Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Stewart Shaw

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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Jumpin' for joy
By Stewart Shaw

If only He could

jump

UP, jump the imposed

Bail for living while black             jump the gap between

Home and WTF, jump

jump bad,                jump

back home, jump

Back into childhood---

The cow jumped over the moon the little

Boy laughed

If only He could                jump

Rope, into a mother’s

Arms,    jump so quick

Nothing could penetrate.  He needs to get

A jump on, get the jump on, be

One jump ahead. If only

He hadn’t gotten                           jumped

On his way to tomorrow. We will 

Listen to hear him           JUMP

The broom- in our dreams

We know his jumping

Is magic

Jump up and down, for joy.  If 

Only He would have

Jumped sooner.  Blk boys

Who have not learned to JUMP

Like frogs :: crickets in the thickets,

Jump between the lines

Single or double dutch 

Get jumped and dumped

Into graves

Shallow enough to let

Memory seep out

Jumping up to splash

Our dreams

While jumping

Over the sky      blk

Boys are often mistaken

For vultures.  Shot 

on sight

Split This Rock · Jumpin' For Joy Stewart Shaw

Listen as Stewart Shaw reads “Jumpin' for joy.”