Commodities

1-color, 5 x 7" letterpress printed art print. Ink colors: black. Letterpress printed on 130# cover light pink stock. Made in Wilkinsburg, PA using a 100+ year old Chandler and Price letterpress machine. 

Jamillia commissioned Meshwork Press to design and letterpress print these poetry art prints. Meshwork Press will continue to fulfill all orders.

More about the writer:

Born and raised in West Philadelphia by immigrant parents from Liberia, West Africa, Jamillia is a writer and mixed-media artist who co-authored her first poem, “Sparkle Sparkle in the House” with her dad in 1992. Since then, she has used poetry to process experiences, for personal motivation and collective reflection. While attending college at the University of Pittsburgh and during the years immediately after, Jamillia fell in love with melody of spoken word poetry and performed at open mics on campus and at home in Philadelphia on topics including educational equity, writer’s block and growing up.

Since returning to Pittsburgh in 2014, her work has transitioned to pieces which explore the intersections of cultural identity, social impact, systemic injustice, fulfillment and joy. Jamillia invites readers to authentically grapple with power, self-doubt, perfectionism, the opportunity to cultivate a growth practice routed in vulnerability - a trait she has resisted but come to respect - and dreams of a world with space for each of us to revel in.

Connect: @JamilliaKaye on instagram

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Printed text:

I am alarmed

by how much time

you can spend in your body

without knowing it for yourself, and

how many months you can hang heavily

like drawn curtains

too desensitized, dissatisfied,

to let the light in.

may your flexibility and adaptability never be

weaponized against you. may you make choices,

where possible, that affirm what you know life

can become. may you stop crumpling and

contorting the best parts of yourself for people

who are strangers to themselves too.

- Commodities