Nairobi Literary Festival Photo Credit: Gabriel T. Tito

Credit: Gabriel T. Tito

Carmin Wong with fellow participants on stage at the Nairobi Literary Festival; Photo Credit: Gabriel T. Tito

It wasn’t until I arrived in Tanzania that I began writing this piece—after months of constant movement and little time to pause. There, I visited the University of Dar es Salaam, finding small moments to reflect—on being a poet from Guyana, wandering the streets of East Afrika as Walter Rodney once did. From Dar es Salaam, I went by boat to Zanzibar and visited the former East African Slave Market in Stone Town—where Afrikans were held, auctioned, and sold.

I still don’t know how to fully write about all of my experiences ovet the past two+ months. But I can acknowledge—with patience toward myself—that I am not the same person each time I have come to the page in reflection—and this is the beauty of living a life full of intention. That is, I cannot be who I was in May or June after I have shared stages with poets performing for their lives. Or joined national conversations around reparations. I must come back to myself time and time again.

With the summer comes news that I am the final Creative-in-Residence at Castle of Our Skins, as they expand their residency programs to support even more artists and educators in new ways. I extend my gratitude to all the folx who welcomed me, and I am pleased to have worked with such intentional directors and creatives. All my love!