To the BOOM Girls

I don't know the fullness to which you have defined "Boom." I check out your Facebook pages. I see you around town. I know you all personally. So I gather it's the exclamation at the end of a chosen statement (spoken or not), coupled with glossy snapped lips and a raised eyebrow.

But I know it's more than that. More than high heels and lip gloss. B girl sneaks and French tips. More than "stunting on bitches...daily." Oh, I know that's part of it. But not the best part of Boom. There is a part the world can't see. The guiness of your creativity. The stories. The lines, each thought out, worked over, crossed out and inserted line that makes the final draft.

Now lemme just say, individually yall are each too much to handle. You each hold your own super human strength. You're all beautiful. All wordsmiths. I was so honored to work with you all last Monday as the host of the first anniversary of Brass Knuckles where the Boom Girls featured as a collective. The west coast Booms anyway. Nikki Blak, Tamara Blue, Judy Holiday, Jimetta Rose and Simply Kat. Missing form the list are Ebony Janice, April Jones and Sonya Renee. Thank you, thank you for the opportunity to witness your collective greatness.

The house was packed. The eyes and ears were open. The hearts were ready. Yall took me on a ride last night. As each of you stepped to the mic my jaw dropped lower and lower. I loved that you didn't so much perform for us. No, not a performance, you shared with us. Shared your stories, tears. Shared your wit. Read from your pages. Blessed us with song. Words. Wisdom. Thank you and thank you again for "stunting" on us. BOOM!

Dear Promoter who shall remain nameless unless he doesn't have my money TODAY,

This is how we do our artists. This is how we value them. This is how we honor them. You want us to be on time for sound check, for show. You want a good show. Then it's a freaking hassle to get paid. Seriously, you have no more days to remain nameless. I want my money today. I don't care whose ATM you have to pull it from but I want it today. I will not take a check after the banks close today. I am trying not to deal with you the same way I deal with promoters who jerk me around but that is how you are acting.

Crawl out the hole you came in or go to sleep!

there is a rabbit or raccoon or ghost or vampire in the attic just above me and it didn't sleep all night long.

ask me how i know

Thank you, Hannibal

If you haven't read the post from Hannibal Tabu, then please do. I was/am so honored and blessed that Hannibal took the time to write that wonderful piece for me. I have known Hannibal for many years and have been blessed by his rich words throughout that time.

Thank you thank you thank you, Hannibal! It means a lot to be appreciated for the work that we do. Sometimes it seems to go unnoticed or unvalued (unvalued, devalued I don't know the correct word here but...) when someone takes the time to acknowledge me I don't take it lightly. Again, thank you, Hannibal.

In answer to why I'm not answering your calls

We met
We talked
You called me Sunday morning at 8:30
We had a cool conversation
You said you wanted to take me to breakfast lunch whatever
I told you I was only available until 5 'cause I had plans after that
At 9:30 you said you were getting in the shower and getting dressed
You said you had an errand to run and then we would go

(Where it goes south)

At 11:30 when I didn't hear from you I made other plans
At 4:00 when you called you didn't leave a voice message
You left me a text that said
Hey babe, what's up?

Dear Laura pt 2

So I went to bed last night so full on your words and wisdom. You don't even know how much your words cleared a space in my life I didn't even realize was cluttered. Again, thank you.

Jaha

Dear Laura

Thank you. Just...thank you.

Jaha

Dear Venus

I have soooooo been loving your photos on your website and on your Facebook page. Thank you for sharing your awesome gift with the world!

To anyone else reading this: For a good time visit www.venusbernardo.com

Love you,

Jaha

Dear Samora (Univ of Utah)

I had such a good time in your class today. Meeting you was very special to me. You were the first student to greet me last week and you did so with such great energy. Your smile, your charm. Thank you for welcoming me to your class. Thank you for being one of the bright faces in the audience I could look out see. You smile and energy is contagious.

I trust that you will continue to do well in your studies and I look forward to communicating with you further.

Jaha Zainabu

Dear Carlene

It's been too long since we caught up. But that's the thing with friends. We always know. The short quick "you ok?" "you good" "love you." But I miss those times. Your couch, my couch, wine, talk. Good woman talk.

I'll be out there soon. No set date yet, but soon. You are always where I am though. I hear your voice. It's my blessing to call you friend.

Love you

Jaha

You 5

I had a dream a couple of nights ago that you started drinking again. Yes you, the cannot control your liquor intake guy. You know who you are. In the dream you were opening your second can of a really tall beer. Even now I can hear the click and see the beer fuzz escaping the can.

The bigger part of me hopes that's not true but there is also a part of me that doesn't care if you're drinking or not. For that part I ask forgiveness and compassion.

honoring me

i honor myself for not getting
on that plane with you
going back with you
starting over with you
why this
why these messages
why this release

because i am making room these days
making space these days
honoring me these ways

My mother's words

"One day your work is gonna be so big. So big all over the world."

Dear Mom,
Thank you. For words like these that lift me and remind me to write another story, then another one. The next poem, the next show. Then another story then the next...

Love you,
Robin

Dear Socks

Last night I finished painting the mural in your and Food's spot, Vibrations. Well, no painting of mine is ever finished, but finished until I do something else to it. I'm glad that you both like it. I like it too. Mostly though, I enjoyed spending time with yall. Talking, sharing, eating, being quiet, being our comfortable selves with no crowd around. No poems to rehearse. No microphones to adjust. No product to sell. No none of that. Just us. Our words. Our time. Thank you for that.

I was honored to be at your surprise party last week. Hearing all of the wonderful things people said about you made me even more proud / honored/ blessed to call you friend, collegue, sister, poet, artist.

I have always loved you. I have always admired the way you carried yourself and that you were such an awesome representative of woman to the sistas on the scene, the brothas too. Thank you. You have always showed so much love to our people in your poetry, your actions, your way of being. Again, thank you.

I wish you much success in your love, your shop, your life. Thank you for all the years of friendship. I'm glad we share the page of this journey right now.

Love you dearly,

Jaha

Dear Toni Morrison

Thank you for TAR BABY.

Love,
Jaha Zainabu (you don't know me)

Dear Mom

There are no words for the blessing you are to me. The blessing you are to the world. Thank you for sharing you so generously. For your wisdom, for your love. For everything.

Robin

Because

You assume that I am weak because I have been more than kind to you. More than generous. You assumed wrong.

You are afraid. Very afraid. You are envious and jealous. I am sad for you. But this is not about you. You won't use your voice because you lost it somewhere. Somewhere way back there. So far back I don't even remember it. Do you? The universe knows everything.

Dear Whoever you are

You are respectfully named Whoever you are because I don't remember your name. Your name doesn't even matter to me. You don't know me. That sentences is key. I am an artist. I am a storyteller. One of the tools I use to tell stories with is my camera.

Yesterday I posted some pictures on facebook. The pictures are a story of my short time in Memphis where I worked, praised, talked, shared, cried with a group of women ministers. I posted what I think are beautiful pictures. And what I think matters because it is afterall, my facebook page, my story, not yours. There were two pictures in particular that I especially liked. One was of a woman who is very dear to me, Valerie Bridgeman, in the pulpit at a church in Mississippi. My focus was not on her though, it was on the father and son in the pew in front of me. Rev. Bridgeman is fuzzy in the photo but the backs of the father and son are clear. How they were listening to her. How that young man was in church on a Saturday night with his father, listening. I loved that moment. I love the story I made up about that moment. I don't honestly know if they are father and son. Perhaps uncle and nephew, neighbor and friend, cousins, could even have been brothers. I don't know. But they were there and I caught that moment.

Another photo, of the 89 I posted is of a woman, Abigail, who was dancing during one of the services in Memphis. She was so graceful. Clad in her dancing gear, long flowing skirt and the rest. Beautiful. I took many pictures of her, as you saw. One of the ones that I loved is the picture I caught of her as she wizzed by me. In the photo she looked as if she is wizzing. Blurry but you can still make out who she is and what she is doing.

Why this post? Why this letter to you? Why are you Whoever you are? Well, because you chose to send me a message telling me not to post blurry pictures because potential clients want to see my best work. Are you one of my potential clients? Have you ever purchased a photo from me? Have you ever booked a photo session from me? Have you ever bought one of my books, been to any of my shows? Better, have you ever said "nice job" to me on a photo? I don't think so.

Let me express my art and tell my story how I want to. I am pretty sure that I am not the only woman whose art you try to direct and maybe they don't want to tell you, but I will. Back off. I don't know you. Tell your own story. Post your own clear pictures.

I guess you are saying, "wow, all of this from one simple message?" Well, yeah. Yes and no because I am not just responding to you. I am responding to ex friends, ex lovers, ex passserbyers who found it necessary to put their two cents in where it wasn't asked for or welcomed. So, for all of the times I didn't use my voice before, I say again... POST YOUR OWN CLEAR PICTURES.

Dear Rev. Dr. Renita Weems

I will begin this letter to you first by mentioning how I first came to experience you. It was at the WomanPreach Academy this month in Memphis. You were on skype and a group of women sat and listened to and asked questions of you. Even when the technology failed us, we gathererd ourselves and sat around the telephone and continued the conversation on speaker phone. You touched my life. I am posting this letter to you on my blog and will not recapture the conversation or give your bio to those reading this who may not know you. I will say here though, that reading your blog at somethingwithin.com is a good way to get to know what you are about.

Now, thank you for being a woman who speaks up and encourages women to use our voices. Thank you for using yours so powerfully. And by powerfully, and this is to the readers of my blog, I don't mean that you need to shout. I thank you for speaking clearly about where you stand. Often I find women afraid to make statements that may not be popular in our society. Our society of women, of church, of black folk.

Before I heard you in Memphis I heard of you from Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman who does not often should me or others on anything but when she said you SHOULD hear her and know who she is, well, let's just say I'm no fool. Valerie Bridgeman (again for the readers) is also a very powerful woman. A woman who uses her voice and does not shake when she does. A woman who stands for justice and the empowerment of women. As you do Mrs. Weems.

The intent of this... letter is to express how great an impact you had on me in the hour or so we spent on the phone. Yes, I said we, because that's what it was for me. Though you didn't hear my voice or even know me, I was there with you. Also the intent of this is to introduce to some who may frequent my blog and may not know of you (and Valerie Bridgeman).

Thank you again and I am enjoying your blog. I read it almost every night. Please keep posting, writing, sharing yourself with the world.

Jaha Zainabu

Dear rain

Take off your shoes and spend some time.