News & Events
Prolific will be hosting CONJURE: Poetic Pasts & Constructed Futures by Weeksville Heritage Center, a youth poetry competition for National Poetry Month, on Saturday, April 10.
Judges include Azia Armstead, Thaihera Nurse, and Tai Allen.
As an instructor for the 2021 Freedom Fellowship at the Weekville Heritage Center, Timothy facilitated “Genealogy for Black Folks,” which introduced fellows on how to synthesize documentation and creative process.
The fellowship is a core aspect of Jubilee 11213, a cultural organizing and public performance project that takes place between 2020 and 2022 in digital space, in the Weeksville community, and on WHC’s campus. Jubilee 11213 is a creation of Ebony Noelle Golden of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, who is the current Weeksville Artist-In-Residence.
Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte was awarded a 2021 Create Change Fellowship through The Laundromat Project for their upcoming projects multi-disciplinary projects, Water + Blood and Egungun | Las Muertas Hablan | The Dead Speak, that live at the intersection of their creative, genealogical, and spiritual practices.
Latest Book Release
Ofrenda para las ancestras
Ofrenda para las ancestras is a poetic ritual reconciling the crossroads of identities that compose Edwaujonte’s bloodline — African, Indigenous, and European.
This offering explores the price of discovering one’s heritage as a child of the Afro-Indigenous Diaspora, set against the composite backdrops of genealogy, mixed heritage, gentrification, internalized oppression, systemic racism, and spiritual awakening. Edwaujonte’s poetics unravel colonized language and culture to remind the orphans of enslavement and genocide that the human spirit is unconquerable.
Sounds
“Purple” is a eulogy for my maternal grandmother, Mama Anna Veit, and written as part of the SLMDances multi-project universe “PURPLE.” Purple was also Mama’s favorite color.
Written by Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte
Producer: Ebonie Smith
Bass: Noah Jackson
Cover Art: Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte
“The Apocalypse as Seen Where The Waters Meet” (Published in Voicemail Poems, 2020)
“Orphans” featured on Greg G the Goldenchild’s single “Born Black” (2017)
Stream via Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal
SoSoon – “The Underclass (Remix feat. Charlotte Mishell & Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte) (2010)
Stream via Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music
Selected Writings
Names of some of the BIPOC killed extrajudiciously | Design by Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte
Blood on the Leaves
I wrote this poem back in 2014. Heartbreakingly, it is still relevant.
//
how much blood has to be offered
how many have to be sacrificed
how many Black boys and Black girls
must bleed for us to be 5/5?
Find me a reason today to feel American
that doesn’t involve murder.
I’m supposed to be a leader
supposed to have poems
and actions and answers
All I have is trails of tears
strangled by star spangled noose
blood on the leaves of strange fruit
How Are We Defining Justice?
From Left to Right: Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, & Regis Korchinski-Paquet | Design by Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte
This piece is for us, and for Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and Regis Korchinski-Paquet. It exists somewhere between poetry and prose.
Long before this pandemic, there was something airborne, a pestilence that spread first amongst white folks before it began to attack our bodies. The tightness in the sinuses moves downward and closes the throat… but a sneeze will not dislodge racism.
The system ain’t just, so how is it going to give us what it does not possess? What we demand is accountability under the law. And accountability under the law, while it is something we will fight for, is simply insufficient.
A Black Long Island Experience
Read Timothy’s ethnographic essay navigating their family’s history, genealogy, and reclamation of culture. Published on Medium.com
Genealogical Work
Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte’s journey to genealogy began with listening to the oral traditions of both sides of their family. At Hunter College, pro took a class with Professor MW Payne that sparked a hunger to more formally honor and investigate their familial origins. For more on this journey, read the Medium.com article that encapsulates a chapter of this journey.
On April 15, 2020, Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte presented at an event focused on sharing genealogical practices pertaining to the African diaspora. In the video recap, the session starts around the 33:24 mark.
In collaboration with Weeksville Heritage Center, MoCADA, Archival Alchemy, and Brooklyn Connection as part of Research Refracted and The Legacy Project’s public training series, this virtual event on genealogy research focused on the skills needed for tracing African diasporan heritage and understanding the specific challenges and strategies for conducting genealogical research in the context of the legacy of slavery and Colonialism. Presenters included genealogist practitioner Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte, oral historian Obden Mondésir; and NYPL librarian Jermaine Dennis.
Owo Foro Adobe
Creativity through Persistence
Blog Highlights
Black Fire: Remembering Amiri Baraka
One month after spending a good portion of a late attempting to navigate the grief, loss, and shock of Imanu Amiri Baraka's transition from elder to ancestor, I am ready to share this with the world. It is a raw first response. In respect for his family those who knew personally, I delayed sharing this. I'm compelled to today. Àṣẹ
Cavalier + Faro-Z – “G.L.E.A.M.” [review]
It's like GLEAM, God Love Everything Around Me
true and living deities surround me
you can see me GLEAM
every time I step to the podium, suckas stay salty like sodium
cuz the way I GLEAM, females start to take notice
at which rap niggas be the dopest
and if you don't GLEAM
then there's something wrong with your style G
God Love, God Love Everything Around Me
It isn't often that a group is able successfully take a beat from the Wu-Tang Clan and create an original, shining track. Cavalier and Faro-Z accomplish that with G.L.E.A.M. (God Loves Everything Around Me). Using the beat and ad-libs from the Wu's legendary C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me), the duo from the hip-hop super group New Rap Order spit afrocentric and spiritual rhymes over RZA's masterpiece. The accompanying video includes a montage of relevant clips that display simulaneously the beauty and horrors of Afrikan history.
Pieces of A Man: Remembering Gil Scott-Heron
I had an early introduction to Gil Scott-Heron's poetry and music. My father has a pretty decent sized record collection, and when I was a child, it was massive. By the time I was 4 or 5, I knew how to operate the record player and some of the basic functions on the EQ.
The Lasers Fiasco
Lupe Fiasco’s Lasers was one of the most anticipated albums of 2011, partially because it was supposed to be released during the summer of 2010. Atlantic Records unceremoniously placed the album in post-production purgatory, and by fall it seemed that the album would never see the light of day. A massive petition of over 32,000 signatures and a planned protest outside of the New York headquarters of Atlantic Records on October 7, 2010, tipped the scale in the opposite direction. All seemed right with the world. The underdog triumphed, and the emcee known for refusing to dumb down his lyrics would release yet another insightful, lyrical opus.
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