Deborah Elmore shares work during the special Black History Month version of the Poetry Lounge. Solé Scott Photos.
Deborah Elmore, Jesse Austin and Amy Wilson-McKinney listened to Barry White on a cell phone as they waited for guests to join them for a night of poetry focused on Black History Month. The warm energy filled the room well before the first poem had made an appearance.
Last Wednesday, the Connie Sacco Room at the Main Branch of the West Haven Public Library transformed into a Black History Month Poetry Lounge, the latest iteration of a literary event that Elmore has been running since 2017. Designed by Elmore as a way to celebrate and amplify Black culture and the literary arts, it gave poets a chance to showcase their work—sometimes very raw and vulnerable—with each other. Some attendees walked into the room as strangers, and left as acquaintances or even friends.
Elmore is not only a poet but also the event’s organizer for nearly a decade. She has been writing for 27 years and remains deeply passionate about her craft.
“It’s in life, everything I see,” she said, crediting fellow organizers Austin and Elizabeth Wallace. “Everything that I do is a poem.”
Together, the organizers are “three vessels and a prayer,” Austin said. Wallace, who has been actively writing poetry for more than 50 years, noted how determined the three have been to keep the event going, a sticktoitiveness that is part of its continued success.
Cookie sharing one of her poems as she animates her work.
On this particular evening, the event began just after 6 p.m., as 14 people filed into the room. Near the door, one table offered chips and drinks alongside historical African art and African black soap. The other table, positioned behind a podium, was draped in a tablecloth patterned like vibrant African print fabric.
“Good evening, welcome to the poetry lounge,” Elmore said.
The group was small but lively. Two participants, named Lucas and Nicholas, shared both original and published work. Compliments came from left and right as all eyes were on one woman named Cookie, who wore the chicest fluffy zebra boots.
“It’s rabbit?” Austin joked.
Then the room was all ears. Cookie started writing poetry at the age of 15, after needing an outlet to process to her mother’s murder. The piece she shared with the audience titled “Black Woman” marked her public debut at the poetry lounge.
“Black woman, where are you going?” she asked aloud. “To the corner store to get me some bleach to bleach my skin because my skin is brown and I don’t like my dark skin.”
In the piece, a person could hear the struggle that young Black girls face in society that challenges their self-worth. It was a heartfelt tale for anyone feeling inadequate in their natural skin.
“Black woman they see beauty, why don't you?” Cookie pressed on.
Her next few poems were theatrical, and forced her to move around the room as she commanded the audience. Her storytelling was impeccable and realistic to the point that a little girl in the back row laughed from time to time.
When it came time for Austin (who also performs as God’s Poet) to take the mic, the phone that earlier had played Barry White morphed into a somber instrumental to evoke the emotions to come for Austin’s first poem to read.
“You’ve had problems with just striving and surviving,” Austin said.
His second poem, titled “We Are All God’s Instruments, But Are We Being Instrumental,” was a lesson on how we are living in a positive or negative way.
“Some will have a problem on deciding between Jesus and a pack of Newports,” Austin said.
Near the end of the evening, Austin said his last poem was a true testament to overcoming a personal struggle with substance use disorder. Titled “The Devil Meant It for Bad, But I’m So Glad That God Meant It for My Good,” he read out the line: “Because of smoking, my heart was dying.” The room listened to each word.
Austin stared into the soul of each audience member as he recited his poem off the top of his head. The poem resonated as murmurs of hmmm and grunts were heard.
“Just like I felt getting in that truck smoking crack, and my ulcer burst,” Austin said.
Austin is a veteran with 40 to 50 years of experience writing. He performs his poetry anywhere that will allow him to share his spoken word, including mosques, churches, and synagogues.
“I started just to get out of trouble as a child, but it grew, and I have been writing and performing at Musical Intervention downtown,” he said.
Amy Wilson-McKinney is a friend of Austin’s and travels to each poetry lounge session. She has not participated as a poet yet but has written in her book over the last few events.
“I travel with him,” Wilson-McKinney said. “I’m his uber,” she added jokingly.
Throughout the night, it was clear that this is just one of many ways the group celebrates Black History Month; another will follow at the Wilson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library on Saturday, Feb. 21, as Elmore’s group Sisters With A New Attitude (SWANA) holds its annual Black History Month Celebration there, starting at noon.
While Congress designated February as Black History Month in 1986, its history—first as what Carter G. Woodson called Negro History Week in 1926, and then a full month that President Gerald Ford first championed in 1976—goes back a full century.