Charis welcomes Ra Malika Imhotep, doris davenport, and Aurielle Marie for an intergenerational porch sit and celebration of Gossypiin. Gossypiin is an offering towards the holding and healing of Black beings that exceed the confines of their own bodies. This event is co-hosted by ZAMI NOBLA: The National Organization of Black Lesbians on Aging and the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History.

This harvest of poems is inspired by the plant medicine latent in Gossypium Herbeceum, or Cotton Root Bark, which was used by enslaved Black women to induce labor, cure reproductive ailments and end unwanted pregnancies. Through an arrangement of stories, secrets and memories experienced, read, heard, reimagined and remixed, gossypiin reckons with a peculiar yet commonplace inheritance of violation, survival and self-possession. In this way, Ra Malika Imhotep invites us to lean in and listen good as the text interrupts the narrative silence around sexual harm, sickness, and the marks they make on black femme subjectivity.

Within these pages, the poet is joined by a "sticky trickster-self" named Lil Cotton Flower who tells of their own origins and endings in the Black vernacular traditions of the griot and the gossip. Interspersed throughout the collection, Black feminist wisdoms and warnings meld with the poets own yearnings and Lil Cotton Flower's tall tales.

Ra Malika Imhotep is a Black feminist writer and performance artist from Atlanta, Georgia currently pursuing a PhD in African Diaspora Studies and New Media Studies from the University of California. As a scholar and cultural worker, Ra is invested in exploring relationships between queer Black femininities, Black vernacular cultures, and the performance of labor. As a steward of Black Studies and Black feminist thought, Ra dreams, organizes, and facilitates spaces of critical reflection and embodied spiritual-political education. Ra is co-author of The Black Feminist Study Theory Atlas and author of gossypiin (Red Hen Press, Spring 2022).

doris davenport (pronouns: person/per): 73-year-old lesbian-feminist visionary; educator and literary & performance poet, born and raised in Cherokee Homelands (colonized by Europeans as Northeast GA). This place gives her faith in magical possibilities and solutions for all forms of oppression. Education: Paine College (B.A. English) and the University of Southern California (Ph.D. African American Literature). Published 12 books of poetry, most recently, dancing in time: poetry, monologue, stories, lies (2019). Additionally, doris is working on a new book (possible title, “do i remind you of someone”) to be published in mid-2022. Most recent project (9/26/2021): hosted a zoom event (with the generous help of ROOTs members Nathalie Faulk and indee) for the eleventh annual international phenomenon, 100 Thousand Poets & Other Artists for Change. Click here to see how to order doris' latest work, dancing in time: poetry monologues stories lies. Contact: zorahpoet7@gmail.com

Aurielle Marie is a Black and queer essayist, poet, and cultural strategist hailing from the Deep South. A 2019 Ploughshares Emerging Writer award recipient, she’s received invitations to fellowships from many literary institutions, including Lambda Literary, VONA Voices, and Tin House. Her work is featured in TriQuarterly, Southeast Review, Black Warrior, and other journals. Aurielle Marie writes and speaks about Blackness, bodies, sex, and pop culture from a Black feminist lens. Aurielle is the author of, Gumbo Ya Ya: Poems.

This event is free and open to all people, especially to those who have no income or low income right now, but we encourage and appreciate a solidarity donation in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Charis Circle's mission is to foster sustainable feminist communities, work for social justice, and encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/CharisCircle?code=chariscirclepage

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Gossypiin: A Porch Sit with Ra Malika Imhotep, doris davenport, and Aurielle Marie