Finding the Words

By Naomi Ward

It’s Black Poetry Day, pen in hand, heart doing the teaching.

I’m trying to write poetry, not quite a poet yet, but every word I lay down is a seed I won’t forget.

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Sitting here, an old trans woman, I wrote my life, created her from a him that never was, cut through the old shape with a steady knife.

So maybe I am a poet, or at least my life reads like one, written from the scraps of a home that never was mine.

Langston wrote his rivers. Maya turned her pain to power. I’ll write my own lines, messy, true and mine.

It’s Black Poetry Day, and today, that’s enough: to show up with the pen, to show up with the love.

© 2026