My Poems From the Intersection of Pain and Purpose – Minnesota Women’s Press

Dralandra Larkins is a three-time slam poetry champion, accomplished author, and teacher. She recently published her debut poetry collection, Before I Lie, through Book Baby. We connected with her about poetry as a sanctuary, why Lake Street is one of her enduring muses, and the process of telling stories that are meant to be read, spoken, heard, and felt.

Tell us about the collection.

I grew up navigating insecurity, self-doubt, and the secondhand smoke of generational trauma. I was a witness to violence before I had language for it. Poetry became my sanctuary — the place where I could tell the truth before I was brave enough to speak it out loud.

This collection is a mosaic of poems, affirmations, art illustrations, and short stories that bear witness to the scars we inherit and the healing we dare to choose. From Black girlhood in South Minneapolis to the frontlines of self-worth, spirituality, and resistance, the book is about what it means to rise from silence and claim your voice.

Before I Lie is a lyrical testimony shaped by personal survival, memory, and truth-telling. I wrote this book from a place of urgency. I was tired of shrinking, tired of code-switching, and tired of carrying silence for others’ comfort. These pages are where I finally told the unfiltered truth.

 

 

What are some of the biggest themes or topics in the collection?

Some of the biggest themes include body image, family wounds, survival, faith, womanhood, and Black identity. These aren’t just topics I chose, but truths I lived.

I grew up in South Minneapolis. As a kid, I used to get so excited to walk with my mother to Robert Shoes (which no longer exists). I’d yell “Laaaake Street!” like it was a parade. That stretch of South Minneapolis was our stomping ground. Lake Street is vibrant and rich with multi-cultures. But it also was where I first noticed the cracks: boarded-up stores, overpolicing, gentrification.

Lake Street holds my joy and my rage.

One of my poems in the collection, “Ode to the Hood — Where I’m From,” won first place at the Poets Against Humanity Slam hosted by Mirror Theatre in Sauk Rapids. That piece is a lyrical clapback to systemic oppression and neighborhood neglect. It honors the beauty and burden of home, with lines rooted in places that raised me.

During the George Floyd uprising, Lake Street became the center of nationwide protest. But for me, it has always been sacred ground and home.

What do you want readers to take away from the collection?

I wrote many of these poems from the intersection of pain and purpose. I want readers to feel both seen and stirred; to know that even the softest voice carries power and even broken stories have breath and deserve to be heard. Readers are invited into my raw moments of heartbreak and hope, guided by a spiritual undercurrent and poetic rhythm that speaks to my dual life as a writer and performer.

I speak my poems as much as I write them, and that is why I recorded an audiobook as well. Hearing the audiobook captures a different kind of intimacy. These pieces weren’t meant to just sit on the page. They were born to echo and testify out loud.

At its core, Before I Lie is a reckoning, a love letter, and a resurrection. It reminds us that survival is sacred, that storytelling is resistance, and that healing — no matter how messy — is absolutely necessary.

Listen to this exclusive audio clip of Dralandra Larkins performing “Ode to the Hood — Where I’m From.”

Ode to the Hood—Where I’m From 

I’m from elementary and high school dropouts.

From playgrounds with torn basketball hoops and stolen dreams.

I’m from bus stops and long-ass walks

from Arnold’s Gun Store, Robert’s Shoes, the liquor store,

7-Mile, five-dollar boutiques, George Floyd Square,

and the corner of Chicago and Lake Street.

I’m from intersections where bullets and color wars meet.

From stolen halos and streetlights that don’t blink.

Prayers left on voicemail.

 

From women who wear gold on every finger,

Papi’s rockin’ rope chains with the Jesus piece,

and Uncles with bankrolls thick as loyalty.

 

I’m from the “Holy Ghost” and church.

I’m from, “but did you steal off on her first?”

From absent birthdays, a dead-beat father, a strong mother,

and a home where dysfunction

is just background noise—

sirens and helicopters sound like a vacation.

 

Where I’m from-

the school’s Pipeline to Prison is not a stretch. It’s a bus stop.

I’m from I.E.P plans, redlining, yellow tape,

Social Security, and Section 8.

I’m from hoppin’ gates,

cops called, thin walls,

Pitbull’s snarl

with silver chains ‘round their napes.

I’m from cold cases and superheroes who don’t wear capes.

From chipped polish and cheap paint

left molding into slumlords.

From evictions and pawning family heirlooms handed down at birth.

I’m from a generational curse—

and witches who survived the spell of poverty.

I’m from bare-handed healers and seers,

medicine women who cut

the lie from your body

without surgery.

I’m from the streets that gave me my TT H.I.V,

may she rest in peace.

I’m from the bullet in my daddy’s knee,

the deep scar on my mother’s cheek.

I’m from collect calls and bail money,

halfway houses, screen doors, chain guards—

steel

with brass finish.

“Who dat be?”

 

I’m from niggas in ski masks

wearin’ death like fashion.

I’m from tattooed portraits,

and men and women

easily fractured by bad habits.

I’m from The War on Drugs, Freedom Riders, Little Rock Nine.

I’m from Black women

three times more likely to die on hospital beds

bringin’ life.

 

I’m from the transatlantic slaves,

Mississippi muddy boots of trade,

The Great Migration, tobacco farms and plantations.

Where I’m from,

the fabric of my history

burn with wildfires of colonization.

I’m from gentrification—

“where cities are built on one side of the street.”

 

I’m from couches wrapped in plastic,

Sunday clean ups, lavender incense burning,

Keith Sweat, Mary J, and neo-soul on the stereo.

I’m from all those stereotypes.

I’m from mud and sand.

I’m from my mother’s prayer

and clasped hands.

 

I’m from prophecy,

from survival,

from faith.

Grew up hearing mama say:

“Good things come to those who wait.”

I’m from her breath when she professed:

“It ends with me.”

I am the rose that blossomed—

the one that shouldn’t have bloomed

from concrete.