InCooperation Racine: A Black feminist ethos in art and action

Based in Englewood, Cooperation Racine is a new co-op space with an anti-capitalist approach to creating alternative forms of economic enrichment. Spawned from casual conversations among artists organized by Andrea Yarbrough regarding access to space, Cooperation Racine aims to materialize a desire to share resources, space, and knowledge within the Englewood community. The five founding “worker/owners”—Yarbrough, Kayla Reefer, Tavia David, Andrés Lemus-Spont, and Saleem Hue Penny—envisioned an alternative art economy that prioritized sustainability and care, with Englewood at the heart of it all. 

The Happy Land Liniment

A chapbook-length lyric essay and multimedia oral history + field guide set in Reconstruction-era “Affrilachia”. 

Lyric Essay #1 (“A Work in Progress”) commissioned for Gravy Magazine, ed. Audrey Petty

Live Hybrid Poetry Performance

(“The Multiverse of the Happy Land”)

commissioned by Mississippi Museum of Art for Gravy Writers at the Great Migration Crossroads: The Midwest Speaks  

Ungarden Gleanings

 ecopoetry collages in partnership with New England-based botanist and conservationist, Hayley Kolding

Southside Catechesis

ekphrastic mashups of Gwendolyn Brooks poems with Russell Lee and Edwin Rosskam “Black Belt” photography (Farm Security Administration, 1941)

Pontiac "Silver Streak" Deluxe Edition, selected by Ilya Kaminsky for Ploughshares Magazine (Spring 2022 Issue)

TRKLDWN

The Deacons (epistolary script)

This script, set in 1947, follows four deacons as they move from Pine Crest, Mississippi, to attend Bible College in Chicago, Illinois. Structured around letters to their spouses, former pastors, deceased children, and ethereal grandchildren, the script timebends from 1867 to 1967.

Deacon Jacob Williams (age 28, b. 1919), Deacon Eddie Templeton (age 22, b. 1925), Deacon Troy Richards (age 34, b. 1913), Deacon Nathaniel Smith, Sr. (age 53, b. 1894)

Youth Electric

 (Bibliothèque Bleue-style chapbook)

Youth Electric follows a crew of resilient friends redefining themselves throughout post-high school transitions. An early version was published in Harvest Magazine, later edited for limited-run chapbook The Attic, The Basement, The Barn (Tammy Journal, 2017), now kindly archived in Southside Weekly Lit Issue. While their whole storylines are being written, Saleem is excited for you to meet the crew

#HedgeSketch

(children’s zine series)

Thumb through 125+ cartoon doodles, sidewalk scrawlings, and ephemeral sculptures on Instagram at https://hedgesketch.com 

The full collection of Daisy the Hedgehog content will be expanded into the ‘Hedge Sketch World’ where you can meet: 

  • Big Mikey the Bird & Lil’ Chris the Cloud

  • The Mole Family of the Westwood Elementary School Sandbox

  • The Seahorse Ranchers of the Underwater Castle Queendom

  • Ned the Giraffe & his siblings, 

  • Ted the Turtle & his dads, 

  • Carol the Cardinal & her grandmother

  • The Magic Tree, the Loggers, and the Hikers

  • The Bunny Family & their Cousins in the City