Imani Tolliver

Imani Tolliver (she/her) is an award-winning poet, artist, educator, and producer. She is the author of Runaway: A Memoir in Verse. She is a graduate of Howard University where she received the John J. Wright Literary Award, served as Poet Laureate for the Watts Towers Arts Center, and was awarded literary fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and George Washington University. Imani received a Certificate of Congressional Recognition by the U.S. House of Representatives for her work as the Cultural & Fine Arts Supervisor for the City of Buena Park and a Certificate of Recognition by the City of Los Angeles for her work as a promoter, host, and publicist in support of the literary arts in Southern California. Rooted in social justice, Imani has curated and produced a wide portfolio of arts and cultural programming that celebrates, reflects, and amplifies the voices of diverse communities. These programs have included art festivals, poetry readings, concerts, community theater, youth theater, and special events for large municipalities in Southern California.

Tolliver’s stunning poems are an elegy to girlhood, an awakening, a forgiveness, a piercing and provocative ode to what’s remembered, what’s left behind and what moves us forward.

Jacqueline Woodson, Recipient of the MacArthur Genius Fellowship, National Book Award, Hans Christian Andersen Award, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, Newbery Honor Medal, Coretta Scott King Award, and the Caldecott Medal

Imani Tolliver is a crafter of indelible truths. By turns beautiful and brutal, sparse and opulent, these poems sink into the marrow. Here is a poet at her highest arc and Runaway is a luminescent gift. 

Jelani Cobb, Peabody Award-winning journalist at The New Yorker and The Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University

We need brave poems, cleansing poems, poems of grief and dancing. These are those poems.

Toi Derricotte, Wallace Stevens and Frost Award-winning poet, Co-Founder of Cave Canem Foundation, Professor of Writing at the University of Pittsburgh

RUNAWAY: A Memoir in Verse

Her narrative is honest and accessible; her journey, intersectional and sacred. Black feminist and queer poet, Imani Tolliver, offers Runaway: A Memoir in Verse.

Runaway: A Memoir in Verse

“these hands”

 

my mother said my hair was like moss

difficult to comb into the pillow

at the crown of my head

she melted it fine

and pulled, pulled it free from itself

thousands of nooses without the knots

 

i cut the nooses free

gathered and twisted and curled

and colored the knots

the forbidden, the embarrassing

the backdoor, the kitchen

into sun, agate, dark rum, fizzy mexican coca-cola

and north african oil with herbs at the bottom of wide

dolloped vases of warm glass,

beginning as teardrops

fallen now

 

i took the stories that made me

out of the scream of my arrival

the vinyl and chrome couch of 1977

in front of the six million dollar man

and the bad news bears

the girl, the mushroom, tiny, hiding

hooded thing that i was

touched i was, in the worst ways

eating tears, eating doughnuts,

eating anything that would fill me

 

into someone larger than i could imagine

into someone strong

into backbone and healer

into the visitor who would tell you

all about yourself and herself too into

this body without children

except the one i hold close between my breasts

that i screamed into making

scream from between the lips that suffered

from between the lips that would not speak

the lips tasted by the lips

that would taste hers

 

scream, scream, scream

 

now, these lips curved, plentiful

tell and tell and tell

they were told to shut up long ago

 

the voice box

the brown and red voice

box that came from two brown necks

and two before that

was called a white girl

an oreo

 

who you tryin’ to be, anyway?

 

they told me the color of my voice

before i knew the language to fight back

they told me i wasn’t one of them

far from who i thought i was

 

white girl

white girl

you tryin’ to be a white girl

 

but all i knew was my mother’s tongue

all i knew came from the alice in wonderland records

that taught me how to read

 

i tried to abandon

national geographics and dictionaries

pippi and the mysteries and the magazines

for a language that was more acceptable

my mother tongue was a tattoo that i modified

but never abandoned

 

i read aloud

listening to the nuances i’ve created

the resonance that burnishes the girl voice

with tobacco and time

rum and crying

into this voice you hear now

that sings when no one’s looking

to jesus and lovers i trust

 

i am looking below my knees now

and there are scars

i have decided

to turn the clusters and stripes

into constellations

i will have the scars

no, the stars make an order

something larger than me or my shins

into orion, zeus, mars and leo

 

take what shame tried to make

into your hands and turn it into something else

change your color

to your wish

into something new

something of your own making

 

perhaps you will be as proud as i

when a new friend remarks to your mother

 

you gave birth to imani?

 

no, she gave birth to herself.