We better pull this wire now

Abstract

(Matthew Boyd) (Matthew Boyd) Cheeraz Gormon is a poet, award-winning advertising copywriter, two-time TEDxGatewayArch speaker, Founding Faculty at InPower Institute for community wellness and optimal living, and a 2019 St. Louis Regional Arts Commission Artist Fellow in literary arts. Gormon is now fully engaged in the work of healing on a community level. Her work in the space of mental health, emotional well-being, and public health is directed at the impacts of anti-Blackness and of rampant violence in Black communities, which are all connected. “I returned home to St. Louis in November 2013 after the murder of my youngest brother, John Gormon Jr. The murder of Michael Brown Jr. confirmed for me that there was, and is, no turning back for this city, this region, and this country.” “I wrote only one poem about what was happening because I felt it necessary to give myself time to be present. I had to feel, as best I could, what was going on through my numbness.” “Being ‘still here’ is layered for me. This is my birthplace, the place I call home even when I've settled far away from its day-to-day issues. If I'm honest with myself, I'm still here because my heart feels it necessary to do whatever I can to assist in the healing of what's been most harmed. Myself included.”