Poet shares experience with bullying, racial discrimination – Spectrum News
When Zelda Black starts writing, she can be 100% herself. Her passion for poetry blossomed as a teenager.
“Poetry allows me to say what sometimes I feel like I can’t say in person,” says Black, author of the book “Butterfly Words.”
What You Need To Know
- Zelda Black wrote her book, “Butterfly Words,” as a collection of original poetry to inspire others
- As a gay woman of color, Black struggled with accepting her identity growing up and was bullied in school
- According to a Trevor Project survey, 40% of American LGBTQIA+ youth have seriously considered taking their own lives
Black recently published her first book, a collection of original poems.
“I am a gay woman of color, and in this area, there was a lot of bullying, a lot of racial discrimination, a lot of harassment I went through,” Black said.
A survey done last year by the Trevor Project says that 40% of LGBTQIA+ youth in this country have seriously considered taking their own lives.
“The main reason I wrote this book was to put emphasis on the importance of mental health, because especially when I was growing up, there wasn’t a lot of care about mental health,” Black said.
Some of Black’s poems go back as far as 2014, and others are as recent as this year. She wants to help people realize that they should celebrate differences, even if others don’t.
“I would hope that anybody reading this, no matter what their age, [knows] that they’re not alone and there are people who care about them in this world,” Black said.
Starting at the hardest years of her life, the reader is taken on Black’s journey to self-discovery and acceptance.
Black says she has sold around 50 copies since the book was published last month. It can be found on Amazon or at the Little Book House in Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany.