Poet, Author, Performer,Teacher, Truth-teller, and Connector.
In Conversation
Read Letta’s new work featured in Memory + Mapping: A Collection of Prose Poetry and Other Writing presented by Mother Mercy (Fall/Winter 2021)
Current Projects
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Inspired by the Elma Lewis LIving Stories project process over the past two years, 150+ elders and their families and loved ones have asked to hold filmed story circle gatherings at various locations to share their stories and images of Growing Up Roxbury. Most of them have lived eight or nine decades in Roxbury and worked in social justice work through the arts, education, politics, food, business, parenting, faith, architecture and more. Each Story Circle will be once a month and at a different location depending on what they want.
The pilot Story Circle will be at The Pearl Restaurant in South Bay, with the owner bringing together 8-10 people to talk Growing Up Roxbury. September 20, 2022.
The second Story Circle will be at the National Center of Afro-American Artist in Roxbury with a reunion of people from Roxbury Memorial High School. Most of them have been friends since elementary school in the 1940s.
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Seed to Harvest is a touring book project where the community writes the pages!
It is the first in a series of books that will travel throughout the 50 US states and 14 US territories collecting stories, in the form of memory as medicine.
Current projects from my work as an Archivist with Tam Marko and Helen Dreher Cradle, Senior Archivist in the Social Justice Archive Network (SJAN) in the Elma Lewis Center in the Social Justice Center at Emerson College.
Learn more about our work here: SJAN Introduction
Books
Support My Work
I am embarking on a journey and I need your support in a multitude of ways. For years, Spirit has been telling me to dedicate myself more thoroughly to my calling. And though, I have written two books of poetry and a few plays, I have always done so in the wee hours after working 2 jobs; in the crevices of space left between obligations.
I have a new project that is greedy. It doesn't want to share the time.
I suppose a better way of saying this is that my new project demands its space; demands that I answer the call to do the work of writing; to assume the responsibility of my gifts; to tend to this altar.
Here's where you come in. Spirit and I have cleared the space. I am available. But I need your help in making this dream a reality. It is my moment. Our moment, really, to do this together. In these particular times when the system's power is attempting to strangle the life-blood of us, it is my job as an Artist to be on the front lines doing the work of making art that offers sustenance and resistance.
My newest project, "GEOGRAPHIES OF POWER" will be book of poetry and a CD. I will collaborate with visual artists, vocalists and musicians to whom Spirit guides me. I will work with a local, progressive printer and a recording studio to create the final product.