Feature
Poetry is Powerful Enough By Melanie Curry
protests occurring nationally and in Boston. Currently, the account has The pain, anguish, beauty, over 2,000 followers. A few months laughter, and life that develops later on Aug. 12, Firmin created her from Blackness is too deep and too website where she posts her work strong to be held inside. First-year through a blog. Rejeila Firmin’s poems Being Black “Sometimes I didn’t feel is Activism, Brown Sugar Baby, and comfortable in the beginning Breonna Taylor, I Will Never Stop going to protest because it was Saying Your Name originate from just a lot of people, so I wanted to the depth of her mind and soul as find a way I could still engage in a coping mechanism and form of activism from a safe space,” Firmin activism. said in an Zoom interview with On June 3, 2020, Firmin created The Intersectionalist from Boston, an Instagram page for her poetry Massachusetts. “There were so named WordsbyRei as a way to many Black voices not being heard, contribute to the racial protests
[and] there was so much stuff to touch upon. And, I had to say a lot about it.” Firmin said she wanted the account to be a space for Black voices to be heard by white people and by other Black people. She said she was tired of Black voices being overlooked and wanted to do something to showcase the pain the Black community experienced from the murders of people such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, etc. “They would have done it to me too; they would have done it to any of us; they will do it to any of us,” are three lines from Breonna Taylor, I Will Never Stop Saying Your Name. Firmin transferred her pain and fear into stanzas, detailing the frustration she experienced after hearing the verdict for Breonna Taylor’s case. Most of her poems are centered around activism and her personal experiences. Growing up in Milton, Massachusetts, Firmin experienced microaggressions frequently and turned these experiences into ranting sessions through By Gabriella Leonel / The Intersectionalist her short stories and First-year Rejeila Firmin uses her poetry as a form of activism to uplift Black poems. Typically, Firmin voices and showcase the beauty in Blackness. writes every day, using her
