{"id":3922,"date":"2015-12-18T17:18:48","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T17:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=3922"},"modified":"2015-12-18T17:51:58","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T17:51:58","slug":"what-my-grandmother-meant-to-say-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=3922","title":{"rendered":"What My Grandmother Meant To Say Was — Aja Monet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I taste of salt. My fingers cannot sit still. I smuggled
\ntears from smile to smile. When I became too tired
\nto run, I swam. What love does not reach beyond
\nborders? I swam. I rose. I flew. I dreamed. I fell in
\nlove with little to no food. I belonged to no where,
\nno one, no thing. I fell in love with everywhere, every
\none, everything. I was hungry and cold. I hated hunger
\nand cold. I hated everywhere with no food. I hated
\neveryone with everything. It was different. I was
\na woman. I was stupid. I was waiting to become
\nmore than what happened, more than a bird fleeing
\nit\u2019s country, to bathe in being afar, more than a land
\nscape or an image to cast a shadow on, the flip
\nof a tricky coin, seductress of men, visions aching
\nfor a new story to tell you. My children, riding on
\nthe dragonflies of sacrifice, I left them. I turned back
\nmany times, I almost became the devil they wanted
\nbut I left. A devil, nonetheless. I was a woman ahead
\nof her time. I shimmered in the scars. I live in
\nthe bloodline. I imagine more than broken families.
\nI come from the laughter of aspiring lovers, the lure
\nof trembling in another\u2019s arms. What about what
\nI wanted? What of the loss\u2014of culture, of dreams,
\nof home? There were many secrets. We fled from
\nthe revolution. I could not protect my children from
\neverywhere. I made offerings. I cleansed. I repented.
\nI am their mother. I am not God. I was a Candela.
\nI glowed. I was luminous. I lit up the room. I was
\nthe light gleaming in the Sierra Maestra at night. I was
\nthe mountains. I swayed the sunrise, yearning. I danced.
\nI was a witch they could not burn. I was la Fuega. I am
\ntheir mother. I am not God. I made choices. I made peace
\nwith them. I was a woman ahead of her time. I was
\nthe road you took here. I am la Camina. I was the way.
\n 
\n 
\n\"AjaAja Monet\u2019s has two books of poetry. Inner-City Chants & Cyborg <\/em>Cyphers (June 2015) is a music and EBOOK collection in which Monet \u201cexplores the double consciousness, or two realms, that those who are oppressed, especially women of color, manage everyday: confronting the everyday physical realities of their situations and the mental travel needed to cope, survive, and transform bleak situations\u201d (Modern Griot). It is a testimony to family and self, memory, loss and remembrance, home and the journey away from home to find one\u2019s self\u2014and to build a stronger community. The Black Unicorn Sings was independently published in 2010. Of this collection, the Dodge Poetry Festival wrote, \u201cThroughout Monet\u2019s poems in The Black Unicorn Sings, she returns to strong female characters, and sometimes to broken female characters that need some uplifting. In both of these cases, Monet is celebrating the spirit of women and what they are capable of, with herself often as a primary example of this.\u201d In 2012, she collaborated with poet\/musician Saul Williams on a book entitled, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape<\/em>: \u201cthe anthem of a new generation of poets unified by the desire to transcend the identity politics of the day and begin to be seen as one,\u201d published by MTV Books\/Simon & Schuster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I taste of salt. My fingers cannot sit still. I smuggled tears from smile to smile. When I became too tired to run, I swam. What love does not reach beyond borders? I swam. I rose. I flew. I dreamed. I fell in love with little to no food. I belonged to no where, no [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-3922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-sierra-maestra-in-cuba-by-roblespepe-wikicommons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3922"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3933,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3922\/revisions\/3933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}