BIO
Janel Cloyd is a Poet, Writer and Essayist. She has been awarded a Willow Arts Alliance Residency with history concentration in the Weeksville African American Cultural Arts Center. She has been awarded Fellowships from VONA, Dream Yard and the Watering Hole. Publications include but not limited to: The Black Lives Have Always Mattered Anthology edited by Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets, Mujeres, The Magic, The Movement, & The Muse Anthology. Raising Mother’s, Mom Egg, Poeming Pigeon, Cave Canem Digital, Gathering Round, Peregrine Journal, About Place Journal, Acentos Review, Emotive Fruition, Stone Coast Review and elsewhere. Cloyd is a mixed media artist with a concentration in collage, paper arts, fiber, poetry, text and images. Her work explores and embraces the themes of womanhood, spirituality, and the body aesthetic.
They Will Always Come Back to Save Us
After Nayyirah Waheed
They take the word No from our first breath
Snatched it from our hungry mouths
like we stole something
Snipped our breath
like clipped birds wings
flying disjointed in the skies above our heads
But what they didn’t know is
the Ancestors breathe
air into our lives everyday
They resuscitate us
They are the original defibrillators
If you listen closely
In the dawn of early morning light
You will hear their whispers
You will hear the words pulsing through your ears
CLEAR
CLEAR
CLEAR
You will feel fists beating on your chest
But these fists are not visible to the naked eye
You will feel the blood
pulsating under your skin
You are alive
The blood is alive
The Ancestors will always return
the word Yes to your breath
This divinely granted emergence
This new beginning
To be born again
in your mouth
in your body
in your spirit
There is grace in being saved
before you knew you were dying
Praise to our bones
for remembering what our bodies
may have forgotten
Praise to our dead kin
who always find their way
back here to save us
----------------------------------------------- // ---------------------------------------------------------
Becoming
Once you transitioned from this earthly plane
I fashioned your name into a Prayer
I figured if I said your name over and over
your spirit would remember
how to find its way back to me
I know kneeling
is not the only stance for Prayer
When I walk on my journey as a free Black Woman
Prayer
When I think of you
Prayer
When I make an Ancestors plate
of your favorite foods, okra and tomatoes
Prayer
When I sing your favorite song
For the Good Times by Al Green
Prayer
When I wear your favorite color indigo blue
Prayer
There are days when the absence of you
holds my heart hostage
the sun shows me mercy
she lays her warmth on my face
I say your name
Some nights the coolness of the evening
falls on my skin
The light of the moon
beams on my body
I say your name
Every day when I look in the mirror
I become your name
I say
Amen
Amen
Amen