"Survival is life after disaster, life in honor of our ancestors, despite the genocidal forces worked against them specifically so we would not exist. - from "The Shape of My Impact," by Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs. This poem explores the practice of mindful living within the context of remembering, bearing witness, and survival (personal and generational). The poem referenced within the title, "and a poem" is, "Remember the wind," written after Joy Harjo's poem, "Remember." "Remember the wind" uses the life cycle of a dandelion to explore the concepts of mindfulness, impermanence and interconnectedness. This poem is an homage to three brilliant Black women, Drs. Dara D. Méndez, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Tameka Cage Conley, whose scholarship, creative practice, and troublemaking have taught me how to turn my voice up. To view the original version of this poem, see the supplemental material section of this article online.
Keywords: academy; ethnopoetics; identity; mental health & well-being; mindfulness; structural oppression.