The Mirror to My Strange Privilege
‘Poor’ by Caleb Femi.
Shining bright, with undertones of gold or sunshine, my skin is warm but light. White with pinkish marks left by puberty that came into my twenties and is still riding me in my thirties. I’m reading POOR by Caleb Femi and considering reviewing it for Counter Arts. I have thoughts on whiteness and Blackness, I have thoughts on poverty, memories of my run-down town in Italy, and how difficult it was to be me…but.
This is not a review, though you may consider it as such. I am a third in but look. Look at where I live…
Sitting down under sliced-up light and shadow, squinting just a bit to read this eye-opening collection of poems, I am comfortable in a clean and well-stocked library that gifts me a view of the harbour, yachts, and my apartment building just cutting through the sight of the Melbourne Star. A pretty decent ferris wheel.
There may be a time in which I’ll write about growing up with financial instability, having a difficult social upbringing, being ostracised, and even about my encounter with the federal police who raided my family (small, crowded) home. And there may be time to explain how, even…
