Poetry: Your Name Was Supposed to Be Africa by Kendra Allen
Kendra Allen’s new poem crackles with the energy of language on edge, language in transformation. Without irony or posturing, “Your Name Was Supposed to Be Africa” explores the complicated layering of identity across names and bodies and continents.
YOUR NAME WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AFRICA
imagine dark skinned black girl:
instead of black as hell you’d be eyes closed
like those white folks on safari in the gut of who you was supposed to be
you’d be as lost
as yo daddy
when he walked into that hospital room
and chained
yo name from Africa to common
ain’t gone be no fufu &jollof in yo first or last name
no accents no arrogance no affirmation in yo Americanness
just texture you can’t claim and yo mama say all the time she knew this shoulda been yo name but
she been tired
since yo birth and couldn’t get it out of her throat in time
say you milant enough
say you cast shade on white houses and black men like nobody’s business
got memories from
school years and
young adulthood
like when nick walks up to you
to translate your nonnative tongue
says,
you the prettiest African girl he ever seen
with yo light brown contacts in
yo 14’ inch sew in
and a mouth full of pretend gold
he see you being something you
didn’t get the chance to be
you say bitch I’m from here!! and give him yo number anyway
Kendra Allen
Kendra Allen is the author of essay collection When You Learn The Alphabet (University of Iowa Press,) winner of the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Born and raised in Dallas, TX, she's an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama where she is working on her thesis and leading students astray. You can find some of her work in brevity, december, and The Rumpus among others. She tweets @KendraCanYou
