Singing a tree into dance

On rural artistry.

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Hello Folks,

For the past three weeks, I have been working with our new cohort of fellows here in North Carolina, all of whom are artists across different mediums. Actors. Dancers. Writers. Photographers. Musicians. We make up an eclectic group. Some of us are from here; others are not. A few have come from far away, across deserts and over lakes. Regardless, for all of us now, these pine forests have become the place we call home and will for the next ten months. Last year I felt much of what I imagine them to feel now: overwhelm, anxiety, doubt. I wondered how I had ended up here, in this place, in this job. I felt some shame about having left a high-profile place to move myself to the countryside. To teach, a job that is respected but often not rewarded. I struggled to find a new community and to figure out what my role was meant to be here, why out of all my plans that slipped away and fell through, this was the one that had stuck.

All this past month, I have been reliving this version of myself, trying to remember who I was before I became fiercely passionate about this place and the people within it. Before I began to see the value of the rural— really, truly see it, not just being able to, as an outsider, declare that there is value here and yet still not wish to be a part of it. I have, unintentionally or not, found my community. And now I am guiding others towards this as well. Many conversations and trainings we have had in the past few weeks revolve around rural teaching and the assumptions, biases, and stereotypes associated it. Even within our national cohort— which spans from Philadelphia to New York City to Colorado— there is a judgement placed on those of us who come to work in North Carolina. We are considered the last option; this place was, incidentally, the bottom choice for many of our current fellows. Together, we have been working to overcome assumptions and redefine what it means to work in a rural community, especially to work in the arts here. We have had many open conversations about what brought us to this work and what keeps us here, and I like to think we have dispelled some of those judgements that, naturally, we come to another place with. Those judgements are learned, they are taught, and they are not easily rid of. But conversation and storytelling, art and empathy, these are— and I firmly believe this— the best ways to do it.

Against my own will, I often still find myself feeling shame for being here. That my life now is not as cool or as thrilling as it once was. That I did the one thing I promised my childhood self I would never do, which is to come back. It’s not a decision I regret, but it’s still one whose implications I am unlearning. I will be unraveling this shame for the rest of my life. It is not an easy process, and yet it is an essential one.

For me, the most important thing I have done in my own process to unlearn my internalized shame about being southern is to read other southern writers who speak candidly on this. To immerse myself in the art of the region and remember the great value that is held here. The culture, the beauty, the love that surrounds me. I spend the last few hours researching for pieces to send to our new fellows that speak on all these issues, and I came across the following poem, which I would like to share with you today.

Before I go, your prompt is to think of something you can be a messenger for. If you are only able to say one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? Think of what feels most important to you. Now put it into words.

Jaki Shelton Green is a poet and author of eight collections, most recently I Want to Undie You (Jacar Press, 2017). A Poets Laureate Fellow, she currently teaches at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and serves as the poet laureate of North Carolina. I love this poem.

who will be the messenger of this land

by Jaki Shelton Green

who will be the messenger of this land
count its veins
speak through the veins
translate the language of water
navigate the heels of lineage
who will carry this land in parcels 
paper, linen, burlap
who will weep when it bleeds
and hardens
forgets to birth itself

who will be the messenger of this land
wrapping its stories carefully 
in patois of creole, irish,
gullah, twe, tuscarora
stripping its trees for tea
and pleasure
who will help this land to 
remember its birthdays, baptisms
weddings, funerals, its rituals
denials, disappointments
and sacrifices

who will be the messengers
of this land
harvesting its truths
bearing unleavened bread
burying mutilated crops beneath
its breasts

who will remember 
to unbury the unborn seeds
that arrived
in captivity
shackled, folded,
bent, layered in its
bowels

we are their messengers
with singing hoes
and dancing plows
with fingers that snap
beans, arms that 
raise corn, feet that
cover the dew falling from
okra, beans, tomatoes

we are these messengers
whose ears alone choose
which spices
whose eyes alone name
basil, nutmeg, fennel, ginger,
cardamom, sassafras
whose tongues alone carry
hemlock, blood root, valerian,
damiana, st. john’s wort
these roots that contain
its pleasures its languages its secrets

we are the messengers
new messengers
arriving as mutations of ourselves
we are these messengers
blue breath
red hands
singing a tree into dance

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This week’s song is one of those that I never get tired of. There’s something about the energy of this that I deeply need right now, and listened to my whole drive down the country to the town where I used to live this morning. I don’t know what it is, but this melody feels like coming home.