A Special Blackshop Honoring Kamilah Aisha Moon
Tags: Literature, Featured, Blackshop, Interview, Poetry

On September 24, 2021, our dear friend Kamilah Aisha Moon got the call to join the ancestors and went on up home. Kamilah to some, Aisha to others, Ms. Moon if you were fortunate, her sudden departure left us with an absence; left us, well, in her own words, “clanging/ like bells/ out of tune.” Aisha was so many things to us: icon, mentor, sister, student, jokester, hype person, music aficionado, poet, princess, friend. There’s no way to capture all that she was and all that she remains.

To end this year, Blackshop asked seven friends and colleagues of hers, from various circles, to reflect on Kamilah Aisha Moon. We asked three questions:

*Would you please share a favorite memory about Aisha?

*Would you please talk about a favorite piece of her writing?

*In 25 words or less, how are we keeping the spirit of Kamilah Aisha Moon with us?

The response we received are heartfelt, incredible, and cathartic. To take a line from one of her favorite musicians, they are the joy inside our tears.

We want to thank our contributors for taking the time out to share.

Thank you to our Editors for offering this space.

And thank you, dear readers. We’re hoping you’re holding someone close.

See you in 2022.

Tina Chang

T ina Chang

Favorite memory:

I had the honor of celebrating Aisha in 2013 when she launched her beautiful poetry collection, She Has a Name. We shared the same publisher then, Four Way Books, and we were giddy with excitement about her launch. Though I knew Aisha was loved, it wasn’t until the evening of the launch at Dumbo Sky in Brooklyn that I witnessed just how loved she truly was. There were feelings of expectation, admiration, and pure bliss as we watched a beautiful film Rachel Eliza Griffiths had made to honor Aisha. It was a full-throated voicing of their sisterhood and the feeling of vibrant kinship was palpable in the room. There were shared poems, songs, instrumental music and Aisha’s greatest wish was that, by the end of the night, the chairs were pushed back and there was dance! To witness Aisha realize her dream, to see her shine in the light of friends and family, and to be on the receiving end of Aisha’s wide and generous smile was, for me, pure joy.

Favorite piece:

Aisha’s poem, “Mercy Beach” appeared as part of the Poetry Society of America’s program, Poetry in Motion. It was a large scale poster installed at my home base subway station in NYC. Each time I pass by the poem (even now), I say hello to Aisha. “Mercy Beach” is a poem that speaks to shadow as much as it does to light. It gestures to pain as well as grace. It is, as its title suggests, merciful in all ways and every time I read it, I hear Aisha’s voice:

They grow & break grief into islands

of sun-baked stone submerged in salt

kisses, worn down by the ocean’s ardor

relentless as any strong loving.

May they find caresses that abolish pain.

Like Earth, they brandish wounds of gold!

25 words or less:

There is a waterfall located behind my home. At the base of this waterfall, I saw an egret rise into the air and I knew for certain it was Aisha. Each time I visit, I can feel her presence and we keep the spirit of Aisha with us every time we put pen to paper, every time we lift ourselves up from what held us back.

Roohi Choudhry (Photo: Shiva Muthiah)

Roohi Choudhry

Favorite memory:

Aisha and I lived together as roommates in a small Sunset Park apartment. I cherish so many memories of the cozy home we made together as women writers trying to make sense of our New York highs and lows. I especially love that Aisha made sure to celebrate our little victories. When I finally quit a soul-sucking day job, I came home that evening to a pair of red roses and a note on our table. We celebrated the arrival of her first box of copies of her first book, too. We played Ella Fitzgerald and opened a bottle, and she whispered “wow” as she flipped through her own printed words in her own hands.

Favorite piece:

I’ve always loved her essay “It’s Not The Load That Breaks You Down; It’s The Way You Carry It,” and I know it resonated for so many women who’ve shared those experiences with the medical system. I remember all the notes and appreciation she received after it came out and how much those stories moved her. Lately though, I’ve been returning over and over to her poem “To a Dear Friend Mothering Misery.” I’ve repeated that line, “the world needs your music too much,” so many times when I’ve felt hunched over by her loss and all the accumulated grief of this pandemic. And each time, I want to say, but what about us? We need your music, Aisha. She did leave some of it behind for us in these poems. It’s not enough, but it’ll have to be.

25 words or less:

By noticing the music of everyday stories that are too much to bear but whose mischief we laugh at anyway, quiet and private.

Ellen Hagen

Ellen Hagan

Favorite memory:

When I think of the greatest readings, the most memorable events, the best parties, the brightest community hangs, I always, always see Aisha and the way her stunning, radiant and inviting energy would bring everyone together. Each year we hosted a holiday party in our uptown apartment and she was there every single year. Perfect attendance. Even after Aisha moved out of the city, she flew back for the party — and what felt like an event to celebrate, uplift, dance, toast and just be together. Aisha was the one to stay late, to debrief, reflect and stay shining with you right up until the end. When I think of Aisha, I see her surrounded by so many who loved her, who wanted to be near her laughter, style, her endless sharp thoughts on the world, politics, music, poetry, pop culture. Oh, how lucky to have loved Aisha and to have been there late into the night — basking in her brilliance.

Favorite piece:

The work of Kamilah Aisha Moon lives in everything. Her voice shows up in a constant and continual way. Lately, the poem I return most to is: Initiation for Rachel Eliza. What a testament to sisterhood and the deep bonds of a friendship that has weathered the death of a beloved. There is the ultimate seeing in this poem, the generosity and tenderness of grieving with a loved one. This poem is a gift, an offering. It is such deep heart work and lives unafraid of the heartache. Sits directly with it. Offers breath and space for sorrow. But then in these last two lines, there is suddenly something new — a rebirth. A holding on. Somehow, a facing what is next — together. This poem is full of such boundless love.

When mothers are planted,

daughters begin a furious blooming.

25 words or less:

We will continuously bring her work to our students so we can study what greatness looks like on the page. How to be song and salve, how to be vulnerable, resonant and profound.

Dennis Nurkse

D. Nurkse

Favorite memory:

Aisha wasn’t a sound byte person — she didn’t cultivate a persona, she was Aisha. My first memory of her is indelible but so quiet — she was reserved in class until it was her turn: I wondered if she was comfortable: then she shared an amazing poem and a radiant smile. I realized she had been concentrating on the other students, giving them space.

In my mind, I still see her silently picking up the check for friends at a time when she was between jobs.

Favorite piece:

Aisha’s poem “Storm” ends “forgive me,/my dearly departed,/ for crying out/so often, for still needing you/so damn much.” In her work, it’s painful to say this, she’s so present. Her books are exceptionally grounded — in empathy, responsibility, the things that keep the world from flying apart — and they are not performative: empathy isn’t postulated, it takes struggle: in “Watching a Woman On the M101 Express” the poem doesn’t shift its gaze to the self, but is careful to ask whether that gaze might be a burden to the other. All Aisha’s work is informed by a wild love. She spoke of future projects with a large canvas. She’s an indispensable poet.

25 words or less:

We have to read Aisha’s books. We have to keep writing though the world says “why?” or “who cares?” We have to pick up the tab for friends even if we’re short and they’re flush.

Left to Right: Kamilah Aisha Moon and Mendi Lewis Obadike

Mendi Lewis Obadike

Favorite memory:

My friendship with Aisha spans almost 40 years so far. As anyone who knows her might say, it is hard to choose just one favorite memory. I met Aisha in the summer of 1985. We were 11 and we had both made first clarinet in Tennessee State University’s Summer Band Camp. On the final day of camp we played a big concert and met each other’s parents. They got along really well. We exchanged numbers, but it was the last day of camp and I kind of thought we might never see one another again. But the next fall, we found ourselves in the same homeroom in 7th grade. We continued to play clarinet throughout junior high. Our families celebrated holidays together. We took high school Creative Writing together. After high school, we met up in Atlanta throughout the 90s. New York in the 00s. Cave Canem events. Because of the difficulty of focusing on just one memory, I am fixated on the beginning of our friendship. Band camp. We played a lot of music that summer, but our favorite songs to play were the arrangements of “In My House” (Mary Jane Girls) and “Watermelon Man” (Herbie Hancock). On breaks during band practice, we would stay in the band room and she would go to the piano to work out the melodic lines from whatever hip-hop we were listening to in those days. In later years, when I imagined her at work on her poems, this is the posture I would imagine. Although we saw many changes in our lives, the Aisha I know at 48 is at her core the Aisha I met at 11: funny, generous, wise, conscious, joyful, bluesy, and very, very funky.

Favorite piece:

I have been spending time reading a lot of her recent poems. Among these the poem “Storm” hits so hard. The image of sitting in the dark waiting out so many kinds of storms. The whole poem brings forth a mood and an indirect argument, but the lines that send me are these: “Candlelight for two / is a date; I faintly / remember those. / Candlelight / alone / is a séance.” There is so much communication with the dead throughout her work. The other poem that has been on my mind almost as much as this one is a poem called “Nova” that she wrote for someone in mourning in 2003. I don’t think it was ever published, because she sent it to the person, but she sent me a draft and we workshopped it quite a lot. Interestingly, because that situation was very different from the circumstances of her passing, the first draft she sent me speaks perfectly to my mourning. It begins “I am light again” and directs the reader in this way: “Do not unravel / Chase blame or curse the moon / Face the sable sky each night / Sing us both to sleep”. I try.

25 words or less:

Because I refuse the past tense, I must carry her intention and attention to the people she loves. I must also write “healing, beautiful words” (a charge she sent me in that 2003 email).

Iain Haley Pollock (Photo: Rachel Eliza Griffiths)

Iain Haley Pollock

Favorite memory:

The last time I saw Kamilah in person, I wasn’t expecting to see her. I had taken my elder son to the farewell event for the Langston Hughes House. Seeing the novelist Renée Watson joyfully build community and literary energy at the Hughes House had been inspirational to me, and I was sad to lose that space. About an hour after my son and I arrived, Kamilah, who had moved to Atlanta a year or two before then, walked in — she was in town visiting her dear friend Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Now when I remember her entrance down the side hall that ran parallel to the space that had once between Hughes’s living room, I see a fedora or newsboy jauntily perched on her head — her crown. Photos from the event don’t bear out this vision as accurate, and this seems more a reflection of my memory folding experiences together to form a general impression of Kamilah — confident, stylish, wholly her own person. With Kamilah on the scene, my mood ticked up. She checked on me, we caught up, and she was kind to my son. We laughed together a bit, listened to poets pay homage to Watson’s vision of the Hughes House, and took a jubilant photo with a mess of other poets under Frank Morrison’s portrait of St. Langston. Walking away that evening to get my son home in time for dinner and bed, I remained sad about the loss of the Hughes House, but I was reminded that literary spaces are moveable feasts, that they are important because of the people who gather in them and that those people — Renée, Rachel, Kamilah — were still in my life. That last live interaction with Kamilah encapsulated all my other interactions with her: I left with a body relieved by laughter, with a mind empowered by insight, with a spirit buoyed by joy.

Favorite piece:

While I find Kamilah’s work in Starshine & Clay moving and powerful, I have a soft spot for debut collections from poets I met at the Cave Canem summer retreats between 2006–2009. Our collections seemed connected to me, distinct but related pieces of a shared project, part of a literary movement. So, Kamilah’s first book, She Has a Name, will always be important to me, and I’ll always be thankful that Cave Canem intertwined our paths as poets. Of the poems in She Has a Name, I come back to and admire “Portrait at 34.” The poem mixes the doubt we often feel about bodies and the ultimate faith in and appreciation of our bodies we need to survive. The poem begins outside the speaker: a lover pays her a dubious compliment — calls her face “a Sahara” — and then moves to a blown kiss meant for another that the speaker pretends was directed at her. This external validation is not adequate, cannot make the speaker appreciative of her body. After some envy of daffodils (and perhaps a refutation of Wordsworth’s simplistic formulation of joy), the speaker catalogues her body: “sepia freckles,” “serpentine spine,” “the stomach’s soft pages of flesh,” “feet as smooth as limes,” “Tear drop breasts.” Through this laying bare and taking stock, the speaker arrives at gratefulness: “Thank you bones, thank you valves.” As we all must, the speaker finds gratitude in the basic structures and functions of the body that sustain her. In addition to arriving at faith in the body, the poem serves as a meditation on being thirtysomething, that uncertain time sandwiched between the heedless optimism of the twentysomething and the mature resignation of fortysomething. All told, this poem is instructive to me as a poet and a person. As a poet, I admire the poetic craft — the movement from external to internal; the tightly controlled but varied syntax; the chiseled imagery — that allows Kamilah to write a poem that exhibits the vulnerability necessary to write affectively about the self without straying into self-absorption. As a person, I appreciate the reminder that all validation exists within and that only I can find the ultimate beauty in my own body.

25 words or less:

To honor Kamilah, I am daily working on seeing wonder (especially the natural world) and, without papering over hardship, I am working to spread joy.

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (Photo: Kathyrn E Raines)

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

Favorite memory:

This is the hardest question. There are so many memories, conversations, journeys. One that I keep returning to lately is a simple weekend around 2008. We we were hanging out in her Brooklyn apartment, listening to music and doing nothing in particular. We ate red velvet pancakes and sipped on the tequila drink she was into those days, meditating on agave, the word and the flavor. For a reason beyond my memory’s reach, we decided to have an impromptu photo shoot, posing first together and then separately, images of us hand on hip, arm in arm, head on shoulder, tucked into our chunky flip phones. I remember being struck by how regular the moment was, but also how unusual. We were grown ass women in a teenage thrill. I remember the soft, open ease that spread on Aisha’s face as we made took those pictures. I still have them, their grainy, shadowed shapes still whispering, her eyes still soft and bright as ever.

Favorite piece:

One of Aisha’s innumerable generosities was that she taught us how to grieve. Her perspective on loss was loving, exquisite, and instructive. This is true not only of her poems and essays that engaged grief directly, but also of the subtler romance with longing that glimmered beneath so much of her work. So much of both She Has a Name and Starshine and Clay reflect this deep, studied, illuminating view of just how to grieve, and how to survive our longing. For me, this is especially meaningful in the context of the losses of the body — of bodies marked as different by race, gender, desire, and ability — and the failures of the world to accommodate those bodies. Her poem “Eulogy” is exemplary on this front. In it she writes: “When eyes break water, what is reborn? I could almost hear her laugh as long-standing damns burst. She is a saint of light now, and I claim this morning breaking clouds and window panes as her new smile. Breaking as blessing. Why do we forget this has always been the way?” She taught us how to mourn how to grieve her, and try to make meaning from the loss.

25 words or less:

Listen to Prince, Stevie. Dance. Show up, out. Raise a glass, an eyebrow. Write. Gift her poems to those who need them: all of us.