One of my most recent course assignments involved creating a word map for a chapter of our first reading of the semester, BLACKSPACE: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture by Anaïs Duplan. I chose the chapter "We did not Originate in the Cosmos,” as I found the title alone inspiring, and used it to form the layout of my word map - with the title in the middle as a ‘sun’ for all of the ‘planets’ orbiting around it. Each ‘planet’ has key phrases that I cherrypicked from the chapter, grouped together by what I felt was a common sentiment or theme, attempting to keep difficulties and negativity towards the smaller orbits, and positivity and hope in the larger orbits. Towards the end of the chapter, the author includes examples of ways in which the well-being of black peoples’ future can be upheld and built upon, and I placed those among all the rest of the space, as bright ‘stars’ to serve as points of guidance.
