Conjuring queer and trans survival
A spell for safety in a hostile world
Story
I walked into the rehearsal space for “Poets Against Rape” in San Francisco, clutching my poems in sweaty hands. The room was filled with mostly queer people who, to my shy 20-something-year-old self, seemed impossibly cool. I stood awkwardly against the wall, wishing I knew at least one person. Suddenly, someone appeared at my side. “Hi!” Ching-In Chen said, and introduced themselves as another poet. And just like that, I had a friend in that intimidating space.
Over the years, we each journeyed our own path of becoming queer writers engaged in the world of organizing and justice. I have deeply valued my relationship with Ching-In as a kindred spirit, collaborator, and a friend. The generosity of spirit and instinct toward inclusiveness that they showed that first day I met them always moves and inspires me.
As you’ll read in their essay below, Ching-In risked their safety and comfort in a conservative institution in East Texas to be out as a nonbinary professor so that they could open space for LGBTQIA* students to explore and express their own identities. A poem Ching-In wrote for these students is included in my latest project: Poetry as Spellcasting: Poems, Essays, and Prompts for Manifesting Liberation and Reclaiming Power, edited with Destiny Hemphill and Lisbeth White.
In today’s political environment where anti-trans hostility threatens the lives and wellbeing of trans and nonbinary people around the country, and most especially BIPOC folks, I find this poem a necessary intervention and powerful spellcasting. (In Poetry as Spellcasting we define “spellcasting” as: a direction of intention and energy to call in forces beyond ourselves: spiritual, ancestral, and earthly allies. We conceive of spellcasting as a concentration and alignment of energy and language in a ritual.”) I’m so pleased to be able to share this poem and Ching-In’s reflections with you here today.
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Spell for Safety
Ching-In Chen
for my trans and nonbinary students crossing the stage at Lavender Graduation
Maybe it was you learning to walk home cross-wise, your own safety valve. You, who trained a tongue chosen name, listening for reflection to speak back. You, I’m calling you, grew yourself at argument’s end, slept borrowed and burned. Who filled in space of the wisecrack, who emptied the sidewalk, who cleared the toxic table. You breathed down your own street, rose tall, stitched. Built your own table, lit candles for the living who couldn’t make it back. The invitations, the city, the hauntings and the hatchets, the you, the you, the you walking home safe, opening the door, setting the table for company.
Spell for Safety: Survival and Protection
Ching-In Chen
I wrote the poem “Spell for Safety” in 2018 when I lived in Texas and taught at a regional comprehensive university in East Texas. I wrote this spell for the trans and nonbinary students who were crossing the stage at Lavender Graduation.
There was no Lavender Graduation when I graduated from college. By attending this Lavender Graduation for my students and LGBTQI* staff and faculty colleagues, I learned about the history of this ritual, created by Dr. Ronni Sanlo in 1995 at the University of Michigan. Sanlo was denied the opportunity to attend her children’s graduation ceremonies because of her sexual orientation and created this ritual to honor and celebrate lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and queer students in their own special ceremony.
For the students in East Texas, crossing the stage at that university, in that deadly city which had an electric chair as its major tourist attraction, was a conjuring of survival. Though I had crossed the stage as a student several times, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be in my nonbinary and nonwhite body as a professor, didn’t understand what it meant to take up a space not meant for you until I sat in the audience for the institution’s first Lavender Graduation in 2016. I watched as graduating students told their stories – of almost not making it, naming those who were lost and who wouldn’t walk across that stage. They also lifted up and thanked their support systems – sometimes blood family, but more often than not, their own chosen kin when their families would not or could not support them. My partner Cassie was one of those students whose own blood family would not be present to cheer her on as she finally finished her undergraduate degree and walked across the stage at Lavender Graduation.
As the only professor of color on the tenure track in my department and the only non-binary/trans professor who was out at my institution, I felt both hypervisible and invisible. When I first started my job, I had students, who I did not know,walk up to me and ask me if I was nonbinary or trans, as if they needed to just confirm my identity, and then walk away. It didn’t feel malicious, but made me feel like a zoo animal, especially since the students didn’t say anything else to me, not even small talk. When I first began teaching there, some religious students immediately dropped my class after I asked them to let us know what their gender pronouns were so that we could address everyone as they wanted to be addressed. The only thing I knew about them was that they listed the Bible as their favorite poem, their favorite book, and the last writing that they read in the Getting to Know You in-class writing I asked students to complete on the first day of class.
Though some of my colleagues and a greater number of students respected my gender pronouns, I was misgendered daily and oftentimes by well-meaning colleagues who I considered otherwise to be allies. In those moments, I felt not only invisible, but disappeared – as if I were a problem to be swept away. The classroom and university campus felt polarized, with little support for dialogue around issues of race, gender, sexuality, and disability across the institution.
It did not feel safe to openly identify as non-binary and trans. Though I worried sometimes about my own and my partner’s safety, I chose to openly identify as queer and trans because my LGBTQIA* students saw it as support. I also realized that anyone who Googled my unusual name would have discovered my writing on the subject so I wouldn’t have been able to go back in the closet even if I didn’t want that part of my identity to show up at work.
I co-taught a Black Lives Matter! Honors course which was criticized by right-wing media, falsely, as forcing students to take the course in exchange for scholarship money. I and the other LGBTQIA* faculty teaching the course were singled out to receive harassing emails which threatened to have our (non-existent) funding revoked.
I chose to collaborate with the student poetry slam club on campus to organize a Black History Month creative showcase featuring trans poet Cameron Awkward-Rich, and to later collaborate on organizing my university’s first-ever LGBTQIA* poetry slam featuring intersex and trans performer Koomah. This work sometimes brought me into direct conflict with transmisic and homomisic students (one of whom protested Cam’s reading by bringing rosary beads to the reading and praying as he touched each bead while Cam was reading) as well as veiled and direct comments on student evaluations of the course material being “too political.” However, I noticed that more students in my classes began to identify as LGBTQIA*, both in their writing and some openly. I got calls from colleagues seeking advice (for instance, wanting to know how best to write a letter of recommendation for a student who had since transitioned after taking their class), even after I no longer worked there.
When I was invited to write a poem by Lavender Graduation organizers, I didn’t realize I would end up reading the poem every year during the ceremony and invoking it whenever I felt a ritual of protection was needed. In these last few years of increasing anti-trans rhetoric and legislation, I have often invoked it as companion, as wish, as desire, even though I no longer teach at that institution and have stopped attending that Lavender Graduation.
Recently, in the new city where I live, I met a queer student of color who currently attends my old institution. This student told me that they had gone to the institution hoping to work with me, not realizing that I had left for a different job. Almost as if I had left a ghostly trail where my body used to be, where I wished for more ease for my students, my trans family and those who would try to follow our paths. In that moment, I invoked my poem and offered them a wish of protection.
Starlight
A prompt
Writing a spell for safety
First consider: To whom do you want to write a spell for safety? Yourself? Your community? Your loved ones? Who are you connected to, who are you in solidarity with, who would gladly receive protection and fortification from you? Bring that person or people to mind. (Again, this could be yourself.) Imagine them in their full, glorious selves.
If you can, call to mind a moment when you witnessed them in a space of joy, power, or determination. What were their facial expressions, body language, quality of their voice, words, and actions? If you are writing a spell for yourself, call to mind a moment where you felt fully in your power, when you felt strong emotions of joy, clarity, rage, etc. What did it feel like in your body? What did it feel like to breathe? What did you do or say?
Stay with that imagery for a few moments. Then, when you are ready, freewrite for five to ten minutes.
Now imagine a space or spaces of safety for you or the person/people you are writing for. This could be indoor or outdoor, real or imagined. Freewrite for five to ten minutes about this space: what it looks like, smells like, feels like. How you or the person/people move through the space, what you/they do in it.
Next, consider: What are the powers and resources available to you and/or the person/people you are writing for? These might be material resources, inner resources and power, spiritual resources. Be as expansive as you can. List them out for five to ten minutes.
And finally: How can you or they access these powers and resources? Get as imaginative as you can. Write for five to ten minutes.
At this point, you might want to close your notebook or laptop and go for a walk, take a nap, or otherwise resource yourself.
Whenever you wish, come back to this exercise and read through your freewrites and list. Circle the phrases that stand out to you. Look for words, phrases, and sentences that are full of muscle and song, that evoke the senses, stir emotion, and feel good on the tongue.
Take what you’ve circled or underlined and write them out on a fresh sheet of paper or document. (If you are using a computer or phone, try typing them out again, rather than copy/pasting.)
This might inspire you to freewrite some more. Go for it! Or, you might feel you have enough material to start crafting the spell for safety. Do this in whatever way works best for you. Some suggestions are:
Like in Ching-In’s poem, write to the person, people directly, using the pronoun “you.” Do this even if you are writing a spell for yourself.
Describe the “you” doing specific actions that evoke a sense of safety and power.
Look at your list of powers and resources available for safety, and the ways to access them. Evoke one or two (or as many as you like), through descriptions of actions and or through the senses (particularly sound, smell, or taste).
Experiment with repetition (you might want to revisit Hyejung Kook’s prompt for guidance on using words like “may” “let” or “will”)
Close the poem with a specific image of the “you” in a safe space, embodying a sense of power.
Once you have finished the poem, after as many revisions as you need, consider how you might release it into the world. This might be as simple as clearing your desk, lighting a candle, and reading it out loud. You might want to send it or read it to the person for whom it is meant. Or, you could organize an event that centers safety and liberation and read the poem there—and/or also lead participants in a similar exercise to write their own spells for safety.
Stargaze
What I’m reading and listening to
How to Survive the End of the World Show: Witch School! I’m sure I’ve recommended adrienne maree and Autumn Brown’s podcast here many times. But I have to share how excited I am for season 7, Witch School, where adrienne will be interviewing all sorts of witchy people. So far, I’ve only listened to the intro episode, and I’m excited to listen soon to the next one featuring another Starlight & Strategy favorite, Omisade Burney-Scott, curator of the Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause.
Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield. I couldn’t put down this short, strange, and haunting novel. Among many things, I appreciated all the subtle ways it embodied queerness, from exploring the depths of a long-term lesbian relationship to imagining the unknowable queerness of the deep ocean.
What AI means for writers. I’ve been trying to find my way into the conversations about AI writing, and this is exactly the thoughtful and well-considered opening I was looking for: “Our participation as artists in both existential and practical conversations around AI is essential to shaping whatever comes next.”
Starshine
Announcements from the Starlight & Strategy community
Ching-In Chen is curating a special issue on “Breathing in a Time of Disaster” for Full Stop Quarterly. They are looking for BIPOC and trans contributors from Houston and Seattle to write critical essays on artists involved in the project. Learn more here.
Ching-In is also the judge for Kelsey Street Press’ 2023 QTBIPOC Prize, a no-fee book contest open to QTBIPOC-identified, feminist, innovative writers/poets. Learn more and submit here.
Filmmaker, artist, and poet Jess X. Snow (whose work is featured on the cover of my poetry collection, Last Days) is fundraising so they can finish their film, Roots That Reach Toward The Sky, about queer intimacy, mental health, mutual aid, traditional Chinese medicine and intergenerational healing. Learn more and donate here. The fundraiser ends on June 5!
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for the last few months, you know that my most recent project, Poetry as Spellcasting is now out in the world. Many thanks and love to all of you who have bought the book and shared it with your networks! It’s available wherever you can buy books, and if you want to pick up a copy, I hope you support your local independent bookstore.
Events:
In-person event hosted by the Brookline Booksmith in Boston & live-streamed on YouTube
Thursday, June 8, 7 pm EDT
Featuring contributor Joan Naviyuk Kane and me
If you are not in Boston and want to tune in, here’s the live-stream link
In-person event at Finnriver Farm and Cidery in Chimacum, WA
Join us for a reading and ritual during Finnriver’s Solstice Salmon Days
Featuring all three editors, and maybe a special guest!
Thursday, June 22
4:30pm PDT
124 Center Road
Chimacum, WA, 98325
Virtual event hosted by Left Bank Books in St. Louis
Thursday, July 13, 5pm PDT / 6pm MDT / 7pm CDT/ 8pm EDT
Featuring all three editors and contributor Hyejung Kook
More info to come
Do you have an event, a book, an album, a gallery showing, a theater production, an action, a rally, a retreat, a podcast or other artistic/spiritual/activist announcement you’d like to share with this community? Send it my way!
Thank you for reading all this way! We’re going to skip July’s full moon, but I’ll be back in your inboxes on August 1. Until then, I’m sending you my spells for safety and summer joy.