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.
