Screaming Times

By Natasha Ria El-Scari

Spoken word flames in this first collection of Natasha Ria El-Scari. Praised for its honesty, intersectionality, feminism, humor and strong performance quality, readers get a chance to experience all that make a poet want to scream. First released in 2015 and now for digital consumption, Natasha brings the FIRE!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Natasha Ria El-Scari
• Release date: Mar 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393357957

Natasha Ria El-Scari

Natasha Ria El-Scari is a writer, editor, poet and educator.  Her work has been published in anthologies, journals and online. Her previous works, Screaming Times (Spartan Press) and The Only Other (Main Street Rag) were met with local praise. In 2018 Natasha created an arts organization, Black Space Black Art and co-founded the El-Scari Harvey Art Gallery. Natasha creates hubs of support for her communities and is known for being a source of love and light. Of all the hats she wears, she is most passionate about being the mother of Naeema and Nazr and making sure they grow up as progressive and lovemaking humans. When she is not writing she enjoys meditation, knitting, collecting family history, reading and making love. For more information, booking for workshops and other inquires, please visit: www.natasharia.com

Book preview

Screaming Times:

frustration, celebration, incantation and a touch of resolve

By: Natasha Ria El-Scari

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my family, the whole of it but particularly to my great ancestors, my beautiful grandmothers, the late Beauty Wilder Whitmore Hooks and Juanita Maxine Harris Gibson, my mother Wilma I. Hooks-Gibson, my children Nazr Momar El-Scari and Naeema Asha El-Scari and my nephew, Anthony J. Robinson, Jr. Also, to my late sister, Rolanda Denise Gibson-Robinson, my greatest supporter and protector of my art, I love and miss you so much, look, I finally did it!

I dedicate this book to the following wonderful souls: All members of the Black Poets Collective of Kansas City, Missouri. Thank you for always accepting my art and pushing me to the next level through your own self determination and love of the craft of poetry and especially spoken word. It was through our times together that I began to master the craft of stage performance and the sacred respect of the stage. Thank you for sharpening my feminism and unconditional love.

I dedicate this book to Cave Canem. I am so grateful to be a member of an organization that has literally changed my life; the way I think a poet should and can live. You have pushed me past what I thought my limits were on so many levels and I proudly follow in your footsteps.

I dedicate this book to my students, to all students of the craft of poetry. May this provide you with another, just another way to look at poetry, not a better or a worse, just one more, one more voice speaking her truth and removing absolutes.

I dedicate this book to all my dear artist friends of the Kansas City community and especially Lee Langston, my dear friend and brother.

I dedicate this book to all my sisters, my mentors, the women I look to for strength and reassurance. You remind me to stand in my unapologetic truth and I honor each of you, all one million of you. I am stronger because of you.

I dedicate this to my patient fans and supporters. Thank you for coming to all of my shows, large and small, public and private. Thank you for purchasing my CDs and now this book. Thank you for walking up to me in the grocery store and on the street to say thank you. I can’t begin to tell you how that makes life sweeter.

www.natasharia.com

Note to the Reader

Each poem in this collection was written with the vision to be read aloud, to be performed, to be heard on the stage, in a classroom or on the street. These poems should be read with a rage, passionate spittle should escape the teeth and at the end of each, there should be a breathlessness, a moment of being overwhelmed with fatigue and release. That is my intention. I worked to make these poems come alive for the reader as they are released from my mouth, and therefore traditional line breaks are challenged as well as the stanza, line and poem length of what I consider a reasonable poem. There is nothing reasonable about screaming, revelation or trauma and therefore these poems also refuse to be reasonable in their form. The only theme is the spoken word, the poems that are most requested by audiences, the poems that screamed at me and a few that whispered.  These poems have a 15-year range (2000-2015), were written in insolation, in community, in my