Bi-Monthly By Ryan #4

Dear Friends,

Happy Juneteenth! No one is free until we are all free. How are you celebrating your freedom today?

My one-week trip to Baltimore turned into an almost three-week visit, ending with a lovely time spent celebrating Pride weekend. My journey began with my first in-person letter writing workshop, during which we wrote love letters to Baltimore, and then shared them with each other at an open mic style reading. Everyone in attendance wrote a letter to Baltimore around the theme of rice.

I wrote an impromptu poem using my favorite lines from everyone’s piece which I read at the end of the event to wrap-up the workshop. The result was beautiful! I edited the poem (for flow) while walking and riding the bus around Hampden on a beautiful Monday evening, and later at the Waverly Library, and have pasted it below for all of you to read.

Our stories become each others and, indeed, are already. I was just reading through Dream, Create, Liberate: A Future Without Family Policing and found myself in awe of how many similarities and overlapping themes there are in our vastly differing stories. I am humbled and honored for my work to be in the company of such storytelling, and appreciate the creative approach to understandings of and working towards abolition.

The publication was released today and is available for download at the above link. In my very first newsletter, I announced I would share these links with you when available, and here they are! Please take time to read my interview and three poems, which start on page 8, along with everyone’s award-winning work.

Thank you for reading my newsletter and poems. The poem I promised is pasted below. Baltimore as a Pot of Rice is formatted as it is in this presentation because this is the easiest way for me to work around the limitations of the platform, and was originally written in couplets justified to the left.

Love, Ryan <3

Baltimore as a Pot of Rice

Ryan Jafar Artes with Rohaizad, Mark, Zoey, Shelby, Tandi, Wren, Agatha, Sarah, Nerissa, Crystal, Jeanne Marie, Tee, Holden, and Meghan

In the various neighborhoods / In which I live

I cook and eat hundreds / If not thousands of meals

With friends / At restaurants

Meals over which we tell stories / Such as the one about the grocery store

The one with the name that makes her laugh / She goes there every week looking for Thai basil

Dear Baltimore / I appreciate you

Each bag of rice I buy here / Coincides with a new development of my character

And when I can not or do not buy rice for whatever reason / I wait for a parcel from India

Where I imagine my mom alongside my dad / Formulating packages

More excited than even myself / As they cannot wait to see the smile

Such a package will bring to my face / Just like the memories I have with people from all over the world

Who become my friends / In Baltimore

There are things here I love / There are things here I dislike

And I learn to appreciate them all / In Baltimore

Filling every empty space with rice / Including hunger and vibes

As I dance and sing in my kitchenette / Where there is no use in crying over spilled rice water

Thank you to the earth / Thank you to the transporters

Thank you to the grocers / Who carry rice into my mother's rice cooker

When I buy her a new one / She says she does not need it

I buy my rice on Park Ave / Why does it never come out right

Can you teach me / I am finally here

I finally have strength / And rice is here to comfort me all along

An ingredient crucial to my survival / Rice is and will always be the star of the show

My job is to cook the rice / To rinse the rice until the water runs clear

Without spilling a grain on the sink / Starting an hour before dinner

Sometimes I let my rice soak so long it ferments  / I just cannot imagine

Not having rice / When I need it

Rice creates a home / When my home

Feels distant / Dear Baltimore

Can I trust you to hold me / And open other memories

And discoveries / And somethings I am excited to go home to

And even if I am not meant to make rice with you / Dear Baltimore

Here is a short letter to rice / My dearest rice

You are utterly delicious / You are always welcome at my dinner table

We cook our own rice / Even when we order out

The rice seeps / The rice cooker putters joyfully

Sometimes I buy my rice from Okay Natural / With which I make rice pudding for every potluck

In my various Baltimore apartments / Where I eat rice pudding

And Turkish delight / And fruit

Thank you for holding me as you do / Thank you for simmering me to perfection 

Thank you for giving me gifts to share with the world