Call for Poems that Speak Against Violence and for Embrace

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black

spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—

I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,

brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,

born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed

to never let belong, & so, we are here today—

the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.

Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?

       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass

Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities:

• Poems will be accepted until July 28, 2016. 
• Send us your poems in response to this violent summer, and we will publish them on Split This Rock’s blog, Blog This Rock (blogthisrock.blogspot.com), to create a Virtual Open Mic. We welcome poems new and old, whether previously published or not. (Please include credit information for previously published work.) 
• Thematically we are wide open: resistance, mourning, rage, celebration, love. We are especially open to poems focused on how we build again, how we heal, the places of light shining through the pain. 
• Unfortunately, Split This Rock's blog is not compatible with poems with complex formatting. Should we find that your poem can not be properly we will be in touch to request a different poem.
• Send the poem(s) as email attachments (.doc or .docx only) with the subject line “A Call in Response to Violence” to info@splitthisrock.org. Include the poem name and your name in the document title.
• Please include the poem's title and your full contact information in the body of the email. 
• We invite one poem per person. 
• From the open mic collection, we may occasionally choose poems to run as Poem of the Week in the weeks ahead. We will contact you directly if we decide to use your poem for Poem of the Week. 

After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association.

Split This Rock is also accepting poems for its 10th Annual Poetry Contest until November 1, 2016. For submissions guidelines, visit Split This Rock's website or Submittable.

Show your support for the free voice of Artists

Please check out this Washington Post article about the removal of an installation from a National Portrait Gallery exhibit and comment with your opinions about the negative effects of censorship on art.

Dancing to the New Music: Upcoming Article in The Nation

The following is an excerpt of an upcoming article by E. Ethelbert Miller in The Nation. The full preview of the article, which will appear in the March 15 edition, is available here.

The first Split This Rock Poetry Festival was held in 2008. I was a participant, along with poets like Martín Espada and Naomi Shihab Nye. I consider us to be believers in the expression of speaking truth to power. On the last day of the festival a number of writers walked down to the White House to protest the war in Iraq. I'm certain that poets visiting Washington in March will have something to say about the foreign policy of the Obama administration and the war in Afghanistan. Our poems--and yes, our chants--always seem to be on call. Once again, our New Year's resolutions contained prayers for peace. The year 2010 represents not just the start of a new year but also the beginning of a new decade. Might it be a prelude to the "terrible teens" of this century? If so, what might poets and writers be doing? What do the times demand?

Support Arts Funding in the District

Dear Friends,

The DC Advocates for the Arts are fighting against the cuts in the local arts budget. Please sign the petition letter below, and ask your networks - artists and arts organization folk - to sign on. Even if you are not tagged in this note, please add your name, affiliation, and the ward(s) in which you work as a comment here [note - this is a Facebook petition - if you comment on Blog This Rock, we will forward to DC Advocates to the Arts] to add your name to this petition. The deadline for signatures is Thursday at 2pm. This is a NOW do this NOW kind of ask.

Sincerely,

Rob Bettmann
--------------------


To: The Honorable Chairman Vincent C. Gray and the members of the District of Columbia Council
From: The DC Advocates for the Arts
Date: July 25, 2009

As has been documented by local and national media, the arts community is in crisis. Now is not the time to cut arts funding. To do so would undermine all of the investments that have been made building the local arts economy over the last thirty years.

The draft FY 10 budget cuts arts funding for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities by 37%, at the same time that private donations and foundation giving are down. Restoring funding to FY 2009 levels would give the arts community the time and confidence to leverage the city's support, and to continue serving the citizens of DC and the millions of visitors who come to the nation's capital each year. The additional money will have minimal impact on the overall budget, but it would provide great benefit to Washington's children and families, and our city's economy.

In FY 2009, the 14 million dollars allocated to the DC Commission supported arts education programming for thousands of DC school children, in every ward. That same investment contributed to city tax revenue by supporting the businesses of artists and arts organizations in every ward. The council would be wise to sustain its support of the arts reflective of the value that we provide on expenditure.

The city has invested heavily in the arts over the last thirty years, supporting programming and institutions. Now is not the time to undermine that progress. The creative economy can be part of the solution to the current economic and community crisis, and we ask you to: return funding to FY 2009 levels and to engage now with the DC Advocates for the Arts in a discussion to define priorities for arts spending for FY 2011. Now is not the time to slash investment that creates revenue, and supports jobs.

Sincerely,

Robert Bettmann (Founder, Day Eight, All wards; and Chair, DC Advocates for the Arts)
George Koch (Founder, Artomatic, All wards; Steering committee, DC Advocates for the Arts)
Ava Spece (Executive Director, DC Youth Orchestra, All Wards; Steering committee, DC Advocates for the Arts)
Varissa McMickens (Executive Director, DC Arts and Education Collaborative, All wards; Steering committee, DC Advocates for the Arts)
David Furchgott (President, International Arts and Artists, Ward 2 and All)

We will present this to the city council late Thursday afternoon. The more signatures the better. If you want to really help, write your own note, and tag a member of our steering committee in it so that we track signatures.

Important News from PEN

Dear PEN Members, Friends, and Supporters,

Next week, PEN will be in court challenging the U.S. government’s massive warrantless surveillance program. We believe our own communications, which include sensitive phone calls and e-mails with writers at risk around the world, are vulnerable under the program. And we know, based on the experiences of our colleagues in countries where governments had unchecked surveillance powers (including the United States as recently as the 1970s), that programs that allow governments to spy on their own citizens are often directed against writers and intellectuals, and that domestic surveillance in general poses a serious threat to the intellectual and creative freedoms of all citizens.

The hearing will take place next Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. in U.S. District Court in New York. It comes amid new revelations that the National Security Agency’s telephone and Internet surveillance program has been collecting the private communications of Americans in clear violation of longstanding legal limits on such domestic surveillance activity.

The NSA program was implemented in secret by the Bush Administration late in 2001 and its scope remains unknown, though concerns about its legality have surfaced repeatedly. In 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and other senior Justice Department officials refused to provide the legal certification necessary for reauthorization of the program, believing it was violating the rights of ordinary Americans.

Last year, in a tacit acknowledgment that elements of the program were illegal, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act, which granted immunity to telecommunications companies for participating in the NSA program and supposedly authorized its controversial aspects.

Next week’s hearing is the first in a suit challenging the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act; meanwhile, ongoing Congressional investigations have uncovered information suggesting that the NSA is scrutinizing e-mails on a scale that may even violate the FISA Amendments Act.The Bush Administration, Congress, and now the Obama Administration insist that the powers are necessary to protect the country from individuals and groups that threaten national security.

In fact, the laws that the NSA program and other post-9/11 surveillance powers circumvent were specifically crafted to ensure the U.S. government can spy on suspected terrorists and other foreign threats. What those laws also guaranteed, however, was that the constitutional right of American citizens and residents to be secure against unreasonable searches was protected. History has repeatedly shown how, without such protections, surveillance in the name of national security often extends to spying on peaceful political activists, journalists and writers, and other ordinary, law-abiding citizens. As part of our Campaign for Core Freedoms, PEN has been challenging a range of post-9/11 surveillance powers that threaten the right of our members, and all American citizens and residents, to read, write, and communicate freely, without fearing that our government is listening in or compiling private, First Amendment-protected information.

We have been fighting to restore confidentiality protections for bookstore and library records and curb the ability of the FBI to use National Security Letters to gain sensitive personal information. We have made progress—but there is still work to be done to ensure that only those who are suspected of involvement in terrorism or other criminal activities are targeted.

Watch for information from PEN and from the Campaign for Reader Privacy in the coming days about what you can do to help us rein in excessive surveillance powers. Please visit PEN's resource page for information on NSA surveillance, the FISA Amendments Act, and how to take action.

With thanks for your support and all best wishes,

K. Anthony Appiah

President

Slam on Indefinite Hiatus - A Note from Featured Poet Natalie Ilum

Split This Rock received the following letter yesterday from 2010 featured poet Natalie Illum. Please read.


Hello Friends,

I'd like you to take a look at the community announcement below. As many of you know, I've been attending the Baltimore slams this summer and having an amazing time. The folks who organize SLAMicide are not a only welcoming and talented group, they care about artistic development, empowerment, fun and community in a way I haven't seen.

Although I am relatively new to the slam scene, I could tell they were a family and fiercely talented to boot at the 2008 National Team Semi Finals, where they placed 6th. I wanted to be a part of that. It took me almost a year to be brave enough to try, and now it's fading.

As a long time community organizer of Mothertongue, I know how hard it is to stay afloat and find a home in venues that support and value creativity, poetry and community. Thankfully, the Black Cat hasn't given up on MT, but we have struggled with schedules, numbers, audiences, volunteers, etc. I don't even want to think about how much of my personal $ I donated over the last decade to keep something I was passionate about alive. I knew the second I gave up, people would miss what Mothertongue provides. I fear the same will happen with SLAMicide.

I have not spoken to the organizers about their intentions. But, I know the decision to put the series on hold was a hard one. I'm not even an official member of the 2010 team, because the season hasn't started yet. I know that the venue issues caused Baltimore not to be able to send a team to the finals in August 2009.

I know I will miss the opportunity to strengthen my slam voice and my ties to this community. I know there is a quality difference to this team that I want to be a part of, and/or help them share their words. I believe the Slamicide community still has a lot to say. I certainly will have trouble finding a slam home that has their level of compassion and creativity. But, that is a personal struggle.

SO, I am asking you as community organizers and friends to throw your support behind them. At the very least, let's show up to this weekend's last slam and give them a sendoff to remember. And, come watch me compete for IWPS through tears ...

Show up if you ever wanted to see me slam with Baltimore, because we may not get another chance! As my beloved Joni says, don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got til its gone.

Lastly, I'd like to help them recoup some $$ loses. So, if you can, please donate any amount to the paypal link on their website, http://www.slamicide.com/index.html [or email granmadave {at} yahoo.com]. Ironically, I have just finished a grant which ear marked $500 towards Slamicide expenses, which I will donate if I receive the grant, but that may not happen at all, or come too late to help the team compete.

If you can think of any other means of help, please [comment with contact info to be put in touch with Natalie or SLAMicide].

It's not too late. And by helping them, you help me stay present and focused on my purpose and the good in this life.

Thank you.
MUCH LOVE
and salt,

Natalie

A Note from Split This Rock: SLAMicide is a vital resource for poetic voices in the area. Please help support this great organization. Image credit: SLAMicide.com

Violence in a Scared Space: Reflections on The Shooting at the Holocaust Museum

Today's guest post is written by Joseph Ross, and has been adapted from JosephRoss.net. His bio follows.

If there are such things as sacred spaces, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is one of them. From the moment one enters, there sits an unusual quiet. To enter the museum’s galleries, you are given an identity card bearing the history of a person who entered one of the camps. You are ushered into an elevator, which echoes those of the camps. In various places, you walk through startlingly common things: a sea of shoes left by those killed in the camps, a train car which took Jews and others to the camps. You view actual concentration camp shirts marked with the yellow star, for Jews, the pink triangle, for gays, and various other emblems to distinguish the Nazi’s murderous categories.

My experience there is unlike that at any other museum. There often exists a kind of reverence. You touch the wood of a train car that once held so much suffering. You view actual shoes left by those going to the gas chambers. There is not the typical “tourist place” chatter. In moments like these, one is only left with silence.

Wednesday, there was a shooting in this very space. Of course, there are shootings everyday in America. People are killed daily in liquor stores, on street corners, in churches, mosques, and synagogues, even. While we rarely hear of murder in a museum, we cannot really be surprised.

A couple of years ago, I went to a lecture series at the Holocaust Museum, about the situation in Darfur. One warm summer evening during the lecture series, they showed slides on one of the outside walls of the Museum, all images from Darfur. It showed people’s faces mostly: the elderly, children, lots of smiles, some sorrows, kids playing games, all the human reality one would expect. A few of us stood on the sidewalk below and watched, transfixed. It was during this slide show, and prompted by the lectures, that I sought to give voice to some of what I learned. This resulted in a series of five poems called The Darfur Poems. Unconsciously, I found myself writing in the voice of one who washes and prepares dead bodies in a camp in Darfur. I was trying to find a way out of my own silence, in the face of suffering.

There is so much hatred in America, the world. There is so much misunderstanding and even at times, a deliberate desire not to understand others. There is also, of course, such easy and self-righteous access to guns that we can never be surprised by violence in this country. Not even violence in a place that seeks to say: “Never Again.”

Even we poets may be stunned to silence for a time. Yet we must work to give voice to the love that lives beneath our shocked silence. It is that voice which is truly sacred.

Joseph Ross is a poet whose work has appeared in many anthologies and journals including Poetic Voices Without Borders 1 and 2, Come Together-Imagine Peace, Poet Lore, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and The Potomac Journal. He co-edited Cut Loose the Body: An Anthology of Poems on Torture. He will be teaching in the College Writing Program at American University beginning in August 2009. His writing can be found at JosephRoss.net.

Responding to Dr. Tiller's Murder

I have been thinking this week about how we, as people who love justice and love peace, respond to injustice, violence, and tragedy. On Monday, I walked to the clinic where I volunteer, carrying a thank you gift to the people who work there, and I pictured the faces of those I see weekly, with whom I laugh and gossip, and I thought: violence could strike anyone of them. For the first time since I heard of Dr. Tiller’s murder, my anger turned to fear, and I began to cry as I walked.

I volunteer at this clinic because I believe that access to health care is vital. I believe that women’s choices are private, to be made in consultation with a trusted doctor. Unfortunately, health care is not always affordable or available, leading women to clinics like the one where I volunteer to seek well-woman care, pre-natal care, contraception, STD testing, education, and abortion services. These things are legal, and may sometimes be affordable (many clinics charge on a sliding scale, and many clinics refer clients to funds that help to cover the cost of care), but walking into a women’s clinic can be a harrowing experience. Twice a week, outside the clinic where I work, there are people who will follow patients and their companions down the sidewalk, begging patients loudly not to go inside and arguing with those who disagree with them. These patient's private choices and their private health care are preceded by a gauntlet of harassment and confusion. I do the work I do because affordable health care, received in a feeling of safety, should be a right, not a privilege, and because no one should be harassed for seeking reproductive health care. Dr. Tiller, who offered services at his clinic including well-woman care, adoption services, and abortions, was harassed daily, was shot in both arms, had to live under Federal Marshall protection for many years, and had to face not only frequent vandalism but also the burning down of his clinic. He continued his work in the face of all of this because of his conviction that access to necessary, legal procedures was more important than giving in to fear.

Often, in the face of events like the murder of Dr. Tiller on Sunday, we feel impotent, enraged, and deeply grieved, and it is a challenge to react to these events and these feelings with positive steps. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are three major things we can do. The first is to speak out. Too often, the voices of extremism are the only voices heard. In the case of Dr. Tiller’s murder, the first and loudest responses came from those who had previously raged against him. The responses that are repeated throughout the media are often the ones that do not condemn the violence, but instead condemn Dr. Tiller (I am intentionally not repeating these words). Instead of accepting that these are the only voices, we must insist that our own voices be heard. As poets, writers, and artists, we can write about the effects of such events. We can create pieces that indicate the urgent realities of choosing – we can write about our own choices and our own experiences. One way to do this is to visit websites like I Am Dr. Tiller, where abortion providers and pro-choice volunteers share their stories. We can read and preform the works of others, such as the play Words of Choice, created by Cindy Cooper, a long time reproductive rights advocate. Alix Olson, a 2008 Split This Rock featured poet, is a contributing writer to the play. Putting art that speaks to the truth of these experiences into the world is one vital way to fight against violence by promoting understanding.

If you are hesitant to create words of your own, forward the responses of reproductive health providers like Planned Parenthood to your friends and family. If you see this murder being downplayed, or presented as one lone event, or as just one man’s action, write letters to your local media explaining the root causes of intimidation and harassment of women’s health clinics and their staff. If you or your friends and family members are not pro-choice, renounce and refuse to join or support those groups that engage in or tolerate extremism and violent behavior. Voice your support for actions, groups, and legislation that helps to prevent abortion via education and contraception. Finally, ask the Department of Justice and the Obama administration to enforce the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. During the Bush administration, the task force that monitored enforcement of the FACE act was largely inactive. Insist that it be re-activated and that even minor occurrences of vandalism be investigated and procescuted.

Your voice can also be heard with your presence – attend a vigil, light a candle, hold a sign. These things are powerful visual reminders of the numbers of people who will not condone violence for political purposes. Educate yourself about the kinds of services offered by reproductive health clinics in your area, especially ones that may be facing protests. Tell others about these services and why they matter to the community.

Make your presence felt in a second way by volunteering at a local clinic or reproductive health organization. Clinics facing protest often need volunteers to do clinic defense – helping patients gain access in the most peaceful way possible. Clinics are often underfunded, and so they may have other volunteer needs. You can look up your clinic online, but the best way to get the most up to date information on what the clinic needs is to call them. As you respond to injustice by helping ensure that more justice is done, a kind of healing happens. If you can spare a few hours a week, please do (a list of local D.C. vigils and volunteer opportunities, as well as national organizations is at the end of this post).

The third way to respond to injustice is by donating, or speaking with your money. Donating is not just for those with disposable income – every dollar counts. I have heard fundraisers speak of the emotional power present in the one dollar pledge that comes from a poor student. There is no donation that is too small, and there are many places you can donate, including Medical Students for Choice, The George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund, Planned Parenthood, and the DC Abortion Fund (for an abortion fund in your state, check out the National Network of Abortion Funds list). Remember, some of these organizations have trouble funding themselves with grants because it is politically challenging to fund a group with the word “abortion” in the name. They rely solely on donations.

After tragic and unjust events, there will always be questions and the search to place blame. There will always be a feeling of uncertainty about how to react. Speaking out, volunteering, and donating are three powerful ways to respond to any event that affects our lives, not just to this one. I encourage you to look into the organizations below and to look into organizations that support causes that are also close to your heart. Our voices and our presence are the tools we always have – use them.

More Information:
George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund Mailing Address:
National Network of Abortion Funds
ATTN: George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund
42 Seaverns Ave.
Boston, MA 02130
http://www.nnaf.org/tiller.html

Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force

National Abortion Federation's list of ways to get involved

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice's Tiller Memorial

NARAL Pro-Choice America

Feministing.com's list of upcoming vigils for Dr. Tiller.

Feel free to respond in the comments with any other resources, or with links to poems or other works.

Katherine Howell is the Blog Goddess for Split This Rock Poetry Festival; she lives and writes in Washington, D.C.