This poem is dedicated to George Moses Horton, an enslaved poet and the first Black American to publish a book in the South.

by Cortland Gilliam | illustration by Dare Coulter

Cortland Gilliam is a poet, educator, cultural organizer and Ph.D. candidate in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Gilliam’s poetry has been published in Gulfstream Magazine and the Triangle Poetry Twenty-Twenty-One anthology. Most recently, Gilliam has been appointed as Chapel Hill’s Poet Laureate for 2023 and 2024. Learn more here.

Dare Coulter is an award-winning professional sculptor, artist, muralist, and illustrator. Based in Raleigh, she focuses on heart-felt presentations of the human experience, life, joy, and resilience. Find more of her work on darecoulter.com or learn about her here.

This article originally appeared in the November 2023 issue of WALTER magazine.