Illustration by Na’taja M. R. Flood
About
Maurisa Li-A-Ping is a writer and educator raised by an Afro-Caribbean Womxn in Brooklyn, New York. Her dedication to the intersection of poetry in higher education student affairs can be seen through her publications in Puerto del Sol, Up the Staircase Quarterly, WusGood Mag, Lunch Ticket, Celebrating Twenty Years of Black Girlhood: The Lauryn Hill Reader, Pan African Spaces: Essays on Black Transnationalism, About Campus, A Garden of Black Joy: Global Poetry from the Edges of Liberation and Living and more. Her commitment to her craft as scholarship has allowed her to touch stages at World-Famous Apollo Theater, United Nations, Barclays Center, a host of college campuses, conferences and various other venues. Maurisa is a Poetry Pushcart Prize-nominee and Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Alumni Microgrant recipient. She has a M.S.Ed in Higher Education Student Affairs and is a current MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Randolph College.
What they Say
Maurisa Li-A-Ping's artistry possesses both a keen eye and an open heart. Through her writing, she recovers the erasures of culture, history, and identity, but let's make no mistake--it is done with a candor that does not estrange itself from joy and purpose. This is Li-A-Ping's mighty work--a steadfast world-making that simultaneously soothes and challenges. The wise among us will praise the glorious tapestry her skillful hands create from any material that life sets before her.
-Yalie Kamara, author of Brief Biography of My Name and When The Living Sing
Work
Photo by: Marianna McMurdock
Photo by: Steve Sobiech
Notable Performances
Poetic License Festival - Wild Project
International Youth Day - The United Nations
First Annual Brooklyn Stories - Barclay Center
New York Knicks Poetry Slam - New Amsterdam Theater
Women’s Center Stage Theater Festival - Culture Project
Urban Word Annual Teen Poetry Slam - The Apollo Theater
New York Civil Liberties Union Benefit Concert - Skirball Center
2018 ACPA College Students Educators International Convention
NASPA's 100th Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education Conference
The City of Bloomington 13th Annual African-American History and Culture Celebration
Photo by: Marianna McMurdock
Photo by: Steve Sobiech
Select Publications
"6:29am, below sea level" - Up the Staircase Quarterly
"on forgiveness" - Strength of Doves On Sisterhood Anthology
"another Black Body takes on the role of narrator" - Lunch Ticket
"in this universe, Blk Women are the moon", "words of affirmation" - Wusgood Mag
"all in a days work", "will niggas check for us / after death?" - Puerto del Sol Black Voices Series
"Fantasy, Reality, and What Is Needed: Debunking Fantasy and Centering Truth in Black Women College Students’ Experience" - Celebrating Twenty Years of Black Girlhood: The Lauryn Hill Reader
Communal Poetry Environments and Black Student Success - The National Institute for Transformation and Equity
"do you see it?" - A Garden of Black Joy: Global Poetry from the Edges of Liberation and Living
"American Double Toasted Banana Nut Bread" - Pan African Spaces: Essays on Black Transnationalism
"The Power and Potential of Culturally Engaging Approaches in Student Affairs Graduate Programs" - About Campus
Photo by: Steve Sobiech
Educational Philosophy
Photo by: Mackenzie Berry
Educational Philosophy
As a Writer, the New York City youth art scene gave me a platform to write myself and other blaxk queer womxn, of the past, present, and future, into existence. With that experience, I use counter-narratives to construct poems that skillfully present blaxk queer womxn’s multifaceted joy, love, laughter, and sorrow. I say look, we (have) live(d) and here is the truth from our mouth. My Blaxk Feminist writing practice, of writing blaxk queer womxn into existence, is not only the subject of my work but also the method. As an Educator, I honor poetry as a culturally relevant student development tool for community building, teamwork, identity growth, skill-building, conflict management, empowerment, activism and more. In my work with students, I take an asset-based perspective in creating environments that position them as the intellectuals of their lives, allow them to self-define themselves, highlight their common challenges and honor their multifaceted identities. Through the collective living archive I create as a Writer and Educator, I strive for our stories to shape a healing past, present, and future rooted in celebration and coalition.