The Esperanza Peace & Justice Center hosted a powerful evening of poetry with Dr. Bettina Judd reading from her acclaimed book “Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought” on Oct. 3. The free event drew a diverse crowd eager to experience the layered and intimate work of the scholar, poet and performer.
Associate Professor of African American Studies and Director of Graduate Studies at Emory University Bettina Judd, centers her work on Black feminist thought and the ways creative practice functions as knowledge production. She earned her bachelor’s degree in comparative women’s studies and English from Spelman College and her master’s degree and PhD in women’s studies from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Her recent book, “Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought,” argues that Black women’s creative production is feminist knowledge, shaped by what she attributes as “feelin.”
Judd’s poetry and essays have appeared in journals, including “Feminist Studies,” “Women’s Studies Quarterly,” “Torch,” “Mythium” and “Meridians.” Her article “Sapphire as Praxis: Toward a Methodology of Anger” won the 2019 Claire G. Moses Award for Most Theoretically Innovative Article in “Feminist Studies.” Her first poetry collection, “Patient,” which confronts the history of medical experimentation on Black women, earned the Black Lawrence Press Hudson Book Prize.
The evening opened with a single yet powerful line: “I’m a marked woman. If I did not exist, I would have to be invented and duplicated.”
Judd emphasized the cyclical echoes of Black women’s presence in culture, from fan fiction to memorials. Audience members joined in the refrain, “Your mama’s bones so brittle we broke her with our words,” a stark acknowledgment of generational trauma and survival.
Judd moved into “Dear,” a tender exploration of intimacy and self-possession. Lines like, “There’s a difference between loving a tree and carrying the weight of its branches,” highlighted vulnerability and strength. Her voice carried the weight of what she called “inner truth” — a theme she reinforced with interactive moments, such as in her recitation of “Patience.”
“Every time I say the word ‘I,’ you say, ‘History is also everybody talking at once,’” Judd instructed. The resulting chorus mirrored her concept that history is collective and alive — “all of us, here, together.”
The centerpiece of Judd’s reading was an exploration of grief in its many forms, both personal and collective. She shared stories of losing her father, stepfather and other relatives. She also recalled the summer of 2016, when she sat beside her grandmother as she neared death.
Overcome with grief, Judd remembered how her uncle had to physically shake her to bring her back to herself. Nurses had already called security, and her uncle warned her, “These people will drag you out of here,” a reminder that only his intervention prevented her forceful removal. According to Judd, these moments crystallized how Black grief is often rendered illegible or even dangerous in institutional spaces, even as it remains deeply and unmistakably human.
Extending this meditation beyond her family, she spoke of the orca Tahlequah, who carried her dead calf for 17 days, using this as a metaphor for the persistence and weight of mourning. Grief, she argued, is not private, but an enduring catalog shaping memory, history and survival.
In her poems, Judd translates these meditations into vivid, living testimony. She resurrects the lives of Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey — enslaved Black women whom J. Marion Sims conducted surgical experiments on, noting that he did not use any form of anesthesia and performed the surgeries multiple times on each of them.
By placing Sims’ clinical notes next to her own poetic voice, Judd reminds readers of women’s humanity and strength: “I’m not interested in Sims / I’m interested in them / Anarcha, Lucy, Betsey / I want their names to live in my mouth.”
Archival records become acts of remembrance and resistance, demonstrating that poetry can inhabit and preserve grief, giving it shape, resonance and a voice that refuses to be ignored.
The reading concluded with reflections on the body as an archive.
“The archive breathes / It cracks, resists, remembers / Poetry is how we study it / Poetry is how we feel it,” Judd said.
The event was a full artistic experience. Judd’s work invites audiences to consider not just the words on the page, but the weight, pleasure and grief embedded in them. Her presentation at the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center underscores the potential for poetry to serve as both cultural chronicle and living practice.
“Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought” is available through major booksellers and university press channels. The Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, at 922 San Pedro Ave., continues to host free arts events and community programming.
