What is called the imagination (from image, magi, magic, magician, etc.) is a practical vector from the soul. It stores all data, and can be called on to solve all our “problems.” The imagination is the projection of ourselves past our sense of ourselves as “things.” Imagination (image) is all possibility, because from the image, the initial circumscribed energy, any use (idea) is possible. And so begins that image’s use in the world. Possibility is what moves us.

—Amiri Baraka, “The Revolutionary Theatre”, Liberator, July 1965

Jenna Wortham

Niki Kekos
June 4, 2019

Jenna Wortham is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, and co-host of the podcast Still Processing. She is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology “Black Futures” with Kimberly Drew, out from OneWorld in 2020.

The New York Times Magazine