9781879960985

1879960982

9781939904348

"To create this inaugural anthology from artist collective POC United, the editors of Graffiti gave the contributors a special challenge: to write in a way that centers neither "whiteness" nor "anti-whiteness" and that is not limited by their struggle, their oppression, or how their characters will be received by the white imagination. The results are joyous and mind-expanding. Through poetry, short stories, and essays, the works in Graffiti expose lives that move in unexpected ways, rendering characters who don't fit the cultural tropes we cling to. Graffiti shows what writers of color do when they are invited to scribble, scrawl, romanticize, and speculate without being politicized or exoticized." -- Back cover

"Graffiti is the first installment in a themed, multi-genre anthology series called POC United. The aim of the POC United series is to foster literary spaces in which the work is drawn by forces other than the interests of the white imagination-interests that so often send writers of color down the path of centering oppression for exoticized consumption. In her introduction to the anthology, author and poet Elmaz Abinader says: "Graffiti hits like a playlist of street grinds, jigsaw puzzles, fairy tales and lyric dreams. ... Slashed on the wall of our literature, seeing it close in its moving colors and from afar in its searing declarations, Graffiti gives us just a taste of what writers of color do, unbound.""-- Provided by publisher.

grY -fē'tē / Devi S. Laskar

Birthday Spells / Monique Quintana

The Face Reader / Bhaskar Caduveti Rao

In Public / Kirin Khan

Letter to My Body / Alycia Pirmohamed

We Have the Endings / Alycia Pirmohamed

Twisted Wood / Alycia Pirmohamed

My Life is a Tapestry / Ramy El-Etreby

Suicide Jacq / Gary Dauphin

Nilscape / Laura Lucas

Winning Prizes for Just Living / Vickie Vértiz

Unburning the Body / Natalie Graham

Stranded / Pallavi Dhawan

Loop / L. Penelope

Cut A Hand From A Hand / Tongo Eisen-Martin

may we all refuse to die at the same time / Tongo Eisen-Martin

Channels to fall asleep to / Tongo Eisen-Martin

The Girl and the Moth / Lin Y. Leong

On Writing / Sarah LaBrie

To Maria, Mi Fea, Love, Jesse / Cynthia Alessandra Briano

To Jesse, Love, Maria Guadalupe A. / Cynthia Alessandra Briano

In a Hard Man's Town / Tamika Thompson

While looking at photo albums / Kay Ulanday Barrett

Rhythm is a Dancer, Again / Kay Ulanday Barrett

Sister / Kanika Punwani.

American literature > Minority authors.

Racially mixed people > Literary collections.

Ethnic groups > United States > Literary collections.

American literature > Minority authors.