Last night was the first Brilliance Remastered Bright Black Broadcast and it was miraculous. Guided by the brilliance of Benjamin Banneker, and some of his enduring texts we engaged the rhetoric of our integrity, the equations of our freedom, the core beliefs that inform our problem solving, the locations of the planets and the trajectories of our own orbits in relationship to creativity, freedom, institutions, work, family and everything else. At the end of our time together we created our own three part group poem in response to Benjamin Banneker’s “A Mathematical Problem in Verse” a beautiful poem about some drunk people who have plenty of confidence and specificity (take that respectability politics!) as a way of reflecting on the dimensions of our freedom.
the vessel
by the participants in Bright Black Broadcast #1: Benjamin Banneker
(after Benjamin Banneker’s “A Mathematical Problem in Verse”)
i. the diametrical proportions of freedom
seven answers for every one question
three loves for every one life
one breath for every thousand years
one thousand heartbeats for every one connection
one circle for one change
one thousand stars for every one night sky
ii. the depth of freedom
deep enough to fill sound
deep enough to dance in technicolor
deep enough to invite the whole family and community in
deep enough to get baptized in every single day
deep enough to hold our energy
iii. freedom capacity
it can hold my imperfections
it can hold our pain
it can hold our hands
it can hold our dreams
it can hold the past and the future at the same time
it can hold heart
it can hold space
it can hold light
brokenbeautiful press 