Today Michelle Obama celebrates her last birthday as First Lady, and we're still not ready to say goodbye. FLOTUS' impact extends far beyond her official duties. She has been a source of inspiration for Black girls and women.

Poet Jasmine Mans captures our fondness for the "girl from the South Side" with a beautiful poem about her reach. For many, Mrs. Obama has a been a friend-in-our head, auntie-in-our-head, or, even, a mother-in-our-head. While we've tried to make it clear how deeply her presence and warmth have us. Listen to Mans capture the words we could not express.

Diverse portrayals of Black women in media were sorely lacking. 18-year-old, Amaris Wilson and Jazmyne Smith, take down the ways Hollywood typecasts Black women in television and film in their poem "Black Women on Television" performed at the 2016 Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival last month.

About the neck-roll stereotypes, they said. "...apparently Black girls can have attitudes but not character development/ just to be clear we do not travel in packs like some 'Bring It On Scene'"

And the young women had some important insight on how Black actresses aren't allowed to grow.

isn't astonishing how Taraji went from 'I ain't playin with you Jodi!', to caring for beloved Benjamin Button, then to 'I aint playin with you Lucious!?'

Smith and Wilson, represented Baton Rouge's Forward Arts all star slam team, accentuated their point with dynamic one-liners and uncomfortable truths about representation. The team finished in the top 10 of competing teams at this year's BNV.

Life at a PWI isn't always easy. Black women are often expected to prove ourselves and shoulder the burdens of everyone else's expectations. Poet Kwyn Townsend Riley captures the frustrations of Black womanhood in spaces that weren't built for us in "PWI 10 Commandments."

Honey Sanaa is a spoken word artist, educator and activist from New Orleans, by way of Mississippi. She’s a member of the national championship slam team, Slam New Orleans, and holds the title of Last Chance Slam Champion.

She dedicates her writing to telling the stories of her ancestors and the women she encounters and loves. She is persistent in telling the stories of her own life, and constantly learning to be unapologetic in their telling.


In this piece, Honey tells the painful truth of a person who struggles with body issues and an eating disorder. She showcases a vulnerability that Black women don’t always allow themselves to feel by delving into various scenarios and microagressions that trigger her feelings of self-loathing.

Watch Honey Sanaa let her guard down in this performance as she shares her fears and failures in a way that moves her audience to share this pain with her.

Alyesha Wise uses her piercing poetry to explore the ways Black women and girls are often silenced about their experiences with rape and sexual assault. In "The Interview," the Camden, NJ native asks a series of questions about that express the feelings of alienation she and so many other survivors have felt.

Beyoncé's "Formation" was an unapologetic call to slay.

Ernestine Johnson took Queen Bey's rallying cry a step further by reinterpreting the song as an explicit demand for solidarity among Black women and girls.
Dressed up in a Black bodysuit and bullet vest reminiscent of what Beyoncé wore to the Super Bowl, Ernestine underscores the importance of collaboration. "If I could talk to my 10 year old self, I would tell her not to be jealous or envy," she rhymes. Flanked by little natural-haired girls, she declares that everyone has their strengths, so the key is working together.

Kanye West is undeniably great, but for many who were once big fans, his message has become muddied by his infatuation with whiteness. Poet Jasmine Mans articulated her hurt at what Kanye has become in this moving poem, "Footnotes for Kanye."

Poet Kush Thompson's poem "For Colored Girls Who Considered Yaky" is an ode to all black girls who've felt the need to change their natural coils.

In case you didn't know, Nicki Minaj is an actress. Her talent for the theatrical shows itself often in her music and stage personas, and the Queens-native has made a couple of low key film appearances.

Poet Theresa Davis has a few words for politicians who try to dictate what women do with their vagina and who try to halt the reproductive rights of women in America.

In the poem "Master Piece" poet Salena Burch eloquently explains the thoughts that went through her mind when a classmate said to her, "I'd totally date you, if you weren't Black." These piercing words bring up thoughts of what Burch's ancestors went through for her right to sit in the classroom with this classmate who does not see that her African ancestry makes her a masterpiece.

We've all been there. You meet someone, invest your time and energy only to find they aren't nearly as interested as you are. This process of untangling your emotions from a distant would-be partner can be difficult. Hopefully we get through it and learn to be vulnerable again.

In her poem “Great,” Curmiah Lisette aims to celebrate of those who know and own their greatness, while putting out a call to action for those who have yet to discover it. “[Great] documents the culture of [devaluing] the worth of the black woman and how we must rise above it,” she said in a statement.“It touches on the idea of matriarchy and how men who are often raised in such environments face the struggle against conforming and submitting to patriarchal traditions.”

Staceyann Chin is a performance poet, radical activist, and super mom. When she was 24, Chin relocated to the United States from Jamaica in an effort to experience acceptance as a lesbian, which she wasn’t able to find at home. In the U.S., she faced the complicated intersections of being Black and lesbian. She talks about that and more in the video below.

Natasha T. Miller is an international touring slam poet, queer rights activist, and filmmaker born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. With her piece “Us Black Women,” which she performed at the Lend Me Your Ears Poetry Slam hosted by the Black Poet Society of Michigan State University, she garnered a first place prize.

"Anyone who thinks women are delicate or breakable, can't remember the ways in which they were born."

"When you went home and made love to your woman that night, did it feel like two labelless bodies, two humans, free of everything except for their American[ness]?"

Kyla Lacey has been writing poetry since she was 10 years old and has performed at over 100 college and university shows around country. She shared that this poem “was written in response to a poet who was chiding black women on social media for their support of the interracial relationship between [Scandal characters] Olivia Pope and Fitz.”

When the North Carolina Arts Council asked Glenis Redmond for an interview upon receiving the NC Literary Award Recipient at the McColl Center for the Arts, she was unsure if she would be articulate as recent events had her feeling “raw.” However, at the end of the interview, her interviewer requested that Redmond recite a poem. Redmond chose a poem she wrote in the 90's entitled “Our Spirit Stands.”

In her TEDxSHHS talk “I search 4 it blinded: the power of self-love and self-esteem,” Caira Lee discusses how to she practices self-love and self-esteem. Lee uses Kendrick Lamar lyrics and a beautiful illustration of her own journey to speak about the power of absolute self-love. She demonstrates that your body, size, race, sexual orientation are assets that don’t need fixing. To her, these are characteristics that we should embrace.