Face Me: a declaration

By Olivia Keenan

Face Me: a declaration reveals the complexities of a mixed race identity through religion, sex, American history, and colorism. The poems in Face Me reject any white supremacy that dictates Biblical interpretations, historical truths, and beauty standards. This collection of poems follows a journey that begins in uncertainty, but concludes in celebration. Within its pages, declarations are unwaveringly signed and spoken. Black bodies are praised and exalted. Faith is reexamined and reclaimed.
And Face Me exists not as a question, but as a command.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Unapologetic Voice House LLC
• Release date: Apr 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736545218

Olivia Keenan

Olivia Keenan is an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia pursuing a degree in Biology, with the intention of being pre-med. Olivia is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she lives with her parents and two sisters. From a young age, she has been inspired to write about racism and the unique position of being a Black woman of mixed race. In high school, she was involved in slam poetry, and has continued performing spoken word at UVA. Some of the most incredible poets she has ever met come from her college poetry classes and UVA's Flux Poetry club. This is her second shot at writing a poetry book, but her first one called "what love does" was a self-published chapbook, for which only 50 copies were printed.

Book preview

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Face Me: a declaration

Face Me:

a declaration

Olivia Keenan

Face Me.

© 2021 Olivia Keenan.

Book cover design by Caroline Weis

Interior photography design by Caroline Weis

ISBN: 978-1-7365452-0-1

E-ISBN: 978-1-7365452-1-8

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other— except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by: The Unapologetic Voice House

Scottsdale, Arizona

www.theunapologeticvoicehouse.com

for my sisters

i.

exposition

click

click

There is a suspicious man in the parking lot. I lock the car doors. I avoid eye contact. I walk past the mall kiosks with my head down. I take the freeway into the city. I hold my breath when I get cat-called. In other words, the man in the parking lot is Black. And I happen to be afraid of who I am.

click.

I skip past the SOCIAL MEDIA STORIES THAT EXHIBIT HIS DEATH LIKE THIS IS SHOWTUNES SHOWBIZ SHOWCASE US LIKE THIS IS EASY FOR US LIKE THIS IS EASY FOR MY FOURTEEN YEAR OLD SISTER. I can’t even breathe WATCHING THAT SHIT.

click.

I flip through more stories. People are posting SILENCE IS VIOLENCE.

I type, re-type, delete.

as a Black girl…

I haven’t said anything yet and therefore I must be a part of the problem. And I don’t know how to say it is so HARD, it is so HARD to say something besides from PLEASE when you can’t breathe.

click.

I imagine guns in the cars that blast the same music me and my white friends listen to. Me and my white boyfriend’s breath fogs the car windows. Silver tinted. If we get pulled over we’ll get a slap on the wrist. Shiny cars fly down the roads. Me and my white friends like to speed on the parkway with the windows down.

click.

Right now I am afraid for (of?) my city and my country. There are red white and blue flags being snatched out of the ground. There are red white and blue lights and sirens and I close my bedroom window. There are red white and blue popsicles in the freezer. That’s an onomatopoeia. Pop. In suburbia, we hold out our fingers like a sideways L.

click.

pop.

click.

I skip past the news because all I ever see about Black boys is all I ever see about Black boys. And all porn says is BBC and all sports say is athlete and all the papers say is death and all the news says is riot and then I lock the car doors. Then I take the