Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Julie Carr

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


A fourteen-line poem on healing
by Julie Carr


  1. They abused the powdery line
  2. and collapsed phantom scaffolding
  3. between what we wanted and
  4. what we feared
  5. Where have you gone in your
  6. red dress?
  7. Your benign limbs, at once
  8. blessed and beautiful
  9. Naked as a word
  10. you have done nothing worng
  11. I cannot freeze sound
  12. The body’s erotic intelligence
  13. is all that there is
  14. and is given 

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Nancy Boutilier

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


Unaugural Poem #1: UNPRESIDENTED
by Nancy Boutilier

I have been unpresidented.
In exchange for a man of vision
and generosity
of good humor and inclusivity,
I am handed
a man of carelessness
and ego
of cruel playground humor
and ego
of duplicity and studied lies
and unleashed ego
who rates
no inauguration
that I will witness
and so I dedicate myself to his
Unauguration
declare myself an Unaugural poet
and I will witness
for now
for the future
four years

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Lynne Eve Grossman

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


I am a Palette
By Lynne Eve Grossman

Sometimes, I paint my coagulated
Life glue into
shy-knee lack-her

blobbing recycled
soul fragments

frenetic collages of release
splattering that canvas of my mind and
heart

blasts of energy
a vibrant, nonverbal voice
S T R E T C H I N G beyond the copper moon
in search of solution less answers

vibrations of my soul
creating musical vision
with no orch-castration

later, out of my studio
I often ponder

How many brushstrokes?

How many globs of paint?

How many assemblages?

pushed into those mocking
paint-mouthed canvas lips?

how many colors to Mute
burnt orange blood
of yesterdays?

How many swirls to
cement
those gangrene shadows?

I AM a palette
electric Freedom
rushing through me
with Each stroke of paint
breathing and surging
with passion-ART power

that Sir-cut won’t break me
creative jolts
jumpstart energetic re-lease

I DRAW lines UN-bounded
I PAINT shapes Un-censored

I AM a palette
Re-creating Life’s rainbows with
Multi-Colored Hope.

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Pushpa Naidu Parekh

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


Language of Resistance
by Pushpa Naidu Parekh

When I let the breeze 
dry my words on paper
I enter language

I rope it around my tongue
savor its tartness
its ribbed edges
its slang of desire
its threshold of pain

Today poets silenced
deported from language
refuse the fragility of silence
its cold torpor
and complicities

When storms rage
shredding my words...
The poet in me
creates a refuge
A language of resistance

Monday, January 30, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Aimee Suzara

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


Because Water is Life
By Aimee Suzara

Originally written 10/29/16, in solidarity with the Sioux People and Water Protectors at Standing Rock working to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, inspired by Craig Santos Perez’ poem “Water is Life”

Once upon a time my ancestors lived beside the water
Fishing, capturing crabs from the sea, the fine sand mingled with sweat on their skin
And when I return to water the parts of mine recognize their source

Because water is life
Because water is life I honor the dagat and all of its fishes
And when I look at the ocean I am dreaming my origins
Because the Philippines is an archipelago
And every land is an island, bigger or smaller
Because no land is really dominant or superior or main
Because water is the ilog that rushes
And even when we dam rivers they rise up in a storm

Because water was our first home inside the womb
And water was the first sound we heard when we floated
And water was natural when we learned how to breathe
So as babies we remember how to swim
Because water is the condensation of rain and rain
Is the consequence of water, and we forget then that we end
Where we begin

Because in that forgetting we become like machines and try
To extract another liquid, oil, which helps us fuel other machines
To be bigger, faster and stronger
But we can’t drink oil though we act like we can
But oil kills the water, so our dependence on oil is a killing of water

Because the Sioux and the Water Protectors are guarding the water
In order to stop Oil from being transported by machines
And destroying the river and sacred places
Because the Dakota Access Pipeline is disturbing the dead
And disturbing the living for 7 Generations

Because the police have become like machines
Bearing militarized vehicles and pepper spray
And Water Protectors bear blankets and feathers and prayers
Because the police wear riot gear
And say the protestors are rioting
Because grandmothers and children and horses stand
As they have for centuries to guard the land
Because this very much reminds us of earlier treaties broken
Because this very much reminds us of how the United States was founded
Upon the burial grounds and sacred sites of Native and Indigenous people everywhere
Upon the dead with no respect for the living
Threatening the living with no respect for the dead

Because this is what the United States stands for
Harbingers of death, not protectors of life
Because water is life and life is our birthright

Because this very much reminds me of the colonizing of my people
Because water was used by this government as water torture
Because water was used by this government as an image of civilizing the savage
Because water is the metaphor for washing the culture from our brains
Because water was the gift of our islands and then you took us
Because you saw the water not as life but as passageway for machines,
And guns and ships, and Pacific military bases
Because you did that too in Guam and Hawaii
Because you showed no remorse for those you killed when we fought for independence
Because you used water not for life but for transporting bodies
To provide labor for your machines to serve your dominance
Because water became a graveyard of bodies, a passage of bones

Because you have turned water into a tool of death
But water is life and you need it to live
Must we remind you, over again?
That water is life, and water is life
Because water is life.

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Dani Miller

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


Tired
By Dani Miller

I'm tired of writing poems about oppression.
I'm probably just as tired of writing them as you are of hearing them.
I'm tired of bleeding for the paper.
I'm tired of bleeding for those who have no more blood left to lose
I'm tired of writing poems about oppression.
I'm tired of finding the most eloquent way to comprehend this cruelty.
To glorify their deaths.
There is nothing about this struggle that is poetic.
So why do people still tell me that my poetry is beautiful?
My poetry is hardly beautiful.
It is hardly poetic.
I'm tired of being poetic.
There is no metaphor I could write that could make a Museum of their bodies.
Of our bodies.
No simile could slide America out of our choices.
No score is high enough to bring back our boys.
Sometimes, I'm angry as fuck.
And I just want to scream.
And curse.
And stick my middle finger up to the world
and not be eloquent.
And I'm tired of taking that and transforming it into beautiful
Into 3 minutes.
Into the fascinating plight of a struggling artist.
I'm tired of writing about oppression.
I'm tired of spilling myself into these words
only for nothing to change.
Only for us to be in the same place next month.
Next week
Tomorrow.
I'm tired of unity.
I'm tired of politicians who say unity is the best option.
Who say he's our president so we should give him a chance.
As if he hasn't had his chance for a year and a half
As if over the course of American history, people like him have ever given us one.
I'm tired of respectability politics
and of people who tell us to hug our oppressors.
as if peace is the same thing as justice.
as if patriarchy doesn't objectify the passive girls too.
as if Martin Luther King didn't die the same way that Malcom X did.
I'm tired of of conversation.
And I'm especially tired of people mistaking conversation for progression.
We've been having this conversation for centuries.
This is not new. And
It sure as hell isn't progressive.
Rather it's the opposite, it's static.
What good is conversation if we all just stop there.
Because conversation may be the first step in abolishing the oppressive institutions our country is built on
but it is time for us to move on to the next step.
I am tired of seeing those goddamn safety pins.
I’m tired of white feminism
And white women who voted for trump
53 percent of y'all.
I'm tired of feminism that isn't intersectional
We preach sisterhood but then turn our backs on LGBT women, Muslim women and women of color when they need us most.
We Put the weight of our struggle on their shoulders
but when they need our support we disappear.
Emphasize our whiteness over our women.
And you know what,
I'm tired of writing poems about oppression.
Probably just as tired as you are of hearing them
But we both aren't as tired
as the mothers who are forced to
 mourn their children's name
before they can learn to cherish it.
As the woman who are forced to let politicians make decisions about their bodies.
As 10 year olds who think skinny is a compliment.
As survivors of rape who are gaslighted into believing his choices were their faults.
As residents of flint who are still being poisoned
As low income families who won't be able to afford health insurance
As Muslim citizens who are called terrorists
As refugees who continue to fight for their lives and their families with no support from America
As anyone who are told they don't belong here because of their race, nationality and religion.
As the people in the street who are protesting for their humanity
I'm tired of writing poems about oppression.
And that is why I keep writing them.

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Laura Solomon

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


On Questions and Capes: A poem about survival
By Laura Solomon

The cashier at the pharmacy verifies my name, address, date of birth,
looks me over and repeats my last name asking, "Huh.
That Jewish?"

It is 3 weeks after the election.  We are standing in a
Walgreens in a blue state across the
corner from where the high school kids stood on
election day holding signs reading,
"build that wall" and "Hillary for Prison." We are
down the road from the Starbucks where I was lectured on
how young people like myself will be the
downfall of society and
up the street from the house with the Confederate flag painted in its garage, from the
Trump sign that lights up in the dark, from the
pick-up truck with two Confederate flags flying off the back above the gun rack, from the
Safeway where men followed me to my car, tried to get in after me, where I
did not buy from the Kosher for Passover section because
a man in a Trump hat was in the aisle with me spouting ignorance and yet I
wonder
why my mouth goes dry as I
stand in Walgreens
trying to answer this question.
*****
Hey Doctor?
If Donald Trump is president, will he hate me?

But Doctor,
when Donald Trump runs the world, will he make people be cannibals?
Will they eat people with autism first?

Doctor,
Is it okay to worry about Donald Trump?
Sometimes I can't sleep because I worry about him, like, about what he might do to my family.

But, Doctor,
Will it be the end of the world when Donald Trump is president?  
Doctor --
Can I be a superhero and save the world from Donald Trump?  Sometimes I imagine that.

Doctor -
I don't know how to be a superhero. 
I tried to fly once, but
I just falled down.
*****
Each session feels like a Bingo card of heartbreak:
a unique pattern of life on the margins,
I find newfound fear as the day's
headlines flash by.
Session 1:
White single father with mental illness raising
teenage son with disabilities has to give up
a day of work to wait
for Medical Assistance transportation.

Session 2:
Muslim woman in hijab has twins with autism, works
nights to support them, about to lose her job due to
inability to find child care. 
Session 3:
Non-English speaking, immigrant mother with
intellectual disability raising child with autism.
Session 4:
Black lesbian grandmothers, one with cancer, one an immigrant, raising
child with multiple disabilities on
food stamps in section 8 housing with a history of
multigenerational trauma.
Bingo.
*****
I find an unleashed
ferocity inside me.
People says we should just
pray, there is
nothing we can do--
I say:
"Fuck your prayers.
Now is the time to fight for the superheroes trying to
fly
across the margins."

*****
I feel so small in the face of the
resilience I sit across from.
What privilege it is to feel
shell-shocked and
curl into my
white, lesbian, half-Jewish shell when all day I
sit with people who only had a quarter shell to start with and it
leaks when it rains.
*****
Doctor?
I was teaching my son to ride the bus.
He was going to do it himself.
Should I let him?  I'm scared.


Doctor,
I want him to be able to work
but I don't know what people will say.
Have you seen all these hate crimes?

But Doctor,
he runs away from me in public.
He hugs strangers, he's
a grown man now.
A 14-year-old black boy.
What do we do?
Doctor?
****
I spend days telling myself I
cannot do this.

I cannot find
my breath.

I spend my days giving everyone
capes so they are
flying as I
attempt to ask the questions that will
imagine our survival.