GLOW | QUEER POETRY FEATURE | SISTER SPIT EDITION: librecht baker

Rounding out January's features for GLOW's Sister Spit 2020 edition is librecht baker!

librecht baker is the author of vetiver (Finishing Line Press), an English Professor, and a Sundress Publications' Assistant Editor. She was part of The Vagrancy’s 2018-2019 Playwrights’ Group and Eastside Queer Stories Festival 2019 and 2017. baker has attended Ragdale, VONA/Voices, and Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat. she has a MFA from Goddard College. Her poetry appears in Solace: Writing Refuge, & LGBTQ Women of Color, Bone Bouquet (Issue 8.1), Sinister Wisdom 107, and other publications. Baker's play, "Lineage Undone," was awarded Top Performance in the "Top Papers and Performances in Performance Studies" category at Western States Communication Association’s 89th Convention.

What compels you to write? 

Writing is my path and life long practice. It’s the one way I contribute to our world and collective dialogues, focusing on the personal and communal.  Beyond my personal drive, I feel compelled by my Egun and living lineage to add to what has been previously created and built to fortify it more. Too, I’m compelled by my Black culture and Diaspora, conversations, adding/balancing the grief seen and experienced, other folk's art, curiosity, blissful feelings, and other fantastical things. 

What upcoming writing projects are you working  on? 

I'm collaborating on a couple projects, but there is no information that I'd like to share about them. Aside from those, my one act play, "Afterlife or Bust," will be produced in Q Youth Foundations' Eastside Queer Stories Festival 2020 at La Plaza de la Raza Theater in Los Angeles in May.

Describe your work in five words.

My writings are Black (as in people, culture, an experience, uplifting, matter, etc.), an altar/alter, celebratory, and an affirmation.

What are some of your artistic influences/inspirations? 

This is the worst and difficult question for me to answer because I'm always under the influence, and when I'm influenced, I effort to say a name and/or put a label on it to remember and/or acknowledge. Some influences include Noah Purifoy's artwork in Joshua Tree, West African drum and dance culture, too many writers' work, such as  Adelia Prado's The Alphabet Park, Black Quantum Futurism: Theory & Practice by Rasheedah Phillips, Anastacia Renee's (v.), Harriet A. Washington's Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial time to the Present, Ching-in Chen's The Heart's Traffic's, and N.K. Jemisin The Broken Earth Trilogy for example, Karon Davis’ visuals, traditionalist and remixers, tricksters of language, "Hoodrat to Headwrap: A Decolonized Podcast," hummingbirds in the Ann Star Magnolia trees outside, spirit/spirituality, Marcia Jones' "Displaced Oshun Theory," the ocean, calathea lancifolia,  coffee, and an ongoing oscillating list of stuff.