To Resonate Still

In a letter that holds the middle between a poem and a prose essay, written to Baldwin against the backdrop of No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin —Meshell Ndegeocello’s album marking the centenary of his birth—Yousra Benfquih reflects on the relationship in the writer’s work between the written and the spoken word, between tongue and text, music and words. Observing the flight of swallows and the ongoing wounds of colonial violence, she wonders: what does it mean for a writer to resonate?