INVOCATION

Oct 18, 2025

Aracelis Girmay was born in 1977 in Santa Ana, California, of Eritrean, Puerto Rican, African American and Mexican descent. Neither of her parents read poetry. But an aunt gave her a typewriter in junior high school, and she loved “the machine of it, the sound of it.” In ninth grade she was assigned Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. “Oh,” she thought, “we’re allowed to write like that!”

Girmay has published a number of books, including three collections of poetry: Teeth (2007), Kingdom Animalia (2011), and Black Maria (2016), and now teaches at Stanford University. I interviewed her in 2009, and again in 2013, when she came to read at Smith.* Asked what advice she’d give to a young writer, she told me, “Imitation, for course, is important, maybe part of the learning. But really working to find and give space to the particularities and idiosyncrasies of your voice—the way you speak, the music you listen to, your favorite flower—all that is rich, rich gold, and totally miraculous to me.”

*See Sparks from the Anvil: The Smith College Poetry Interviews (2015).

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

“Invocation” by Aracelis Girmay (b.1977)

                                       
There is a woman with a bird’s nose
&, in each ear, four or seven holes,
	Mother, you, come,

and a father, who is a house, 

& all the mountains in little towns,
clarinets, violins, girls in yellow dresses, come,
Chicago, jump the country, come,
Jazzy & your crooked teeth, Lupita.

Come orange blossoms & news, 
good luck, juke box, come photobooths,
freight trains.

Come
	Abraham
	Hannah
	Zewdit
	Tadesse
	Tiny
	Cisco
	Grandaddy, come
& all the roots of trees & flowers,
street corners & mango stands,
piragua man, come,
silver tooth, back rooms, 12 o’clock,
come cloves & beans, the dirt track, come Pharaoh
& Mary & Nascimento’s band,
come beds, whole lakes & keeping time,
come holy ghost & silver fish
come
	bird
           bird
	bird,
& ballet shoes in the church’s basement, 
come candle & maroon
cilantro, green, come braids & fist of afro-pick
come tender head & honey hive,
quick knife, domino, come bomba, come,
fishhook, Inglewood, March, old moon, 
come busted piano, ivory key,
come cousin, come alive, 
come, time
uprock, beach crab, cliff
come glass eye, nazela, sails,
brother, sisters,
come magnum locks & world of things, sphinx,
desert bottles, indigo, maps,
Sojourner, Lolita, Albizu, come,
Gwendolyn, Victor & Lorraine, come Neptune,
Hector Lavoe, Haragu, come,
Adisongo, come free,
come hips, come foot, come rattlesnake, Jupiter, love come,
cardamom & reed, come wild,
spells, lightning, frogs & rain,
come loss, come teeth, come crowns & kites,
conga, conga & kettle drums,
come holy, holy parade of dirt, come
mis muertos who dance in procession
while tubas play, come.

& a god who is a girl, marigolds,
in her hair, see her blow,
into my mouth, a wind of copal,
that is smoking, smoking.

& on it, come, ride 
into it, come, family 
& ride through the rooms of my house. Into
my veins & brain, come,
the lace of nerves—oh, how 
you make 
me heaven.

Write a piece modeled on Girmay’s “Invocation,” ideally a magical cornucopia like hers, in which everything tumbles out onto the page without too much second-guessing or self-censorship.

World Enough & Time:
Writing & Meditation, Creativity & Slowing Down

For close to eight years, a small group of us have been meeting via Zoom one evening a week. Each session begins with a brief meditation, followed by a reading and discussion (Ada Limón, Jane Hirshfield, Ocean Vuong…) after which everyone writes for 25-30 minutes. How did that go? For the last fifteen minutes we listen to what each other has to say.

Thursday evenings: 6:15pm to 8:15pm EST via Zoom