How one Ohio Black trans poet found power in brevity

Zuggie Tate doesn’t need to write a hundred words when she can just write 10. 

“There is a real power in brevity,” said Tate. “I’m really focused on saying what I need to say succinctly and to the point, without all the fluff.”

That power is on full display in “Abomination Pink,” Tate’s new collection of poems published by Sibling Rivalry Press. She describes the 36-page chapbook is described as “a fierce and luminous meditation on Black Trans womanhood, faith, desire, grief and self-invention.”

For Tate, the poems in “Abomination Pink” are meant to remind readers that they have magic within them to create the reality in which they want to exist, in the face of the adversity they may have faced. It is a message that Tate said will particularly ring true with Black, trans and queer readers.

“Things may not be perfect, but every day we live is an act of defiance and every day we survive is revolutionary,” said Tate. “I really want people to know that there is a fight to be fought and that we have the power to do that. That’s just innate in our existence.”

Poetic power

Being a writer wasn’t always the goal for the Cleveland native. Childhood dreams of being a paleontologist ran into an insurmountable roadblock. 

“I realized dinosaurs weren’t alive anymore,” Tate laughed. 

While attending Case Western Reserve University, Tate’s interests centered on biomedical engineering, but the gap between innovation and access didn’t sit well with her. 

“I could spend all this time working to make a really great artificial heart, but if everybody doesn’t have access to it, what’s the point?” said Tate. 

Tate pivoted to sociology, where she found her passion for writing, particularly as a space to work through the dissonance she saw with society. A pivotal moment came in 2016, when Tate participated in a poetry slam at the former Happy Dog location at Euclid Tavern. After she performed, someone from the audience approached her to say that her poem truly reflected their experience.

“At that moment I realized that it’s not just about me writing about my experiences, but that my words are really resonating for people,” said Tate.

Those who pick up “Abomination Pink” will encounter a mythology where trans women are flowers, storms, saints, witches, martyrs and gods unto themselves. 

So much of the text revolves around the idea of reclamation: pushing back on all that is assigned to us at birth – name, gender, clothes, identity – that we are expected to assume for the rest of our lives. Tate said that ancestral understandings of gender and sexuality reveal a much more expansive range of identities than the limited narratives that are provided today.

“The process of reclamation means realizing that the narrative you were assigned isn’t the one that you necessarily have to follow,” said Tate. “Regardless of what society says, these poems are about me being the author of who I am and nobody can take that away from me.”🔥

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IGNITE ACTION

• Pick up your copy of “Abomination Pink” here. 
• A launch event for “Abomination Pink” will be held at 5 p.m. on Oct. 2  at Margie’s Closet (1384 W. 117th Street in Cleveland). More info here.