Listen to the Offerings.
Poetry · Song · Prayer · Witness · Community. Each offering is a threshold. Written & Curated by Annie Ross & The Kinfolk Collective.
Before there was Soulfire Vol. 1 there was Erasure — Annie Ross's first act of witness, a collection of poems. Through stories of memory, loss, resilience, dignity, faith, and survival, it became a place where overlooked experiences could be named, honored, and remembered.
The offerings of Soulfire Vol. 1 emerge from those pages. What began as poems became songs. What began as testimony became communal witness.
Every offering traces its roots back to Erasure — a testament that stories are sacred, memory is worth protecting, and what is remembered can still shape what is becoming. The Altar of Becoming begins with the courage to remember.
We remember what they tried to delete. The names of streets that no longer exist. The congregations whose churches became parking lots. The land that left our hands through tax and silence. This song does not flinch. It witnesses.
Origin: the title poem, “Erasure,” from Erasure by Annie Ross
“And ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”
She remembers who she is. She walks in ancestral power. She builds. She provides. She protects. She loves. She leads. This is not an affirmation — it is a theological declaration. Black is not a trend. It is a testimony. Her existence is not up for debate.
Origin: the poem “Black Woman” from Erasure by Annie Ross
“To give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”
They tried to keep us down. Tried to break our spirit. Tried to make us believe we were less. But we got up anyway. And we kept going. This is the song that moves from witness to action — through the grief, not around it. Rivers don't stop.
Origin: the poem “Get Off the Floor” from Erasure by Annie Ross
“To proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”
We trust the wind. We follow the light. We keep moving. We sail. This is the benediction — the song of the horizon, of generations not yet born who will inherit what we are protecting now. Our pain is not the end of our story. It is the beginning of our truth.
Origin: the poem “Sails of Faith” from Erasure by Annie Ross
