Friday, January 13, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Whittier Strong

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


***


Not Home
by Whittier Strong

i did not leave home
on my own for one
week after the election

news from my old home
was only photos:
gaybash graffiti & nazi lauds
           
would news from my new home     
sway the same? when
it did not, i ventured out

alone



(first published in Hineni, January 2016: http://hinenimagazine.com/

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