Note: This article was originally published in Reflections Special Issue, Bridging the Gap: Emerging Scholars, Emerging Forms ofScholarship. "The Life of A Poem" is a poetic and critical reflection on the relationship between the University and institutionalized economic, physical and sexual violence by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, a PhD candidate at Duke University, and a founding member of UBUNTU, an artistic and organizing community that emerged in Durham, NC during the Duke Lacrosse Scandal. In this article, Audre Lorde's "Litany for Survival" becomes a text of healing and a means through which to critically reframe community building and engaged scholarship.