Memphis, Tennesee
A Memphis Love Letter
by Tawanna Brown
A transcript of the audio, “A Memphis Love Letter” is provided below.
Let us celebrate Memphis caretakers and waymakers –
for the school backpacks they stack
for the healthy greens and beans they pack.
Hands harvesting for home-bound elders
hot meals on Sunday and something sweet,
(a pudding pack, perhaps) to savor
come Monday morning.
They give God’s most majestic medicine.
Amen to convenors and connectors
translators and curators
Alchemizing space and embittered boundaries
Of clase, culture, age and race.
They know her blues ain’t like his soul and that jazz man
plays a chord nobody knows. Multilingual, they are
transmuting word and deed, knowing tongues
foreign and domestic are easy to misread
Empowering a people to promise, purpose and
let us not forget please the most meaningful
of these – freedom, vision and peace.
Let us laud the liquid leaders, flexible and invitational,
not bound by proximity or antiquity.
They hold open invitations for all to step in,
move up and show out in nurturing ways.
Let the groove be a pace of grace with
full and replenishable cups so that we ensure
that wellness, like leaders, abound and endure.
About this piece … Everything referenced in this piece reflects the wisdom and insight of the thirteen individuals who graciously shared their stories and experiences about their communities.
The conversations were captured as part of a collaborative project between ThirdSpace and the Community Opportunity Alliance. With Memphis identified as one of the four cities and the Center for Transforming Communities participating as the city’s anchor organization, the project captured participants’ views of community development.
What was clear in every interview was the degree to which participants love Memphis, the work they do in community, and the people for whom they do it, often with little or no resources outside of what’s in their own pockets. This is a humble tribute to those thirteen individuals, their powerful journeys and to their love of this heroic city. ~
With gratitude,
T. Brown
Cheers to culture keepers who refuse
to be a stranger – refuting with earnest
and curious smiles the oddities
we’re taught to fear as danger.
They make eye contact –
say ‘‘hello’ –
ride bikes and skateboards,
hold hope, and know that work and will
turn blighted space into a nourishing place,
with grocery stores aromatic with melon
and sweet corn in a community
where affordable homes are the abundant norm.
Much praise to the historians, porch poets and painters
who open their yards and kitchens as sacred.
Serve plates and palettes of redemption,
where no one is regarded as disposable
and everyone is a vessel of noble possibility.
Let the resources reach the roots –
where workers channel change,
with or without nonprofits, platforms,
titles and tip jars. They are good trouble makers,
policy shapers and meaning makers.
Invest in them, incentivize, recognize,
celebrate and elevate them
that we all reach a higher ground.
Let the community be centered
so that centers belong to the community
and parking lots have no priority over people
and Uptown police palaces, no privilege over playgrounds.
Be still, for just a moment, and surely you feel
a current too contemptuous for complacency.
It is more powerful than a FedEx plane
more resilient than a BNSF train.
This is Memphis – South to North, Hollywood
Orange Mound, Greenlaw, Prospect Park
Frayser, Klondike-Smokey City, Douglass,
Binghamton, and more.
Call and revere them by name –
This is Memphis love.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
T.R. Brown is a Memphis-based literary artist. She served as one of five artist researcher partners in ThirdSpace’s Storied Communities, Community Stories project. Brown has worked as a staff and board member, peer coach, and community profit within nonprofit, governmental, and educational sectors.