My name is Imani Davis. I am a queer black writer from Brooklyn
and I'll be reading “First Friction” by Patricia Smith
from Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah. I first came across this poem
when I was a teenager, and it felt really meaningful to hear
from a voice, a black voice, a black lyric
00:15:
voice that knew the Christian tradition
that I came up in, that it was okay to find rapture through the body, that finding pleasure through the body
was not the sinest of sins. It didn't lead automatically to damnation, in fact, it might lead to something
a little bit free.
01:30:
And that was really something
that I needed to hear at that age. And it's something
that I need to hear to this day.