Biography

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Virginia State University, Virginia, United States
Dr. Latorial Faison is an American poet, author & educator born & raised in Courtland, VA. She’s authored & edited 15 books, including Mother to Son, Love Poems, 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History, Vols. 1-3 & The Missed Education of the Negro. Faison has degrees in English from UVA & VA TECH and a doctoral degree from VA State University. She's been published in Obsidian, PRAIRIE SCHOONER, Artemis Journal, Penumbra, West Trestle Review, RHINO, Typishly, Southern Poetry Anthology, About Place Journal, Southern Women's Review, Deep South Magazine, Chickenbones, Typehouse & elsewhere. A 2019 Furious Flower Poetry Center fellow, Dr. Latorial Faison is a recipient of the Tom Howard Poetry Prize, finalist & semi-finalist for the CAVE CANEM, HUDSON, Wheeler & Stevenson Poetry Prizes. She's been published alongside Iyanla Vanzant, Danny Glover & Dr. Cornel West in the NAACP Image Award-winning book Keeping the Faith. Dr. Faison teaches on the faculty at Virginia State University. www.latorialfaison.com

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

History Woman



It was a dying womb
where you came from dreaming
of life in Norfolk & new shoes
a place to call your own, a clean room

Orphaned, you were grateful
for this little life of yours & mine
that God cared enough to make room
in a house without a welcome mat
where you were too black & too big
for the opportunities of white folks

But you could cook & clean em'
you could love a white child to death
nurse a malnourished black one to good health
with your poor, dark, giftedness

You knew it all 'bout tobacco leaves, "solja" beans,
cotton fields & seasonin' greens. 
when you fried your fish & baked
your famous cobbler dish, it was genius
how you always made sugar from shit.

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