Landless Acknowledgement by Nate Marshall
Landless Acknowledgement
Nate Marshallbefore we get started we would like to acknowledge that we live on some unceded bones. sometimes me & mine imagine ancestral homes. all i got so far is Montgomery, Alabama. what is a homeland for me? maybe a boat? certainly not a country. maybe a plot of land somewhere so far from the south sides i’ve claimed that i would get lost on the way. i admit sometimes my homies talk about their families immigrating & i get jealous. we lost the land we were custodians over before i was a twinkle in the eye of a twinkle in the eye of a twinkle in the eye. closest i got to a homeland is my mama’s caucasian pitch in the phone calling the police. closest i got to a homeland is not never calling the police. closest i got to a homeland is my daddy’s laugh in a spades game. closest i got to a homeland is my lover’s tongue talking or otherwise. not to be dark but i am. not to be dark but the planet is on fire. not to be dark but they moving capitals because the water is coming up. not to be dark but our bones are in that water too. maybe that’s my capital? once the polar capitals melt & there’s a whole lot less land for folks to buy & sell & steal maybe everybody will feel a little more dark. will feel a little more homelandless like we do. why you think i call my compatriots homies? maybe ain’t no home except for how your beloveds cuss or pray or pronounce.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Split Lip Magazine, February 2020.
ABOUT NATE MARSHALL
Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. His first book, Wild Hundreds (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. His second book is Finna (One World, 2020). He is a coeditor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015). Marshall released a rap album, Grown, in 2015 with his group Daily Lyrical Product. He is a visiting assistant professor at Wabash College. He earned his MFA at the University of Michigan,
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ENDNOTES
- This is Day 6 of The Sealey Challenge 2026—a community challenge to read one book of poetry a day for the month of August, named after Nicole Sealey.
- Explore other works in pursuit of: displacement • identity • ancestry • Or browse the index
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