1837
I am a poet, scholar, archival researcher, and digital humanities advocate whose work examines Black memory, place, language, and inheritance. My research emerges from and through archives, living rooms, oral history, poetry, and public storytelling, with particular attention to my home of Miami, Florida, the Bahamas, and the larger Caribbean. I am drawn to the water that connects all of the shores that make me, and the histories carried between them. I'd descirbe my literary landscape as the Southern-Tropic Gothic: where the waves witness, the land rages, and trees walk on water.
I'd like to consider Cambridge Lane the research home for my querying, discovery, and "critical fabulation." Saidiya Hartman named the process I've been following all my life — a way of witness, where the archive is not a static place, but a living space where we reckon, remember, reveal, and reconstruct. It is the homeland to what Toni Morrison calls, "re-memory..." the happening imbued in history, that will make it always present — affecting descendants just as their ancestors were affected.
Here, I gather the records, questions, methods, and evolving projects through which I study how traditional it is to archive, and "how we do it." Our stories have been lovingly and violently preserved and fractured. Our reckoning frees up ancestors, stories, and ourselves.
I gather what all I can, with aim to return them to my community. And because our private has always been so public — this space is a proud display of heritage, culture, and the work
of a descendant —
who believes, "our andcestors
deserve
the dignity of memory"
— Leonard Pitts III.
So, as I live and learn, this is a space
for sharing research, writing,
and all the discovery
that is the journey,
the destination.
Background
About my Research
I first learned what an archive truly was at Emory University. I had the honor to work with poets I admired, like Kevin Young, Natasha Trethewey, and Dr. Jericho Brown. The late Dr. Pellom McDaniels steered me toward the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship, where I continued my archival research and training with scholars like Dr. Carol Anderson, and Dr. Diane Stewart. I received the Hurston/Wright Poetry Award, the Academy of American Poets College Writers Award, an award for Best Undergraduate Essay. These honors track my growth as a writer, and document my creative-writing-research in practice.
Yet, I'd say the best part about college in Atlanta is the access to many institutions. I had the opportunity take a course that changed my life with the late
Dr. Gloria Wade Gayles, who I'd later learn was also Dr. Brown's professor when he was at university. For every course, there was opportunity, and a community guiding you towards it — and for that I'll always be grateful.
Going to the University of Miami was going home.
I was ready. My grandmother, Dr. Ivis Richardson was the 16th Black graduate from the University of Miami after integration in '62. My parents attended UM during the golden era of Canes football in the 80s. And as a young girl, my brother and I would often walk from South Miami Middle School to UM's Law Library to study at the Law Library. The only thing new about UM was the woman I got to become while attending.
Having recognized the stacks of albums, papers, and ephemera in an archive — I realized what was waiting for me in Miami, and I grew increasingly curious to dive deeper into my heritage. The University of Miami's Creative Writing Program afforded me the freedom and flexibility to discover my voice, develop a writing regimen, and practice public storytelling beyond the competitions of my youth (Brave New Voices). The late Maureen Seaton encouraged my return, but fell ill by my arrival. Overlapping the COVID-19 years, I'm grateful for the time I had to work with poets like Mia Leonin and Jaswinder Bolina; I developed lifelong friends and readers in the late Jubi Arriola-Headley, Susan Leary, Carolene Kurien, and Jarrett Moseley — who encouraged me into applying for the Stegner Fellowship.
I taught poetry workshops and foundations in creative writing while learning to embody and practice my research with scholars like Dr. Marina Magloire, Dr. Jafari Allen, and Dr. Donette Francis. And I cherish the direct application I had being in my hometown. I shared my work in the community through public workshops and and performances, with organizations like Poetry for the People, YoungArts, and WLRN — which would lead to an Emmy nomination in 2022.
Going home only furthered the purpose and direction of this work that has fulfilled and sustained me for over a decade. What a privilege: to teach, practice, and develop my passion... through the support of my community.
I came to Florida State University with a purpose.
All of the women in my family were educators.
They went to school at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), where they studied English and Education. They went on to pursue their Masters in Education at New York University in the 40s, because segregation laws prohibited Black people from pursuing a graduate degree in the state of Florida during the Jim Crow era.
When I realized that my family who went to school in Tallahassee could not got to Florida State University, and could not pursue a graduate degree in the state of Florida — my choice seemed obvious. I was raised on the adage that, I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams... While I believe FAMU was their dream in many ways, and fulfilled them — I felt called to make a choice many in my family didn't get to make.
Coming to FSU has been its own homecoming. I've returned to rigorous research — from discovery-oriented engagement to applied practice and surveys: in the classroom, in literature, and in writing. I've loved the craft history I've studied and practiced with James Kimbrell and Dr. Lamar Wilson, and my literary interests have been supported and sustained through scholars like Dr. Maxine Montgomery, and Dr. Christopher Okonkwo.
In a time where everyone has a goal they're hustling towards, it can be hard to stay intentional and aligned with purpose... This work is not easy, but I choose it. I hope to help others through a motto of: discover, develop, and deploy. I recognize the value of place and purpose. I know my lineage, my landscape. This homecoming is about the work
I feel uniquely called, qualified, and capable of doing as I honor my family’s legacy and heritage.
Curriculum Vitae...
Research Statement
My research practice developed through poetry, Black studies, archival work, oral history, and public humanities. I have worked with the papers of Mari Evans, Alice Walker, and Lucille Clifton; conducted oral-history and archival research; and developed creative and digital projects concerned with Black memory, movement, and place. My work asks how records become stories, how stories become inheritance, and how descendants participate in recovering histories that official archives leave incomplete.