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Happy Black History Month! In this episode, I share my poem "I woke up this morning" and talk about the urgency of now, specifically highlighting TPS for Haitians in the U.S. Thank you all for listening to this episode of d.colin.ized. If you resonated with this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, I'd love for you to join me over on Patreon.com/dcolin. For just $3/month you can help me keep this going and get bonus episodes as well as listening access to my full poetry sets when I perform somewhere. I am a full-time artist and can't do this work without a village. And don't forget to sign up for my newsletter for free at dcolin.com. May we all be inspired and then inspire. Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the first episode of 2026 for d.colin.ized! In this episode, I talk about two inaugural poems read at mayoral swearing-in-ceremonies on New Year's Day released on January 10, 2026. The first poem is called "Proof" by Cornelius Eady. The second poem is called "New Dawn" by D. Colin (me). You can find more and subscribe to the newsletter on dcolin.com or support the continuation of this podcast and support a full-time artist on Patreon or on Substack! Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I mention I don’t have a title for the draft I shared, but I think “Breathwork” is a contender. Also, I didn’t say it in the episode, but don’t go holding your breath for that long! It’s a metaphor. Let’s all be safe. If you’re looking for more, you can subscribe to my Substack and/or sign up for my weekly newsletter at dcolin.com. For folks who are willing and able to support monetarily, you can do so on Substack for $5/month or on Patreon for $3/month by joining the Podcast Peeps tier at patreon.com/dcolin. As always, we can all unlearn what doesn’t serve us and learn what makes us better. See you in the next episode! Thank you for listening! Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to episode 27 of d.colin.ized! my personal creative podcast space for poetry, purpose, process, and creative power. I am D. Colin, poet, visual artist, and storyteller, bringing you reflections, rants, and real talk from my multi-hyphenate creative life. I say on this episode that there is so much, often too much, to talk about. Still, I’d love to hear from you what you want to hear from me! Here’s the link to the page from the National Coalition for the Homeless page that I was reading from: https://nationalhomeless.org/trump-administration-issues-executive-orders-that-fundamentally-misrepresent-homelessness/ I also read some things off of the White House Page for the executive orders that I reference. It’s called Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets and is searchable. I hope where ever you are, small joys fill you throughout this week. Until next time, D. Colin Support This Podcast If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate and review the podcast—it helps others find this space. Support the show and get bonus content at patreon.com/dcolin when you sign up for my Podcast Peeps Tier for $3/month .Subscribe to my newsletter on dcolin.com to stay connected to what I’m working on next from creative work to workshops I’m offering to events you can attend You can also support my work right here on Substack for more of this podcast, poems, essays and inspiration. About Your Host D. Colin is a poet, visual artist, performer, and cultural worker whose work centers healing, liberation, and creative expression. She has degrees in English and Africana Studies. Connect With Me Website: www.dcolin.comInstagram: @dcolinpoet & @dcolinartistPatreon: patreon.com/dcolinContact: [email protected] Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

I just decided to talk into my phone. Here it is. . . . . . . Support This Podcast If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate and review the podcast—it helps others find this space.Support the show and get bonus content at patreon.com/dcolin when you sign up for my Podcast Peeps Tier for $3/month .Subscribe to my newsletter on dcolin.com to stay connected to what I’m working on next from creative work to workshops I’m offering to events you can attend Follow me on Substack for more of this podcast, poems, essays and inspiration. About Your Host D. Colin is a poet, visual artist, performer, and cultural worker whose work centers healing, liberation, and creative expression. She has degrees in English and Africana Studies. Connect With Me Website: www.dcolin.comInstagram: @dcolinpoet & @dcolinartistPatreon: patreon.com/dcolinContact: [email protected] Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Episode Summary Welcome to d.colin.ized—my personal creative podcast space for poetry, purpose, process, and creative power.In this episode, I talk about going to my first Beyonce concert and the poem by Ras Baraka that among so many other parts of the concert, made me feel seen. You’ll also hear the poem that I’m talking about. Timestamps *Optional—remove if not using*- 0:00 – Intro- 0:54 – What’s been going on in my creative life- 2:39 – Seeing Beyonce in concert for the first time- 8:45 – “I Want to Hear an American Poem” by Ras Baraka- 18:45 – Outro Resources & Mentions - “I Want to Hear an American Poem” by Ras Baraka Writing Prompt or Reflection What is an American poem to you? What symbols of American life have you had complex feelings about, and what can you reclaim for yourself? Support This Podcast If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate and review the podcast—it helps others find this space.Support the show and get bonus content at patreon.com/dcolin when you sign up for my Podcast Peeps Tier for $3/month .Subscribe to my newsletter on dcolin.com to stay connected to what I’m working on next from creative work to workshops I’m offering to events you can attend Follow me on Substack for more of this podcast, poems, essays and inspiration. About Your Host D. Colin is a poet, visual artist, performer, and cultural worker whose work centers healing, liberation, and creative expression. She has degrees in English and Africana Studies. Connect With Me Website: www.dcolin.comInstagram: @dcolinpoet & @dcolinartistPatreon: patreon.com/dcolinContact: [email protected] Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Written in 2016 but ever relevant now, I’m sharing this piece on the podcast. To support the continuation of my podcast, please consider supporting at patreon.com/dcolin and remember to sign up for my newsletter at dcolin.com. Poem text: When America was great the buffalo in all their glory, proud mammals, must have known that even then before the West was filled with states that they would at least, at the very least die with dignity, that every part of them would be used, that it was an honor, that the code, the circle of life would be honored like the lessons taught to Simba were cross cultural, immune to race and color and breed, that the land, the connection to it, the music inside the soil would always sing to the people and the people would hear it. Perhaps now the buffalo are rolling in their graves if of course there is anything left of their skeletons to roll. But America America was great once, back when tea bags cast over ships told the British off like a neck roll and a long sucking of the teeth or maybe that is too colorful a comparison. Maybe it was more like a two year old tantrum. MINE! MINE! Like a child’s way of ownership, owning things that no one in their two years of life would know how to own but knew ownership by piercing the word through the air, MINE! And then destroying it all, if I can’t have it then no one can. When is it that we learn power? When do we become greedy? When is it that our needs supersede another’s? How is it that we birth oppression? Does it feed from our own breasts? Would you call it murder if we decided oppression wasn’t fit to live? To sit next to us at the table, you know that table that everyone is trying to sit at. Who made that table anyway? I digress. America was great. That time when it occupied Haiti. That time when it occupied the Dominican Republic. That time when it occupied Nicaragua. That time when it occupied Cuba. That time when it occupied Somalia. That time when it occupied Iraq. That time when it occupied…Wait, No, America was great during the Civil War, when America was bipolar, torn between two sides. To nigger or not nigger. Did you think this was about cotton? America has being mourning over not niggering ever since. America was great when new ways to n****r were invented. America was great when Sally Hemings was Thomas Jefferson’s mistress, when Sojourner Truth was still Isabella Baumfree and learned to read and write, when Kunta Kinte didn’t have to change his name to what was it again?... America was great when Martin Luther King lived a long life and Malcolm X saved his grandson from murder after cheating his own death. Brown v. Board of Education actually meant equal education which meant equally allocated funds which meant Black neighborhoods matter, I mean All neighborhoods matter. When America was great, prisons were turned into schools and we became the most educated country in the world. Two million, one hundred forty-five thousand and one hundred people [1] were rehabilitated, restored to a normal life in America’s greatness. When America was great Langston Hughes changed the title of his poem ‘I, Too’ to ‘I Am’ I am America I am America I was always America Right? So naturally when the president says make America great again The operative word being again Because greatness was lost somewhere in America’s history and he’s the one to bring it back When the president says make America great again He must be talking about raising the buffalo from the dead. He must be saying give the land back. He must be honoring the legacy of the Natives. He must be talking about reparations. He must be talking about time travel. He must be talking about Africans not being imported like a cash crop. He must be talking about demolishing walls instead of building them. He must be talking about justice. Social justice. Educational justice. Political justice. Economic justice. He must be talking about justice. Damn, he must be submitting his resignation. Right? Right? 1 This number was taken from www.prisonstudies.org Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

It snowed in New Orleans. Almost a whole foot of snow! Being from Connecticut and living in central New York, I know a thing or two about snow, but if I'm being honest, I'm trying to remember the last time I saw up to 10 inches of it here where I live. Though snow in New Orleans is surprising, I welcomed the snow day moments that came across my social media feed amongst the barrage of politics in our descent into a dystopian future much like Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, prolific writer and prophet that she was. I recently posted on Facebook and on my newsletter how last week was a long month. We are still only in January, and it feels like we've lived a year already. There's a lot of talk about boycotting businesses and leaving social media in the wake of DEI initiatives being rolled back and the fiasco of social media giants joining their collective minds to align with this new administration. Recently, I read a heartfelt blog post about leaving Facebook and Instagram. It stirred up some of my own feelings that I've had for a while now. Is it time to leave? And what do I do as an artist and entrepreneur to stay connected to the larger world around me? I went to Facebook and started scrolling through my posts. I've been on Facebook since around 2004 when it expanded from Harvard-only students to other colleges and universities. Back when a college email was required to be on Facebook, it felt like a space where I could not only connect with my peers but also, someplace I could experiment with my voice. Eventually, it would be a platform where I could promote my work, start groups to support my arts community and share my growth as an artist. What I didn't account for when I joined Facebook is that over the years, it would grow this much, opening up to the entire world and expanding into what we know now as Meta, a universe of social media apps that erase borders and connect people from around the globe. Who knew I could meet folks in Australia through a virtual open mic I found out about through Instagram or see what's happening with folks in the UK I've shared space with and want to stay connected to? Who knew I'd find some of the friends I had in middle school and be Facebook friends with them? At the same time, I can't tell you the last post I saw from most of the folks on my "friends" list and that's not for trying. Now I see more suggestions for "follows" than posts from many folks I want to hear from. This last week I noticed that I was seeing more conservative-themed posts than normal. Who knew these apps would turn from a place of conversation to one riddled with ads? Who knew 'influencer' would become a job title? But also, who knew how divisive, how misinformed, how hateful social media spaces could become? If there's any doubt, often, all someone has to do is visit a comment section. Certainly, none of those questions I'm raising happened overnight. But this point in time feels like a tipping point for me. Now, I'm working on archiving the last twenty years of my presence on Facebook. I've started leaning into other platforms…starting a Substack account, getting on Bluesky, posting more on my Patreon, and encouraging folks to sign up for my newsletter. As an entrepreneur, I've learned that social media is not my website but rather a vehicle to drive traffic to my website. It's easy to rely on it so much that it's difficult to imagine how business can continue without it. I think if there's anything we can learn from TikTok going dark for a night is that social media is not guaranteed, that it's supplemental to the main thing and we need to own our stuff. If it all disappeared tomorrow what next? This is probably going to sound lofty and idealistic but I believe in our creativity. I'm interested in what we can create outside of the meta-universe and offline. I want to see what happens when we support entrepreneurs and artists directly. That work has always been happening but let's make it exponentially more! It requires a little more intention but it's possible. In a way, many of the companies being talked about in conversations about boycotting are built from our desire for convenience. I don't know of anything I went looking for that I didn't find on Amazon. Walk into any Walmart and everything is there from groceries to sports equipment to you name it in one place. To show up for what's next, we need to be committed to doing the work of going to the source and that might mean going to three places instead of one. It might mean spending more on small businesses. It might look like finding other ways to connect with people. I'm excited about what that shift means for our collective spirit. There's a small part of me that thinks about what it might mean for me to lose all my contacts on Facebook but a louder voice is telling me I'll be grateful to learn how to expand without the comfort of Instagram and Facebook. I also consider what it might mean to be a light on an app where people need hope. But I believe everything I've done on Facebook or any social media app (that I don't own or control), I can do somewhere else and the people who want to stay connected, who want to keep supporting me, who enjoy what I share, they will always find me and in this moment of great uncertainty, I am grounded in the work I do and who I am enough to know I can create, build and organize anywhere. Thank you for reading! If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Don’t forget to share it with someone too! Stay Connected! Subscribe to my newsletter for inspiration and updates or support my journey on Patreon for exclusive content and to see this work continue! Be inspired. Then inspire. Until next time, D. Colin © 2025 D. Colin. All rights reserved. Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Happy New Year! First blog post and podcast episode of the year! This is the year of me staying consistent! You can help me reach my goal by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/dcolin. Thank you for reading and listening! - The first full week of the year is already gone. I spent New Year's Day in the house I grew up in gathered around a table having soup joumou with my parents and husband. It's tradition for Haitians to bring in the new year with soup joumou to celebrate Haiti's independence day, January 1, 1804. Two-hundred and twenty years later, the scent of squash soup wafts upstairs in the early morning and I think about the Haiti I remember, the one my parents carried with them in their hearts and made me fall in love with. That Haiti feels far away separated by more than ocean water. Last week I read an article in the New York Times with a headline that read, "Massacre Upon Massacre: Haiti's Spiral into a Failed State." It's no secret that Haiti is struggling. What is overwhelming is the magnitude of history since the Haitian Revolution that led to this point in time. Every time I watch a YouTube video about what's happening right now, I search for a Port-au-Prince I remember. My eyes tell me it's gone. My heart doesn't want to believe what I see. The Port-au-Prince I remember was bustling in a year-round hot sun, people carrying goods on their heads and hailing tap-taps to get to their next destination, children in blue and khaki pressed uniforms on their way to and from school and fans gathered around a television waiting for Brazil to score the next goal while holding a small flag and a pattie in their hands. Now the streets are bare in wait for the sound of gunfire. Yet, we sit around the table and have soup joumou. The other day, I got off of the bus and asked the bus driver who I know is Haitian if he made or had any soup joumou. With a shrug and voice that sounds like Haiti, he said no. I asked why not and the space between his disappointed shoulders and my feet stepping down from the bus was full of an elephant we don't know how to get rid of. I read the article and one of the first things it says is, "Back-to-back massacres that killed more than 300 people, followed by a Christmas Eve assault on Haiti’s largest public hospital have underscored the Haitian government’s increasing lack of control over the nation’s deepening crisis." I know it's going to be a tough read, one that'll break my heart a little more but I tell myself, it's worse to not know so I keep reading. There's a brief recap about the assassination of Haiti's president, Jovenel Moise in 2021 for anyone who didn't know and then more reporting about death tolls. "The hospital shooting followed two massacres in separate parts of the country that killed more than 350 people and have shined a harsh spotlight on the failures and shortcomings of local authorities and an international security force deployed to protect innocent civilians." it says. "One of the massacres unfolded last month in an impoverished, sprawling, gang-controlled Port-au-Prince neighborhood where a lack of any police presence meant that for three days older people were dismembered and thrown to the sea without the authorities finding out." When I get to this part, I am holding my hand over my mouth and stop to take a breath. How important is a two-hundred and twenty year tradition when this is happening? The story goes that Marie Claire Heureuse Felicite Bonheur Dessalines, the first empress of Haiti, served soup joumou on January 1, 1804. It's significant because the white French enslavers were the only ones permitted to eat it while the Africans they enslaved were the ones who prepared it. The squash serves as the base of the soup with humble ingredients but it is a celebration of independence and a soup made of reclamation. It's no fireworks but a symbol of my ancestors' fight, and a tasty one at that. Today is January 12th. Fourteen years ago today, the world witnessed as Haiti endured a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that took the lives of over 200,000 people and displaced many more. I remember watching the news and watching people still dance, still sing in the streets. I thought if Haitians could survive this…then anything is possible. But since then, there have been hurricanes, a cholera outbreak caused by UN peacekeepers, a presidential assassination and a mafia scale grip on the country by well-armed gangs. Now I ask how much more can Haitians survive? I brought leftover soup joumou back with me. I ate it for three days. In 2019, I performed a one-woman show that I wrote called Simone. It's about a Haitian immigrant earthquake survivor fighting to stay in the United States after threats of losing her temporary protected status or TPS. There's a part in the play when Simone makes soup joumou on January 1st. It's her way of remembering and resisting. - Let's see, I need half a cup of olive oil, scallion, cabbage, two potatoes, two yamn, joumou of course, turnips, celery, carrots, one package of spaghetti and gnou ti kal pesi... and epise! Can’t forget to flavor. Black pepper, thyme, two je chalot, some Goya, some maggi and garlic. No one ever told me soup joumou's story A bowl of rebellion simmering since 1804 All my life I celebrated the first of the year this way, these two things: the new year and Independence day. Now, January 1st reminds me of the distance, a calm from before I dream about. I make this to remember my home to remember what freedom tastes like. - With threats of deportation lingering in the air as Inauguration Day approaches, I worry about what Haiti people would be returning to. With all that is happening in the world, I think about how fragile safety can be. But I hope at all costs, we never forget what freedom tastes like and fight for it. Maybe a start would be the estimated 20 billion dollars France should pay in reparations. In the words of Leslie Voltaire, “The time has come to rewrite our economic history just as our ancestors wrote the history of our freedom.” On January 1st of this month, Voltaire, current president of the interim council in power, delivered a speech sharing that elections would finally be held this year and calling for reparations from France. It would be a different kind of reclamation. One that might make eating soup joumou feel like hope again. Increasingly, it is difficult to eat symbols that taste like the air of a distant memory. Thank you for reading! If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Don’t forget to share it with someone too! Stay Connected! Subscribe to my newsletter for inspiration and updates or support my journey on Patreon for exclusive content and to see this work continue! Be inspired. Then inspire. Until next time, D. Colin - Works Cited New York Times. "Haiti's Gang Massacres and Instability." The New York Times, 6 Jan. 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/06/world/americas/haiti-gang-massacres-murders-instability.html. Quinn, Allison Keyes. "Haiti’s Beloved Soup Joumou Serves Up Freedom in Every Bowl." Smithsonian Magazine, 30 Dec. 2021, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/haitis-beloved-soup-joumou-serves-up-freedom-in-every-bowl-180981378/. Caribbean Life. "Haitian President Demands Reparations from France." Caribbean Life, 8 Oct. 2021, https://www.caribbeanlife.com/haitian-president-demands-reparations-from-france/. © 2024 D. Colin. All rights reserved. Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to my podcast, d.colin.ized! If you’ve been listening and followed over here, thank you! And if you’re new, I’m glad you’ve joined the journey! I am a poet, visual artist, performer, and wearer of many hats. I was supposed to have this out already. First, I wrote an essay on my blog. Then I recorded all the parts of this episode which in large part was me reading my blog post out loud. It’s been so long since I recorded an episode for my podcast that I didn’t even realize all the tools that made it a super simple process to throw together were gone. If I wanted to upload, I was going to have to find a different way to put my clips together. I had a moment of bewildering silence for what used to be Anchor, the app I used to start d.colin.ized. I could have just said forget it but I was determined to release this episode and I refused to re-record it all so that meant I’d have to learn and pivot. And that’s how I landed on Substack. And that’s how I started using Adobe Audition to edit. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a whole episode that I put together all by myself. It’s not perfect but I did it! With practice, more learning, and probably a better mic, I’m sure I’ll get better at the sound quality. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this episode and since this is a new beginning, a makeover of sorts, new platform, new format, let’s say this is Episode 1! I share my memories of Nikki Giovanni, her impact on me as a writer and poems. If you want to read the full blog post, you can find it on my website dcolin.com. If you want, you can sign up for my newsletter there. Also, if you are able and willing, you can support the continuation of this podcast and my creative work in general by joining the Podcast Peeps on my Patreon. Be inspired. Then inspire. until next time, D. Colin Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Reading poetry live at the Albany Black Chamber For more on D. Colin visit dcolin.com and to support the podcast, go to patreon.com/dcolin. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/d-colin/support Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I talk about the film Napoleon and where I think it missed the mark. . To support this podcast, join my patreon community at patreon.com/dcolin . You can also subscribe to my newsletter and check out all my other creative work at dcolin.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/d-colin/support Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Reading poem "The Lectern" inspired by the docuseries "Who Killed Malcolm X?" on Netflix. To support this podcast, please visit patreon.com/dcolin. Also, check out and subscribe to dcolin.com for the newsletter to stay in tuned with upcoming performances and other work. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/d-colin/support Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Performance recorded by Willie Terry from WOOC Radio for The Sanctuary for Independent Media at the show, Black Bird: a multimedia art experience with D. Colin & friends. Original poem written by D. Colin. Song: "Blackbird" by Nina Simone. To support this podcast, please visit patreon.com/dcolin. Also, check out and subscribe to dcolin.com for the newsletter and more art. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/d-colin/support Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe

Visit lightsoutnorlite.org for more info and updates on shutting down Norlite which has been polluting the NY Capital Region for far too long. For anyone interested in taking "Writing Poems for Social Change" on May 25, 2022 visit dcolin.com/workshops for more info and to sign up. And here's the link to support this podcast and my journey as an artist: patreon.com/dcolin. As always, thank you for listening! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/d-colin/support Get full access to Just D. Colin at justdcolin.substack.com/subscribe