Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Leonora Simonovis

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

From late April to mid-May, Split This Rock asked poets to send the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

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Ode to Piojos
By Leonora Simonovis

A nymph slid

from a blade of hair

onto my homework,

little legs pedaling

air. I let it walk

away. The principal

called me sucia, expelled

me until I proved

I was clean. Third worlder

he called me. You should’ve

never come. I went home

thinking New Haven

is a misleading name

for a city. My mother

combed, washed,

and sprayed my scalp.

I felt them running,

their house on fire.

We kill them, yet they

come back. Resilience

has a piojo’s wisdom.

When I went back

to school they checked

my head. Gone

the secretary said.

The principal frowned

not yet

Split This Rock · Leonora Simonovis Ode to Piojos Audio

Listen as Leonora Simonovis reads “Ode to Piojos.”