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.
We asked poets to give us 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.
***Oh, Angry America
By Shooooz
I took a walk round the block today
feeling you
step for step
behind me
– it surprised me because
I was also
seeing you
in parallel
behind my
brother a
block away.
like Satan
you manage to be everywhere
when I
quicken my pace I feel you match it
I imagine
it must be
weird for you, who wants
so badly to
pull ahead to
find
yourself
always a few steps behind
giving
chase
by choice.
but like Satan
you manage to be everywhere
everywhere,
except
in the lead
where you
want to be
instead
you paint
maps in hot lead charting a
path to
your supremacy
uncontested
an empty
playing field is the only one you
consider
fair.
so like Satan
you manage to be everywhere
and when I
beg you to lift those hands off of
me or my brother
you raise
them
in a mockery of
surrender
or terror
you beg me
with laughter in your voice
not to
hurt you as you curl three
fingers
to make a
gun of your fist
lead
ready to scream from flesh
and when I
look
down the barrel
of your pointed finger
and when I
gather my nerve to charge
at you
you
are no longer there
and when I
look up from the ground
I find
your steel-eyed stare.
‘cause like Satan
you manage to be everywhere
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