Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight: Roya Marsh
This monthly series features poems by women of color in the early stages of their publishing careers. It is our intention to create more space at Perugia for the work of poets who are Black, Indigenous, and women of color (BIWOC). We hope using our platform to highlight this work will expand the readership of the poets we spotlight. This series aligns with Perugia’s mission to celebrate and support emerging women poets, inclusive of gender-expansive identities; featured poems will be from poets with no more than one published full-length collection. We’d love to hear from readers with suggestions for poems & poets to feature.
December 2024 Poet: Roya Marsh
in broad dayliGht black girls look grave
name one thing you can't find buried in the core of a black woman...
I'll wait...
The scariest thing is the way we hate ourselves. How we
are taught this. How we oblige. Where we let them burrow
falsehoods into our notion of self-love and sow a name on
it—watch it grow. And watch us reap. And watch us weep.
No cedarwood box. Our living corpse casket enough.
Mummified in misogynoir. A dark place to hide the weight
of the world. They gon' throw dirt on our name. They gon'
throw dirt on us. Each grain of soil another tale they told.
Another foot dug. Deep. Deeper. Sorry. Silent. Sister.
Small. Sexy. Slut. Solemn. Sick. Sadness. Sanity. Sinner.
Sinking. You clawing your way out. Or trying. They keep
on shoveling.
Who knew SOS meant save ourselves.
Source
dayliGht, MCD x FSG, 2020
Poet bio
Bronx, New York native Roya Marsh is a poet, performer, educator, and activist. She is the author of dayliGht (MCD x FSG, 2020), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry, and the forthcoming savings time (MCD x FSG, 2025). Roya works feverishly toward Queer liberation and dismantling white supremacy. She is the co-founder of the Bronx Poet Laureate, a PEN America Emerging Voices Mentor, Lambda Literary faculty, and the awardee of the Lotos Foundation Prize for Poetry and 2024 Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) Grant from Bronx Council on the Arts. Roya’s work has been featured widely including by the Academy of American Poets, Poetry magazine, the Village Voice, Nylon magazine, Huffington Post, The Root, Button Poetry, BAM, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Apollo Theater, Lexus Verses and Flow, On One with Angela Rye, BET, and The BreakBeat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket, 2018).