Census my third great grandfather disappeared in his skin. What can you tell us about the excerpt on the West Hollywood Gateway Billboard?įirst of all, thank you, Steven Reigns, for being the mastermind behind the Poetry Month WEHO Gateway Billboard! How amazing! My excerpt on the billboard is from a poem in my book of poetry, Who’s Afraid of Black Indians? and is the precursor to my memoir, Black Indian, sharing stories about my family’s heritage and oral narrative of being mixed race, African American, American Indian and European: “Since 1830, every year on the U.S. Since 1987, I’ve either lived here or spent swaths of time coveting LA and its stories, and finding poetry in every nook and cranny. Poetic works: Who’s Afraid of Black Indians? Equipoise: Poems from Goddess Country Voices from Leimert Park I & II.

Below, is a Q&A with poet Shonda Buchanan.

Former City Poet Laureate Steven Reigns is highlighting each poet to add to the profiles he made last year. This year, the gateway added three new poets. WeHo residents can encounter poetry in their daily lives with excerpts from poems currently being showcased on the Gateway’s main digital billboard. The physical, spiritual, and emotional displacement of American Indians who met and married Mixed or Black slaves and indentured servants at America's early crossroads is where this powerful journey begins.The West Hollywood Gateway, located at 7100 Santa Monica Boulevard, showcases poets for National Poetry Month each year.

Ultimately, Buchanan's nomadic people endured a collective identity crisis after years of constantly straddling two, then three, races. Tracing the arduous migration of Mixed Bloods, or Free People of Color, from the Southeast to the Midwest, Buchanan tells the story of her Michigan tribe-a comedic yet manically depressed family of fierce women, who were everything from caretakers and cornbread makers to poets and witches, and men who were either ignored, protected, imprisoned, or maimed-and how their lives collided over love, failure, fights, and prayer despite a stacked deck of challenges, including addiction and abuse. Buchanan was raised as a Black woman, who grew up hearing cherished stories of her multi-racial heritage, while simultaneously suffering from everything she (and the rest of her family) didn't know.

Black indian shonda buchanan