Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Pushpa Naidu Parekh

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


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Language of Resistance
by Pushpa Naidu Parekh

When I let the breeze 
dry my words on paper
I enter language

I rope it around my tongue
savor its tartness
its ribbed edges
its slang of desire
its threshold of pain

Today poets silenced
deported from language
refuse the fragility of silence
its cold torpor
and complicities

When storms rage
shredding my words...
The poet in me
creates a refuge
A language of resistance

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