Archive - Notes from a Writer Mama

Notes on Baby Blues and Black Mama Songs

With one, I am a mother, with two, I am a mom. The condensing is felt in the marrow.

Jul 15 •

June 2025

Notes from a Babymama

I grieve that I did not give her a safe parent. Safe in the emotional, sacred ways. And yet—I am grateful she has known battle.

Jun 3 •

April 2025

Notes from a Noncustodial Mom

Many systems have failed me as a Black woman—and especially as a mom. Emotional systems. Court systems. You name it. I am here because systems fail us…

Apr 29 •

February 2025

ARTIST MAMA: WHAT I KNOW & WHAT I DON’T + OPPORTUNITIES

WE CAN EXCLUSIVELY INCLUDE OUR CHILDREN IN OUR EVERYDAY ARTISTIC LIVES.

Feb 17 •

NOTES ON RESURGANCE: BABY NO. 2

I KNOW ABOUT PREGNANCY SCARES & PREGNANCY PRAYERS. I KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO WANT SOMETHING I AM NOT READY FOR & TO LOSE SOMETHING I WORKED SO HARD…

Feb 7 •

January 2025

Notes on Radicalism & Motherhood: The Balance of Nurture and Rebellion

& SOMEONE JOKES THAT I AM RAISING A RADICAL CHILD. WHEN IN REALITY, IT IS A RADICAL AGE THAT REQUIRES US BOTH TO BE THIS WAY.

Jan 20 •

THE EXPENSE OF PRAYER IN 2024

No one taught me how to pray. It was my first cry, my first laugh. My prayers have always been conversations with God, a presence I understood…

Jan 1 •

December 2024

Notes on Government Assistance & Motherhood

As a daughter of a Black single mother, my inheritance is a wealthy streamline of survival tactics: shelters, government programming, and churches. God…

Dec 13, 2024 •

NOTES ON THE POLITICS OF MY DAUGHTER’S HAIR

I try telling her how beautiful her hair is without the edge control. How precious her curls are, how they need to breathe, like any and all things…

Dec 5, 2024 •

A Poem for My Daughter on Her Birthday

You give us a language; the tongue of firstborn flesh

Dec 1, 2024 •

November 2024

Notes on The Social Suicide of Finding Love as A Black Single Mom

Healthy love makes me realize not only how unhealthy my perceptions of love are, but also how unhealthy my community is.

Nov 19, 2024 •

Notes on Erasing a History of Toxic Motherhood

“Where do we go from here, but into the darkness, with the light of my daughter’s eyes to guide us towards the reckoning of ourselves.”

Nov 12, 2024 •

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