darlene anita scott

I am I.

[darleneanitascott]

Feelin’ Good: The Pleasure Practices of Black Folk   

Saturday smelled like bergamot and yeast.Its nights like liquor and dusting powder.Like women forever manipulating somepleasure pot—a bowl of dough, tub ofBlue Magic, hips. I learned offerings carrytheir own scent. Sunday mornings, it wasstale sleep and sweat and some fried versionof pork seasoning the air. Women preparingthemselves in slips and girdles, perfume andlipstick. Brass plates lined in…

Feelin’ Good: The Pleasure Practices of Black Folk   

[darleneanitascott]

To Tami

In this letter, Shenandoah contributor darlene anita scott writes to Tami, a childhood friend and a character in her poem “Watershed.” darlene uncovers the history of misogynoir in the United States and the legacy of anti-Black sexism that, to this day, shapes Black girlhood—including the shared childhood of herself and Tami. Among memories from their youth, darlene speaks to remembrance,…

To Tami

[darleneanitascott]

Arc

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Coded

At my previous university, I was part of a batch hire. It was an HBCU and we were an interracial group. We developed a fast and easy rapport: we met every week at a local diner; tried new restaurants and celebrated our birthdays together; acted as each other’s professional sounding boards. We all struggled to maintain reasonable academic expectations with the university’s uneven interest in…

Coded

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This the Way Subversion in Black Girls' Pleasure Practices

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Do You Hear What I Hear Placing Black Female Wellness Inequity in Context

[darleneanitascott]

Storytime

IN MY HOMETOWN, there was a historic school that at least three generations of my family attended: Benjamin Banneker. It was the “colored” school that my grandparents and parents attended from 1st through 9th grades and later my (integrated) elementary school from kindergarten through 4th grades. My parents and their peers would attend the school through ninth grade after which they were bussed…

[darleneanitascott]

Constructions of Black female personhood center on labor and sex. Yet, Black women consistently and courageously practice intimacy that does not reduce it to sexual labor. Their intimacy practices are arguably some of the most radical and yet often quotidian acts of resistance. These quotidian yet--I contend--radical acts of intimacy are what my recent collection of poetry What We’ve Become considers.

Relationship Goals: The Liberating Power of Intimacy in What We’ve Become

[darleneanitascott]

Bigger Than A Marathon

I see a handful of specialists for my condition (and the conditions my condition created). My condition is sarcoidosis. It damaged my heart so I also live with congestive heart failure and challenging arrythmias. If you’re keeping count, that’s three specialists: one for sarcoidosis, one for heart failure, and one for electrophysiology. That’s a handful of visits and tests and procedures, and…

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[darleneanitascott]

Running for my life

This year marks seven years since I was diagnosed with idiopathic cardiomyopathy which eventually showed itself not to be idiopathic at all. The cause was an inflammatory disease called sarcoidosis. In this seventh year, I am getting back to what brought me here: running. More specifically marathon running. I was training for my seventh marathon at the time and never got to complete it. I have…

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I call myself a professor, but...

I call myself a professor, but…

Back when the Virginia Tech massacre happened I was teaching at an HBCU. Not quite a year before I had been offered a position there and chose, instead, the position at the HBCU. I couldn’t imagine my young twenty-something life in the town. I was unready to live outside of high density housing, and where would I find my shea butter, incense, and importantly, my people? (I was encouraged to hang…

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Marrow Shorts: Digital Poem Series

Marrow Shorts: Digital Poem Series

There is no “story” of Jonestown. There are as many stories as there were members and families of members and friends of members and observers of members. Marrow tries to capture and contextualize a few. Each week of this month, which marks the 44th year since the mass murder-suicide we informally call Jonestown, I am sharing poems from my collection “Marrow” that tell stories of members of…

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Reflections on the Half-Life of Marrow

Reflections on the Half-Life of Marrow

I started writing Marrow because I was curious. As I’ve noted in most interviews, Peoples Temple loomed heavy in my imagination because of the imagery of it – specifically of the people whom I believe are de-centered in the historical record and even in the way that historical record usually names Peoples Temple and its participants: Jonestown. So, who were the people of Peoples Temple? What…

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Can we talk?

As we approach the anniversary of the mass murder-suicide in Jonestown on November 18th, please consider allowing me to talk with your folks–your classes or community institutions–about my creative work on Peoples Temple. Let’s re-center the people of Peoples Temple who have been sensationalized, sanitized, and otherwise erased from the historical record. Peoples Temple, also known popularly as…

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I Am Trying To Write This Poem

I am trying to write this poem that describes how I see you but my eyes keep distorting the words I want to commit to the page plus I am not really that committed to the words because I’m not convinced they’re accurate and besides that, these words are a little crusty and caked from being buried a few decades deep and since they got unearthed after all these showers I am not sure they are in good…

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A Virtual Interview with darlene anita scott

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#HFLW For Heart Month

#HFLW For Heart Month

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