Creating Art Through Grief
Heavy is the crown worn by Nyamuon Nguany Machar, affectionately known as Moon. She carries many titles: poet, spoken word artist, educator, producer, mental health advocate, mother, sister, friend, and one of her most honorable titles—daughter. Moon, who was an artist in residence at Indigo Arts Alliance in 2020, acknowledges that while she holds her head high under the weight of many titles, it often leaves her little room to admit that she is also carrying the remnants of grief. Sometimes, she simply wishes to exist without obligations, expectations, and labels. She feels the pressure to be resilient—a label often assigned to Black women that coerces them to remain silent about their pain.
“Of course, they want me to be the girl with no hate in her heart. Experiencing one of the biggest losses of my life is sobering,” says Moon, as she reflects on being an artist while moving through grieving her late father, who passed away a year ago. “Before I couldn’t say, I am sad and dealing with depression and internal hurt. As advocates, you can’t afford to do that because you need to be the finished product to inspire individuals.”
Nowadays joy and sadness coexist on the page and stage for Moon. T-shirts worn at Moon’s father’s funeral were printed with the African proverb, When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground. Moon is dedicated to preserving not only the stories of the Nuer people but also the narratives of immigrants who have chosen to make Portland, Maine, their home, just like her parents did. Moon has beautifully weaved her family’s story with the many stories of immigrant families featured in her documentary “I Come from Away: An Immigrant in Maine,” which aired on PBS in 2022. This year, part two of the documentary is being screened locally in Maine.
Preservation of language and culture is at the heart of Moon’s artistry. In addition to her documentary, she has recorded elderly Nuer community members speaking in their native tongue to return to Juba University in South Sudan to grow the language program.
“I am on this journey to collect stories. In one of my poems I said, I collect my father’s stories like stones. I feel like that is how grief has changed me now,” Moon says. “I am in a state of listening and recognizing that language is huge. At my dad’s funeral, his friends came over, and they described him in a way I wasn’t able to access because of language. My dad had a darker sense of humor. He was goofier, sillier. There was this other side of him that I wasn’t able to access as this full individual because of the language barrier.”
“I am excited for this next phase of me as an artist,” says Moon. “Today, when I am performing I am doing it with this different heart. Grief opens you up to be real. You can’t be fake anymore.”
Moon is currently exploring new opportunities to leverage her documentary creatively in corporate settings. Her goal is to establish a professional development program that educates employees about the importance of understanding immigrant workers’ stories. She aims to humanize workers through highlighting their stories, rather than viewing them merely as numbers for production. She wants companies to see their employees as individuals who deserve to be safe and work in environments that are places of belonging and which foster their dignity. “People are happy that quotas are being met but have no idea that their employees are scared of driving home because of a certain status they have. Some of these corporations don’t know the difference between a refugee and an asylum seeker,” said Moon. “That is scary.”
Moon is also partnering with Maine Public to produce From Away to Me, a show that documents and tells the stories of people in Maine through art, food, fashion, and entrepreneurship. The first episode will be released at the end of June, featuring Bánh Appétit, a local Vietnamese restaurant. “I want to make sure the people who are working hard to bring a certain taste to Maine are highlighted and seen. My first episode will follow Tuyet Thi Le’s journey and the history of how her people came to Maine.”
Moon’s production team includes Maine Public’s Sophia Wood, and Moon also hopes to bring her favorite singer, Kenya Hall, into the mix to work on music to complement the show. “People of color are touching this project at every stage,” says Moon. “Whenever stories are told about Black people, it’s like, they struggled and now they are here. Some of us are just existing, happy, and thriving.”
Moon is balancing producing From Away to Me, promoting her documentary, teaching poetry at The Telling Room, and publishing her first book of poetry while also working a 9-5 and being a mother. “I have the coolest daughter. Right now, my source of joy is the next generation and the excitement that I feel in them,” says Moon, who acknowledges the presence of joy but also admits there is a bit of guilt she experiences as she mourns the loss of her father. “I am sad, but there is a rumbling of joy raining on me.”
After Moon wrapped up her residency at the end of March 2020, Breonna Taylor was killed in Louisville, Kentucky, the same month. The America that Moon called home experienced both a global pandemic, causing the world to shut down, and the reemergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Say her name: Moon, who despite the political climate and the current mass deportation of immigrants in America, still chooses to create art with rigor to move the needle on behalf of little Black girls.
Today, Moon continues to write for the Nuer people, especially the ones with scarification. “I want to reinstill pride in the things that other individuals have used to shame others. I write for dark skin girls because of what I have gone through. I write for people with black gums and black lips. I know what it feels like to be that person in that room that felt degraded because of the way that I look. I write for them,” says Moon before reciting a few lines from one of her poems.
I cannot romanticize a facade that all are welcome here.
America has shown me much of its truth even before it was given a MAGAphone
Now more than ever, my idea of home leaves me at a crossroads of what I have left and what
I have found.
NYAMUON NGUANY MACHAR
For a decade, Nyamuon (Moon) Nguany Machar has been a vigorous advocate for minority youth in mental health, currently contributing as a cultural strategist at Disability Rights Maine. In 2019, she was honored to be the recipient of the rising Advocate award from the Bazelon Center in Washington DC and the Diaspora Award from the Luol Deng foundation for her advocacy work around South Sudan. As a spoken word poet, Moon inspires others to discover resilience in their voices. Being raised by a father who was a child soldier and a mother who hails from one of the oldest countries in the world storytelling was like second nature in Moon’s home. Her parents used parables, myths folklore and life memories to guide their children in this new world that often tried its best to diminish or buffer their history and culture. This helped to formulate much of Moon’s writing style and gave her a sense of responsibility to carry on the tradition of storytelling not only on paper but audibly for people to hear.
NAKIA HILL
Nakia Hill is a writer, poet, journalist, and educator. She is the author of Water Carrier, a book of poetry, as well as I Still Did It, an intergenerational anthology on resilience, and the recently released anthology How We Take Up Space, which focuses on spatial justice. A proud native of Roxbury, Hill was named an artist-in-residence by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture in 2018 and became a GrubStreet Teaching Fellow in 2023. She has received multiple awards and honors for her leadership in education and writing. Hill is dedicated to empowering Black women and girls of color to use writing as a tool for healing and advocacy through the power of storytelling.
Edited by Jenna Crowder
Jenna Crowder is a writer and editor. Her writing has appeared in
Art Papers, Boston Art Review, The Brooklyn Rail, BURNAWAY,
Temporary Art Review, and The Rib, among other places.
jennacrowder.com