Ameerah Shabazz-Bilal
Ameerah Shabazz-Bilal is a poet, writer, visual artist, and educator from Newark, New Jersey. She is a graduate of the New York Institute of Technology, Bloomfield College, and the University of Phoenix. In 2019 she wrote and illustrated her first book of poetry, “Breathing Through Concrete”. Her poetry has also been featured in the anthology “Every Kinda Lady and Her Sisters’ Pages” (2020). Shabazz-Bilal’s mantra is “Poetry isn't poetry unless it's Spoken...Word”, which has carried her to being the founder and facilitator of “When Women Speak”, an open mic forum that features women artists, poets, and entertainers. As a Newark Public School teacher, she teaches technology-based education and STEM sciences. Moreover, she has facilitated poetry programs for middle school students, publishing work by over 300 students.
About her work in WOV II:
“My Son” is the poem included in “A Womb of Violet: Volume II”, a declaration of maternal love as well as a willingness to fight for Black lives: “SON if you make it not thru / the valley / Fear not, I will stand / tearless at the rally.” The text is not just for her son but aimed at Black mothers, to whom the author reminds: “Don’t martyr your love / Send them forth and above / They deserve life” and a constant throughout the text is the certainty that her son’s legacy will endure beyond his death (“You cannot have My king / I refuse songs of sorrow to / sing”).