We are still reeling from the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police in Minneapolis—one murder in a long history of violence against the Black community by those charged with protecting our citizens. This is a history in which we are all involved. This cannot continue. Black lives matter. Hugo House is committed to fight against racism.
We try to navigate troubled times with nuanced writing, serious listening, and the willingness to confront injustice. As a community of writers and readers, we must actively search for the right words to express our sorrow and our anger and our hopes and dreams for the future we can create together.
We have been searching for those words. We have read the work of Black writers who look unflinchingly at the world around them, writers whose voices should be in the spotlight not just now, but always. We offer links to some of that work below.
Hugo House is now and will always be here to help Seattle and all its writers and readers make sense of their rage, their grief, their fear and to amplify the voices of our Black citizens and friends, to listen to their stories and share their words. We are here together. We will create the world we want to live in.
The list below contains a small sample of the work the Hugo House staff and board have reached for and read over the past week.
Poems
- from Citizen, VI “ [I knew whatever was in front of me was happening]” by Claudia Rankine
- “dear white america” by danez smith
- “Bullet Points” by Jericho Brown
- “On Disappearing” by Major Jackson
- “Power” by Audre Lorde
- “Now More Than Ever” by Morgan Parker
- “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [“Probably twilight makes blackness dangerous”]” by Terrance Hayes
- “Soil Horizon” by Tiana Clark
- “what the dead know by heart” by Donte Collins
- “Incident” by Natasha Trethewey
- “The United States Welcomes You” by Tracy K. Smith
- “Pomegranate Means Grenade” by Jamaal May
- “When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving” by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Essays
- “A Report from Occupied Territory” by James Baldwin
- “Letter to my Son” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- “The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration’” by Michelle Alexander
- “The Death of George Floyd, In Context” by Jelani Cobb
- “Remember, No One Is Coming to Save Us” by Roxane Gay
- “Breathe” by Imani Perry