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Poetry for Political Change

Mónica Carrillo In Her Own Words

Mónica Carrillo is a young poet, performance artist, and activist committed to fighting racism and advancing sexual rights and reproductive rights, gender equality, and youth empowerment in Afro-descendent communities. Her work enables Afro-Peruvian youth to become politically active and to strengthen their Afro-descendent identities through cultural activities. She is the director of MADRE's sister organization, LUNDU, which works to defend the rights of Afro-Peruvians, women, and youth.

Below are poems included on her CD, Unicroma.

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In memory of Dalit population

THE UNTOUCHABLES

Don't look at me, don't touch me
you call me untouchable and your fear when I come near you
makes me say what I feel
and makes you end up being vulnerable.

You don't let me sit down at your table
I can't eat with your spoons
at school I hear classes though the window
and if I stop at the window of the store
to see the little toys
you scream and hit me
because you say I contaminate your blinds.

And my father went to tell you
to respect my childhood and my innocence
because I only want to watch cartoons
through the window of the store
but you hurt him, you told him to get out! get out!
and my father was ashamed
because he didn't have the right to defend me
I don't know how to read but I sing the mantra
they told me that was going to purify my soul
but despite the fact that I sing and I am a good girl
everybody says that my caste contaminates
the space where I put my eyes

Hare Krishna/ Hare Krishna/ Krishna Krishna Hare
Hare Rama/ Hare Rama/ Rama Rama Hare Hare

And the story of this girl was that, sad and depressed,
she wanted to end her life on the rails
where the train passes
and she did it and nobody could stop her
she said she was leaving not because she was suffering
but because her father was treated without respect
and she didn't want
to spend her life picking up dead animals from the street
or be offered to a man that seems to be a priest
and be his sexual slave be a devadasi
and because singing mantras she was going to get to heaven

Hare Krishna/ Hare Krishna/ Krishna Krishna Hare
Hare Rama/ Hare Rama/ Rama Rama Hare Hare

This is the story suffered by 4 million Dalits
the ones they call untouchables in India
if someday we want a life in communion
that is really human and follows some kind of god
we shouldn't forget the story of this girl
and when we sing mantras let's remember the purity
she had inside her, in spite of her caste
though she may not have been a Brahman.

---

INTERSECTIONAL

Would it be possible to be more that the inverted commas?
the object of analysis, of intersection
the strange thing that turns on for the artesian of her curls and
the supposed labyrinth of the curly pubis?

Being more than a black women, the acrobatic dancer
defender of a discourse with an oxidized breath
teacher of advices with remedies
mysterious, bewitcher,
erotic, almost whore,
rhythmic, complaisant
resentful,
predisposed, promoted?

I leave the sex to press me,
I resist,
I push,
I hold,
I swallow.

While I was imagining in his cloudy stream
I make him believe I am going to free for him
romantic men don't keep their lovers as property
his power will be shown when by my own decision,
I reject my freedom
despite the fact that he offers it to me

I pray

Abasikiri osario saiko
If there is a god, there are little devils.

I hold a little "you are the goddess" I tell her
I don't know when I am going to stop being like my mother
a thing they bring in the still life
and I become human
I don't remember when my corrupted virginity
by disgusting broken teeth,
stock in his pink face
became something similar to affection
either when I became a calculator
and I forgot about the nausea
seeing that dandruff skin and without any color at all
on top of my nights

Despite the fact that I left after being free
I couldn't help being a marron
I left like tracings
the smell of mature guanabana
that I never wanted him to feel
small pieces of my trips in the sheets
in other words, small parts of my skin

I still can't escape from the intersection
that left me at the crossroads
to stop being reduced to whatever he wanted me to be,
I won't be like them,
I don't want them to look at me like they do to other women

Abasikiri, abasikiri,
It doesn't matter to me being a goddess or a little devil

I will do anything to stop being reduced
To their category
I will prey the Our Father in Congo,
I can adore the snake with the ritual of the mayomb�
Bomb�,
I never forgot about
voodoo,
I either forgot the initiation ceremony of the
Endecemes
I still remember the Congo Rule of the
Palo Monte
that the white scars are fatality symbols
and like it is guessed in the
Tablet of If�

Abasikiri osario saiko, Abasikiri osario saiko
dioasa o diabla

it is the same

---

LUNDU

The snake has glass eyes/ the
snake comes and tangles in the stick/
with its glass eyes in a stick/ with its glass
eyes mayomb� bomb�.

Lundu answers NOT to the mayomb�
bomb�
looking through the glass eye
of the kikongoAngola
it could be oru bomb�
any word rationally away
that becomes what you want it to be
it tries to look like the black Christ
it grovels in the ophidian voodoo
or goes down
to a santero ritual
it is in a snake with glass eyes
that paralizes the ivory with its look
its divided tongue transforms itself
saliva at the bottom and
gulp down the shape
it is primary, instinctive, ecological poetry
or the most lyrical tone of the spiritualists
lives since the years were defined
rain after rain
until the name-day of the saints
give names to the grandparents
it is a boomerang con- centric
I that lives again and demands return
An ec- central for its red
green and yellow aesthetic
admired with a surprise
as honest as sickening

In the ghetto philosophy Lundu
turns around like a satellite
reminding us that we should live in "community"
interracial intercultural insurrection?
or just
"Inn"?

---

GHETTO RAP

UNO

The spiritual inspiration from my ancestries
the half-lit sunset
the darkness
everything feeds
everything encourages
and me
trying to plot the catchphrases
that let me touch my freedom
my redemption
but also being the messiah to adore for what she is
if she is a whore
if she is a prostitute
maybe for being bad
doesn't matter if she's a bitch
but inspiring
revolution
revolution (hot)

I answer you
i am divine
if you insult me
and intimidate me
but I spit on you
if you applaud me
because I think
that on the bottom of your pockets you have coins
that you would throw if you didn't want to seem polite.

Don't be rebellious
those are just fake faces
I am gipsy from the harangues
today I am singer
tomorrow I might be red or feminine
the day after tomorrow clay modeled according to the force
with which you member designs the hole (ha ha)
of my smile

DOS

I am a girl
A girl from the ghetto
from a poor neighborhood
from a low nieghborhood
that sleeps during the day
and goes out at night
to make its row
From the Barracones
from Renovaci�n
from Pinonate
from the Huerta Perdida
but I am not poor
I am impoverished
but I am not Black
I am blackened
I am not from the favela
I am favelada
I am not violent
It is just that I was violated
I am not callejonera
I am callejoneada
I am not berraca
I am berraqueada

And I am going to guess what is in you thoughts
you want to
look at me
touch me
fuck me
you say you admire me for my esthetic
black
red
green and yellow
you say that you admire me
because I dance in a pub
because I dance at Carnaval
but these are lies
you say I will be the woman of your life
but these are lies
yYou want me to be your queen for a day
and your slave for the rest of my life
it is a lie
lie lies
pure lies
only lies

TRES

And this is my poetry
not philosophy
it is emotion
screams of agony
that commotion causes
what I don't want is to be a pamphlet
I only need an avenue for my inspiration
but I don't deserve to renounce to my context
nor to be forever the denounced

I want to be free of any precept
be arrogant
or egotistical
philanthropic
or a thinker

I want to be free
of any precept
talk about the ghetto
or about my loves
or slavery
or about those men
who are like you
that only want me
for M M M
and if I want them to do the same
if I make fun of them
or desire them deeply

A woman with his look
can sing
can dance
also fuck without stopping to think

That's why I recite
that's why I fabricate
that's why I stimulate my internal nation
my lost Africa
my hidden Indigenous
and my surrendered White