Photo of headphones with a muted rose pink filter.

When you come bring your brown… published in 2022 Mixtape: Writers of Colour Audio Anthology

Delighted to share this project! This is the third annual anthology from the Writers of Colour project over at Scottish BPOC Writers Network. This most recent audio anthology was co-curated by poets Hannah Lavery and Marjorie Lotfi.

Featuring 25 poets, you should experience it in its entirety on SBWN (audio + text).

My poem is called ‘When you come bring your brown’ – audio and transcript below. The soundscape was created by Sarya Wu.

When you come bring your brown

set your teeth
grin at the white shore and it’s hunger

froth will pounce on your words
(but only the right words)

built from your grains of dark sand
each one its own story

‘when you come bring your brown’
slips into the rifts between words

‘serve us razor-cut slivers of dark
meat, let us salt it’

they’ll slush and gulp your warm sands
between spume fingers

with the unquenchable thirst
of the white sea

thiefing your sounds your moves, your –
being

performing cathedrals of salt spray

they don’t trust you anyway, so when you come
bring your brown

choose who you take to your forest, desert, glade, island
we will make our own selection

of long-buried secrets of
shell, bone, gem, glass, mirror

no exotica here
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