Saturday, January 14, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Wendy Brown-Báez

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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O America!
by Wendy Brown-
Báez

O America land of the free
land of the brave willing to tell the truth
willing to declare the end to slavery
willing to take a chance and start
over on the prairie, the tenement, the suburbs

O America land of the complacent
land of the tame
what happened to the wild
courage of dreaming
equality for all

When will you stop killing those
on top of “our” oil fields
let go of the profits of prostitution rings
in a jungle village far away from the
façade of domestic ease

O America: shame on you!
Where is the justice
you once embraced
close to the poor the huddled
your masses hunger for freedom

Oh America, I have run away
so many times, I have
at least 3 expired passports
and still here I am, head in my
hands, wondering why

I can’t find peace
and why you can’t let
go the reins on the world’s
desire to eat for cheap and
be entertained for free?

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