Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Wendi White

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


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A Good Day to Win
by Wendi White

The beginnings nears
as darkness gathers
on the Dakota plains.

The Souix stand on their rock
for months despite rubber bullets,
concussion grenades,
concrete blockades designed
to cut them off, but somehow
the opposite occurs.

Iktomi tricks the wasichu
into giving back some of what they stole
and the world who cared little
for the Lakota's fate cheered,

and the spirit of Crazy Horse,
Red Cloud and Black Elk rose
like clean water gushing forth
to wash the people's hearts and hands,
turning the medicine wheel
toward some great advent 
as yet unknown.

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