James Baldwins’ stories descended from the sky and onto my high school desk. His starlight novels articulated my struggle for belonging as melanated citizens in an inhospitable country. I saw his prose transmute oppressive histories into poetic narratives. I am Black. Queer. Low-income. Zambian-migrant. 1st generation college student. It was my first time seeing an artist reconcile identities like mine. He preached about how literature can liberate and I was experiencing that first hand. I’m pursuing Creative Writing because it connects me to my communities, increasing my self-awareness and social-awareness. I’m eternally grateful to writing for developing my personal character and professional career. My inner library is a source for the wisdom of my contemporaries and ancestors alike. I want to use the aesthetic and educational qualities of writing to carve space for myself and my people into otherwise unaccommodating environments. Baldwins’ stories didn’t meteor from the heavens. My 11th grade English teacher dropped them on my desk. Mr. Andrews, heaven-fallen himself, gave me the gift of poetry. He read my work, suggested books, made me, closeted in old-money West Texas, feel seen. With his mentorship, I created an afterschool Creative Writing Club. Through organized writing workshops, I befriended young artists, many Black and Queer themselves; sharing writing provided a needed outlet. I volunteered to curate the Black History Month booklist display at my local library, where I learned literacy initiatives could be engaging by welcoming readers whose stories don’t make the shelves. Growing up in Zambia, I saw inequality sever access to books, education, and quality livlihood. I cherished opportunities to read and write knowing family back home didn’t have that. In college, I promised to become for students the lucky star Mr. Andrews’ was for me. Studying English-Education and Creative Writing, I’ve continued using writing to transform my institutions into culturally-sensitive space. As literary editor for our campus fine-arts magazine, publishing Zines centering BIPOC students’ Creative Writing fulfills me. I work for UPRISING, a student-run museum staff that designs annual Black History Month art exhibits. In Black Ensemble, our Black students’ fine-arts collective, I embody Black joy in organized cabarets. I’ve been lonely and racially isolated as the only Zambian and one of < 93 Black students on my primarily white campus of 4,000. Performing slam poetry on-stage is the happiest, most free I’ve felt in college. Studying writing heightens my sensitivity to Black beauty and history, increasing my confidence and belonging. From the Harlem Renaissance to Ballroom, I celebrate legacies of creativity and resilience. Drawing on Jazz and Blues, my poetry reflects on Blackness under empire, mirroring how the spirituals of the enslaved were necessary humanizing agents under dehumanizing conditions. Inspired by Black literary trailblazers like Jericho Brown, I use closed forms and experimental structures to self-mythologize, legitimizing Black Queer experiences as contributors to American knowledge. Queer BIPOC poets like Danez Smith and Ocean Vuong have modeled how to balance individual experiences with collective memory: writing’s a meditation and a march; a poem and a protest where I declare who I am and who I want to be. My academic and professional goals are to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, a Ph.D in African American literature, and a career teaching post-secondary education. As a French speaker, I’m eager to teach underserved Afro-French populations abroad, meeting both my personal needs and global needs. I’ll continue publishing Black expression through magazines for underrperesented authors like Agni. Teaching in accessible, non-academic institutions--museums, libraries, community centers--democratizes Creative Writing. Through writing, I self-actualize and mobillize my communities. My vocational goal: take my craft and go tell it on the mountains.

“I stood at the border, stood at the edge, and claimed it as central,” said Toni Morrison being interviewed about her resolute writing. “Claimed it as central, and let the rest of the world move over to where I was.” I watched this interview as a jaded college senior and felt the calcified plaque in my ribs break apart. I exhaled and felt my breath was her breath. Morrison has described precisely my goals as a Black Queer intellectual artist: bring forth the history, culture, and identities of my people in academic and artistic settings, using the aesthetic and educational qualities of Creative Writing to connect people across differences and over shared humanity. The Queer community has so much to teach the world about unconditional affection, unlearning oppression, and unapologetic expression. I want to generate empathy through art. Pursuing creative writing has connected me to my communities as the central catalyst increasing my self and social awareness. My pen is like a chisel I sculpt my personal character and professional career with. My academic and professional goals are to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, a PhD in African American literature, and a career teaching literature in colleges and non-academic settings like museums and publishing houses.I want to use the aesthetic and educational qualities of writing to carve space for myself and my people into otherwise unaccommodating institutions. Long term my goal is to pursue a career as Writing Center Director. I come alive in workshops, classrooms, literary events. My highly sociable, cerebral personality makes a playground out of person-facing spaces. My intersectionality affects my view of pedagogy: an emphasis on anti-racism while community building through activity-centered, discursive praxis. I reject white patriarchal values that say the classroom is a strictly reason-based, stoic, transactional space for rugged individuals’ career development. My classroom will be a tender space for contextualized learning and holistic development. In the class Queer Authors of Color we used queerness as knowledge source. I want to center Queer worldmaking, ontology, philosophy, and a plurality in my classes. Short term I want to work in museums as I’m interested in art and education. Last summer interning at The Bakken museum I helped curate exhibits for guests’ aesthetic and educational engagement. I explored questions like repatriation, museum accessibility for underrepresented guests, and Museums’ role in conserving vs. critiquing culture. I believe how we structure museums reflects how we structure the world. In turn, how we design museums affects the social order outside, too. I want to champion what art historians and museum scientists call Queer Curation. This means challenging not just gender binaries, but all fixed binaries; about making room for sensuality as energizer, what Lorde calls The Uses of the Erotic. Centering Queerness in exhibit writing, collections, funding. Rather than asking guests view Queerness as unfamiliar, strange spectacle watched from afar, through Queer liberatory museum work, I’d show them our humanity close up. As a Lavender House resident (our housing for Queer students), we organize movie nights to watch media like POSE and Moonlight. In our Black students’ fine arts ensemble, we hosted a cabaret where I vogued and read slam poetry to a sparkling audience. As literary editor for our campus magazine, I design Zines that center BIPOC & International students’ art. After graduation, I’ll continue publishing underrepresented voices working for magazines like Agni. I work for UPRISING, our campus museum team that curates Black History Month student art exhibits. As a writing center tutor, I empower my tutees' voice in their academic writing. Studying written art heightens my sensitivities to my peoples’ beauty.

James Baldwins’ stories descended from the sky and onto my high school desk. His starlight novels articulated my struggle for belonging as melanated citizens in an inhospitable country. I saw his prose transmute oppressive histories into poetic narratives. I am Black, Queer, Low-income, Zambian-migrant, and 1st generation graduate. It was my first time seeing an artist reconcile identities like mine. He preached about how literature can liberate and I was experiencing that first hand. Pursuing creative writing has connected me to my communities as the central catalyst increasing my self and social awareness. My pen is like a chisel I sculpt my personal character and professional career with. I want to use the aesthetic and educational qualities of writing to carve space for myself and my people into otherwise unaccommodating institutions. Baldwins’ stories didn’t meteor from the heavens. My 11th grade English teacher dropped them on my desk. Mr. Andrews, heaven-fallen himself, gave me the gift of poetry. He read my work, suggested books, made me, closeted in old-money West Texas, feel seen and known. With his mentorship, I created an afterschool Creative Writing Club and befriended other young artists, many Black and Queer themselves. Growing up in Zambia, I saw ruthless inequality sever access to books, education, and livlihood. I’ve cherished opportunities to read and write knowing family back home don’t have that. Andrews’ classroom had diverse literature that typically isn’t shelved. At our desks like alchemists at their cauldrons, we wrote our poetry, spoke our slam, and enchanted our transformation spells as needed outlets. I’ve promised to become for students the lucky star Mr. Andrews’ was for me. My Bachelor’s degrees in English, Creative Writing, and Education have molded me into a global citizen hungry to learn, teach, read and write. My academic and professional goals are to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, a PhD in African American literature, and a career teaching English in colleges and non-academic settings. I feel called to use writing as a tool for racial justice. Whether in the publishing industry, public schools, peoples’ museums, or the prison system, I want to use writing for equity and education to make our institutions more culturally responsive places. I’m eager to teach creative writing craft to historically underrepresented students, engaging diverse people and ideas, meeting both my personal and global needs. Black literary traditions have facilitated my racial and gender awakenings. From the Harlem Renaissance to the Queer Ballroom scene, I come from legacies of creativity and resilience. Drawing on Jazz and Blues, my spiritual writings reflect on Blackness under empire. The innovations of Black literary trailblazers like Jericho Brown and Terrance Hayes inspire my use of closed-forms and experimental-structures. Queer BIPOC poets like Danez Smith and Ocean Vuong have taught me how to celebrate my unique identities whilst moving beyond them, towards art that depicts our shared humanity. Sharing this joy with future students will make the world a more accepting place. As literary editor for our campus magazine, I design Zines that center BIPOC & International students’ art. After graduation, I’ll continue publishing underrepresented voices working for magazines like Agni. I work for UPRISING, our campus museum team that curates Black History Month student art exhibits. As a writing center tutor, I empower my tutees' voice in their academic writing. Studying written art heightens my sensitivities to my peoples’ beauty. My inner library is a source for the wisdom of my contemporaries and ancestors alike. I want to write my own poetry book and inspire young writers after me. I want to study craft and go tell it on the mountains.

One fateful high school morning, James Baldwins’ stories descended from the sky and onto my desk. His starlight novels articulated my struggle for belonging as melanated citizens in an inhospitable country. On his pages, I saw how personhood is always political; how his prose transmutes oppressive histories into poetic narratives. I am Black. Queer. Low-income. Zambian-migrant. 1st generation college student. It was my first time seeing an artist reconcile identities like mine. He preached about how literature can liberate and I was experiencing that first hand. Baldwins’ stories didn’t meteor down from the heavens. My 11th grade English teacher dropped them on my desk. Mr. Andrews, heaven-fallen himself, has been one of the most impactful people on my personal and professional development. He gave me the gift of poetry. He read my work, suggested books, made me-- a closeted kid from old-money West Texas--feel seen. With his mentorship, I created an afterschool Creative Writing Club. Through organized writing workshops, I befriended young artists, many Black and Queer themselves; sharing writing provided a needed outlet. Studying Queer poets in class like was the first time I openly talked about Queerness with adults. He gave me book suggestions by Queer and Black authors. Told me, “read this and get back to me. I want to hear what you think.” He gave me encouragement, challenges, tenderness, tough love. He taught me how literature and writing can help untangle my identities. With his glittery eye-shadow, skirt, and full beard, he was like an inspiring bearded Drag Queen. With the confidence I gained from his mentorship, I wrote my way into college and knew I wanted to be for others the lucky star Mr. Andrews’ was for me. I volunteered to curate the Black History Month booklist display at my local library, where I learned literacy initiatives could be engaging by welcoming readers whose stories don’t make the shelves. Growing up in Zambia, I saw how inequality severs access to books, education, and quality livlihood. I cherished opportunities to read and write knowing family back home didn’t have that. My Bachelor’s degrees in English, Creative Writing, and Education from St. Olaf College have molded me into a global citizen hungry to learn, teach, read and write. My academic and professional goals are to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, a PhD in African American literature, and a career teaching language arts in secondary and post-secondary education and non-academic settings like libraries. I’m eager to teach abroad in French-speaking African communities to engage diverse people and diverse ideas, meeting both personal and global needs. Transformative experiences in my English classrooms and libraries taught me writing is a tool to transform our institutions into culturally-sensitive space. In teaching literacy and Creative Writing craft to historically underrepresented students, especially Black students across the diaspora, I hope they can feel as empowered as I do by creating and consuming beautiful literature. This scholarship will fund my education and theirs. I’ll continue publishing Black expression through magazines for underrperesented authors like Agni. Teaching in accessible, non-academic institutions--museums, libraries, community centers--democratizes Creative Writing. I could even work at the MInnesota Prison Writers Workshop offering craft courses to the incarcerated. I want to teach inclusive curriculum at a liberal arts college, diversifying the inner libraries of tomorrows’ citizens and being excellent representation for Black, Queer beauty. Mr. Andrews made me realize Creative Writing can connect me to my communities, my history, and myself in sacred ways. Through writing, I self-actualize and mobillize my communities. My vocational goal: take my craft and go tell it on the mountains.

One fateful high school morning, James Baldwins’ stories descended from the sky and onto my desk. His starlight novels articulated my struggle for belonging as melanated citizens in an inhospitable country. On his pages, I saw how personhood is always political; how his prose transmutes oppressive histories into poetic narratives. I am Black. Queer. Low-income. Zambian-migrant. 1st generation college student. It was my first time seeing an artist reconcile identities like mine. He preached about how literature can liberate and I was experiencing that first hand. Baldwins’ stories didn’t meteor down from the heavens. My 11th grade English teacher dropped them on my desk. Mr. Andrews, heaven-fallen himself, has been one of the most impactful people on my personal and professional development. He gave me the gift of poetry. He read my work, suggested books, made me-- a closeted kid from old-money West Texas--feel seen. With his mentorship, I created an afterschool Creative Writing Club. Through organized writing workshops, I befriended young artists, many Black and Queer themselves; sharing writing provided a needed outlet. Studying Queer poets in class like was the first time I openly talked about Queerness with adults. He gave me book suggestions by Queer and Black authors. Told me, “read this and get back to me. I want to hear what you think.” He gave me encouragement, challenges, tenderness, tough love. He taught me how literature and writing can help untangle my identities. With his glittery eye-shadow, skirt, and full beard, he was like an inspiring bearded Drag Queen. With the confidence I gained from his mentorship, I wrote my way into college and knew I wanted to be for others the lucky star Mr. Andrews’ was for me. I volunteered to curate the Black History Month booklist display at my local library, where I learned literacy initiatives could be engaging by welcoming readers whose stories don’t make the shelves. Growing up in Zambia, I saw how inequality severs access to books, education, and quality livlihood. I cherished opportunities to read and write knowing family back home didn’t have that. My Bachelor’s degrees in English, Creative Writing, and Education from St. Olaf College have molded me into a global citizen hungry to learn, teach, read and write. My academic and professional goals are to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, a PhD in African American literature, and a career teaching language arts in secondary and post-secondary education and non-academic settings like libraries. I’m eager to teach abroad in French-speaking African communities to engage diverse people and diverse ideas, meeting both personal and global needs. Transformative experiences in my English classrooms and libraries taught me writing is a tool to transform our institutions into culturally-sensitive space. In teaching literacy and Creative Writing craft to historically underrepresented students, especially Black students across the diaspora, I hope they can feel as empowered as I do by creating and consuming beautiful literature. This scholarship will fund my education and theirs. I’ll continue publishing Black expression through magazines for underrperesented authors like Agni. Teaching in accessible, non-academic institutions--museums, libraries, community centers--democratizes Creative Writing. I could even work at the MInnesota Prison Writers Workshop offering craft courses to the incarcerated. I want to teach inclusive curriculum at a liberal arts college, diversifying the inner libraries of tomorrows’ citizens and being excellent representation for Black, Queer beauty. Mr. Andrews made me realize Creative Writing can connect me to my communities, my history, and myself in sacred ways. Through writing, I self-actualize and mobillize my communities. My vocational goal: take my craft and go tell it on the mountains.

One fateful high school morning, James Baldwins’ stories descended from the sky and onto my desk. His starlight novels articulated my struggle for belonging as melanated citizens in an inhospitable country. On his pages, I saw how personhood is always political; how his prose transmutes oppressive histories into poetic narratives. I am Black. Queer. Low-income. Zambian-migrant. 1st generation college student. It was my first time seeing an artist reconcile identities like mine. He preached about how literature can liberate and I was experiencing that first hand. Baldwins’ stories didn’t meteor down from the heavens. My 11th grade English teacher dropped them on my desk. Mr. Andrews, heaven-fallen himself, has been one of the most impactful people on my personal and professional development. He gave me the gift of poetry. He read my work, suggested books, made me-- a closeted kid from old-money West Texas--feel seen. With his mentorship, I created an afterschool Creative Writing Club. Through organized writing workshops, I befriended young artists, many Black and Queer themselves; sharing writing provided a needed outlet. Studying Queer poets in class like was the first time I openly talked about Queerness with adults. He gave me book suggestions by Queer and Black authors. Told me, “read this and get back to me. I want to hear what you think.” He gave me encouragement, challenges, tenderness, tough love. He taught me how literature and writing can help untangle my identities. With his glittery eye-shadow, skirt, and full beard, he was like an inspiring bearded Drag Queen. With the confidence I gained from his mentorship, I wrote my way into college and knew I wanted to be for others the lucky star Mr. Andrews’ was for me. I volunteered to curate the Black History Month booklist display at my local library, where I learned literacy initiatives could be engaging by welcoming readers whose stories don’t make the shelves. Growing up in Zambia, I saw how inequality severs access to books, education, and quality livlihood. I cherished opportunities to read and write knowing family back home didn’t have that. My Bachelor’s degrees in English, Creative Writing, and Education from St. Olaf College have molded me into a global citizen hungry to learn, teach, read and write. My academic and professional goals are to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, a PhD in African American literature, and a career teaching language arts in secondary and post-secondary education and non-academic settings like libraries. I’m eager to teach abroad in French-speaking African communities to engage diverse people and diverse ideas, meeting both personal and global needs. Transformative experiences in my English classrooms and libraries taught me writing is a tool to transform our institutions into culturally-sensitive space. In teaching literacy and Creative Writing craft to historically underrepresented students, especially Black students across the diaspora, I hope they can feel as empowered as I do by creating and consuming beautiful literature. This scholarship will fund my education and theirs. I’ll continue publishing Black expression through magazines for underrperesented authors like Agni. Teaching in accessible, non-academic institutions--museums, libraries, community centers--democratizes Creative Writing. I could even work at the MInnesota Prison Writers Workshop offering craft courses to the incarcerated. I want to teach inclusive curriculum at a liberal arts college, diversifying the inner libraries of tomorrows’ citizens and being excellent representation for Black, Queer beauty. Mr. Andrews made me realize Creative Writing can connect me to my communities, my history, and myself in sacred ways. Through writing, I self-actualize and mobillize my communities. My vocational goal: take my craft and go tell it on the mountains.

James Baldwins’ stories descended from the sky and onto my high school desk. His starlight novels articulated my struggle for belonging as melanated citizens in an inhospitable country. I saw his prose transmute oppressive histories into poetic narratives. I am Black. Queer. Low-income. Zambian-migrant. 1st generation college student. It was my first time seeing an artist reconcile identities like mine. He preached about how literature can liberate and I was experiencing that first hand. I’m pursuing Creative Writing because it connects me to my communities, increasing my self-awareness and social-awareness. I’m eternally grateful to writing for developing my personal character and professional career. My inner library is a source for the wisdom of my contemporaries and ancestors alike. I want to use the aesthetic and educational qualities of writing to carve space for myself and my people into otherwise unaccommodating environments. Baldwins’ stories didn’t meteor from the heavens. My 11th grade English teacher dropped them on my desk. Mr. Andrews, heaven-fallen himself, gave me the gift of poetry. He read my work, suggested books, made me, closeted in old-money West Texas, feel seen. With his mentorship, I created an afterschool Creative Writing Club. Through organized writing workshops, I befriended young artists, many Black and Queer themselves; sharing writing provided a needed outlet. I volunteered to curate the Black History Month booklist display at my local library, where I learned literacy initiatives could be engaging by welcoming readers whose stories don’t make the shelves. Growing up in Zambia, I saw inequality sever access to books, education, and quality livlihood. I cherished opportunities to read and write knowing family back home didn’t have that. In college, I promised to become for students the lucky star Mr. Andrews’ was for me. Studying English-Education and Creative Writing, I’ve continued using writing to transform my institutions into culturally-sensitive space. As literary editor for our campus fine-arts magazine, publishing Zines centering BIPOC students’ Creative Writing fulfills me. I work for UPRISING, a student-run museum staff that designs annual Black History Month art exhibits. In Black Ensemble, our Black students’ fine-arts collective, I embody Black joy in organized cabarets. I’ve been lonely and racially isolated as the only Zambian and one of < 93 Black students on my primarily white campus of 4,000. Performing slam poetry on-stage is the happiest, most free I’ve felt in college. Studying writing heightens my sensitivity to Black beauty and history, increasing my confidence and belonging. From the Harlem Renaissance to Ballroom, I celebrate legacies of creativity and resilience. Drawing on Jazz and Blues, my poetry reflects on Blackness under empire, mirroring how the spirituals of the enslaved were necessary humanizing agents under dehumanizing conditions. Inspired by Black literary trailblazers like Jericho Brown, I use closed forms and experimental structures to self-mythologize, legitimizing Black Queer experiences as contributors to American knowledge. Queer BIPOC poets like Danez Smith and Ocean Vuong have modeled how to balance individual experiences with collective memory: writing’s a meditation and a march; a poem and a protest where I declare who I am and who I want to be. My academic and professional goals are to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, a Ph.D in African American literature, and a career teaching post-secondary education. As a French speaker, I’m eager to teach underserved Afro-French populations abroad, meeting both my personal needs and global needs. I’ll continue publishing Black expression through magazines for underrperesented authors like Agni. Teaching in accessible, non-academic institutions--museums, libraries, community centers--democratizes Creative Writing. Through writing, I self-actualize and mobillize my communities. My vocational goal: take my craft and go tell it on the mountains.

One fateful high school morning, James Baldwins’ stories descended from the sky and onto my desk. His starlight novels lucidly articulated the struggle for belonging as melanated citizens in an inhospitable country. Reading his incantations, I saw how personhood is always political; how his prose transmuted oppressive histories into poetic narratives. I am Black. Queer. Low-income. Zambian-migrant. 1st generation college student. It was my first time reading how an artist reconciled identities like mine, like an alchemist stirring a cauldrons’ ingredients, enchanting transformation spells. My Bachelor’s degrees in English, Creative Writing, and Education (5-12 licensure track) have molded me into a global citizen hungry to learn and teach, read and write. I decided to pursue the art of the written word because it has connected me to my communities, my history, and myself in sacred ways. Writings’ diaristic nature allows me to make sense of both my personal character and professional career. Black literary traditions have facilitated my racial and gender awakenings. I feel I’m walking in my purpose. The books, poems, and stories I read are wise guides connecting me to my contemporaries and ancestors alike. I want to use the aesthetic and educational qualities of Creative Writing to generate empathy, connecting people across difference and over shared humanity. In my life, literature is the central catalyst to my self-awareness and social-awareness. My academic and professional goals are to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, a PhD in African American literature, and a career teaching English in secondary education, post-secondary, and non-academic settings like museums. I feel a deep calling to use writing as a tool for racial justice. I’m eager to teach abroad in French-speaking African communities to engage with diverse people and diverse ideas, meeting both my personal needs and global needs. In teaching literacy skills and Creative Writing craft to historically underrepresented students, I hope they can feel as empowered as I do by creating and consuming beautiful literature. This scholarship will fund my education, and theirs. From the Harlem Renaissance to the Queer Ballroom scene, I come from legacies of creativity and resilience. Drawing on Jazz and Blues, my multigenre-writings reflect on Blackness under the empire with a devotional, rhythmic tone that mirrors the spirituals of the Enslaved. I’m inspired by Black literary trailblazers like Jericho Brown and Terrance Hayes who created the Duplex and Golden Shovel respectively. Like them, I use closed-forms and experimental-structures to self-mythologize. When I write, I feel mature, yet youthful, like an immortal. Queer BIPOC poets like Danez Smith and Ocean Vuong have made me feel seen, represented, and cared for. I’m inspired by how they turn up logs and look between couch cushions for the perfect metaphors. My own work lingers, like theirs; craft centered, yet accessible lyrics. As literary editor for our campus magazine, I help design Zines that center BIPOC & International students’ art. After graduation, I’ll continue publishing underrepresented voices working for magazines like Agni or Honey Literary. I work for UPRISING, our campus museum team that curates Black History Month student art exhibits. Studying writing has heightened my sensitivities to my peoples’ beauty. In Black Ensemble, our Black students’ fine-arts collective, organizing cabarets illustrated the beatuy we accomplish when organized. Performing slam poetry on stage was the most connected I’ve felt to the Black student body. My inner library is my blood and bone. Lorde, Gormon, Morrison; their intersectional lenses taught me art is community is resistance. Studying the craft of language has allowed me to better wield this transformative power, and my vocational goal is to go tell it on the mountains.

“If Your Body could speak, would she forgive you?”, asks Blythe Baird in her poem about self-inflicted wounds. I pondered the question, wondering how much of it was my fault while burrowed in bed under the same blankets it happened in. I was sexually assaulted the summer after senior-year of highschool. Right as I was about to launch into my new life at college. Right as I began to think of myself as an independent adult, my agency over my own body was taken from me. I was angry. At the world. At him. At myself. I was less of a man. Less of a person. How could you be so dumb? What were you doing with him anyways? He said he wanted to say goodbye, and we could “have a little fun” after. It happened in my childhood bedroom. My packed suitcases leaned against the wall filled with everything from my old life I wanted to take to my new one. I packed my books, but after he finally left, I plucked them hastily from the suitcase like a wounded child does bandages from a first-aid kit. My immediate instinct was to escape into poetry, where I found this essays’ opening quote, and more medicine just like it. However, with the books closed, and wounds still open, I then searched online for more. YouTube’s light from my phone screen illuminated the world under my blankets. I discovered more poems. Rape poems, they were called. Watching each was like shots of morphine. Hearing everyone’s stories, finding a bit of mine in theirs. It was like I wasn’t alone anymore. After every brave performance from sexual assault survivors, I got a dose of inspiration. Memorable lines in the poems replaced the self-hating tirade in my head. After my assault, I began therapy. I opened up during those sessions through grit teeth and teary eyes. It was painful, but eventually I learned how to heal. For both the mind and body, those sessions were immensely spiritual and cathartic. The room where my sessions were held became as powerful and safe a place for my healing to occur as did that bright world under my blankets with the poems. Now, a sophomore in the college I didn’t think I’d get into, I am majoring in Creative Writing and Social work. I believe in the power writers have to mend wounds and take listeners to sacred places. My schooling will help in the journey towards becoming a literary architect capable of building safe havens out of stories. My goal is to become a Writing tutor, and help train the next generation of writers, thinkers, and feelers. I want to also enter the realm of Social Work, where I will earn clinical licensure and help those with similar trauma to me become the author of their own stories again. I remember the rage and shame I felt that night. I wanted to unpack those suitcases, stay curled up in bed like a child, because, clearly, I am not the intelligent adult I thought I was. But now, everyday I survive, everyday I get out of bed to go to class, I live the life I’ve dreamed since childhood. A life no one can take from me. I came to college with a newly found resiliency packed in my suitcases. I owe so much of my recovery to Spoken word and Social work. The healing and armour they provide to traumatized bodies is magical. I will become a therapist and lyricist equipped to help people’s bodies forgive them.

My education is the most valuable thing I own. As opposed to western cultures that flatten education into a transactional investment for increased job prospects, I’ve been raised to view education as a spiritually and culturally significant endeavor. Literacy literally freed the slaves. I’m a Zambian migrant whose parents sacrificed so much to gift me the education I have. I feel a calling from beyond, a moral obligation pounding like a second heartbeat, invigorating me to enter the teaching profession to provide culturally-relevant, rigorous, compassionate teaching, as well as a commitment to educational, professional, and personal opportunities for growth. I am studying English-Education and Creative Writing. I felt safe in the diverse representation at my international highschool. Although I knew it’d put new opportunities in reach, moving across the country to a PWI was scary and shocking. What helped were courses relevant to my experiences: Sociology seminars with timeless readings from Black theorists; Education classes about culturally-relevant teaching pedagogy from Paolo Freire. Poetry classes where professors nourished me with writings from lyricists like Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, Jericho Brown. What these classes did by reflecting my experiences back to me was give me the space to unpack my racialized experiences; they gave me the language to concentrate my inchoate, pained, screeches into articulate poetry and a fluent racial conscious. I joined the exec-team of my schools Black Artists Ensemble to produce cabarets, and published zines for our campus Literary Magazine celebrating artists of color. That sense of being seen was the catalyst to my development. I will ensure my highschool classrooms are spaces where Black students feel their best self is within reach. A need in my community I will respond to in my teaching career is lower reading and writing skills and interest. I have experience teaching Creative Writing. I worked at the Bakken Museum where I learned about curating art exhibits and summer camp activities that engaged all our patrons, not just the rich white majority. This meant highlighting diverse art and knowledge systems from conception to completion. I have worked with Adult ELLs at Literacy MN where I taught a predominantly East African migrant population to increase language proficiency and facilitating an easier entrance into the US. This will help me teach Black students across the diaspora. I did a 10-week research project learning about making grammar instruction anti-racist in both theory and practice, culminating in original, community-centered, grammar lesson plans on my website distributed to local teachers. My team and I wrote these K-12 LPs’ to address the needs of multilingual, multicultural students. These projects have deepend my interest in and capacity to address systemic racism in the English classroom. Black students also have lower access to rigorous instruction. I saw this disparity at my schools Writing Center, where I noticed many BIPOC students not fully supported. I responded by creating the anti-racist task force to train my colleagues on how to assist ELLs and BIPOC students. The team would do group style, discussion-heavy, student-led tutoring, so these students could be in a space where their voice mattered. My future classrooms will create more of these spaces. I want to teach in public schools and abroad. I am currently in Hawaii teaching English and seeing the beauty of multiculturalism and authentic student-teacher relationships. Well-intentioned, but culturally insensitive white educators perpetuate systems of power everywhere from linguistic discrimination in grammar instruction to zero-tolerance punitive systems that feed the birth-to-prison pipeline. I feel I have the passion, skills, and experiences to interrupt systemic violence. I’m excited to see to continue growing into the quality teacher these students deserve.

My education is the most valuable thing I own. As opposed to western cultures that flatten education into a transactional investment for increased job prospects, I’ve been raised to view education as a spiritually and culturally significant endeavor. Literacy literally freed the slaves. I’m a Zambian migrant whose parents sacrificed so much to gift me the education I have. I feel a calling from beyond, a moral obligation pounding like a second heartbeat, invigorating me to enter the teaching profession to provide culturally-relevant, rigorous, compassionate teaching, as well as a commitment to educational, professional, and personal opportunities for growth. I am studying English-Education and Creative Writing. I felt safe in the diverse representation at my international highschool. Although I knew it’d put new opportunities in reach, moving across the country to a PWI was scary and shocking. What helped were courses relevant to my experiences: Sociology seminars with timeless readings from Black theorists; Education classes about culturally-relevant teaching pedagogy from Paolo Freire. Poetry classes where professors nourished me with writings from lyricists like Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, Jericho Brown. What these classes did by reflecting my experiences back to me was give me the space to unpack my racialized experiences; they gave me the language to concentrate my inchoate, pained, screeches into articulate poetry and a fluent racial conscious. I joined the exec-team of my schools Black Artists Ensemble to produce cabarets, and published zines for our campus Literary Magazine celebrating artists of color. That sense of being seen was the catalyst to my development. I will ensure my highschool classrooms are spaces where Black students feel their best self is within reach. A need in my community I will respond to in my teaching career is lower reading and writing skills and interest. I have experience teaching Creative Writing. I worked at the Bakken Museum where I learned about curating art exhibits and summer camp activities that engaged all our patrons, not just the rich white majority. This meant highlighting diverse art and knowledge systems from conception to completion. I have worked with Adult ELLs at Literacy MN where I taught a predominantly East African migrant population to increase language proficiency and facilitating an easier entrance into the US. This will help me teach Black students across the diaspora. I did a 10-week research project learning about making grammar instruction anti-racist in both theory and practice, culminating in original, community-centered, grammar lesson plans on my website distributed to local teachers. My team and I wrote these K-12 LPs’ to address the needs of multilingual, multicultural students. These projects have deepend my interest in and capacity to address systemic racism in the English classroom. Black students also have lower access to rigorous instruction. I saw this disparity at my schools Writing Center, where I noticed many BIPOC students not fully supported. I responded by creating the anti-racist task force to train my colleagues on how to assist ELLs and BIPOC students. The team would do group style, discussion-heavy, student-led tutoring, so these students could be in a space where their voice mattered. My future classrooms will create more of these spaces. I want to teach in public schools and abroad. I am currently in Hawaii teaching English and seeing the beauty of multiculturalism and authentic student-teacher relationships. Well-intentioned, but culturally insensitive white educators perpetuate systems of power everywhere from linguistic discrimination in grammar instruction to zero-tolerance punitive systems that feed the birth-to-prison pipeline. I feel I have the passion, skills, and experiences to interrupt systemic violence. I’m excited to see to continue growing into the quality teacher these students deserve.

“If Your Body could speak, would she forgive you?”, asks Blythe Baird in her poem about self-inflicted wounds. I pondered the question, wondering how much of it was my fault while burrowed in bed under the same blankets it happened in. I was sexually assaulted the summer after senior-year of highschool. Right as I was about to launch into my new life at college. Right as I began to think of myself as an independent adult, my agency over my own body was taken from me. I was angry. At the world. At him. At myself. I was less of a man. Less of a person. How could you be so dumb? What were you doing with him anyways? He said he wanted to say goodbye, and we could “have a little fun” after. It happened in my childhood bedroom. My packed suitcases leaned against the wall filled with everything from my old life I wanted to take to my new one. I packed my books, but after he finally left, I plucked them hastily from the suitcase like a wounded child does bandages from a first-aid kit. My immediate instinct was to escape into poetry, where I found this essays’ opening quote, and more medicine just like it. However, with the books closed, and wounds still open, I then searched online for more. YouTube’s light from my phone screen illuminated the world under my blankets. I discovered more poems. Rape poems, they were called. Watching each was like shots of morphine. Hearing everyone’s stories, finding a bit of mine in theirs. It was like I wasn’t alone anymore. After every brave performance from sexual assault survivors, I got a dose of inspiration. Memorable lines in the poems replaced the self-hating tirade in my head. After my assault, I began therapy. I opened up during those sessions through grit teeth and teary eyes. It was painful, but eventually I learned how to heal. For both the mind and body, those sessions were immensely spiritual and cathartic. The room where my sessions were held became as powerful and safe a place for my healing to occur as did that bright world under my blankets with the poems. Now, a sophomore in the college I didn’t think I’d get into, I am majoring in Creative Writing and Social work. I believe in the power writers have to mend wounds and take listeners to sacred places. My schooling will help in the journey towards becoming a literary architect capable of building safe havens out of stories. My goal is to become a Writing tutor, and help train the next generation of writers, thinkers, and feelers. I want to also enter the realm of Social Work, where I will earn clinical licensure and help those with similar trauma to me become the author of their own stories again. I remember the rage and shame I felt that night. I wanted to unpack those suitcases, stay curled up in bed like a child, because, clearly, I am not the intelligent adult I thought I was. But now, everyday I survive, everyday I get out of bed to go to class, I live the life I’ve dreamed since childhood. A life no one can take from me. I came to college with a newly found resiliency packed in my suitcases. I owe so much of my recovery to Spoken word and Social work. The healing and armour they provide to traumatized bodies is magical. I will become a therapist and lyricist equipped to help people’s bodies forgive them.

I’ve been doing a lot of traveling recently. Californian colleges, Japanese runways. From Ancient Athenian citadels to pre-colonial African villages. These are all settings I’ve been transported to through my favorite form of travel: Reading. From its myths to its laws, texts encapsulate entire civilizations and are the penultimate form of cultural exchange. When we are open-minded readers, we bear witness to new facets of humanity and start viewing difference as something to be celebrated. I am a citizen of the world who interacts with my global neighbors, promoting worldwide travel through reading and writing. At my diverse international highschool I was awakened to writings’ integrating properties. There were so many passionate, future-facing individuals with unique stories I wanted to hear, so I founded the Creative Writing Club. As president of this extracurricular, I’d facilitate group discussion around pieces written by people of different cultural backgrounds compelled to share their work, inspirations, and voice. Writing is a declaration of self, and reading is a validation of the other. This club allowed us to become better writers, better listeners, and better friends, still. I wrote my way into college and declared my Creative Writing major the second I got here. I began work at The Quarry as the literary editor of our campus magazine. I edit fine-arts magazines with themes that center art from BIPOC & International students. I foster an equitable learning environment for all the worlds’ students through my work as a Writing Tutor. At The Desk, I help my peers become better writers, but they, reciprocally, help me. I’m exposed to the many different types of writers and the many things one may write about, radically expanding and enriching my conceptions of what a piece of written work can be. I will soon be traveling to Copenhagen, Denmark (literally, not metaphorically) to study Creative Writing abroad. It is imperative to research literature of different civilizations. Kierkegaard, Anderson, Christensen. I’ve studied these pivotal Danish writers for hours in American libraries. Their books opened my mind to a world beyond my classroom. In this way, every book is a passport. Literature prompts intellectual movement across socially constructed borders and prejudice. My studies have and will prepare me to hasten that integration. The intersection of literature and anthropology fascinates me. I will resume schooling immediately after my undergrad, pursuing my MA in Comparative Literature to study the way writings have shaped the morals, aesthetics, and lifestyles of societies around the world. Becoming a professor of Creative Writing will allow me to champion an intersectional approach and diversify the inner libraries of tomorrow’s citizens. Learning about the thousands of ways people inscribe their truths around the world will help you better inscribe yours. A Ph.D. program will play a part in my commitment to share and preserve culture through writing and reading. The University of Glasgows’ MLitt program teaches aspiring writers how to thrive in publishing arenas abroad. As a Black Queer writer, my story is undertold. I will encapsulate my culture in poetic text of my own, like the authors worldwide who inspire me. Or, a career in literary editing will allow me to continue cultivating equity in the publishing world at a magazine like Agni which centers the work of underrepresented writers. Society undervalues cultural exchange and erects economic barriers around creating and participating in this globally imperative work. Diversity makes us more tolerant, empathic, and appreciative. I am invested in desegregating the mind by fostering interaction with each others’ writings and cultures. There are realms beyond the Single Stories we submit to, and where I’ve traveled, I’ve loved.

English language arts is a theoretical discipline, artform, and deeply human modality that sharpens our sensitivities to networks of information textualized in our world. We acquire highly transferable skills that enrich our lives and those around us. Literature, language, and education are some of the strongest tools for change, and I dream of wielding them. I fell in love with literature in highschool. My English teacher molded me from clay. He gave me the gift of poetry and mentored our after-school Creative Writing Workshop where I felt safe as a Black and Queer student. Writing is a declaration of self; reading is a validation of the other. This makes ELA both intensely personal and communal. I want to become as good a teacher as fortunately had; as good a teacher as future kids like me deserve to have. I wrote my way into college and declared my Creative Writing major the moment I got here. English and Education majors came later, as professors in this department further showed me how powerful this discipline is. Reading and writing are as important and inextricable as inhaling and exhaling. Seminar-style discussions have evolved throughout history: from our ancestors’ campfires, to greek forums, now lecture halls and book clubs, that English majors expand on our history as communal learners make me feel deeply connected to something larger than myself. Writing has been such a crucial tool in my own development, and now working as a writing tutor in the English department, I am able to wield instructional, non-prescriptive tutoring pedagogy as a tool to aid in the personal development of other students. It’s deeply fulfilling and feels like a calling. Storytelling and narrative formation are staples of the human condition. We’ve been doing it for as long as we’ve been walking on two legs. Extracurricular participation like my literary editor position in the campus fine-arts magazine facilitates continued exchange and curation of illuminating literature and stories. I strive for a scrupulous depth of analysis, and the perceptual acuity granted by literary theory makes cerebral, critical citizens. The work of English does not stop upon exiting the classroom. There are texts everywhere: Ads, marketing, film, TV, social media. These implicit narratives influence our patterns of thinking. Intentionality is imperative in a digital age of passive consumerism and truncated attention spans; the paradox of being both in the age of information and misinformation. ELA helps us discern which is which in a critical fashion. English is to societally dominant narratives what a good therapist is to a client’s inner dialogue: we offer thorough, compassionate analysis, draft counter-narratives to harmful beliefs, and use language to cradle and probe. Media literacy is akin to psychoanalysis as we question the origins of tacit messages to monitor our collective mental health. Getting an MFA in Creative Writing will allow me to continue inscribing my humanity into art. When I receive my English-Education license, I will teach a culturally-responsive highschool curriculum that engages my future students with identities like mine. I will continue developing community through arts as I attend poetry slams and volunteer at TEFL sites. Getting a Ph.D. in comparative literature will enable my studying the human-ness of diverse cultures globally, as articulated in their most famous mythologies and texts. I need this terminal degree to become an English professor and make academia more inclusive. There is a long history of students of color being excluded from classrooms; there is an equally long history of us thriving anyways. Funding my education will enable my perseverance so I may share my love for learning, English, and writing with others.

The most valuable thing I own is my education. Attending university as the child of immigrants is a privilege I hold with everlasting gratitude. My studies give me opportunity and power to enact the change in this world I was made to do. However, as much as I love learning, I do not always feel educational institutions love me back. Racism in academia has hampered the educational progression of Black students throughout history, yet still, I am so proud of my identity and cultural roots as it gives me the strength and community needed to triumph in my studies and beyond. My parents migrated from Lusaka, Zambia when elementary-aged me was too young to communicate the disconnect I already felt in my classrooms. Even now, on an predominantly white college campus, I often struggle to articulate the nebulous pain of racial isolation: the frustration of being viewed through a deficit-mindset; the intellectual starvation of your history being excluded from curriculum; the crippling loneliness of being the only POC in a classroom and no one being able to relate or even empathize with your trauma. My first semester on campus was in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. This maddening dichotomy of racial hypervisibility and invisibility made relating to my peers frustrating. Desensitization to violence against Black people made my senses too numb to even engage with my classwork and peers. It’s so emotionally strenuous pouring everything into a campus that refuses to recognize all parts of your identity. I remember the child-like giddiness reading my acceptance letter, and yet, upon attendance, my educational progression was stifled by hostile terrain. I’ve learned to persevere even in oppressive environments. I joined a fine arts collective called Black Ensemble where our performances centered the Black experience. I am the literary editor on a campus magazine that exclusively publishes BIPOC artists’ work. I have volunteered at ESL programs for immigrant english-language-learners in my city, using my skillset as an English-Education major to benefit my community. My Creative Writing gives me the language skills to construct poetry that articulates my experiences as a Black scholar in ways I couldn’t before. When the institution neglects it’s marginalized students, we become experts at finding and even building community on our own. Our self-love manifests in the form of a unquenchable thirst for our own history. Our discipline sharpens as we take initiative to seek out alternative sources of knowledge. As difficult as minority status is, I’ve learned the paramount value of community and have tapped into the depths of my own resilience. Getting an MFA in Creative Writing will allow me to continue enscribing my humanity into art. When I receive my English-Education license, I will teach a culturally-responsive highschool curriculum that engages my future students with identities like me. I will continue developing community through arts as I attend poetry slams and volunteer at TEFL cites. Systemic racial adversity means that the real, liberatory education for marginalized people often happens outside formal educational institutions. We create our own healing spaces, and I will do so as a future educator myself. Getting a PhD in comparative literature will enable me to study the humanity of diverse cultures globally, as articulated in their most famous mytholgies and texts. I need this terminal degree to become an English professor and make academia more inclusive. There is a long history of students of color being excluded from classrooms and curricula; there is an equally long history of us thriving anyways. Funding my education will enable my perseverance so I may share my love for learning, English, and writing with others.

“If Your Body could speak, would she forgive you?”, asks Blythe Baird in her poem about self-inflicted wounds. I pondered the question, wondering how much of it was my fault while burrowed in bed under the same blankets it happened in. I was sexually assaulted the summer after senior-year of highschool. Right as I was about to launch into my new life at college. Right as I began to think of myself as an independent adult, my agency over my own body was taken from me. I was angry. At the world. At him. At myself. I was less of a man. Less of a person. How could you be so dumb? What were you doing with him anyways? He said he wanted to say goodbye, and we could “have a little fun” after. It happened in my childhood bedroom. My packed suitcases leaned against the wall filled with everything from my old life I wanted to take to my new one. I packed my books, but after he finally left, I plucked them hastily from the suitcase like a wounded child does bandages from a first-aid kit. My immediate instinct was to escape into poetry, where I found this essays’ opening quote, and more medicine just like it. However, with the books closed, and wounds still open, I then searched online for more. YouTube’s light from my phone screen illuminated the world under my blankets. I discovered more poems. Rape poems, they were called. Watching each was like shots of morphine. Hearing everyone’s stories, finding a bit of mine in theirs. It was like I wasn’t alone anymore. After every brave performance from sexual assault survivors, I got a dose of inspiration. Memorable lines in the poems replaced the self-hating tirade in my head. After my assault, I began therapy. I opened up during those sessions through grit teeth and teary eyes. It was painful, but eventually I learned how to heal. For both the mind and body, those sessions were immensely spiritual and cathartic. The room where my sessions were held became as powerful and safe a place for my healing to occur as did that bright world under my blankets with the poems. Now, a sophomore in the college I didn’t think I’d get into, I am majoring in Creative Writing and Social work. I believe in the power writers have to mend wounds and take listeners to sacred places. My schooling will help in the journey towards becoming a literary architect capable of building safe havens out of stories. My goal is to become a Writing tutor, and help train the next generation of writers, thinkers, and feelers. I want to also enter the realm of Social Work, where I will earn clinical licensure and help those with similar trauma to me become the author of their own stories again. I remember the rage and shame I felt that night. I wanted to unpack those suitcases, stay curled up in bed like a child, because, clearly, I am not the intelligent adult I thought I was. But now, everyday I survive, everyday I get out of bed to go to class, I live the life I’ve dreamed since childhood. A life no one can take from me. I came to college with a newly found resiliency packed in my suitcases. I owe so much of my recovery to Spoken word and Social work. The healing and armour they provide to traumatized bodies is magical. I will become a therapist and lyricist equipped to help people’s bodies forgive them.

The most valuable thing I own is my education. Attending university as the child of immigrants is a privilege I hold with everlasting gratitude. My studies give me opportunity and power to enact the change in this world I was made to do. However, as much as I love learning, I do not always feel educational institutions love me back. Racism in academia has hampered the educational progression of Black students throughout history, yet still, I am so proud of my identity and cultural roots as it gives me the strength and community needed to triumph in my studies and beyond. My parents migrated from Lusaka, Zambia when elementary-aged me was too young to communicate the disconnect I already felt in my classrooms. Even now, on an predominantly white college campus, I often struggle to articulate the nebulous pain of racial isolation: the frustration of being viewed through a deficit-mindset; the intellectual starvation of your history being excluded from curriculum; the crippling loneliness of being the only POC in a classroom and no one being able to relate or even empathize with your trauma. My first semester on campus was in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. This maddening dichotomy of racial hypervisibility and invisibility made relating to my peers frustrating. Desensitization to violence against Black people made my senses too numb to even engage with my classwork and peers. It’s so emotionally strenuous pouring everything into a campus that refuses to recognize all parts of your identity. I remember the child-like giddiness reading my acceptance letter, and yet, upon attendance, my educational progression was stifled by hostile terrain. I’ve learned to persevere even in oppressive environments. I joined a fine arts collective called Black Ensemble where our performances centered the Black experience. I am the literary editor on a campus magazine that exclusively publishes BIPOC artists’ work. I have volunteered at ESL programs for immigrant english-language-learners in my city, using my skillset as an English-Education major to benefit my community. My Creative Writing gives me the language skills to construct poetry that articulates my experiences as a Black scholar in ways I couldn’t before. When the institution neglects it’s marginalized students, we become experts at finding and even building community on our own. Our self-love manifests in the form of a unquenchable thirst for our own history. Our discipline sharpens as we take initiative to seek out alternative sources of knowledge. As difficult as minority status is, I’ve learned the paramount value of community and have tapped into the depths of my own resilience. Getting an MFA in Creative Writing will allow me to continue enscribing my humanity into art. When I receive my English-Education license, I will teach a culturally-responsive highschool curriculum that engages my future students with identities like me. I will continue developing community through arts as I attend poetry slams and volunteer at TEFL cites. Systemic racial adversity means that the real, liberatory education for marginalized people often happens outside formal educational institutions. We create our own healing spaces, and I will do so as a future educator myself. Getting a PhD in comparative literature will enable me to study the humanity of diverse cultures globally, as articulated in their most famous mythologies and texts. I need this terminal degree to become an English professor and make academia more inclusive. There is a long history of students of color being excluded from classrooms and curricula; there is an equally long history of us thriving anyways. Funding my education will enable my perseverance so I may share my love for learning, English, and writing with others.

The most valuable thing I own is my education. Attending university as the child of immigrants is a privilege I hold with everlasting gratitude. My studies give me opportunity and power to enact the change in this world I was made to do. However, as much as I love learning, I do not always feel educational institutions love me back. Racism in academia has hampered the educational progression of Black students throughout history, yet still, I am so proud of my identity and cultural roots as it gives me the strength and community needed to triumph in my studies and beyond. My parents migrated from Lusaka, Zambia when elementary-aged me was too young to communicate the disconnect I already felt in my classrooms. Even now, on an predominantly white college campus, I often struggle to articulate the nebulous pain of racial isolation: the frustration of being viewed through a deficit-mindset; the intellectual starvation of your history being excluded from curriculum; the crippling loneliness of being the only POC in a classroom and no one being able to relate or even empathize with your trauma. My first semester on campus was in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. This maddening dichotomy of racial hypervisibility and invisibility made relating to my peers frustrating. Desensitization to violence against Black people made my senses too numb to even engage with my classwork and peers. It’s so emotionally strenuous pouring everything into a campus that refuses to recognize all parts of your identity. I remember the child-like giddiness reading my acceptance letter, and yet, upon attendance, my educational progression was stifled by hostile terrain. I’ve learned to persevere even in oppressive environments. I joined a fine arts collective called Black Ensemble where our performances centered the Black experience. I am the literary editor on a campus magazine that exclusively publishes BIPOC artists’ work. I have volunteered at ESL programs for immigrant english-language-learners in my city, using my skillset as an English-Education major to benefit my community. My Creative Writing gives me the language skills to construct poetry that articulates my experiences as a Black scholar in ways I couldn’t before. When the institution neglects it’s marginalized students, we become experts at finding and even building community on our own. Our self-love manifests in the form of a unquenchable thirst for our own history. Our discipline sharpens as we take initiative to seek out alternative sources of knowledge. As difficult as minority status is, I’ve learned the paramount value of community and have tapped into the depths of my own resilience. Getting an MFA in Creative Writing will allow me to continue enscribing my humanity into art. When I receive my English-Education license, I will teach a culturally-responsive highschool curriculum that engages my future students with identities like me. I will continue developing community through arts as I attend poetry slams and volunteer at TEFL cites. Systemic racial adversity means that the real, liberatory education for marginalized people often happens outside formal educational institutions. We create our own healing spaces, and I will do so as a future educator myself. Getting a PhD in comparative literature will enable me to study the humanity of diverse cultures globally, as articulated in their most famous mytholgies and texts. I need this terminal degree to become an English professor and make academia more inclusive. There is a long history of students of color being excluded from classrooms and curricula; there is an equally long history of us thriving anyways. Funding my education will enable my perseverance so I may share my love for learning, English, and writing with others.

The most valuable thing I own is my education. Attending university as the child of immigrants is a privilege I hold with everlasting gratitude. My studies give me opportunity and power to enact the change in this world I was made to do. However, as much as I love learning, I do not always feel educational institutions love me back. Racism in academia has hampered the educational progression of Black students throughout history, yet still, I am so proud of my identity and cultural roots as it gives me the strength and community needed to triumph in my studies and beyond. My parents migrated from Lusaka, Zambia when elementary-aged me was too young to communicate the disconnect I already felt in my classrooms. Even now, on an predominantly white college campus, I often struggle to articulate the nebulous pain of racial isolation: the frustration of being viewed through a deficit-mindset; the intellectual starvation of your history being excluded from curriculum; the crippling loneliness of being the only POC in a classroom and no one being able to relate or even empathize with your trauma. My first semester on campus was in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. This maddening dichotomy of racial hypervisibility and invisibility made relating to my peers frustrating. Desensitization to violence against Black people made my senses too numb to even engage with my classwork and peers. It’s so emotionally strenuous pouring everything into a campus that refuses to recognize all parts of your identity. I remember the child-like giddiness reading my acceptance letter, and yet, upon attendance, my educational progression was stifled by hostile terrain. I’ve learned to persevere even in oppressive environments. I joined a fine arts collective called Black Ensemble where our performances centered the Black experience. I am the literary editor on a campus magazine that exclusively publishes BIPOC artists’ work. I have volunteered at ESL programs for immigrant english-language-learners in my city, using my skillset as an English-Education major to benefit my community. My Creative Writing gives me the language skills to construct poetry that articulates my experiences as a Black scholar in ways I couldn’t before. When the institution neglects it’s marginalized students, we become experts at finding and even building community on our own. Our self-love manifests in the form of a unquenchable thirst for our own history. Our discipline sharpens as we take initiative to seek out alternative sources of knowledge. As difficult as minority status is, I’ve learned the paramount value of community and have tapped into the depths of my own resilience. Getting an MFA in Creative Writing will allow me to continue enscribing my humanity into art. When I receive my English-Education license, I will teach a culturally-responsive highschool curriculum that engages my future students with identities like me. I will continue developing community through arts as I attend poetry slams and volunteer at TEFL cites. Systemic racial adversity means that the real, liberatory education for marginalized people often happens outside formal educational institutions. We create our own healing spaces, and I will do so as a future educator myself. Getting a PhD in comparative literature will enable me to study the humanity of diverse cultures globally, as articulated in their most famous mytholgies and texts. I need this terminal degree to become an English professor and make academia more inclusive. There is a long history of students of color being excluded from classrooms and curricula; there is an equally long history of us thriving anyways. Funding my education will enable my perseverance so I may share my love for learning, English, and writing with others.

To me, English language arts is a theoretical discipline, artform, and deeply human modality that sharpens our sensitivities to networks of information textualized in our world. We acquire highly transferable skills that enrich our lives and those around us. Literature, language, and education are some of the strongest tools for change, and this major helps me wield them. I first fell in love with literature in highschool. My English teacher molded me from clay. He gave me the gift of poetry and mentored our after-school Creative Writing Workshop where I felt safe as a Black and Queer student. Writing is a declaration of self; reading is a validation of the other. This makes ELA both intensely personal and communal. I want to become as good a teacher as I was fortunate enough to have; I want to become as good a teacher as future kids like me deserve to have. I wrote my way into college and declared my Creative Writing major the moment I got here. English and Education majors came later, as professors in this department further showed me how powerful this discipline is. Reading and writing are as important and inextricable as inhaling and exhaling. Seminar-style discussions have evolved throughout history: from our ancestors’ campfires, then greek forums, now lecture halls and book clubs, that English majors expand on our history as communal learners make me feel deeply connected to something larger than myself. Writing has been such a crucial tool in my own development, and now working as a writing tutor in the English department, I am able to wield instructional, non-prescriptive tutoring pedagogy as a tool to aid in the personal development of other students. It’s deeply fulfilling and feels like a calling. Storytelling and narrative formation are staples of the human condition. We’ve been doing it for as long as we’ve been walking on two legs. Extracurricular participation like my literary editor position in the campus fine-arts magazine The Quarry facilitates continued exchange and curation of illuminating literature and stories. English majors strive for a scrupulous depth of analysis, and the perceptual acuity granted by literary theory makes cerebral, critical citizens. The work of English does not stop upon exiting the classroom. There are texts everywhere: Ads, marketing, film, TV, social media. These implicit narratives influence our patterns of thinking. Intentionality is imperative in a digital age of passive consumerism and shortened attention spans; the paradox of being both in the age of information and misinformation. ELA helps us discern which is which in a critical fashion. English is to societal dominant narratives what a good therapist is to a client’s inner dialogue: we offer thorough, compassionate analysis, draft counter-narratives to harmful beliefs, and use language to cradle and probe. Media literacy is a kind of psychoanalysis in a culture where we question the origins of tacit messages to monitor our collective mental health. English affords a wide range of potential professional paths to choose from post-graduation. Lawyer, teacher, businessman, artist; all prepared for by Englishes’ nigh universal application. Deepening my relationship with pieces of art helps me feel alive. Books are some of my oldest friends--I owe my formative years to the representation, inspiration, and consolation provided by literature. This scholarship’s prompt echoes an inquiry I often fret: “Should I / embark / on this / English / journey?” But even while saying that, I delight in the refrains’ iambic pentameter; how the sentences’ syllables pulse in the same metrical pattern as the human heart. There is passion for English beating in my chest. I'm confident I should listen to it.

For a young Black kid like me, no artist stimulates the mind, captures the heart, and galvanizes the body into action for social change like the songwriter, rapper, and sonic scientist Kendrick Lamar. His instrumental prowess, dreamy vocals, and hypnotic lyrics are light on the ears, but still heavy with social commentary. His creative and technical genius demonstrated in his production cannot be understated, as his songs, complex as math problems, are as thoughtful as they are beautiful. A burgeoning Social Scientist and Creative Writer myself, his musical inventions are shining, inspiring examples of what happens when we merge the two spheres of our lives: the left and right brain, the analytics and the aesthetics, the producer and the performer, the scientist and the artist.

I was born from a broken love story. My father left when I was born. I didn’t mind it. “I don’t care! Just means I get two birthday parties!” Until, year after year, celebration after celebration, the ache grew, and I felt my dad’s absence like a torn limb. Something was missing. Feelings of worthlessness festered. Not even a thousand birthday parties could fix that. I was then hurled into highschool, right at the age where I became self-aware of my own emptiness; the place in my life where a male role-model should be. I remember sulking outside after school, waiting for someone to pick me up. My English teacher, Mr. Andrews, approached me. “You know, we are having Creative Writing Club, right? Join us! I think you’d like it.” I walked in. I thought I signed up for a decent activity to pass time. Turns out I made one of the best decisions of my life. Mr. Andrews and that club had a life-altering impact on me. He sensed I needed a passion, so he gave me the gift of poetry. He introduced me to other writers at school, mostly Black Queer teenagers, and I got my first exposure to my own community. He gave me books written by my elders and listened to my amateur poems attempting to replicate their skills. He got me excited about my education. My future. My own potential. Then he helped me tap into it. I remember my father’s reaction to a poem I wrote that served as my coming out. His nauseated face, him omitting my queerness like some chasm in my identity. Mr. Andrews didn’t look at my queerness as a fault, but rather a well, infinitely-deep, that I could draw stories from to drench the world in my unique perspective. He accepted me for who I am and allowed me to do the same for myself. I genuinely got excited about English. Poetry was this cool new toy I had, and I began playing with it daily. I never thought it could be more than a hobby, but there he was, a role model on how to be both a man and a writer. I told him about how I want to write when I grow up. The following club meeting, we read books about how to get published. My dreams felt so close, barely a page turn away. Dozens of meetings and one graduation later, I am in college pursuing my Creative Writing degree. My dream is to become the same artistic and personal inspiration for other emerging artists that Andrews was for me. I want to publish a book and distribute my story across America. I’ll travel to open mics and college campuses, delivering poems and being unapologetically myself. I hope the pages of my book become a mirror to show kids their beautiful reflection, my words daring them to be themselves. Both my art and the reasons I create it are accessible and relatable. There is a huge demand for Black Queer voices in the world of art. Also, The Father Wound isn’t talked about enough. We sit back idly while absent fathers destroy our society. They create feelings of purposelessness and insecurity inside future artists, but that is not an incurable wound. Art and representation is one of the most effective salves. We are like wildflowers who grow in all the spots no one expects us to, even out of broken love stories. Despite it all, I know the work I am doing in my Creative Writing courses will be healing to current and future generations.

I never thought I’d say this: I’m glad I was a part of the Class of 2020. Many senior-year hallmarks were snubbed. Prom. Graduation. Goodbyes. I mourned, but one celebrated cancellation was Finals. The required studying drastically decreased, so I could fill that time with studying of my choosing. As students, we are told what and who to study. It’s dispiriting. Even my favorite subject, English, was stultified, endlessly following the old-dead-white-male-author default. I droned through presentations and mass-produced papers. Come senior year, autocratic schooling bored me. Then Covid struck like a guillotine, cutting the school year short. Off with the head of the standardized test! I used my time reading, writing, and studying whatever I wanted. Romance, Thrillers, and Fiction filled my shelves where textbooks would’ve been. Writing helped process difficult emotions during quarantine. I ghosted the persuasive essay, instead filling my journal with elegies. My inner-scholar roamed free. With reinvigorated enthusiasm, I declared my major: Creative Writing. I published many of my summer 2020 pieces. Some even landed in museums! Quarantine was one of the hardest periods of my lifetime. Writing sustained me through it, and I now know it'll continue doing so the rest of my life.

"You Survived Another Night!" says the announcer in a horror-survival game I was addicted to. It was nothing but pixels and electricity, yet still felt so nice to hear. My teen years were not easy, and videogames became an escape. My parents’ divorce was a sinkhole in the middle of the house, swallowing our home brick-by-brick. The one room I felt ok in was the gameroom. It was my foothold, one strip of land standing while all else crumbled. There I’d meet some online friends, faceless gamertags also trying to survive. I’d begun collecting clips of us playing. An epic trickshot. A funny moment. Us breaking the world record damage done in a single match after hundreds of tries. The deeper I descended into the game, the more distance grew between myself and the real world. 14 second clips mutated into 30-minute monsters, and I needed a way to condense them before they exceeded my mom’s ps4 storage budget. Enter, video editing. I could cut the clips into bit-size compilations that chronicled the best moments. I remember the first time I activated my editing software, the orange light of the logo drenching my little island in a sweet, citrus explosion. I savored the new treasure. I began editing. Initially, it was purely functional, cutting off excess video like a butcher would fat. But then came a romance. A way to string together trimmed clips into a movie, rearranging them like pieces of a mosaic. Do I want comedy? Epicness? Sincerity? Moreso, different flashy effects and transitions stylized the naked clips into something sexier, enhancing the viewing experience. My editing improved, and I had that much more ground to stand on. I began wondering what else I could glamorize through editing? How much more life was outside those walls graffitied with light from my electronics? How much more of it was waiting to hop onto my editing timeline? I started gathering clips offline, in the real world. Instead of PS4 parties, I’d go to real ones. Instead of montages of videogame characters, I’d create montages of my friends and family. I viewed the world through a camera's eye. A world I couldn’t even bear to look at now looked so vivid and colorful. And that was before I added filters and effects on it! I posted my first video on my Youtube channel 3 years ago. Flashforward now, 100k views later, and I’ve never been happier. I’ve captured worlds of beauty and stored it in video form. I lost so much of my childhood, and I never want to lose a second of life again, so I immortalize these moments in video to create a portfolio that will outlive me. My art’s viewership gave me community and it’s creation gave purpose. For years, film was one of the only things getting me out of bed. Being an artist simply means being myself. Not surviving, but being unapologetically alive. Feeling everything and documenting it so others can feel just as intensely. There is no sinkhole that I'd ever fall down again, because with my camera and software, I feel like I can walk on air. I think of all the other kids cooped up in rooms with the earth giving away around them. I want the light from my films to illuminate their rooms, showing them how much there is to live for outside the homes trapping them. My art was a pathway from an island of coping to a world of fulfilment. I can’t wait to see how many more films and connections to myself, the world, and others I create.

For Queer people, in a world where we are so often powerless, our appearance is one of the few things we have control over. Clothing is a vehicle to express ourselves authentically and be unapologetically visible. Through clothing, I craft myself a shiny suit of armor in which I refuse to invisible in. The first time I truly felt like I loved myself was at Prom 2019. It was my junior year in high school. I was the only (open and visibly) Queer person in my small, conservative high school graduating class. There were a few closeted men I was talking to, looking for them to give me a validation they were unwilling and incapable to give. I thought whether or not I was beautiful was wholly dependent on whether or not I was asked out to Prom. I saw the CisHet women I went to school with lathered in perfumes, name-brand makeup, skin-tight dresses, and male recognition. Their beauty was allowed to flourish. I wanted it so bad. I felt like I didn't exist unless they saw me. But as the big day approached, and someone had--still--yet to make a cheesy Promposal dedicated to me, I decided I wasn't going to let this unforgettable high school ritual pass me by. I looked at my reflection in the mirror that night and asked myself out to Prom. The following day, I went and got a flamboyant suit, some vibrant makeup, a clean haircut, and the longest nails, most colorful nails I could afford. The color scheme of my fit was Blue, Pink, Purple, Black, and White: the colors of the genderfluid flag. I fluttered into the ball, my Queer clothing blossoming off me like petals in the wind. I danced all night long, by myself, for myself, and felt beautiful doing it. I've since started a youtube channel where I make beauty videos, tutorials, and short films for other Black, Queer people. I create Makeup and hairstyle tutorials, queer fashion look-books, poetry and so much more. My latest video is a Love Letter to my community where I talk about my pop-culture inspirations. I rake in about 300-1000 views a video and have been using my platform to be the representation of Queer + Black beauty I never had. I will continue to promote positive Black Queer visibility on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram. My issue is not that I was not beautiful, it's that I was looking for that recognition in people committed to not seeing me. Once I turned to my community--and most importantly myself--I was met with celebration and recognition of the beauty I've always exhibited.