Cantab Feature for Wednesday, November 8, 2017: Nicole Homer

Organizer-educator-poet Nicole Homer. Photo by Maria del Naja.

Organizer-educator-poet Nicole Homer. Photo by Maria del Naja.

Nicole Homer is a full-time faculty member at Mercer County Community College in NJ, with an MFA from Rutgers-Newark. Her work has appeared in Muzzle, The Offing, Winter Tangerine, Rattle Poets Respond, The Collagist and elsewhere. A fellow at The Watering Hole and Callaloo, Nicole serves as Editor and regular contributor at BlackNerdProblems, writing critique of media and pop culture, and as faculty at the Pink Door Writing Retreat for Women and Gender Non-conforming Writers of Color. Her debut poetry collection, Pecking Order, became available from Write Bloody in spring of 2017.

Nicole’s full length collection, Pecking Order, is an unflinching look at how race and gender politics play out in the domestic sphere. Homer challenges the notion of family by forcing the reader to examine how race, race performance, and colorism impact motherhood immediately and from generation to generation. In a world where race and color often determine treatment, the home should be sanctuary, but often is not. Homer’s poems question the construction of racial identity and how familial love can both challenge and bolster that construction. Her poems range from the intimate details of motherhood to the universal experiences of parenting; the dynamics of multiracial families to parenting black children; and the ingrained social hierarchy which places the black mother at the bottom. Homer forces us to reckon with the truth that no one―not even the mother―is unbiased.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00. An open poetry slam in the 8×8 series will follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.