By Cynthia Amoah, Member, Poets Against Racism & Hate USA
“If you’re going to enter into the gate, you have to do so in my language.” — Toni Morrison
That idea stayed with me throughout Literary Cleveland’s 2026 Inkubator Writing Conference.
As writers, we are often taught to think about our readers: Will they understand this reference? Do I need to explain this word? Have I given them enough context? But Inkubator reminded me that writing for an audience does not mean building a map to every place I want the reader to go. Sometimes the work is to write what is necessary and trust the reader to find their way.
The conference’s virtual Toni Morrison panel brought that lesson into sharpest focus.
Morrison did not write as though Black language, Black characters, or Black communities needed to be translated before they could be considered literature. Her use of Black vernacular carries the familiarity and rhythm of how stories are actually told aloud, around tables, between generations, and throughout communities. She trusted the worlds she created enough not to stop at every doorway and explain how to enter.
And she trusted her readers enough to let them be confused.
As a Ghanaian-American poet, I think about this often. My writing moves between cultures, countries, generations, and languages. There can be an impulse to make every reference legible, to italicize what might feel unfamiliar, to explain a Ghanaian word or cultural reference, to offer readers a map before allowing them to enter the world of a poem.
But what if the poem does not need the map?
Maybe the deeper question is why some writers are expected to provide one at all. Whose language is considered universal? Whose language requires explanation? Who gets to write without stopping to make their world more comfortable for someone outside of it?
Those questions followed me into other Inkubator sessions. Write What You Carry: Voice, Memory & Story reminded me to trust the material I already possess. Poetry sessions like The Thing & the Other Thing and Bridging the Historical Gap: Poetry for Difficult Times reinforced that meaning can live in image, memory, history, metaphor, and even what remains unsaid. The reader can participate in making meaning rather than having every meaning explained.
And we can write this way, too.
We can trust the specificity of our worlds. We can write toward the people who immediately recognize themselves in our language without translating every detail for those who do not. And we can trust unfamiliar readers to remain curious enough to enter anyway.
That trust matters especially for writers from communities historically pushed to the margins. When some experiences are treated as universal while others are expected to explain themselves, writing on our own terms becomes a form of resistance. Literature can allow communities so often interpreted from the outside to name themselves from within.
In my notes from Inkubator, I reduced this lesson to six words:
Write bold. Write raw. Write you.
I left Inkubator thinking differently about what we owe our readers. Perhaps our responsibility is not to make every reference immediately legible, but to write with enough conviction that explanation is not always necessary.
We do not always have to give the reader a map. Sometimes, we simply have to trust our language and let those who want to enter find their way in.
Editors’ Notes:
Presenters of Inkubator sessions mentioned in this post are as follows: Toni Morrison Panel—Julia Alvarez, Sasha Bonét, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Imani Perry, Danzy Senna; Write What You Carry: Voice, Memory & Story—Charisse Bailey; The Thing & the Other Thing—Paula J. Lambert; Bridging the Historical Gap: Poetry for Difficult Times—Sara Moore Wagner.
Cynthia Amoah received the 2026 PARH USA Scholarship. The scholarship assisted Cynthia in attending Literary Cleveland’s Inkubator 2026 Writing Conference. We thank Cynthia for sharing with the PARH USA community an aspect of her conference experience.