Have you heard of BARS? Black Art; Real Stories (BARS) is an initiative to capture and share the Black voices on campus that are often muted. Its mission is to showcase the writing of Black students at the University of Iowa, and to create and support a Black arts community.
Begun in Fall 2015, the project primarily publishes works of writing online, and has created a print magazine as well.
Read some excerpts below, and visit the Black Art; Real Stories website for more.
Your silence is like a bullet
Burrowing beneath skin
And burning through bone,
Because I was looking for kin;
Can’t win this fight on my own.
But I sounded too black,
And my burden so much bigger,
That you couldn’t have my back
Or blame the one behind the trigger.
— “Shots Fired” (poetry) by Caleb Rainey
As I write this, I realize this entire piece will be a poor attempt to capture our brotherhood, because no sentence can accurately describe our bond. No phrase can express the feelings of elation that stormed over me whenever your face appeared in front of mine; or the extent of your embrace in the hugs we exchanged. My brother, we’ve had countless moments together, many of which I will keep silent from the world, so that they may be shared as whispers when we meet again. But for those I will not bury with me, I promise to share with the world in some way or form.
— “The Eulogy I’ll Never Give” by Shawn Boursiquot
Some said I was created with the heavens by a god
And that it only took him a span of 7 days to create me
As he carefully crafted the mold of a marble blue body
With these large oceans
And deep crevices, these elongated valleys
And enormous mountains
I was beautiful
—“The Voice of our Mother” (poetry) by Simone Banks
I would read you this story while you would pick my hair out for me, straddling my torso with your legs. The hair I possessed would become my salt, not realizing that my real success wouldn’t come from strands of hair, but rather the opportunity to have a mother who could afford to spend her extra money on a book and any extra time teaching her son meticulously to read to her from it. This was a luxury I did not realize most kids with my hair weren’t afforded. A luxury you yourself were not afforded.
— “Why I Refuse to Cut my Hair” (nonfiction) by Matthew Bruce
Discouraged.
Between the light that beams through the tiny cracks of our built up wall
& it’s unreachable height mounded by the mistakes of others,
Or were they our own?
We will pretend we cannot fly.
We will pretend we are blind.
— “Illusions” (poetry) by Fiameta Ande
—"Originality" by Marquise Jackson