I found Yosimar Reyes this summer after talking to Jaime Barajas (shouts out to Jaime!!!).
I teach at an International Baccaleaureate school and we start the year 2 Language and Literature course with a unit focused on the language of resistance. Before we study Sydney Sipho Sepamla's poetry, students engage with the concept of resistance and the ways that it appears and manifests itself in their day-to-day lives. They create a presentation that addresses resistance in the lives of their family members, the community, or a local artist that they are aware of. Below is an image of the mural created by Castro Jose, aka @Cassdroe, aka @recetasanonimas, aka anonymousrecipes.com who is a local artist who painted the mural in collaboration with the community as a cultural expression of the people in North Fair Oaks who are slowly being squeezed out of the area due to gentrification. You can also see him speak about his mural here.
I also try to show students that there is plenty to celebrate with the implicit struggle associated with resistance. As their summer reading, they read Born a Crime by Trevor Noah which address the important contextual details of Apartheid that reappear throughout Sepamla's poetry. Noah blends struggle and strife with humor and humility with his anecdotes and critiques of South African social order and the government that created and enforced it.
Students also watch the below video of Yosimar Reyes addressing "Undocumented Joy" in his poem, "In Times of Terror We Dance" which blends story-telling, social commentary and critique, and JOY!
nice
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