Abstract Leslie Bumstead talks about moving around the world as a child, because of work of her father as a CIA agent. She reflects on finding confessional poetry as an outlet to deal with teenage angst and adolescent issues. She is later introduced to experimental poetry in D.C., building connections and re-imagining what poetry can look like. Leslie spends some time in El Salvador, recording oral histories of women guerilla fighters and doing other NGO work in the region. She meets her husband, a...

Abstract

Ms. Shanice discusses growing up in D.C., in several different neighborhoods, her family, going to high school and coming into herself, going to clubs and sex work, the impact of the AIDS epidemic, the violence transgender women faced and the killing of a close friend, getting involved in non-profit work, and the changes in the city.