30 Under 30 4/30: Britteney Blacrose Kapri

I am Winona
I am my mother’s first mistake 
I am thirteen or fourteen
washing blood off of things
I considered hitting my brother
with.
I am laughing
and rejoicing in my brother’s bloodthirst.
-from I am Winona

Full disclosure I hate stage names. For Poetic Chocolate Breeze and Sammy Da Poet I have a bouquet of nothingness, unless they work. Well, unless the poet lives up to it and makes it not a stage name but a new name just as valid, a marker of ancestral ritual or self delivered birth. Britteney is black. I’m not talking about skin or history. I’m not talking about darkness. I’m talking about her meter and demeanor, her attitude and sway, how she stuns a room with an unapologetic brilliance, the way her poems walk around fully aware of the creator’s name. Britteney is a rose. A Chicago rose. Sometimes all thorn and no petal. Always beautiful. And a Blacrose at that. Impeccably rare. To read Britteney’s work is to hold that rose in your palm, thorns bare, and be forced to confront your blood. Her poetry is violent as it is tender, is hostile as it is holy, continuing the vital pulse of the memoir of Maya Angelou and the work of Toi Derricotte. And in the tradition of those great women, Britteney is just as dedicated to community and teaching as she is to her writing. And ain’t that refreshing? To know that in our culture of ego and I, there are people who still live for the purpose of We? I’ve seen Britteney interact with her students. I’ve seen her interact with family and friends. I’ve seen the thorns come off and the petals wrap around anyone in need. That might be the blackest thing about Britteney, her willingness to love. It is that same love for others and for self that makes it impossible to separate her relationships from her stanzas, her prayers from her line breaks, her woes from her verse. I think you need to get into Britteney’s work immediately. It is urgent for you and the rawness of your humanity. But Britteney? Check out her work or not, she’s gonna keep on.

And she don’t give no fuck. 

-Danez Smith & Nate Marshall

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