Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Brooke Petersen

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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Relay Race: a Song for Solidarity
by Brooke Petersen

when you, locked down in a trench for justice,
tell me you believe that we will win, I
am hiding under a red quilt and a plaid fleece throw.

we are always taking turns: you slump
as I lift my chin.

my hope-sore feet, marching
into the pharmacy and the grocery store and the third
organizing meeting of the week, echo yours. and power
concedes nothing without this:

us, three time zones apart, making bread

in the dark, and rising.