The Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner that celebrates the power of the literary arts and the bridge it creates between those of all walks of life.
As someone who was saved by the ink on pages, it’s an honor to be stewarding this collaborative series that celebrates the power of the literary arts, and the bridge this power creates between people from all walks of life.
In this relaunch of the Exchange, I wanted to showcase the work of an artist whom I greatly admire, and who has a piece for every occasion. In moments when oppressive forces feed on division, how do we live and breathe non-trivializing solidarity? How do we laugh together? How do we grieve together? How do we hold the ability to recognize when one needs a few more hands lent to them than someone else? And how do we do this when our various pigmented shades still signal danger to those who have dreaded our communion?
Anti-Blackness is a global machine, and our social othering, even intra-communally, keeps it well-oiled daily. Additionally, no othered beings are marked as completely safe in a supremacist society. Danez Smith’s poem reminds us of the tenderness that is needed for harmony. The understanding required to not just walk in someone else’s shoes, but realize we have a perfect match nestled in our own closets. Our cultural differences have been misconstrued as kryptonite to our union, but the mirror never cracks when we stand face to face with each other.
In each entry of The Exchange, you’ll be introduced to various pieces of writing and encouraged to create something of your own. Writers are encouraged to respond to the prompt with original work and be considered to be featured in the next issue of the Weekly. Join us every third Thursday of the month for Third Thursdays: a writing workshop and open mic in partnership with Build Coffee and Books
Alycia Kamil is a 25-year-old crossdisciplinary artist, educator, and freedom fighter from the South Side of Chicago who uses the power of creative expression to spark social change. She is engaged in on-the-ground community organizing, centering mutual aid, accessible arts programming, and radical political education.
Alycia is a founding member of Good Kids Mad City, a youth-led gun violence prevention organization. In 2020, Alycia founded Undoing Our Erasure, initially a podcast series that transformed into a multidimensional platform dedicated to cultivating the tools needed for a Black-liberated future. A lifelong creative, Alycia works across visual, literary, and performing arts. In the last six years, Alycia has developed curricula, facilitated workshops, and launched mutual aid initiatives that provided free resources to Chicago residents. She is a collective member of La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón’s Bomberxs D’Cora, a Bomba ensemble dedicated to sharing the power and soul of Afro-Puerto Rican music.
Alycia is the director of What’s My School Worth? (2024), a documentary project examining the lasting impacts of the 2013 Chicago Public Schools closures. She is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree at DePaul University, double-majoring in Anthropology and Black Diasporic Studies with a minor in Documentary Film Production.
what was said at the bus stop
By Danez Smith
lately has been a long time
says the girl from Pakistan, Lahore to be specific
at the bus stop when the white man
ask her where she’s from & then
says oh, you from Lahore?
it’s pretty bad over there lately.
lately has been a long time
she says & we look at each other & the look says
yes, i too wish dude would stop
asking us about where we from
but on the other side of our side eyes
is maybe a hand where hands do no good
a look to say, yes, i know lately has been
a long time for your people too
& i’m sorry the world is so good at making
us feel like we have to fight for space
to fight for our lives
“solidarity” is a word, a lot of people say it
i’m not sure what it means in the flesh
i know i love & have cried for my friends
their browns a different brown than mine
i’ve danced their dances when taught
& tasted how their mothers miracle the rice
different than mine. i know sometimes
i can’t see beyond my own pain, past black
& white, how bullets love any flesh.
i know it’s foolish to compare.
what advice do the drowned have for the burned?
what gossip is there between the hanged & the buried?
& i want to reach across our great distance
that is sometimes an ocean & sometimes centimeters
& say, look. your people, my people, all that has happened
to us & still make love under rusted moons, still pull
children from the mothers & name them
still teach them to dance & your pain is not mine
& is no less & is mine & i pray to my god your god
blesses you with mercy & i have tasted your food & understand
how it is a good home & i don’t know your language
but i understand your songs & i cried when they came
for your uncles & when you buried your niece
i wanted the world to burn in the child’s brief memory
& still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still
& i have stood by you in the soft shawl of morning
waiting & breathing & waiting
Reprinted with the permission of the poet.
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Prompt
“solidarity” is a word, a lot of people say it
i’m not sure what it means in the flesh”
“What does non-trivializing solidarity look and feel like to you?”
Feel free to write this as a poem or free-form writing. Submissions can be new or something previously written. Join us on August 20 for Third Thursday where we’ll write around this prompt more in depth.
Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to
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Alycia Kamil Moaton is the engagement editor for the Weekly.