Friday Feature: Tiezst “Tie” Taylor
- Jae Nichelle
- Jul 11
- 2 min read
Tiezst “Tie” Taylor is a Disabled Black femme who is non-binary trans. They are a radical educator, artist-activist, poet, and storyteller. They have earned degrees in education (B.A. in the individualized major of Teaching for Social Justice, New York University & M.S.Ed in Elementary Education, University of Pennsylvania), and are a proponent of disability justice and abolitionist frameworks. Their work explores their experiences in surviving: Disability and severe mental illness; intergenerational trauma and poverty; and intersecting forms of oppression. They use their art and research to educate, heal, nurture, radicalize, and catalyze change for all marginalized peoples. Tiezst is an Emerge 2025 Fellow with San Francisco State University’s Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability, where they are working on an essay for publication on the criminalization of mental illness as it intersects with Black woman / femme identity. They were a Spring 2024 Brooklyn Poets Fellow and a past awardee of the NYSCA/NYFA Artists with Disabilities Grant. Tie’s work appears or is upcoming in Lucky Jefferson, Querencia Press, Midway Journal, Shō Poetry Journal, and ANMLY. Follow Tiezst on Instagram @tiezst.
High John [A Duplex]
After Jericho Brown & Zora Neale Hurston
We get few chances to escape this machine,
Each generation of my kin bound.
Each generation bound to food stamps.
Grandfather a pimp, me a whore– we hustle.
American hustle is our hoodoo,
In dream realms I try to outpace struggle.
I fight to pay rent even in my dreams,
Penniless, I cannot afford peace.
When peace has a price, life costs too much,
Stability is too rich for my blood.
My blood is rich with pestilent resilience:
We blood rich // We blood rich // We prevail!
When systems fail us, we invent our own–
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Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.