Poem #11—the final poem in this series—is titled “Chaos – 2022” [http://www.minyanmag.com/jackieoldham.html]. Published October 27, 2022 in Minyan Magazine, it is an updated occasional poem originally written in 2020, with the title “Chaos,” for the annual Poetry Shabbat at Beth Am Synagogue in Baltimore, which occurs shortly after Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year). Due … More Fall 2022 Poetry Reading Series, #11X
Poem #10 is titled “All These Things Are Broken” [https://spillwords.com/all-these-things-are-broken/], published August 17, 2022 in Spillwords Press. It was written on July 16, 2022, after friend and poet Scott Ferry posted the title as a prompt to write a new poem. This reading was recorded on December 30, 2022.
Poem #9 is “Ode to Lucille Clifton” [June 28, 2022, in A Lovely Place, A Fighting Place, A Charmer: The Baltimore Anthology (Belt Publishing, Cleveland, OH], my first contribution to a book! It is also one of numerous poems I’ve been commissioned or asked to write for a specific occasion or project. “Occasional poems,” as … More Fall 2022 Poetry Reading Series, #9
The eighth poem in this series is “Our Bodies, Our Rights” [Poem by Jackie Oldham – oddball magazine-3], published by Oddball Magazine on June 27, 2022. Written and submitted on June 26th, this poem was a response to the events of June 24th, the dark day the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. … More Fall 2022 Poetry Reading Series, #8
The sixth poem in this series is “Our Latest Fashion Accessories…” [https://www.rigorous-mag.com/v5i4/jackie-oldham.html]. It appeared in Rigorous Magazine on December 31, 2021. The impetus for this poem was the constant use of the phrase “our black and brown people” by everyone from cable news hosts to friends. This reading was recorded on December 3, 2022.
The fifth poem in this series—and my third and final poem published in Global Poemic—is “Brood X Symphony (The 17-Year Cicadas)” [https://globalpoemic.wordpress.com/2021/07/12/brood-x-symphony-the-17-year-cicadas/]. It appeared on July 12, 2021, during the Covid pandemic, but its subject was a different scourge I was facing that summer: the dreaded 17-year cicadas! In my lifetime, I had already encountered … More Fall 2022 Poetry Reading Series, #5
My second poem, “Just Another Covid Saturday,” appeared in the online journal Global Poemic on October 10, 2020 [https://globalpoemic.wordpress.com/2020/10/10/just-another-covid-19-saturday/], but it was written during the darkest period of the Pandemic, on March 28, 2020, when none of us knew what was happening, and we were all struggling with a life in lockdown. Global Poemic is … More Fall 2022 Poetry Reading Series #2
“Golem Emet,” my first published poem, appeared in the online journal Oddball Magazine on September 24, 2020 [Poem by Jackie Oldham – oddball magazine]. I needed a way to process the sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg six days earlier, at a critical point in the 2020 Presidential Election campaign. Then-President Trump … More Fall 2022 Poetry Reading Series #1
Part I: 2019: The Year of Words in Action Without experiences, writing is an empty exercise. Without writing, experiences are devoid of meaning. My goal for 2019 was to act on my words. After the first 4 years of writing baltimoreblackwoman, I realized that observing life wasn’t enough—I needed to DO. For myself, my … More baltimoreblackwoman Celebrates 5-Year Anniversary
On Wednesday October 9, 2019, at 1pm, I made my way by car from my home in “The Bottoms” of Lauraville, in Northeast Baltimore, to the campus of Morgan State University, Maryland’s illustrious HBCU. The drive took all of 5 minutes, including the time it took me to park on the lot of the former … More Morgan State University Oral History Project: My Story – A Black Woman Raised in Lauraville
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