The Black Women Rise Poetry Collective with Barbara Fant on Wednesday, March 31 will feature a line-up of 16 women and young girls as they share poetry to uplift and empower Black female voices. Photo credit: Courtesy of Stephanie Matthews via the Lincoln Theatre
For the first time since the pandemic began, the Black Women Rise Poetry Collective will be taking the stage to share poetry live and in person.
The Lincoln Theatre will present the Black Women Rise Poetry Collective with Barbara Fant in person and online Wednesday at 7 p.m. The event will feature a lineup of 16 women and young girls who will share personal poetry meant to elevate and empower Black female voices alongside performers such as DJ Krate Digga, dancer Lori Lindsey and visual artist Francesca Miller.
“I think one of the goals I had with this really was to put poetry at the forefront, and to make people realize that poetry can carry on a show,” Barbara Fant, poet and moderator of the collective, said. “The voice is that powerful.”
Fant, who’s been on the poetry scene in Columbus since she was 18, said the Black Women Rise Poetry Collective started as a group effort after she reached out to several women and local poets at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 to do April’s 30/30 poetry challenge together.
“We started at the end of March, all the way through April, writing a poem a day,” Fant said. “Once that ended, we just didn’t want to stop. It evolved into a collective of sorts.”
A few of the women performing Wednesday include Tyiesha Radford Shorts, a graduate student in art education in the Department of Administration, Education and Policy; Cynthia Amoah, a spoken word artist and educator originally from Ghana, West Africa; and Caroline Inspires Bennett, an educator, speaker and mentor to young girls.
“This is the one-year anniversary of the nation sheltering in place. People are definitely grieving a year they lost from performances,” Radford Shorts said. “So being in a position to bring live art back into the city is an important step — one that shows that as a community, that’s the direction we’re headed.”
Although the collective understands not everyone will be able to attend in person, Bennett said it is always the right time for Black women and girls to gather and lift each other up, whether it’s in person or through a screen.
“It’s not often in life that we get a space to ourselves, and if we do, we don’t have it for long,” Bennett said. “There’s so much freedom that is getting ready to be in one space — a space created for us, by us, with us.”
Amoah said having the ability to stream online allows more people to access the performance and benefits the theater, which is only allowing 20-25 people to attend the performance in person.
“So many venues lost a lot of revenue around COVID,” Fant said. “So now that things are opening back up, of course it’s limited capacity, but this is going to help local theaters as well.”
Legendary artists from the Black community have graced the stage at the Lincoln Theatre, Bennett said. Jazz artists and West African dancers have been featured at the theater, and Radford Shorts said it is important that poetry also has a presence at the theater.
“Poetry is still very much a part of the Black creative experience,” Radford Shorts said. “My hope for the future is to continue to have discussions and dialogue about different forms of Black creativity.”
Amoah said the fact that the Black Women Rise Poetry Collective exists goes against the part of history that has silenced the voices of Black women.
“It really is a way to show the community and the world that here are a group of Black women who have found their voices, and they’re not afraid to use them,” Amoah said. “I think it’s beautiful to curate and have an event where they can actually speak up and perform their work.”
The Lincoln Theatre is located at 69 E. Long St. in Columbus. Safety protocols for the in-person event are posted on the theater’s website. In-person tickets for the event have already sold out, but virtual tickets are still available on the website for $10.45.
