Surviving the Cross: Documentary Poetry and Vernacular Theology from a Family Archive

What does it mean to “take up one’s cross” when suffering is lived within the realities of domestic violence, poverty, and social exclusion? This presentation performs a found-text documentary poem that places the biblical command in Matthew 16:24 in dialogue with poems written by my grandmother, a domestic-violence survivor in rural Appalachia. Drawing on documentary poetic practices, the piece assembles scripture, vernacular poetry, and narrative fragments drawn from a memoir based on family testimony. The poem asks how ordinary believers reinterpret the Christian language of sacrificial suffering while surviving violence. By staging this encounter through documentary poetics, the project demonstrates how vernacular archives of lived faith can participate in the ongoing reinterpretation of sacred texts.