Love Letter To My Sisters And Black Women, African Songbirds On The Planet Everywhere
by Deborah Olatunji
First Place Winner of the Bright Before Us Writing Contest
After R. Esinam Damalie
*start humming lean on me by bill withers*
*(for 20 seconds, audience: hum with me if you know it)
for starters this is no tribute poem
the loves of my life have kept and keep me alive, stay living
consider this the proof
required, dancing through hard times furious forever
walking boldly in our truth so blinding
it sears out confusion and misplaced comfort
questions your complacency and calls you in kindly /
honestly honesty has become a rare delight
allow her to un - make you for a second
with her raw words but know that your undoing
is at your own expense,
the rhythm in which her cadence makes song from sorrow
revises lyric and tells tempo to pause in the vacant
borrow rest for a moment become the moment
and swiftly decide no slowly softly go gentle
learning to move like wild woodstock breeze
like moons under the same sky as Sonia Sanchez
or starshine & moonlight & God’s clay like Lucille Clifton
as long as you are making yourself
– proud out of what has always been
in you / & the world you continue to face bravely
allow me to pen your litany for survival, a Lordean feat of many
for all the girls you were to survive, constructing…well the woman you’ve become be sap (bissap) to my spirit and darling honey to my bones
ignoring the dog whistles and the violence
and the noise threatening to silence your sonic rehearsal
I mean ongoing sound, yes
the choir will carry your tune your laugh your tenderness on
with the texture of our unapologetic, real love
long after legacy decides it must go by a new name / your syllables on her tongue dry lubricating the drought from dreams discouraged but renewed
even if no one else has learned how to hold them hold you with care
swallow the shape of heart beating next to mine
vulnerable, full-naked, exposed truth bloomed under the weight of your love the soil to plant you flourishing gardens forget
expired gatherings of fragrant dying earth
HERE are your proteas and sunflowers and queen roses and trees traveling and and calla lilies while THERE are still
lungs from the south to east to west FULL OF your humming breath And unbridled JOY dancing on every follicle and atom you inhabit, command proverbs 31 woman and you a psalms 91
uhuru to my soul, a river overflowing
while you REINVENT sonnet, MISPLACE ode
rediscover it and find yourself a love letter
to behold / so when I think of you
all I can hear is / *keep humming chorus of lean on me*
Singing: and I’ll help you carry on
for it won’t be long / till I’m gonna need you and your soothing words somebody to lean on / so just call on me sister, when you need a hand We all need somebody to lean on
*(audience: like a 2000s hand clap flashmob)
And I just might have a problem that you understand
We all need somebody to lean on
Deborah Olatunji (b.2002) is a Nigerian-American writer, poet, interdisciplinary artist-curator, and educator. Her work foregrounds the experiences of Black and African people with a focus on women’s history, sonic traditions, geological processes, and Pan-African world-building. At 17, Deborah published Unleashing Your Innovative Genius: High School Redesigned (2020), a visionary book exploring personal growth and experiential learning for students. She made her curatorial debut with BEARING WITNESS: An Art Project Exploring Childhood Grief (2024), a community exhibition that centres stories of collective grief and radical love expressed by Black artists, students, and poets in Philadelphia. She holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and BA-Honours in Historical Studies from the University of the Western Cape (UWC). She recently completed the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa and UWC Fellowship (2025) in South Africa, researching how communities, literary publications, and institutions shape Pan-African art histories.