12 Poems and Short Stories by Black Writers to Read For Free Online
These works showcase the range and brilliance of Black storytelling
Every week, our weekly magazine The Commuter publishes a new work of flash fiction, poetry, and graphic narrative. For Black History Month, we’re looking to the archives for some of our favorite poetry and stories by Black writers, all available to read for free online. From Tara Campbell’s interactive flow chart of systemic injustice to Anya Pearson’s poems critiquing the hypocrisy of well-meaning white people, these works showcase the range and brilliance of Black storytelling.
From the forthcoming ‘This is the After’ - a hybrid collection of poetry with a strong narrative component which tackles trauma and healing. It is a companion collection to my play, ‘Made to Dance in Burning Buildings.’
The book deals with, and interrogates trauma, healing, the notion of closure, and the speaker’s continued attempts to create new ways of speaking the unspeakable and giving voice to the voiceless. Using a variety of structural and typographical strategies, I try to abolish the distance between the readers’ lives and the narrator’s personal battle to verbalize and bring to consciousness her experiences and their consequences.