Thursday, January 19, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Marilyn Zuckerman

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, 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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The Day After
by Marilyn Zuckerman

Not depression
Not even despair
No retreat
More like weariness
Sysiphus shouldering the rock again
Just gathering again
Trudging lonely streets again
Going door to door again
Candles in the dark again
Talking until you're hoarse again
Trying to convince strangers
How dire the moment
Unless
Again

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