Issue 11
Issue 11
Renaissance
A series of personal essays about how our black queer lives have been saved or influenced by art in all forms, including art categorized as “pop culture.” How do we craft and cope? What was it like the first time we realized Nina Simone was (is) trying to get our attention when she sang To Be Young, Gifted and Black? Who are our poets? Where are our choreographers? Who draws our comics? Come with us to a museum or a movie.
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Aisha Sloan
Curator + Editor
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Abeni Jones
Illustrator
How Whitney Houston Taught Me the Greatest Love of All For My Queer Black Self
My journey to self-love through the influence of Whitney Houston’s life and music.
Shoulder Pads and Short Cuts: How Grace Jones Made Me Powerful
A love letter to the only woman that stole my heart and snatched my scalp at the same damn time.
87 Weeks Ago: The Night Mykki Blanco Made a Small Girl Feel Big
“I pushed and shoved and laughed and danced in big black shoes that would later bruise my feet, next to a girl who would later love me back.”
Line Breaks for Resistance: How Black Poetry Lets Us Rescue Ourselves
If Alice Walker once said “hard times require furious dancing,” then hard times call for reading poetry, particularly black poets. Follow zaynab’s journey in reconnecting with black poetry as a means of daily survival and understand why reading the work of black poets can enhance our collective understandings of what it means to cultivate and sustain resistance.
