tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19526994923376578812024-03-18T23:57:53.562-04:00Split This RockSplit This Rock cultivates, teaches, and celebrates poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes social change. Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.comBlogger1113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-117132949668096312021-06-25T18:28:00.001-04:002021-06-25T18:28:21.631-04:00Split This Rock Enters Fallow Season<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgUBJ-URnVkxXxjNDcnvF0U7d52aZl7XRsZl6YPBZjMqcEksMIuRV1uXtz7Uxmdd0MfAlxSUDlMoHfP7577VOMu8dj1e6MPDWNih-SS6EAnZV1n-iPSuUZkEpWcOrlFqYANZH7VnlPvp4/s500/Fallow+Season+Announcement+Email+Heading.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Over a white background, bold black text with a yellow outline appears that says “Fallow Season July 1, 2021 - April 1, 2022.” Under this text is an illustration of a yellow-orange sun rising from green fields under a light blue sky. Three yellow dots surround the illustration." border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgUBJ-URnVkxXxjNDcnvF0U7d52aZl7XRsZl6YPBZjMqcEksMIuRV1uXtz7Uxmdd0MfAlxSUDlMoHfP7577VOMu8dj1e6MPDWNih-SS6EAnZV1n-iPSuUZkEpWcOrlFqYANZH7VnlPvp4/w400-h240/Fallow+Season+Announcement+Email+Heading.png" width="400" /></a></div>After 13 years of programming and publication, and actively surviving a global pandemic, Split This Rock is entering a fallow season beginning July 1, 2021 and ending April 1, 2022. Fallow land is cultivated land left unplanted for a growing season. To make land fallow is to recognize that soil needs time to rest and regenerate after harvesting abundance. Fallow seasons are about sustainability.<p></p><p>During Split This Rock’s fallow season, staff and board will focus on expanding the organization’s capacity to be fertile and stable ground for working towards liberation, as well as defining more concretely what working towards liberation means at Split This Rock. This time will offer space to tap into deeper wells of creativity so the organization can offer more impactful opportunities for cultivating poetry, building community, and sharpening tools for resistance. Board and staff will have space to more deeply align the organization’s mission with its systems, protocols, and practices. This internal alignment powers our capacity to show up with the greatest integrity in our programs and commitments to community. Some of the projects we will be tending include:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Building strategic plans for Split This Rock’s programming, publications, communications, and other endeavors</li><li>Maintaining communication with stakeholders and community members to access valuable input and expertise to help shape Split This Rock’s future offerings</li><li>Strengthening the organization’s infrastructure, including significant upgrades to our website, email platform, and donor database</li><li>Engaging in consulting processes to guide us in tending to Split This Rock’s internal culture, staffing structure, and leadership model so they more deeply align with the organization’s mission and values</li><li>Refining protocols and practices to offer greater support to staff</li><li>Formalizing procedures to respond to community needs and current events</li><li>Hosting virtual community gatherings to remain tuned in to the needs of those we serve</li><li>Continuing fundraising and grant writing efforts to sustain the organization</li></ul><p></p><p>Split This Rock was born from the brilliant effort, community care, radical imagination, and creative genius of a small group of poet activists with a big dream. That dream has grown immensely since the organization’s founding in 2008, while Split This Rock’s internal resources and staffing level have barely changed – despite efforts to address this challenge. Through facilitated discussion in February and March this year, the organization’s leaders came to clarity that a programmatic pause is needed. It’s time to tend to the field Split This Rock’s founders so tenderly seeded, making sure the soil from which we grow community engagement remains rich. We honor the legacy of our founders and the values that are core to the organization by arriving at this truth: programmatic rest is our bravest political action in this season.</p><p>We are being called to more radically embody the interconnected wisdom of the movements that guide us, such as the movements for Black liberation, disability justice, Indigenous sovereignty, and environmental justice. We are grateful for the opportunity to make this bold move – the manifestation of a quiet dream we’ve held in our hearts that allows us to build upon the current health of the organization. <b>As we shared in our <a href="http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?preview=true&m=1101991529596&ca=617ae43a-3978-4e8d-9af8-3ec8f8310fa3&id=preview" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">staff letter</span></a> in December 2020, a few of the changes we are committed to at Split This Rock include</b>:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Expanding paid opportunities for artists who teach, publish, and feature at Split This Rock, artists who are largely people of color and often alumni of the Youth Programs</li><li>Bringing disability justice principles more fully into the center of the organization’s culture</li><li>Cultivating a more supportive and attractive work environment for current and future staff</li><li>Adjusting the programmatic load as necessary to match the organization's staffing level</li><li>Developing and practicing community agreements that center consent culture and accountability</li></ul><p></p><p>Though programs will not be hosted during the fallow season, we’re eager to continue engaging with you. You can expect to receive updates on our progress along the way; the first will arrive in August. Fill out this <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdmdl-1At-dFrWnDSlueDJ78_plG3qfjelv-ozo6BVPHajg4w/viewform?usp=sf_link" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #660000;">online form</span></b></a> to let us know if you’d like to be part of community gatherings we will host to invite your expertise and feedback. Poem of the Week will continue until June 25, 2021, and we hope you’ll keep reading. Visit the <a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/fallow-season" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #660000;">fallow season webpage</span></b></a> for information about Split This Rock’s programs, ways to contact staff and board during this time, and more.</p><p>We believe this is the most courageous and radical work we are called to fulfill. We’ve collected a playlist of poems that are grounding and guiding us in this time, and encourage you to read them below. We are excited about the many possibilities that might manifest and the harvest waiting for us all on the other side of Split This Rock’s fallow season.</p><p>With gratitude,</p><p><i>Split This Rock Staff & Board</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Image Description: Over a white background, bold black text with a yellow outline </i><i>appears </i><i>that says “Fallow Season July 1, 2021 - April 1, 2022.” Under this text is an illustration of a yellow-orange sun rising from green fields under a light blue sky. Three yellow dots surround the illustration.</i></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><b>Fallow Season Poetry Playlist</b></p><p>"<a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/we-are-not-reconciled" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>We are not reconciled to the oppressors who whet their howl on our grief</b></span></a>" by Danielle Badra</p><p>"<b><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/equinox" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Equinox</span></a></b>" by Tamiko Beyer</p><p>"<b><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/set-the-garden-on-fire" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Set the Garden on Fire</span></a></b>" by Chen Chen</p><p>"<a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/we-ask-mama-n-em-where-is-the-motherworld" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #660000;">we ask mama-n-em, “where is the motherworld?</span></b></a>” by Destiny Hemphill</p><p>"<b><a href="https://poets.org/poem/calling-all-silent-minorities" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Calling on All Silent Minorities</span></a></b>" by June Jordan</p><p>"<b><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/onomastico" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Onomástico</span></a></b>" by Jonathan Mendoza</p><p>"<b><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/we" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">We</span></a></b>" by Deborah A. Miranda</p><p>"<a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/tonight-rebellious-resistance" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #660000;">Tonight: Rebellious Resistance</span></b></a>" by Naomi Ortiz</p><p>"<a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/cactus-flower" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Cactus Flower</b></span></a>" by Amir Rabiyah</p><p>"<a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/the-republic-of-tenderness" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #660000;">The Republic of Tenderness</span></b></a>" by Nathan Spoon</p>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-69844230024736168162020-11-12T16:47:00.002-05:002020-11-12T16:47:13.686-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Elliot Frost<p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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. </span><br /><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Seahorse and Empty</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Elliot Frost</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal">In the time between</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mother’s and Father’s Day </div><div class="MsoNormal">in quarantine</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">spent some time online</div><div class="MsoNormal">moving clock hands</div><div class="MsoNormal">and filling pockets</div><div class="MsoNormal">for a baby that can’t exist here.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">He asked if I could “make them a nursery”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I catch his seahorse belly in the Zoom </div><div class="MsoNormal">like a projector light bobbing awake -</div><div class="MsoNormal">there is something about a pregnant man</div><div class="MsoNormal">that mops up blood I spilled on wrinkled sheets once, in my early 20’s. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> That September morning the blinds were pulled</div><div class="MsoNormal"> and the coffee was cold as I poured it</div><div class="MsoNormal"> down the drain — there was nothing</div><div class="MsoNormal"> I could fill myself with.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> My belly skin lapped thirsty at a pillow.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I ask him what colors he’d like me to use.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yellow” he says, “just make everything yellow” ... and I think about the “Yellow Wallpaper” from that story I read in High School about the woman</div><div class="MsoNormal">with postpartum... “resting” off “hysteria” alone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Sure” I say, but I mean “no”. </div><div class="MsoNormal">I mean,</div><div class="MsoNormal">I want kids.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I think I’d be a good father.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But I’m stuck behind these yellow walls.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The villagers in this virtual town</div><div class="MsoNormal">keep repeating all the same </div><div class="MsoNormal">wrong </div><div class="MsoNormal">questions.</div><div style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></div>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/913472134&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/elliot-frost-seahorse-and-empty-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Elliot Frost Seahorse and Empty Audio">Elliot Frost Seahorse and Empty Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Listen as Elliot Frost reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/elliot-frost-seahorse-and-empty-audio" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Seahorse and Empty</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">."</span></span></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-37099644929055564462020-11-12T16:45:00.003-05:002020-11-12T16:45:49.150-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Shivkanya Shashi<p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Come Walk With Us</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">by Shivkanya Shashi</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Tens and thousands of migrant workers are walking home with their families in the boiling heat in India. They are calling their leaders to "Come walk with us" and feel the pain.</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">O my PM, O my CM, come walk with us<br />Walk with us n’ burn with us, in n’ out, in n’ out<br />Without a drop of water, without a morsel of food<br />Come walk with us, come walk with us…………<br /><br />The marble beneath your feet we carry on our back<br />The bricks of parliament pillars we carry on our head<br />The food on the dish we knead n’ toil with our hand<br />In the darkness the glorious nation glows with light<br />But my PM, we aren’t a part of it, we aren’t a part of it…..<br /><br />My daughter walks a little, a very little distance<br />Of some three hundred kilometers <br />And the glorious aircraft showers flowers<br />When she breathes her last in my arms<br />How splendid, how spectacular the nation is<br />But my PM, we aren’t a part of it, we aren’t a part of it…..<br /><br />Thank you virus, half dead half alive virus, thanks a lot<br />You’ve shown the true colours of the strong system<br />Never heard the jingle of coins from a mega-package<br />In my pocket, in his plate, on her slate, never ever<br />Statues, metros, roads, and malls<br />We wade through the notes of millions n’ billions n’ trillions<br />But my PM, we aren’t a part of it, we aren’t a part of it…..<br /><br />No no PM, we’ll never ask for a single rupee<br />You need it to run our powerful country<br />We see it, we see it when we see our cracked feet ..<br /><br />Meanwhile, how about walking n’ burning with us?<br />Take the opportunity, walk with us, go live on Facebook<br />Because tomorrow we all may die,<br />On roads, on tracks, in gutters, on trees, in fields<br />With whom will you walk,<br />With whom will you click the photos?<br />Then who will work for the marvelous nation?<br /><br />O my PM, O my CM, come walk with us<br />Walk with us n’ burn with us, in n’ out, in n’ out<br />Without a drop of water, without a morsel of food<br />Come walk with us, come walk with us…………<br /><br />
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/916656859&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/shivkanya-shashi-come-walk-with-us-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Shivkanya Shashi Come Walk With Us Audio">Shivkanya Shashi Come Walk With Us Audio</a></div>
Listen as Shivkanya Shashi reads "<b><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/shivkanya-shashi-come-walk-with-us-audio" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Come Walk With Us</span></a></b>."</span></div></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-85002692921509196542020-11-12T16:43:00.003-05:002020-11-12T16:43:50.483-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Jen Martin<p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b>To talk to you</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">by Jen Martin</span><br /><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">How are you?</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Question beckoning a barrage </span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Is soft, swift, sequence</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">what you want to hear?</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">How are you today?</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Living breathing</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I was told this was the way to ask people who don’t have that sense of week, month, sunrise</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">catch up</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">sequence.</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Are you in sequence?</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Do your words line up orderly </span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">today?</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">you are <i>off the hook</i></span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">because</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Today, yesterlate, undersunday</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Upintomorrow, latemorn, latetimecontinue, </span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">That’s <i>your right</i>.</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Here when you are</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Gone when you’re gone</span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In out of step we fall in step.</span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><br />
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/916673111&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/jen-martin-to-talk-to-you-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Jen Martin To talk to you Audio">Jen Martin To talk to you Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Jen Martin reads "</span><b><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/jen-martin-to-talk-to-you-audio" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">To talk to you</span></a></b><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">."</span></div></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-79029065853396281572020-11-12T16:41:00.003-05:002020-11-12T16:41:51.628-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Kelsey May<p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Bathsheba Marries Jezebel</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">by Kelsey May</span></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bless the eyes that immortalized<br />your loving, you who lived like the sun;<br />what teeth couldn’t tear from the narrative;<br />glitter the years and return. Let me<br /><br />be your vessel; slake my thirst; I yearn.<br /><br />Bless your hands for washing; bless<br />the sheets that caught you; praise the stones<br />for their breaking. You gave to the king;<br />you satisfied your husband; you bore the blame<br /><br />and sons. Bless the women who hear your cries;<br /><br />bless us all for the trying. Let us love like birds.<br /><br />Let us scorn the men who cage us.</span><br /><br />
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/916688608&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/kelsey-may-bathsheba-marries-jezebel-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Kelsey May Bathsheba Marries Jezebel Audio">Kelsey May Bathsheba Marries Jezebel Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Kelsey May reads "</span><b style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/kelsey-may-bathsheba-marries-jezebel-audio" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bathsheba Marries Jezebel</span></a></b><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">."</span></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-59959289651569459832020-11-12T16:40:00.002-05:002020-11-12T16:40:24.637-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Philip Metres<p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>The Olive</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">by Philip Metres</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA">زيتون</span><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">consider the olive: it gnarls as it grows <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">into itself / a veritable thicket / it throws<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">up obstacles to the light to reach <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the light / a crooked path in the air<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">while beneath our sight it wrestles the rock <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">wrests water from whatever trickles<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">beneath / it doesn't worry it looks like hell <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">refuses to straighten for anyone<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">each spring offers itself meat to be eaten <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">first brambles / then olives</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/916695457&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" title="Split This Rock" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/philip-metres-the-olive-audio" title="Philip Metres The Olive Audio" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Philip Metres The Olive Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Listen as Philip Metres reads "</span><b style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/philip-metres-the-olive-audio" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">The Olive</span></a></b><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span></div></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-50223330271061906422020-11-12T16:39:00.000-05:002020-11-12T16:39:00.963-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Purvi Shah<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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. </span><br /><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Saraswati nods to the white man who, after hearing her liberation poems, embroiders “dowry”</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Purvi Shah</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal">Even now, goddesses</div><div class="MsoNormal"> outlast colonialism.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/913379308&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/purvi-shah-saraswati-nods-2020-virtual-open-mic-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Purvi Shah Saraswati nods 2020 Virtual Open Mic Audio">Purvi Shah Saraswati nods 2020 Virtual Open Mic Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">Listen as Purvi Shah reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/purvi-shah-saraswati-nods-2020-virtual-open-mic-audio" style="font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Saraswati nods to the white man who, after hearing her liberation poems, embroiders "dowry"</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span><div style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></div></span></div></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-39815068000415950412020-11-12T16:36:00.005-05:002021-02-09T15:23:17.221-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Aimee Suzara<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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. </span><br /><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>We come swimming</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Aimee Suzara</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>A trilingual poem born in Havana, Cuba</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">“From a port of this island, about seventy canoes came out, each containing three men, or thereabout, while some came swimming and others on logs…They had fine teeth, eyes, mouth, hands and feet, and beautiful long flowing hair, while many of them were very fair. Very handsome youths were to be seen among them; all were naked and covered no part…indeed, for a barbarous people, naked and of so little reason, one could not restrain himself, at the sight of them, from thanking God for having created them.” (17th century from Antonio de Morga’s <i>History of the Philippine Islands</i>)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">We come in boats<br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Or we come swimming<br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">We come in boats<br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Or we come swimming<br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">We come in boats<br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Or we come swimming </span><i><span lang="DA" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: DA;">bangka</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, take me home</span></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">We were born with fins we come swimming<br />We were born with gills we come swimming<br /></span><i><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Ipinanganak namin</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">sa
ilalalim ng dagat<br /></span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><i><span lang="DA" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: DA;">bangka</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, take me home</span></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Nacimos</span><span lang="ES-TRAD"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> con aletas nadando<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Nacimos</span><span lang="ES-TRAD"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> con branquias nadando<br /></span></span><i><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Ipinanganak namin sa ilalim ng dagat<br /></span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><i><span lang="DA" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: DA;">bangka</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, take me home</span></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">Venimos
en botes<br /></span></i><i><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: PT;">O nadando<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">Venimos
en barcos<br /></span></i><i><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: PT;">O nadando<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">En
nuestros cuerpos<br /></span></i><i><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: PT;">Nadando</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><i><span lang="DA" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: DA;">bangka</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, take me home</span></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">Venimos
en botes<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">Y
viviendo<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">Venimos
en barcos<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">Y
viviendo<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">En
nuestros cuerpos<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">Viviendo</span></i></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">bangka, balikan tayo<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">balikan
tayo al mar profundo<br /></span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></i><i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">regresemos
al mar<br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Sa ilalim ng dagat</span></i></p>
<p class="Default" style="line-height: 12.95pt; tab-stops: 206.85pt;"><i><span lang="DA" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: DA;">bangka</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">, take me home<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/973868071&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/we-come-swimming-by-aimee-suzara" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title=""We come swimming" by Aimee Suzara">"We come swimming" by Aimee Suzara</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Listen as Aimee Suzara reads "</span><span style="color: #660000;"><b><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/we-come-swimming-by-aimee-suzara">We come swimming</a></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">."</span></div></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-26173208314172811342020-11-12T16:34:00.002-05:002020-11-12T16:34:46.237-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Jen Karetnick<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>23andMe Says My Body Is a Sanctuary City</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">By </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Jen Karetnick</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for the Basque and the Romani</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;">for Ötzi the Iceman, chipped out of the Alps</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;">for 1,600,000 Ashkenazi Jews, one finger on the founding hand, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">descendants from the 6,000,000, strained out like tea leaves</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for the 19 percent of Ashkenazi with trace elements from Poland</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for those who tunneled from Poland to Austria, rabbits barely ahead</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">of dachshunds</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for my great-grandmother who drove her children to the coast in </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">a covered wagon</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for her husband’s mother, who gave her offspring in the Ukraine </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">to a woman with another name</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for those more likely to birth babies with hair as fine as sand, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">covering the fontanel’s potential sinkhole</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for those more likely to sneeze come the spike of light—but </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">HaWaYaH (yehi ‘or)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for those more able to detect the presence of asparagus, processed in</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">urine or semen after steaming under kosher salt on a Friday night when the sun covers its head</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">for those whose tastes divide along the roots of the bitter</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">whose preferences for salty and sweet are as even as </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">the temperament of dust sifting down from the most </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">ancient bricks in the wall</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">whose earwax is mud</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">whose ring fingers are longer than subversive curses</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">whose dimples are flattened bullets shot into ghetto walls</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">who have little opportunity for the slug of a single eyebrow </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">and only the third of a chance at widows’ peaks</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">who have better prospects at being made into widows on refugee </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">boats that have been returned to the wholesale of war, from</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">the cyclic pitch of death flights, in the in-flux policies in </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">detention rooms at airports, where green cards change to red</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;">who have the option of variant after variant after variant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">16234 of them located on mtDNA k1a1b1a, a haplogroup</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;">no longer featured in the skin tone of the face or differentiated in a city of dry-footed, sun-shaded exilios<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;">who are detected more and more often in these rebel, migrant genes</span></div>
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<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/866861113&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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<a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/jen-karetnick-23andme-says-my-body-is-a-sanctuary-city-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Jen Karetnick 23andMe Says My Body Is A Sanctuary City Audio">Jen Karetnick 23andMe Says My Body Is A Sanctuary City Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Jen Karetnick reads "<b> <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/jen-karetnick-23andme-says-my-body-is-a-sanctuary-city-audio" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>23andMe Says My Body Is a Sanctuary City</b></span></a>.</b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">"</span></div>
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Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-688793647220742332020-11-12T16:31:00.001-05:002020-11-12T16:31:04.650-05:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Janlori Goldman<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s560/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/w320-h180/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><span lang="EN" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="color: #888888; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><b>Where Should the Birds Fly After the Last Sky?</b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">By Janlori Goldman</span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><i><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Mahmoud Darwish, 1941-2008</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">On the road to Nablus I think of you,<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>your wrecked heart blooming</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">on rocky hills, a horse’s shadow alone<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>in a field. Anemones spread</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">in resolute red— in warning or welcome<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>it’s too early to say.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">A candy store pocked with bullet holes<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>churns with cement mixers,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">makeshift machines coating almonds<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>in sweet liquid. The shopkeeper says,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>Taste this after all you see</i>. In a season<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>of unripe things, I bite into green almonds,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">taxi to the mountain top to watch the village<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>long in the valley. Gusts of pigeons</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">blow against stone— all I have been taught<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>smacks against the rockface.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">As a child in synagogue I fit a quarter<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>into a cardboard slot to </span><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">plant a tree</i></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>in Israel</i>, millions of coins<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>now tangled roots reaching</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">for each other in the underworld<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>that knows nothing of walls.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/927744430&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe></span></p><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/janlori-goldman-where-should-the-birds-fly-after-the-last-skyaudio-janlori-goldman" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Janlori Goldman - Where Should The Birds Fly After The Last Sky.audio - Janlori Goldman">Janlori Goldman - Where Should The Birds Fly After The Last Sky.audio - Janlori Goldman</a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Listen as Janlori Goldman reads "</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><b><span style="color: #660000;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/janlori-goldman-where-should-the-birds-fly-after-the-last-skyaudio-janlori-goldman" target="_blank">Where Should the Birds Fly After the Last Sky?</a></span></b>"</span><p></p>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-63816685529492729022020-10-15T16:52:00.004-04:002020-10-15T16:52:43.617-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Lynne McEniry<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Four in the morning and I'm</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Lynne McEniry</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">in the bathroom worrying about a friend<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">with Covid and for distraction worming my way <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">through a FB thread of a person I don’t know who<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">liked a comment I made on the post of someone<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">I only know on social media because I made<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">myself brave enough to reach out and ask<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">her to be my friend anyway <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">and I’m reading the posts of this friend <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">I barely know to try to stop worrying <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">about the sick friend I know well and I’m clicking<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">on links of photos where this strange friend had dinner<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">last night and of the place her sister works and<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">the photos of her last vacation when I remember<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">the encyclopedia set my dad brought home one<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">night when someone had no cash to pay him<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">for painting their living room and he was damn<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">well pissed because he had planned to buy<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">a bag of groceries with food different from <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">the cereal and powdered milk we’d been <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">eating all week but as he turned to pick a <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">volume up to probably crash it to the floor<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">he caught me flipping through one and pausing <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">on a black and white of <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">a sequoia with a man and a VW bug posed<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">in front of it for perspective <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">and he was reminded in in my wide <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">brown eyes, the innocent O of my lips <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">that there was more than one way<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">to cure hunger and here on this<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">toilet at four in the morning I’m <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">reminded there’s more than one way<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">to lose friends and gain friends<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">more than one way to worry more than one way<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">that someone hungry can turn to past <o:p></o:p></span></p><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">volumes for answers for healing</span><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/900677095&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/lynne-mceniry-four-in-the-morning-and-im-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Lynne McEniry Four in the morning and I'm Audio">Lynne McEniry Four in the morning and I'm Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Lynne McEniry reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/lynne-mceniry-four-in-the-morning-and-im-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Four in the morning and I'm</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-15230213861345709182020-10-15T16:51:00.001-04:002020-10-15T16:51:52.185-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – M.F. Simone Roberts<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Dair & Cré-umha / Oak & Bronze*</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By M.F. Simone Roberts</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The plain truth is my shoulders<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">are almost numb with tension,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">oakey, not in a whiskey way, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">but more the barrel holding, holding.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">What I can’t do is hold my father<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">back from his ingrained pride,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">gathering unmasked with friends<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">unprotected. While they love<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">my father, this malady is a <i>mebd</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Did they hug hello?</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Did the couple from the condo</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">building -- all those public</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">surfaces -- wash the hands</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">that held one curve of a bowl</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">as my father the other? </span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">This pandemic is a context</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">masked in granular confusion:</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">we’ve all been tested, it’s </span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">safe to share <i>féasta</i>, gather in </span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">close for comfort, right?</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Which headline? What day?</span></p></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">My father’s hugs are healing, even<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">over video chat, solid as an oak, as heavy, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">completely surrounding. My six oaks, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">though they whisper their waking each<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Imbloc, can’t hold me. One, a red oak, fell<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">from wind just at Beltane. Our ancestors stilled<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><i>uicsce beatha</i> from wheat, rye, barley, into oak <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">barrels and made them bronze. Whiskey was a ward, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><i>sláinte</i>, water of life, then illness, eventually a weapon,<br />a bright and murderous alloy.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Comorbidities include: heart conditions. </span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">His heart beat a relaxed 70 in the ventricles,</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">but a panicked 140 in the atria. Like most</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">hearts now, his can’t calibrate emotion.</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">He texted a pic of his latest last-whiskey </span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">after the latest defibulation. </span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Comorbidities include: cancer. Radiation </span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">starts Monday. What day will his </span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">immune system confuse erythrocyte</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">for corona and then clot? He’s so slow</span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">to humble, to just hold back a little.</span></p></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">People of oak and bronze are dare and careless. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">We see a fetch before a loved one falls.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">The luck, the bounce back, the devil may care.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">The speeds my parents drove, the races home from the bar,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">the way my mother shone a Brigit victorious, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">bronze with sun-gleam even past my young bedtime. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">My shoulders kenning this tension,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">anticipating mourning, as if steaming over a fire<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">of ambient grief and soon cured, bound <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">round with metal, holding, holding, reticent, drained<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">and refilled, cooping up my breath.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Maybe that’s what barrels are,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">just bounce and roll,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">smash and spirit.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></p><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><i>*From Irish Gaelic -- Dair : </i>oak<i>, Cré-umha : </i>bronze<i>, mebd : </i>confusion/war goddess<i>, féasta : </i>feast<i>, uicsce beatha : </i>whiskey/water of life<i>, sláinte : </i>health<i>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><i><br /></i></span></div><iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/900661285&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/simone-roberts-dair-cre-umha-oak-bronze-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Simone Roberts Dair & Cré-umha Oak & Bronze Audio">Simone Roberts Dair & Cré-umha Oak & Bronze Audio</a></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Listen as M.F. Simone Roberts reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/simone-roberts-dair-cre-umha-oak-bronze-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Dair & Cré-umha / Oak & Bronze</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">."</span></span>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-57780670148177798902020-10-15T16:50:00.000-04:002020-10-15T16:50:29.656-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Sunu Chandy<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>First Quarantine Poem</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Sunu Chandy</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>1. How to Wash Your Hands</i></span></p></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">First, find a song. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Then, double-check, how many seconds to scrub. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Don’t forget underneath your fingernails. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Don’t forget your wrists. Include your palms <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">and each finger, one by one. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Remember integrity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after the morning walk. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you pick up the mail. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you wash the produce. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you wash the milk carton. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you use the bathroom. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you get the week’s piano sheet <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">music printed from the leasing office. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you take out the recycling. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you make lunch for the family. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you retrieve the package from the lockers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you return from the building’s laundry room. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat before you start making dinner. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Remember integrity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Remember what is at stake. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after the morning walk. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>2. How to Avoid that Place called Panic </i></span></p></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">First, find a song. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The song is entitled: We have survived hard things before. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The song is sub-titled: So many are suffering, and in worse ways. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The chorus reminds you there is help out there, if it comes to that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The chorus reminds you, you can still be <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">helpful to others, even when you are worried. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Remember integrity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after the morning walk. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat before you start the day’s work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you teach your daughter the idea of decimals. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after your spouse’s salary is cut <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to a fraction. Repeat after you avoid your parents’ calls that week. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you teach your daughter about the Battle <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">of Bunker Hill. And the Revolutionary, War. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after you learn that your friend <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">may be laid off. Repeat after your office issues fact <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">sheets on how this all impacts on women so much <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">more. Repeat because it’s not an anecdote. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat because it’s not anecdotal. Repeat because <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">it’s not hypothetical. Repeat after you press, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">okay, yes, I am still watching. It is 1a.m. I am still <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">watching. Repeat when the four health aids’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">livelihoods are in our hands. Repeat when our own </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">health feels in the balance. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Remember integrity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Remember what is at stake. <o:p></o:p></span></p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Repeat after the morning walk.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/900653020&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/sunu-chandy-first-quarantine-poem-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Sunu Chandy First Quarantine Poem Audio">Sunu Chandy First Quarantine Poem Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Sunu Chandy reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/sunu-chandy-first-quarantine-poem-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>First Quarantine Poem</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-43402928711216410582020-10-15T16:49:00.000-04:002020-10-15T16:48:59.968-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – JP Howard<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>If This is my Last poem</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By JP Howard</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If this is my last poem, let it be love<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Let it be forgiveness and hallelujah and holy ghost and hell yeah <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">wrapped in sparkling yarn<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If this is my last poem, let it be a praise poem<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fill it with hope and joy and let it scream so fucking loud<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">that everybody in earshot will clap, clap clap, clap clap clap<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If this is my last poem, stomp for the sound of my voice<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Let this breath, this life, these full lips,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">exhale <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If this is my last poem, hold it gently in your hands<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hand it around, grab hands y’all, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fold it into an origami blue jay and let her fly away<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If this is my last poem, forgive it for loving too hard,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">or not loving hard enough, or for wanting to be loved<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">more than it would admit<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If this is my last poem, hold a mirror up to it,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">say look how beautiful you are,<o:p></o:p></span></p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">say, remember your reflection</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/900667246&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/jp-howard-if-this-is-my-last-poem-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="JP Howard If this is my last poem Audio">JP Howard If this is my last poem Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as JP Howard reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/jp-howard-if-this-is-my-last-poem-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>If This is my Last poem</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-6324042021935635942020-10-15T16:47:00.002-04:002020-10-15T16:47:28.504-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Hari Alluri<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Ingat: As I Come Back</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Hari Alluri</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Taking off my outside clothes <br />in the doorway is a kind of prayer. I strip <br /><br />and I am asking for the safety of those <br />I live with. I had to go out. Yes, <br /><br />when it was groceries and soap. Yes, too, <br />for addiction. I still smoke. I got the message <br /><br />when my boy in England enumerated for us <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">how and why we need to get ready. Also to stop sharing <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the memes giving us levity with our solitude. Sorry, brother. I share <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">what’s funny anyway. Our desperation belongs <br /><br />everywhere right now. Doors or no, someone is entering <br />a space they share with people they love <br /><br />or tolerate. Or like or just help out or want to touch or wish they could get <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">away from. The door, barely closed and I’m praying <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">in my socks. May I not have brought <br />what we’re all afraid of catching <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the way I bring how thin <br />my threads already are. Shouting <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">before I left the house carries <br />an older poison. I act like I can leave it <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">on the shut side of a door. I roll <br />my outside clothes into a plastic bag.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/900673222&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" title="Split This Rock" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/hari-alluri-ingat-as-i-come-back-audio" title="Hari Alluri Ingat: As I Come Back Audio" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Hari Alluri Ingat: As I Come Back Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Hari Alluri reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/hari-alluri-ingat-as-i-come-back-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Ingat: As I Come Back</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">."</span>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-4940241039598369412020-09-17T16:49:00.003-04:002020-09-17T16:49:18.174-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Naomi Ortiz<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Content Notice: Migration, border crossing, PTSD, intergenerational/inherited trauma, state violence</i><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Seeker in the Borderlands</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Naomi Ortiz</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">1.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Seeker, enter softly. Great fear lives here. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Enter only with what you must take. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Be ready to separate from it all - even your child,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> your child, your heart, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> your child, your heart, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> your child, your heart, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> your child, your heart</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">My father still will not talk about</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">crossing. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">His story always starts in the cotton fields of Texas.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">His story always starts with survival,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the ways he was useful. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">In his history of self, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">there is before crossing, and there is after.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">In between </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">is a trauma that breath is not strong enough</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to carry past lips, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to breathe out into sunshine.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve learned there is no good time to ask. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The rigidity of his inner strength, his stubborn streak, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">reminds me </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">that sometimes the body can endure what the soul cannot speak of. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I wonder if his journey started now, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">if in addition to all that is unnamed,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">had been separated from his mother, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the only family who held his hand</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">in this new place, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">would his story still be one of survival?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If he was placed stagnant and alone </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">in a crowd of children,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">would his blood have forgotten how to move?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Would his child mind conformed to the weight of hate? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Folded to self-protect, to accept -</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">how to live in a cage?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">What will be the stories of these fathers?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">2.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">In my family’s borderlands, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">tears flood the crevices of canyons eroded by bulldozers and Border Patrol tires.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The inter-generational devotion to duality is being torn away, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">replaced by a 30-foot metal monument to a false sense of security.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Plants, animals, people all try to survive without movement. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Without movement, one can never belong. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.12px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Here.</span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.12px;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/893119705&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: interstate, "lucida grande", "lucida sans unicode", "lucida sans", garuda, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/naomi-ortiz-seeker-in-the-borderlands-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Naomi Ortiz Seeker in the Borderlands Audio">Naomi Ortiz Seeker in the Borderlands Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Naomi Ortiz reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/naomi-ortiz-seeker-in-the-borderlands-audio" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Seeker in the Borderlands</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">."</span></span></span></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-42351202700097446042020-09-17T16:48:00.006-04:002020-09-17T16:48:44.102-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Naazneen Diwan<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Make a Season of Me</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Naazneen Diwan</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal">on some days I go for walks</div><div class="MsoNormal">completely inverted </div><div class="MsoNormal">my insides untucked</div><div class="MsoNormal">no protection. </div><div class="MsoNormal">and it suits me </div><div class="MsoNormal">my heart no longer</div><div class="MsoNormal">behind ribs but </div><div class="MsoNormal">the breast of a robin</div><div class="MsoNormal">calling its love home. </div><div class="MsoNormal">my breath</div><div class="MsoNormal">no longer a wheeze </div><div class="MsoNormal">caught </div><div class="MsoNormal">between </div><div class="MsoNormal">narrow strictures</div><div class="MsoNormal">but a dance</div><div class="MsoNormal">that frees </div><div class="MsoNormal">magnolia petals and prisoners </div><div class="MsoNormal">into a pond.</div><div class="MsoNormal">and I pull</div><div class="MsoNormal">yards off myself</div><div class="MsoNormal">generously</div><div class="MsoNormal">eagerly</div><div class="MsoNormal">until</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am the path </div><div class="MsoNormal">I walk on</div><div class="MsoNormal">and I match </div><div class="MsoNormal">the laziness of the river. </div><div class="MsoNormal">I loosen </div><div class="MsoNormal">what’s been </div><div class="MsoNormal">carved into me </div><div class="MsoNormal">in ribbons of bark </div><div class="MsoNormal">let the raw </div><div class="MsoNormal">materials of my hurt </div><div class="MsoNormal">be foraged </div><div class="MsoNormal">to build a nest </div><div class="MsoNormal">high </div><div class="MsoNormal">in a branch. </div><div class="MsoNormal">a perfect place </div><div class="MsoNormal">to sing</div><div class="MsoNormal">of coming</div><div class="MsoNormal">undone.</div><div><br /></div><div>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/893162227&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: interstate, "lucida grande", "lucida sans unicode", "lucida sans", garuda, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/naazneen-diwan-make-a-season-of-me-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Naazneen Diwan Make A Season Of Me Audio">Naazneen Diwan Make A Season Of Me Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Naazneen Diwan reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/naazneen-diwan-make-a-season-of-me-audio" style="font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Make a Season of Me</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span></div></span></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-51236447974143094172020-09-17T16:48:00.002-04:002020-09-17T16:48:13.478-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Liza Sparks<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>There is a Mountain Stream at my Door</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Liza Sparks</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the babble and meandering here to remind me</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to keep on moving they enter my apartment</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">they tell me <i>the most important things </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>are the living things</i> they water all of my plants</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the spider plant I have been neglecting </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">mountain stream hugs my cat</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">apologizes remembering cats</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">do not like being in water</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">invites the dogs to take a drink</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">giggles and laughs in that mountain stream way</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">all sparkle <i>I want to tell you</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">says mountain stream <i>about seasons</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>about cycles about winter about rest</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>about the cold and the freeze</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>about life about death</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>about continuing about my friends</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>about salmon and stone </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>I want to tell you about even the smallest</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>creatures I want to tell you about clouds</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>tell you about mirrors and reflections</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>tell you…remind you to drink water</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>and also that it is okay to cry</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>make room</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">make room</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I want to tell you about the leaves that fall </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">from the trees dance in the water </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I want to tell you about the roots that feed </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">that drink what feeds you what nourishes you </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">can you send your roots to those places </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I am here to remind you </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">t</i><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">hat these are places you have already been </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">already known </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">mountain stream smiles </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">and flows through the house </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">strums the guitar </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">plucks the strings on the viola </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">remember</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> they sing </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">that song in your heart </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">it is still there </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">even in the rain </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">mountain stream </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">leaves as quickly as they arrived </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">babbling all the way down </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the stairs of the apartment </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">complex</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/893138437&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe></p><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: interstate, "lucida grande", "lucida sans unicode", "lucida sans", garuda, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/liza-sparks-there-is-a-mountain-stream-at-my-door-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Liza Sparks There is a Mountain Stream at my Door Audio">Liza Sparks There is a Mountain Stream at my Door Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Liza Sparks reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/lauren-mazzoleni-within-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>There is a Mountain Stream at my Door</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span><p></p></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-76094850818026634042020-09-17T16:47:00.005-04:002020-09-17T16:47:43.418-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Mary Donovan<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>it didn't happen</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Mary Donovan</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">imagined room full of ants.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">must-be decay. they are</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">crawling through my</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">journals. devouring my</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">sheets. bleeding ink of</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">less lost-love than mis-</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">adventure. in other words,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">youth. they are feeding</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">on my stories.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">perhaps moths too. mice.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">crowning themselves</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">with old loved t-shirt</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">from my mother, with</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">manatees, environmental</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">slogan – it was the 70s.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the ants becoming political.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">cracking my mirror and</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">arming themselves with</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the shards. fashioning </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">armor from prints on </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the wall. philosophizing</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">at my desk. reading</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bolaño in my bed. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">laying eggs in </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">dying cacti.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">when they hatch</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">will I be back?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">with vinegar &</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">mint oil & other</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">tentative solutions?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">maybe moved to </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">new country with</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">new moons with</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">more words in</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">new journals.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">they smoke, fog</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">up my windows. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">dance to neighbors</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">reggaeton. & opera.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">they come by the thousands.</span></p></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><br />
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/893112043&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" title="Split This Rock" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/mary-donovan-it-didnt-happen-audio" title="Mary Donovan it didn’t happen Audio" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Mary Donovan it didn’t happen Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Mary Donovan reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/mary-donovan-it-didnt-happen-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>it didn't happen</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-418504678619067842020-09-17T16:47:00.001-04:002020-09-17T16:47:11.121-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Shades of Solace</b></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson</span><br /><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>for “After the Storm” by Kadir Nelson</i><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The cyan blue patch</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">centered in the background</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">emerges from two clouds</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">one grayish purple</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the other, gray tinged with orange,</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">and heralds the promise of a post-coronavirus world</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">-a brighter day ahead.<o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The image of the hugging</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">and hand-clasping people</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">still as starfish, with raised chins </span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">and raised eyes trained toward the light</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">speaks to their once-again connectedness </span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">and to the collective strengths of humankind</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">as they dare to stare straight ahead </span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">at a kinder, more compassionate future.<o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Just outside the frame</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">a golden eagle resides</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">inside the artist's visionary palette.</span><br /><br />
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/893097589&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" title="Split This Rock" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/johnnierenee-nia-nelson-shades-of-solace-audio" title="JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson Shades Of Solace Audio" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson Shades Of Solace Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/johnnierenee-nia-nelson-shades-of-solace-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Shades of Solace</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">."</span> </div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-87492202801074547622020-09-17T16:46:00.002-04:002020-09-17T16:46:29.579-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Sprout Foster-Goodrich<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Content Notice: Violence against trans people, references to self-harm </i><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Trans, As In, “Transcendent”</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sprout Foster-Goodrich</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>In memory of the 11 transgender and gender-nonconforming people killed as of May, 2020.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">When I found out I was supposed to be a girl:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Know that</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>we never needed this body</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">In Mrs. Morgan’s second grade class,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I took an eraser to my forearm: skin rolled</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">back into dull gray ash, a streak</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">of pink beaconed</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I peeled the rough-house from my muscles,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>If we are reduced to ghosts</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>shuffled around courtrooms</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Extended raw vessels like flower stems</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">into the boys’ hardening hands</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>If the shards of our shells</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>are rearranged into grenades</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I tossed my vodka-marinated meat</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">into sweaty basement EDM parties, my squat-</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">tailored ass scooping pink bits</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">off the floor into the myriad mouths</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">of hydra men</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>and then returned to us</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I lured boys back</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">into my creaky bed, crammed in a closet</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Asked them to fuck my skeleton clean</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">of any scraps that survived the night’s teeth</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>We never even needed this body</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">So, as you can see,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">No one can erase me</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">better than me </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>We are clouds</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>that cannot be ripped down from heaven</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/893084512&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: interstate, "lucida grande", "lucida sans unicode", "lucida sans", garuda, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/sprout-foster-goodrich-trans-as-in-transcendent-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Sprout Foster-Goodrich Trans, As In "Transcendent" Audio">Sprout Foster-Goodrich Trans, As In "Transcendent" Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Listen as Sprout Foster-Goodrich reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/sprout-foster-goodrich-trans-as-in-transcendent-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Trans, As In, 'Transcendent.'</b></span></a><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">" </span></div></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-36043567420604067142020-09-03T15:56:00.002-04:002020-09-03T15:56:12.085-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Kim Roberts<div style="margin: 10pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpkgT1wv_4pUMITDCOIgiRz2RbG7VQ2WyQYswQiLiRS_Nkn5i45AJvv_Y8GiMQjwcJaKWCURQNjrGoA4LhJ8sUspokdHSFTWc1zDSZBUf6Fw_BR1U88xtDmc3W3DpfPTXr-oXapr5V_k/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">***</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Order <i>Ephemeropta</i>, The Mayfly Family</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Kim Roberts</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Each
Spring coffin flies,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">ephemera
guttulata</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
emerge from the water<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">in
tangled skeins, in hordes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">They
mature in a matter of hours.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At
dusk they mate in midair,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">then
in vast regiments<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">attack
light: street lights, lamps<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">seen
through glass panes. Underneath<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">the
yellow porch light of the lake house,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">the
bodies pile up a foot deep.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thoreau
wrote, <i>Am I not partly leaves<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">and
vegetable mould myself?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Life
spends itself so cheaply.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
pale amber wings, veined<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">with
these fragile runes, lap<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">against
one another like loose shingles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the morning, gathered in my dustpan,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">death
weighs almost nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/830469835&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "interstate" , "lucida grande" , "lucida sans unicode" , "lucida sans" , "garuda" , "verdana" , "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;">
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/kim-roberts-order-ephemeropta-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Kim Roberts Order Ephemeropta Audio">Kim Roberts Order Ephemeropta Audio</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">Listen as Kim Roberts reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/kim-roberts-order-ephemeropta-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Order <i>Ephemeropta</i></b></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">."
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Published in </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The Southern Review, Spring 2019</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p>
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Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-51078743562524936992020-09-03T15:55:00.005-04:002020-09-03T15:55:39.555-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Rita Pellegrini<p><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXddxqM69_H2lf3Aa3uGBmdv_oyfnjj9wFjYfv-lMdcJlnWw6qClRwKjkMoY9C-lft__v3kIKORjH-OIk5YrdoZvBVELu_6pGkPRPg6Se08mC8ucztx5IeUOm1WvRzz7RyIBrpk9ybCUo/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXddxqM69_H2lf3Aa3uGBmdv_oyfnjj9wFjYfv-lMdcJlnWw6qClRwKjkMoY9C-lft__v3kIKORjH-OIk5YrdoZvBVELu_6pGkPRPg6Se08mC8ucztx5IeUOm1WvRzz7RyIBrpk9ybCUo/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">***</span></b><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Hit and Run<o:p></o:p></span></b><br /><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">By Rita Pellegrini</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal">Once you tried making yours the soil </div><div class="MsoNormal">we were born into.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To plant plastic red flowers </div><div class="MsoNormal">where our yellow trumpet trees bloomed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">You took our books, filled them</div><div class="MsoNormal">with your vernacular of fear. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">You changed the syntax</div><div class="MsoNormal">of our present. Our future,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">captured in a souvenir snowglobe</div><div class="MsoNormal">you used as a paperweight.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">One day, you got tired of weeding our hope </div><div class="MsoNormal">that grew under each moon.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So you went back home to tend</div><div class="MsoNormal">to the rhododendrons in your manicured lawn.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Purple hydrangeas you cut to fit perfectly</div><div class="MsoNormal">in the wide-mouth vase on your dining room table.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As for us, we became archeologists</div><div class="MsoNormal">of dreams. Digging bones </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">from stone walls.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/884690206&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: interstate, "lucida grande", "lucida sans unicode", "lucida sans", garuda, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/rita-pellegrini-hit-and-run-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Rita Pellegrini Hit And Run Audio">Rita Pellegrini Hit And Run Audio</a></div>
<span lang="EN" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">L</span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">isten as Rita Pellegrini reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/rita-pellegrini-hit-and-run-audio" style="font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Hit and Run</b></span></a><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span></div></span></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-61656705346543501442020-09-03T15:55:00.001-04:002020-09-03T15:55:12.986-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Leona Sevick<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXddxqM69_H2lf3Aa3uGBmdv_oyfnjj9wFjYfv-lMdcJlnWw6qClRwKjkMoY9C-lft__v3kIKORjH-OIk5YrdoZvBVELu_6pGkPRPg6Se08mC8ucztx5IeUOm1WvRzz7RyIBrpk9ybCUo/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXddxqM69_H2lf3Aa3uGBmdv_oyfnjj9wFjYfv-lMdcJlnWw6qClRwKjkMoY9C-lft__v3kIKORjH-OIk5YrdoZvBVELu_6pGkPRPg6Se08mC8ucztx5IeUOm1WvRzz7RyIBrpk9ybCUo/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.</span></div><div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 18.4px;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><br /></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">***</span></b><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cheomseongdae</span></b><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Leona Sevick</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>“Star Gazing Platform,” 7th century Korea, Silla Dynasty</i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I think of her leaning over ink-stained scrolls,</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">closely examining lines that would become</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the cut granite fitted together just so, </span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">one for each day of the lunar calendar. </span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Holding back the long, silk sleeves of her <i>hanbok</i>,</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">she lowers her face to the paper, pictures</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">night growing dark inside the square aperture</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">through which everyone, even peasants, will pass.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Inside, they will turn hopeful gazes upward</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to the top of the tower, quietly sense</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the <i>hanja</i> whispering “well” to the bright stars.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now they’ll believe the rains and strong sun will come.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is the second year of Queen Seondeok’s </span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">reign, and her people find themselves in the skilled</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">hands of a benevolent woman ruler.</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">They would have pitied us here in America.</span><br /><br />
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/884656771&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: interstate, "lucida grande", "lucida sans unicode", "lucida sans", garuda, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/leona-sevick-cheomseongdae-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Leona Sevick Cheomseongdae Audio">Leona Sevick Cheomseongdae Audio</a></div><span lang="EN" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 18.4px;">L</span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">isten as Leona Sevick reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/leona-sevick-cheomseongdae-audio" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Cheomseongdae</b></span></a><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">."</span></div></span></div></div>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952699492337657881.post-83321572434742194982020-09-03T15:54:00.005-04:002020-09-03T15:54:41.859-04:00Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – adrienne danyelle oliver<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ― Gwendolyn Brooks </span><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXddxqM69_H2lf3Aa3uGBmdv_oyfnjj9wFjYfv-lMdcJlnWw6qClRwKjkMoY9C-lft__v3kIKORjH-OIk5YrdoZvBVELu_6pGkPRPg6Se08mC8ucztx5IeUOm1WvRzz7RyIBrpk9ybCUo/s1600/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Split This Rock Virtual Open Mic announcement includes a black background with red Split This Rock logo, text that reads "Virtual Open Mic," and an illustration of a hanging lamp sending out rays of light over a laptop." border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXddxqM69_H2lf3Aa3uGBmdv_oyfnjj9wFjYfv-lMdcJlnWw6qClRwKjkMoY9C-lft__v3kIKORjH-OIk5YrdoZvBVELu_6pGkPRPg6Se08mC8ucztx5IeUOm1WvRzz7RyIBrpk9ybCUo/s320/Virtual+Open+Mic+Blog+Banner.png" title="" width="320" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">“we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">To read all of these poems, visit </span><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/virtual-open-mic-poems-of-persistence-shelter/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>Split This Rock’s website</b></span></a><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">***</span></b><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">:food stamp line</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">adrienne danyelle oliver</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-ed781809-7fff-49a3-24ed-03f57ad06280"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;"><b>HEART</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> breaks in this place. I wait in line where the footprints tell me</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">exactly six feet behind the person in front of me</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I can’t take my eyes off the cheap suit that greets me</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I knows good suits</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">not because I can afford them but because I used to work</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">for folks who could</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cheap suit gives me paper, pen </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">a clipboard to press on</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to make sure the social goes through</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">white, pink, and yellow</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Waiting for my number</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to be called</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I read a book</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">(ideas between shiny covers</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">holding pages bound by thread and industrial glue) </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">supposedly to save my life</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I sit here</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">because Words cannot feed me as much as chewing</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Good intentions and ideas cannot comfort me as much as</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">fullness in my belly</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">when my number is called</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">a strained smile greets me</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I wonder what it feels like to be graced with a living smile--</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">a parting of lips and a dancing of teeth--rather than this ghost of one</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">strained smile leads me to a cubicle</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">does not ask about my day</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">make small talk about the weather</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I walk behind her in silence</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">comforted(?) by the assumption that she is doing fine. Like I am</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">really not. Both our bodies occupying the space </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">of 99%. That good government salary barely enough</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">to pay her rent </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We both walked into this building</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">carrying a weighted breath </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/884670289&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe></p><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: interstate, "lucida grande", "lucida sans unicode", "lucida sans", garuda, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Split This Rock">Split This Rock</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/adrienne-danyelle-oliver-food-stamp-line-audio" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="adrienne danyelle oliver :food stamp line Audio">adrienne danyelle oliver :food stamp line Audio</a></div>
<span lang="EN" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">L</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">isten as adrienne danyelle oliver reads "</span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-269885436/adrienne-danyelle-oliver-food-stamp-line-audio" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>:food stamp line</b></span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span><p></p></span>Blog This Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07681722304978802137noreply@blogger.com0