Dear Reader,
The Clearing is a poetic response to Toni Morrison’s Beloved. In Beloved, a holy character by the name of Baby Suggs calls formerly enslaved Black folks to a “wide-open place cut deep in the woods.” In this place, Baby Suggs speaks over the lives of these colorful Black folks and invites them to hold and cherish every bit of themselves.
This 18 poem chapbook has been my own clearing. It has allowed me to reach back into myself and center my own healing while working through loss, abuse, possession, young love, and spiritual expansion. I fell in love with poetry at 8 years old and since then writing has allowed me to wade through the troubled waters of my youth and lay these burdens down. Stretched out in space, in the center of my own clearing I reclaimed, remembered, and revitalized myself.
May these words bring you closer to yourself.
With love,
Naomi Scherelle
The Clearing: A Black Girl Collecting Her Bones
The Clearing is language transformed into water, grit, and song. This calabash of poetry by Naomi S. Daugherty turns vulnerability into power and transparency into testimony, elevating the art form through her honest narrative and imagery. From beloved to wet behind the ears, every poem is an elegant voyage of acknowledgement, awareness, and release. - A. Rainey-Ani, Nine Pages Media CEO
- 18 poems
- 51 pages
- Written by Naomi S. Daugherty
- Published by 9PagesMedia
- Cover illustrated by Charles Chaisson