As the Atlanta Word Works team goes to Washington D.C. to compete in Brave New Voices, July 12-16, we are proud to share their work. 

Ninel Nekay, 18, is a student at Kennesaw State University. 

When did you first start writing poetry? I started writing when I was 15-years-old.

What inspired you to start writing poetry? I used to go to the Douglas County Boys and Girls Club and its after-school program for disadvantaged youth. So there, they called in a teacher, a creative writing teacher, whose name was Teresa Davis. … She came in and she was going to teach us slam poetry. That was my first entry into the poetry world. After meeting her and hearing her piece, I started writing as soon as I got home.

What is your writing process? It’s very sporadic. It’s very all over the place. I tend to just watch TV and think of something and write a note in my phone. Or, I’ll be on the train and I’ll see someone do something crazy or something humble and sweet then I write a note in my notebook… But ultimately, I’ll get home and I’ll have this feeling of needing to write about this and then I just pick up my phone and start typing and typing and typing. Once I can no longer type, I sit it down and then I’ll figure out how to piece all these little bits together… It has no structure.

Do you have a poet you admire? Camonghne Felix. Her pen game is the craziest of crazy. Alysia Harris has an amazing pen game.

To the gingerbread man

who said my vagina

resembled a congested street

in the prime of Manhattan

Lets talk language shall we

Beginning today’s lesson with the word

Whore

Definition prostitute

Synonym fallen woman

Antonym Man

But you do not offer me this name

You call me Hoe instead

Which is kind of sweet

when you think about it

Being that it’s a sharp gardening tool

Being that I could slice any ni–a that stumps

my soil Incorrectly

Yes I be the hoe

Be the axe girl

Got a rhinestone embellished cape and sh-t

Be the slayer of these boys

Dressed in big dicks

And tiny underwear

Didn’t they tell you child

I put the ill in brilliance

Over there with your umbilical cord

Dangling from your belly

Looking like a fetus

Born hateful out of the wet womb of Misogyny

Within this poem

I am doing something

your father should have already

I am sunning you embryos

And I would tell you

to kiss my ass

but I would never disrespect my ass

Comprehend

I’m not offended

because you called me a hoe

I’m offended because you thought

that to be an insult

Thought a woman secure in her sexy

a dangerous thing

and I am

And you’re right

justified in your fear

Giving me the meek mill pout

Frowning like I’m drake or something

Like I done did you the dirtiest

Done Drug your negative 2 dollars ass

Up and down the street

Back to back

Lesson 2

I clone each of my jewels

so that even after he leaves

And Believes he’s conquered the booty

like a lost treasure

I remain plentiful in all my riches

Remember

How you compared my vagina

To the streets of Manhattan

But even if my pussy were an overrun ally

You would never be the pedestrian of my choice

For you my f–ks are ghosts in the night

Invisible as hell

For you my f–s are hot sauce

In Hillary’s bag

Invisible as hell

Boy

Yesterday I saw a vulture

beak-less

yet still pecking greedily at its prey

And thought of you

I witnessed a tarantula

too fat to weave its Web

You kind of looked like him

I should’ve known a Man made from gingerbread would powder between the teeth of a real woman

How I could make a single molecule of you

Rookie gingerbread cookie crumbling boy

Hoe is an abbreviation

For happy orgasms everywhere

And I pray you the toughest blue balls

Which is kind of sweet

when you think about it

Check out more from the Atlanta Word Works Brave New Voices 2016 team. 

Video shot and edited by Dasia Evertsz, 17, a rising senior at Our Lady of Mercy High School who has an interest in poetry.