Buddah Desmond’s New Poetry Collection, Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song, is Out Now!

The celebration continues! Happy to announce that my latest poetry collection, Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song, is out now!

Coming Up From the Downside is about adversity, healing, resilience, and faith. It’s about overcoming pain, loss, depression, health issues, and heartbreak to get to real love and the joy that sustains us through it all. It’s the third and final book in what I’m calling “The Home Within” trilogy, which was preceded by 2020’s From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection and 2023’s Everything I Miss(ed) At Home.

The vast majority of the poems in this book were written in the thick of the pandemic. One of the bleakest periods that completely changed my life, and the lives of so many others. It was a season that kept giving lesson after lesson after lesson in the midst of getting up from the downside.

Coming Up From the Downside was published by Liquid Cat Publishing. The cover was designed Black Author Brand. Extremely grateful to my publisher’s team and the Black Author Brand team for their love, support, encouragement, guidance, and great work throughout this process!

And thank you so much for all who’ve supported me along the way. Words aren’t enough to express my gratitude.

Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song is available for purchase at Amazon. Get into it!

Much Love + Many Blessings! ~ Buddah Desmond

Buddah Desmond – Feature Friday Poet on No Line Left Behind

Elated to report that I was recently the Feature Friday poet on TehilaYah Ysrayl’s No Line Left Behind site. The feature includes an interview, and one of my latest poem’s entitled, “Home.” A snippet of the poem is below:

Much gratitude to TehilaYah for featuring me, and for providing a platform to highlight and support poets near and far. To learn more about TehilaYah, go to No Line Left Behind or check her out on IG.

Photos / graphics courtesy of TehilaYah Ysrayl. 

Reflections (Slaying The Monster)

I looked in the mirror
And what did I see
A monster staring back at me
From galaxies unknown
Dark, brooding
So alluring yet so scary
Projecting the happy fantasy
When really singing the lost soul blues
Self-sabotages almost consistently
Holds feelings so deep that when expressed
It’s potency trumps the fire expelled
by an entire Weyr
Putting on, showing out
Acting up, always on the raucous route
Wouldn’t stop until he’d achieved total
domination, control, and power over you
And he won
Or did he? 

When looking in the mirror
What did you see?
A figure you almost couldn’t believe
Because he looked just like you
In fact, it was you
So familiar yet so unrecognizable
How could you manage to let it all go?
No more, you say
NO MORE
His time of recklessness, dysfunction,
and drama are done
For you’re taking it back, all the way back to one
The lost, but not forgotten one
The O.G.
YOU
Time to slay the shit out of this
muthafucking monster
He’s gone on for far too long
It’s the only way to right this wrong
Say goodnight! 

From now on, when I look in the mirror
I’m going to see me
The real me
Not lost, not blue
But genuine, authentic, and true
Loved from the inside out
On that realness route
Reclaimed
And reframed
Like Fantasia, I’m finally back to me.EndFragment 

~ Buddah Desmond, From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection (2020)

Black Magic

Image courtesy of http://beautifulbrownies.tumblr.com/

Image courtesy of http://beautifulbrownies.tumblr.com/

Blackness in full view
Open and vast
Varied and rich
Not hidden in the cloak of
your lies and shame
Blackness doesn’t need your acceptance
or validation
It just is
As it is
And my, what our blackness is!
Full-bodied power
A vivid cultural mosaic
Intricately woven
Connecting our past, present, and future.

My experiences are too often judged, rarely understood
If I let you tell it –
my story simply wouldn’t be
My existence – my truth –
buried, annihilated
At the other extreme, you’ve tried to tell
my story as if you know me better
than I know myself
Praise to the gods that there never is and there never will be
a substitute for the real thing.

My story – our story –
more hype than virtual reality
Afro-futuristic dreams—
we live them every day
Casting spells before you
can comprehend
#blackgirlmagic
#blackboymagic
Rocking it like no other before, during
or after.

Forever an enigma
Keep ‘em guessing, as Mom always says
And just when they think they’ve figured
you out – flip that shit!

My blackness is unapologetic
Will not turn down
for your comfort
It’s everlasting
Just like the storied journey passed down
from my ancestors
Label it haughty or narcissistic
It’s simply self-love
Black love and BLACK PRIDE.

The strength and resilience
of my blackness is unbreakable
as the blood I share with my brothas and sistas
Forever catching our fires like Sonia
Yielding the fire within
Bringing beauty and beyond to the world
And making history every day
Now, that’s BLACK MAGIC!

© 2016 BuddahDesmond

Janet Mock and The Power of Defining Ourselves For Ourselves

janet-mock-amos-mac-opmagImage courtesy of Amos Mac of OP Magazine and janetmock.com.

If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive. ~ Audre Lorde

There is freedom in knowing ourselves and defining ourselves for ourselves. There is freedom in living in our light and telling our stories–oft stories that need to be told. When we allow ourselves to be defined by others, our lives are muted, shortchanged, and disregarded. There is no power like that of naming yourself and claiming your truth. This is what Janet Mock has done and continues to do as a fierce writer, advocate, and creator of #GirlsLikeUs, a movement which encourages trans women to live their lives openly and visibly.

In late February, I had the opportunity to attend an intimate talk by Janet Mock at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC. This event was part of a book tour in support of Mock’s New York Times bestselling book Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More. The ever-engaging Helena Andrews, journalist, pop culture critic, and author of Bitch Is The New Black, facilitated the talk.

In 2011, Mock came out as a trans woman in the misgendered Marie Claire article, “I Was Born A Boy.” At a very early age, Mock knew what her identity was and that it did not match the sex she was assigned at birth. She always knew she was a girl, even though the world tried to refute, devalue, and silence her true identity through gender policing, heteronormativity, and transphobia. It was a struggle, but Mock was adamant about who she was and was determined to live her life authentically. In no truer words, Michaela Angela Davis told Mock, “You got your girl. You saw who you were and you got her.” And that she did!

Aside from an affirming family, Mock credits community as being pivotal in her path to womanhood. In seventh grade she met her best friend, Wendy, who was also a young trans woman. Mock says Wendy connected her with a community of older trans women who she bonded with. Through them she had examples of what trans womanhood was, which further shaped her identity and what she wanted her womanhood to be.

It was in this community that Mock says other trans women began calling her “Baby Janet” because of an uncanny resemblance to Janet Jackson. During this time, Mock admits being completely enamored with Jackson’s critically acclaimed album The Velvet Rope. The Velvet Rope is a collection of deeply introspective songs, many of which unveiling pain that Jackson held inside for many years. The album touched on depression, self-love, self-worth, sexuality and social issues like homophobia and domestic violence. Mock saw many parallels between Janet’s heartfelt music and her own life. So how fitting is it that she, too, would ultimately name herself Janet.

During the talk, Mock also discussed the notion of privilege and “passing.” In this society, we often place too much emphasis on beauty and attractiveness. Often times, beauty can overshadow a person’s skills, gifts, talents, and experiences. Mock acknowledges privilege in being attractive, but she does not let that define who she is. She says, “I do the work. I will not let people reduce me to a pretty face.” Mock also scoffs at the notion of passing, for she is a woman who is simply being herself.

When it comes to telling your story, Mock says you have to do it first and foremost for yourself. Tell yourself the truth about your experiences. She recommends finding someone you trust to share your story with. When you feel ready, share the story publicly. For young trans women, she says “Shut out all the noise. Tap into your own truth. Find your advocates.” For many of us, it’s crucial that we find our families in the spaces we’re in.

As her journey continues, Mock hopes that her work speaks for itself and that her story is one that opens minds, shifts language, and inspires others to be their authentic selves. When asked by Marc Lamont Hill on HuffPost Live about the message she hopes people take away from Redefining Realness, Mock said, “I think my biggest thing would be to empower girls who grew up like I did. To give them language and access to explain and understand their experiences. For so long, I…blamed myself for a lot of the hardships that I went through and I would like to free them from that. And I hope that the book frees a lot of people to understand these issues more.”

And what can we expect from Mock in the future? More writing, of course. She’s planning to write a book which addresses the beauty myth from the perspective of a black trans woman. She’s also looking into TV as another platform for storytelling.

Janet Mock, thank you for doing the work. Thank you for being the beautiful spirit that you are and for sharing your powerful story with us. Trailblazer, keeping shining!

I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community. I hope that my being real with you will help empower you to step into who you are and encourage you to share yourself with those around you. ~ Janet Mock

PicWithJanetMockII(2252014)

Latest MUSED Article – Should We Ditch ‘LGBT’ For ‘GSD’ (Gender And Sexual Diversities)?

Image courtesy of MUSED.

 
In my latest article on MUSED, I ponder whether we should change “LGBT” to “GSD” (Gender and Sexual Diversities.  Pink Therapy, a London-based advocacy group recently featured in The Huffington Post, suggested that we use GSD as an alternative because it is more inclusive and speaks to the larger groups who may not fall into or easily identify with LGBT.  For more of my commentary, please check out “Should We Ditch ‘LGBT’ for ‘GSD’ (Gender And Sexual Diversities)?” on MUSED.


MUSED Magazine Online is a pioneering “digital destination for lifestyle, entertainment & culture for modern black gay men.  MUSED serves as a collective of experiences and issues we care about” (see About MUSED).  Its mission is to raise the level of consciousness for our community and provide reliable, relevant, interactive, and engaging content for its readers.  MUSED is the only weekly online magazine for black gay men.


Major thanks and props to Drew-Shane Daniels and the MUSED family for featuring the article! 


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Peace, Love, and Many Blessings!

~ BuddahDesmond

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