Rayon Lennon: “The decorated country music super star Naomi Judd, 76, recently took her life after decades of battle with mental illness. We learned this week how she died. She died a few days before being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Arlana Miller, 19, a first-year student at Southern University and A&M College, recently committed suicide after posting a detailed suicide note to Instagram about her struggles with what appeared to be depression. Two beautiful souls with so much to live for were killed by mental illness. As a therapist who also struggles with low-level depression, I wanted to highlight the hell of depression. When my car didn’t start recently, I found the perfect metaphor to highlight the features of depression. People with depression tend to have low or no energy/motivation to do basic tasks, like getting out of bed. Arlana’s note is perhaps the most detailed and tragic suicide note I have ever read. It’s all there—emptiness/worthlessness/excessive guilt, distorted thinking, suicidal ideation, hopelessness, etc. It’s sad. It’s a reality for millions of people each day.” (web)
Rayon Lennon: “I was 13 the first time I was followed in a store. I had just moved from Jamaica to Hamden, Connecticut. The male employee followed me in the dollar store as I looked at items. For some reason, he thought I was there to steal. I didn’t understand it. I had saved up all my lunch money to buy a cheap fake gold chain with a Jamaican flag pendant. After 10 minutes, the man simply asked me to leave. I said I didn’t do anything wrong; I hadn’t stolen anything and didn’t intend to steal anything. He said he was tired of following me. I said I was tired of being followed. He called the police. The snow came before the police. I got on a city bus and saw the police entering the store as the bus moved off. I was 13. America showed me who it was then. It’s particularly disheartening to be 37 and still being followed in stores. It’s even more disheartening when the employee following me is a Black teenage employee (being directed by an oppressive boss). While workshopping this poem, a white member of the group said, ‘Forgive me for sounding ignorant, but why were they following you in the store? What did they think you were going to do?’ It’s such an easy answer. But I thought about it more. Yes. They followed me because they thought I would steal; but they followed me too to try to make me believe I don’t belong, to rob me of my sense of feeling at home in America. Racism is mostly about power—most people don’t want to root it out because they don’t want to lose power/privileges. The Black teen who followed me in the store was probably acting the way he did to share in that power. It’s unfortunate what people must do to survive in this country. I have been asked by managers to do tasks that run counter to my values; I always challenge these requests, but I have made poor decisions as well—decisions which disempowered me and others. A friend said I should have been nicer to the Black teenage employee in the poem. It’s a poem powered by frustration and rage. I didn’t want to take that away from the poem. It’s important that I hold everyone accountable, even an oppressed teen. It’s especially sad and harmful when oppressed people, knowingly and unknowingly, help to spread racist ideology. Awareness is key. I’m a nice guy who only gets angry in my poems. In some ways, I’m not so much angry at the teen as I am angry at a nation which could turn out a vaccine for Covid in a year, but can’t seem to find a social vaccine for racism, centuries later.” (web)
Rayon Lennon: “The iconic rapper DMX recently died. His song ‘Slippin’’ saved my life every day during my teenage years. I was interested in how the mainstream media covered his death. His ‘troubled’ life was highlighted over his artistic achievements. I wanted to write a tribute that was in conversation with this complicated artist. How would DMX feel about the officer who admitted this week that she took a life because she mistakenly pulled her gun when she meant to pull her taser? DMX committed his life to sharing his life and perspective in order to build empathy between people.” (web)
Rayon Lennon: “In golf, the ultimate sin is to hit a shot while another player—playing a hole ahead—is close enough to be hit by the ball. This happened to me this week; I was struck by how cavalier the offending player seemed to be about the incident as though he had hit the shot in my direction because I were invisible to him. And so when I knelt to read the putt, it brought up prayer and George Floyd’s cruel death by a policeman’s knee.” (web)
Rayon Lennon: “Kobe, his daughter and others perished in a helicopter accident this week. I needed to process such a tragic ending while connecting it to Kobe’s competitiveness. Kobe was a superhero on the basketball court. He worked hard to master the game. He believed in himself and in turn made us believe in ourselves and the power of the human spirit. I think Kobe believed he would make it out of the fog, because his life was so much about winning. It was tough to see images of flames; so I changed those flames to flowers.” (web)
Rayon Lennon: “My work operates in that magical gray area between poetry and fiction. For this poem, I wanted to dramatize a number of the reasons behind the recent outrage over children being separated from their parents at the border. In the news, the focus has been placed on children and how being separated from their families adversely affects them—while their parents hunt for the American dream. You don’t have to pick a side on this issue to empathize with the children. This poem widens the scope on the issue—by exploring what happens generally when parents leave their children behind to pursue the American dream. My father left Jamaica when I was born to work on apple farms in Connecticut. His departure decimated the family. He overstayed his visa and did not return to Jamaica for several years (he returned briefly after becoming a U.S. resident; he and my mother eventually divorced because of the long separation). I was six and my sister was around eleven years old when our father left for good. She changed the day he left and has never been the same. My relationship with her suffered because of this. This poem—an imagined journey to see my sister—attempts to address and repair the harm done. I think I’ve only hugged my sister once. It was the day after my wedding. It still shocks me how shocked she was when I pulled her in for a long hug. It made me sad then to think about all the love that didn’t exist between us.” (web)