Photo credit: Min Enterprises Photography
April Gibson is a poet, essayist, and educator whose work has appeared in Pluck!, Valley Voices, Tidal Basin Review, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. She has received a Loft Mentor Series Award in Poetry, a Vermont Studio Center Residency, and is a fellow of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, The Watering Hole Poetry Retreat, and a VONA/Voices Writing Workshop alum. Her chapbook, Automation, was published by Willow Books as part of their emerging poet and writer series. Her current project is a full-length poetry collection titled The Black Woman Press Conference.
Original Sound
as far back as black in this country
is from, from the water that I only
know to fear in the guttural wet
of my throat the mouth of history
cracked lip split and bulging
the drowned crawl back through
through moan floating sand floor
floating bones rising and reaching
for joy, even if we know it ain’t all joy
we count it, every lost wave’s blue note