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D'mani Thomas: 'A Curious Case of Light'

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Collage of a photo of East Oakland poet D'mani Thomas on the left with two lines of text from his poem: " I heard we come from stardust & at one point / pluto wasn't a planet"
Collage of East Oakland poet D'mani Thomas with the first two lines of text from his poem. (Courtesy D'mani Thomas / Collage by Lakshmi Sarah of KQED)

The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.

Throughout April we are mixing it up in honor of National Poetry Month. We’ll be bringing you one poem each week from a Bay Area poet with an upcoming reading.

East Oakland poet D’mani Thomas started writing poetry in high school as a form of therapy. They later got involved with spoken word poetry that got them out of their comfort zone through performing.

“I took up poetry as a processing tool, but then got into this spoken word poetry because it made me uncomfortable,” said Thomas. “The idea of people standing in front of a bunch of strangers and being like, ‘This is what I’m feeling,’ or ‘This is what’s going on at home’ — that was very foreign to me. And so I was like, but this feels like it’s good as an emotional development thing. And then I also like competition.”

Thomas says they were attracted to the vulnerability aspect of sharing poetry and being able to give their feelings language. Their poem “A Curious Case of Light” comes from their debut book Grown-Up Elementary.

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“So this poem takes place, thinking about astronomy and the complexity with, like, having to do homework while also having things going on at home,” said Thomas. “And how sometimes you don’t have the luxury to do homework or focus the same way that other students do.”

Thomas will be reading their poetry live at Fabulosa Books in San Francisco on April 25, 2023.

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