my perspective on creativity | shantell hinton hill
we have turned weapons into plowshares
tilled soils on distant shores
we created culture out of nothing
and forged new life out of wars.
we led the way as vanguards
parting the oppressive seas.
we pressed our way through terror
and still became all we could be.
we birthed generation after generation
and generated thriving for our selves.
we quilted patterned covers of softness
to store upon our wearied soul’s shelves.
we came and saw about one another
saving ourselves from the throes of debt.
we lavished our selves in our own love
because we knew we could do it best.
we planted our feet where we fell,
though we stumbled time after time.
and we stood back up, firmly rooted
determined to make it to starshine.
we have always been more than our trauma
far greater than mere survivors of life–
for we are the vanquishers of death
who make magic out of our strife.
I’m Shantell Hinton Hill and this is my perspective on creativity. I use words in the form of poetry to create. This ability is not something I do in a vacuum. Rather it is something that draws me in and invites me into my fullness - an essence that has been imbibed over generations and generations.
Creativity, loosely defined, is the use of imagination and ideation to produce some form of art. However, I contend that creativity - from my particular social location - is the use of imagination and ideation to produce some semblance of life.
As a daughter of the African diaspora, born in my colored and gendered body, and reared in the American South, I have come to learn the push and pull of a creative life that is born from a need for survival and not solely of art. In this way, the ingenuity of my ancestors - to come up with innovative ways to keep their progeny alive when plantation owners and enslavers would only give them scraps - is a sacred inheritance for all of their descendants.
There are aspects of this cultural inheritance of resourcefulness that cannot be enumerated by ontological utterances; what is more, this paradigm of creativity can never be taught as a scientific discipline. Because of its origins, then, it is my belief that everything in Western culture seeks to commodify, destroy, and/or exploit it. From the ways Black hair styles were classified as “ghetto” until becoming co-opted and turned into a new trends to numerous adaptations of Black music sung by white faces and blue eyes, it is clear that this creativity from which I have been born and bred is invaluable and, indeed, an inalienable gift that all do not have the opportunity to possess. And, for this reason, many will try to thwart it for its powerful implications.
Yet, one thing remains. From the audaciousness of our survival, we have invented many things and made life and art. And, while we are all imago dei - created in God’s image, I am clear that we have tapped into the creative flow directly from the Divine’s touch - creatio ex nihilo. And I am ever thankful that no power nor principality can stop it.
*this poem is an original piece included in my debut poetry collection entitled, "Black girl magic & other elixirs". I've included a link to read more about the collection for anyone interested.
