kahlil almustafa

i am a poet. This does not mean I do poetry. It does not even speak specifically to the fact that I write poetry, perform poetry, teach poetry workshops, and publish books of poetry. When i say, “i am a poet,” I am claiming a tradition as old as human breath with all the blessings and responsibilities that come with it. For me, being a poet is about more than participating in the painstaking, brick-by-brick craft of meaning-making, known as writing poetry. poetry is my life’s practice.

Since fifteen-year-old me discovered the poetry of Langston Hughes, poetry has been the way I engage with the world. poetry is medicine, psalm, prayer, ritual, song, spell, story, theory, and therapy. My life is marked by poems. each poem a threshold I have crossed toward understanding, claiming, declaring, forgiving, honoring. All my poems are love poems. It is a love of self, of my family, of my community, of ancestors and people who I do not know, that urges me to write and share my work.

kahlil almustafa, January 10, 2010 - Culture Shock, New York, NY. (photo by Claudia Acosta)

In the tradition of Black Arts Movement poets Haki Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and Amiri Baraka, my poetry is composed to be in service of the growth and development of people. My poetry is explicitly political. In the oratory tradition of Malcolm X, I use my poetry to dismantle the dominant narratives. My hope is that if I can make these limiting narratives unten- able in people’s minds, We can co-create new stories that serve us.

For a decade, I have walked the world as a poet. Sharing poetry is as much about sharing the gift of human expression as it is sharing my personal stories. I read my poems in cafes, churches, public schools,senior citizen centers, prisons, street cor-ners, 90th birthday parties, political rallies and of course open mics. I come to each community as an ambassador from an unrealized world where justice prevails.

My urgent mission: infuse the world with hope and inspiration through poetry. Today, my artistic creation takes longer breaths and cycles. I am developing my practice to be in balance with my work as an educator and my life as a husband and engaged member of many communities.

WE This new dream will be human
And the maps of WE
will no longer have borders
The fabric of our flags
will no longer be used to stab soil or sky
Instead WE will be patches
in a quilt of stone and stories
     sewn together
WE are America’s dream
And we have always been here
willing to push our hopes
to the borders of our skin and wear our dreams on the
     outside
Do not call us intelligent
We are merely committed to
memory merely willing to seek god
in photographs, in fingertips, in
film, in earth
in dance, in laughter, in children,
     in eyes, in silence
It is with our whole lives we vote our work
our only currency
our love a prayer
We dare to dream this human
     dream
just in case god was WE all along

CONTACT

kahlilalmustafa@Ggmail.com

COLLABORATIONS

WEBSITES AND OTHER LINKS