Root Work Journal - Convening in the Ark - Volume 1, Issue 1
To Be Gifted & Talented & BLack (Arkology from the Last Angels of History)
Sherese Francis
Futuristically Ancient.
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.47106/11040127
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"To Be Gifted & Talented & BLack (Arkology from the Last Angels of History" is an autobiomythography response to Rootwork Journal's call. It explores my journey through the educational system and that my greatest learning came after institutional schooling ended for me. Much of my process in this work uses etymology and wordplay, such as interplaying between the roots of ark/arch/archive. For me, wordplay is like speaking in tongues and is a form of remembering buried languages. Language is a form of coding and I want to imagine the possibilities of it beyond conventional ways. After reading works like Amiri Baraka's "Technology & Ethos" and Martin Heidegger's "The Question of Technology," the former thinking of technology through a black centric view and the latter from a white supremacist view, I wanted to write a poem reflecting on science and technology through the black body and earth and Afro-diasporic cultural mytho-history.
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