Daundra Jackson is Ephemera's November Poet

(4 Poems & More)

Welcome readers!

We’re happy to introduce Deaundra Jackson, our selection for November’s Poetry at Ephemera. Thanks to Deaundra and everyone who submitted in September.

If you’d like to participate, we will be fielding submissions each month to publish one poem per issue from the same poet for the month. Each poet receives a $200 honorarium. For full rules and more info please see our designated post about Poetry at Ephemera. Paid subscribers can submit for free.

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Introducing, Deaundra Jackson!

Writer Bio

Deaundra Jackson is a 2023 MFA in Writing graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and a 2020 BA in Political Science graduate of Spelman College. Her work centers marginalized voices of the past. She was a 2023 Diversities and Diasporas Fellow of the Global Diversity Foundation. She has been published in The Raven’s Perch, Aunt Chloe Literary Magazine, Rising Phoenix Review, and Beyond the Sea: An Eber & Wein Anthology. She teaches Composition at Clark Atlanta University. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and enjoys hummingbird watching and music festivals.

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Artist Statement

I touch cotton fields when I touch my father’s hands.  My father and his great uncle who raised him, grew up picking cotton and tobacco in their South Georgia town of Statesboro, Georgia. I had the privilege of growing up three hours north in Atlanta, Georgia, but frequently visited my paternal family in Statesboro and rode past the cotton fields there. I feel intimately bound to the legacy of slavery and all of the violence that has been justified due to the stigma of skin color. From these beginnings, I developed a fierce passion for African American history, realizing that it was essential to confront the pervasive narratives of inequality and invisibility that often surround it.

My influences include Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni. What I aspire to accomplish in my poetry is to excavate the agency that the enslaved took despite their captivity, and to honor the sacrifices they made that this country takes for granted.

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Poems

Each issue of Ephemera spanning November will feature one poem from Deaundra. After each issue drops, the poem from that issue will then appear here as well. We like to introduce our poets first with a bio and an artist statement. We’ll send periodic reminders to check back in when the poems are available. This post will remain on our Substack, free to view, for the year. We hope you’ll enjoy these poems and revisit Deaundra’s page from time to time.

Poem 1 of 4

Cotton Fields

I touch cotton fields 
when I touch my father’s hands.

When he and his great uncle
who raised him picked cotton,
it was two dollars per one hundred pounds.

“A coke was just six cent,” he says.

My daddy worked at restaurants
that he couldn’t dine in.

You can still see the cotton fields 
In south Georgia, they blur into snow
at seventy miles per hour.

Basquiat writes “origin of cotton”
and I know he remembers 
for all of us. He crowns us still.

Full poem appears in the upcoming Nov.1 issue of Ephemera

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Poem 2 of 4

Mortal Kombat
               
Today I wrestled with a hummingbird 
for the nectar of life. I climbed a Magnolia tree

to behold more closely the white flowers and
looked for pecans in the grass below

I stretched my hands to the sun
and withdrew honey from the rays there

I fell backwards and sprouted wings 
painful in their outstretching 

like a yawn of doom from a breaking lung
like a breaking lung torn from a claw of life

birthed from the coo of a mourning dove

Appears in issue Nov.2 of Ephemera

Poem 3 of 4

After Trumpet Player by Langston Hughes

Coming soon

Appears in issue Nov.3 of Ephemera

Poem 4 of 4

Seismic

Coming soon

Appears in issue Nov.4 of Ephemera

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Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Cảm ơn. Xiè xiè.

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