In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Camonghe Felix. She is the author of Build Yourself a Boat (Haymarket Books, 2019), which was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry. The 2013 winner of the Cora Craig Award for Young Women, Felix has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Poets House. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Thank God I Can't Drive," featured in our 2021/23 Get Lit Anthology.
"Thank God I Can't Drive"
My brain is trying so hard to outrun this.
It is doing more work than the lie.
I could go to jail for anything. I look like that
kind of girl. I only speak one language. I am
of prestige but can’t really prove it. Not if
my hands are tied. Not if my smartphone is
seized. Not if you can’t google me. Without
an archive of human bragging rights, I’m
[ ] nobody, an empty bag, two-toned
luggage. I’m not trying to be sanctimonious,
I just found out that I’m afraid to die, like,
there goes years of posturing about, beating it
like I own it, taking it to the bathroom with
the tampons—like, look at me, I am so agent
and with all this agency I can just deploy
death at any time. The truth is
that I’m already on the clock, I’m just a few
notches down on the “black-girl-with-bad
mouth” list, the street lights go out and I’m
just at the mercy of my own bravery and
their punts of powerlessness, their “who
the hell do you think you are’s?”