Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Hannah Jones

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 Cento for Black Poets

By Hannah Jones

Somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff.

A chameleon is inside, starving

After loving you

I can pray.

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair

America never was America to me.

If I should have the drive to seek

Rebellious Africans who didn’t waste the night with dreaming—

Whipped, once shipped

the chains fell off—

(We)    Die soon

            in our dreams, lashed by wind and streaming

            (a dream deferred)

            but let the world dream otherwise; we wear the mask.

Still, I rise.

I will stand with pride and address our soulful cries;

these days beyond fable, beyond faith.