teri elam

Creative Communicator | Poet | Writer

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Poems, Essays, Reviews, and Other Miscellany

The Rumpus •

Traveling My Way Forward: Carrie R. Moore’s "Make Your Way Home"  - The Rumpus

Though, a witch was a witch and could give no gift without a blade.

–Carrie R. Moore (from “When We Go, We Go Downstream”)

I stopped when I reached this line in the first story of Carrie R. Moore’s Make Your Way Home (Tin House, 2025). I reread it. And then again. It lingered; in the background, along with my playlist accompanying Moore’s evocative storytelling—croaking bullfrogs, chirping crickets, a cicada’s distress and nights black as ink as we enter Elijah’s story: a man who is many thing...

'Hacks' Is Not a Hack…It's Comedic Perfection - Incluvie

Deborah (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) are a delight to watch evolve, sometimes devolve, then evolve again.

I'm a Gemini, and we are often the funniest people in the room, at least in our minds. Nonetheless, armed with bravado, I decided to take my talents to a standup comedy class. Because indeed, that's all it takes to start a comedy career; and become a Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) in training… amirite? Nope. Nah. No ma'am.

So, You Think You Can Comedy

It took six weeks of classes,

Coming of Age with Butterflies and Timeliness | Podcast - Incluvie

Coming of Age with Butterflies and Timeliness | Podcast

The May Incluvie Movie Highlights features 3 fantastic coming-of-age films. We explore butterfly-inducing Sneakerella and Crush, and the sadly timely feature - The Fallout, about the after-effects of a school shooting.

The May Incluvie Movie Highlights features 3 fantastic coming-of-age films. We explore butterfly-inducing Sneakerella and Crush, and the sadly timely feature - The Fallout, about the after-effects of a school shooting. Movi

I've Got A 'Crush' On You...And I'm Not Too Old To Say It - Incluvie

I've Got A 'Crush' On You...And I'm Not Too Old To Say It

Hulu's 'Crush' leaves you giddy, light, hopeful, and, yes, all crushed out on the possibility of what? You got it, your next crush.

I'm a lifelong believer in crushes. I believe that a crush is how the deepest friendships often begin. I think they're the lifeblood of youthfulness regardless of any "hyphenated age category," which in my case is a little (lot) older than high schoolers. Still, you cannot tell me I'm not a kid again when I

'Alice' Doesn't Live Here Anymore - Incluvie

'Alice' is a genre trifecta: one part revenge drama, one part historical account, one part throwback to Blaxploitation—kinda 'Django' meets 'Roots' meets 'Foxy Brown.'

In 1804, George Nichols, my father's third great-grandfather, and his older sister were kidnapped from Africa. Though we don't know the specific country, they were likely Cameroonian based on DNA research. George, 10 years old, was separated from his sister (never to see her again) and sold to someone who moved him to Washington,

The ABCs of Abbott Elementary: Janine Goes To School - Incluvie

The ABCs of Abbott Elementary: Janine Goes To School

In 'Abbott Elementary' showrunner and star Quinta Brunson highlights common issues amongst teachers who are deserving of Superhero Status: needs for supplies, making do with what you have, and always getting to the heart of the matter, the kids.

Quinta Brunson is the creative genius behind ABC's ratings-breaking Abbott Elementary. Brunson, astutely insightful, takes a series about an elementary school and gives it the mockumentary treatment,

Love, Regret, and Art: Pandemic Lessons from Station Eleven and The Real World - Incluvie

Love, Regret, and Art: Pandemic Lessons from Station Eleven and The Real World

The three themes of lessons learned from HBO Max's Station Eleven are the same as the pandemic: love, regret, and art.

Patrick Somerville's Station Eleven made me think about my grandma Alice, a quilter born in 1908. Like Miranda Carroll (Danielle Deadwyler), she was an artist but would've never fashioned herself such. A cartographer of sorts, my grandma likely picked up this tradition from the Black women she desce

All Hail The Queen of Basketball, May She Reign in Peace...and Win An Oscar - Incluvie

All Hail The Queen of Basketball, May She Reign in Peace...and Win An Oscar

In less than 30 minutes, Proudfoot guides the viewer through a narrative that touches on American history, mind-health issues, race, and gender politics

If someone asked you who the greatest names in basketball are, what would you say? Based on where you live, your generation, perspective, you might list Jordan, LeBron, Magic, Shaq or Kobe. Some might say Leslie, Swoopes, Staley, etc. How many would say “Harris?” Well,

Benjamin Cleary’s ‘Swan Song’: Poetry for the Heart, Soul, and Consciousness: A Review - Incluvie

Benjamin Cleary’s ‘Swan Song’: Poetry for the Heart, Soul, and Consciousness: A Review

Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris, with an economy of language, but a world of expression, weave us inside this futuristic tale of how your “one true love” may exist in the future in Benjamin Cleary's 'Swan Song.'

Filmmaker Benjamin Cleary uses an economy of language, colors, sounds to weave his futuristic tale of love, loss, and regeneration in

It is a poem, lament, and dirge—this labyrinthine journey—our o

Is Netflix’s 'Single All The Way' the “Answer” to Hulu’s 'Happiest Season'? - Incluvie

Is Netflix’s 'Single All The Way' the “Answer” to Hulu’s 'Happiest Season'?

In the LGBTQ+ holiday rom-com wars, 'Single All The Way' may or may not be the “answer” to 'Happiest Season.'

Back in the day, when there were MC rivalries, rappers would cut "answer" albums like the Roxanne Wars (Roxanne Shanté vs. The Real Roxanne). Fast forward to the beginning of this interminable “panoramic pandemonia” when the world was sipping “quarantinis” day and night, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz started a rand
Heavy Feather Review •

HOW TO KILL YOURSELF INSTEAD OF YOUR CHILDREN, a poetry collection by Quincy Scott Jones, reviewed by teri elam

How to Kill Yourself Instead of Your Children, Quincy Scott Jones’ poetry collection, crawls into the bloodstream, lays in wait, inching up the heat. His is an in-your-face look at race and culture, as much eulogy as history lesson, as much elegy as admonition. Jones, incinerator and extinguisher, understands the assignment he has given, coaxing us into the work needed with ten restrained lines spaced for contemplation:

ssssssssssssssh. sssssssssssssssssh.

if you ssssssssssssssh i’ll tell you

'The Harder They Fall': This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Spaghetti Western - Incluvie

'The Harder They Fall': This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Spaghetti Western

In Jeymes Samuel's history-infused, neo-spaghetti western, Black women are center stage with a fresh hip hop mixtape keeping rhythm in the backdrop.

Admittedly, I'm not a particular fan of westerns, though they give me a sense of nostalgia. They carry me back to Saturdays after Super Friends and Soul Train, where the background noise of a TV left on was a consonance of galloping horses, guns blaring, and twangy cadences. Howev

An Impulse To Keep: Greenwood Art Project [hardcover] | NAME

An Impulse to Keep is published on the occasion of the Greenwood Art Project, an initiative led by artists Rick Lowe/william cordova with Jerica Wortham, Marlon Hall, Jeff Van Hanken and Kode Ransom. The project brings together artists, residents, leaders, organizations, and businesses to raise awareness of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the destruction of its thriving Black community in the historic Greenwood District that included Black Wall Street, one of the most prominent Black-owned business
QUAIL BELL MAGAZINE •

Interview: Teri Elam And Disnie Sebastien On The Poetry Film 'Butterflies'

The butterfly in the poem is the Black girl—and it’s a meditation on their treatment in the world. To borrow a phrase from Dr. Monique Morris, the documentary filmmaker of “Pushout,” it’s about “the criminalization of Black girls in schools.” After seeing a video of a Black girl sitting at her desk being slammed to the ground by a school resource officer in South Carolina, I began writing it. I was so enraged. Then I found other videos, one of a Black girl in North Carolina, then in Texas—most r
Limp Wrist •

teri elam | Limp Wrist

On Writing A Fan Letter To Lynda Carter Circa 1975 Hot-combed ponytails grazing my shoulder, lip-pursed concentration, Not a dumb No. 2 pencil—but my new blue BIC pen artfully scribing pages In my wide ruled notebook. I practiced and practiced my W, its curves, Loops and slants—its command over the alphabet. “The Capital W stands Alone—it should NEVER touch other letters in any word,” Miss Manning demanded, tapping her yardstick to chalkboard. She favored Carol Burnett, but not as funny—or at al

Slice Magazine | ISSUE 24: TIME

The theme of our twenty-fourth issue is Time, and I find that it’s hard to talk to you about time without sounding trite. I think it’s because, in some ways, we know everything about time. We know that Einstein was right and that time is relative­we feel it in the endlessness of a school year viewed from September by a fourth grader and in the way a child turns eight in the blink of a parent’s eye. We know that Joyce was right and that time doesn’t forgive us for our sins-we feel his warning tha
The Seattle Times •

‘Alone Together’ compiles stories of hope, heartache and more from the COVID era — with a heavy Seattle presence

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Washington state and the nation hard in March, Seattle author and journalist Jennifer Haupt’s latest book deal was canceled. Like many others, her creativity felt stymied. “I just had no energy around fiction,” Haupt says, “which was for me very unusual.”

Haupt had wanted to put together an anthology before, but not until the pandemic did an idea crystallize. “A lot of people were feeling that they didn’t have anything important to say, they didn’t know how to use
Photo by Negative Space on Pexels

Project MUSE - High School Dancerettes at Halftime

High school dance girls sashay in formationOnto the football field. Old cataracts catchHold their hatchling bodies, lace & gartered,Shapely backs, necks erect, heads afro-bunned.

Their fishnets attached by garters to a beaded blackUnitard, lace and shine shimmying to eye rolls andHeavy hissing, “Why those girls so fast?” BlackTeenaged girls, labeled early, before they know

Who they are, before they label themselves. The menSay nothing in the air, but leer, grayed brows furrowed,Their glares cr

Slice Magazine | ISSUE 24: TIME

The theme of our twenty-fourth issue is Time, and I find that it’s hard to talk to you about time without sounding trite. I think it’s because, in some ways, we know everything about time. We know that Einstein was right and that time is relative­we feel it in the endlessness of a school year viewed from September by a fourth grader and in the way a child turns eight in the blink of a parent’s eye. We know that Joyce was right and that time doesn’t forgive us for our sins-we feel his warning tha
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