Ep 19: Speculation and Witnessing with Shayla Lawz

Hoodoo Plant Mamas

For the one-year anniversary episode of Hoodoo Plant Mamas, we talk with fellow Aquarius, Shayla Lawz about her upcoming poetry collection "speculation, n." We dive into the difficulty of witnessing state-sanctioned violence against Black people as well as the music that helps us process it all.

Shayla Lawz is a writer and interdisciplinary artist from Jersey City, NJ. She works at the intersection of text, sound, and performance and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Jack Jones Literary Arts, The Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (CAAPP), and The Digital Studies Center at Rutgers-Camden (DiSC). She holds a BA in English from Rutgers University and an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University. Her writing and hybrid/sound work appear in McSweeney’s Quarterly, Catapult, and The Poetry Project, among others. Her debut poetry collection “speculation, n.” was chosen by Ilya Kaminsky for the 2020 Autumn House Poetry Prize. She lives in Brooklyn, NY where she teaches in the Department of Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt Institute.

Resources:

• "speculation, n" Pre-Order
• Shayla's Website
• Twitter & Instagram: @shaylalawz
• "& when the spaceship comes for ____________, i want to go with them: ON HARMONY HOLIDAY, DOUGLAS KEARNEY & JONAH MIXON-WEBSTER" by Shayla Lawz
• Erykah Badu, Missy Elliott, Sade
• The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Lauryn Hill
• Long Live the Angels and Real Life by Emeli Sande
• PHO EP and Shea Butter Baby by Ari Lennox
• A Seat at the Table and When I Get Home by Solange
• Songs in A Minor by Alicia Keys
• My Life by Mary J. Bliges
• lately i feel EVERYTHING and ARDIPITHECUS by Willow Smith
• HEAVN by Jamila Woods
• CTRL by SZA
• Saturn by NAO

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