Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice
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Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781611863086 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Michigan State University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/01/2019 |
| Edition description: | 1 |
| Pages: | 350 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
ACT
"In the face of hate, silence is deadly. Apathy will be interpreted as acceptance — by the perpetrators, the public, and — worse — the victims. If left unchallenged,
hate persists and grows."
Trayvon, Redux
Rita Dove United States Poet Laureate (born in Akron, Ohio)
It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there. / Hear me out / for I too am concerned / and every man / who wants to die at peace in his bed / besides.
— William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, that Greeny Flower"
Move along, you don't belong here.
This is what you're thinking. Thinking drives you nuts these days, all that talk about rights and law abidance when you can't even walk your own neighborhood in peace and quiet, get your black ass gone.
You're thinking again. Then what?
Matlock's on TV and here you are,
vigilant, weary, exposed to the elements on a wet winter's evening in Florida when all's not right but no one sees it.
Where are they — the law, the enforcers blind as a bunch of lazy bats can be,
holsters dangling from coat hooks above their desks as they jaw the news between donuts?
Hey! It tastes good, shoving your voice down a throat thinking only of sweetness.
Go on, choke on that. Did you say something?
Are you thinking again? Stop! — and
get your ass gone, your blackness,
that casual little red riding hood
I'm just on my way home attitude
as if this street was his to walk on.
Do you hear me talking to you? Boy.
How dare he smile, jiggling his goodies in that tiny shiny bag, his black paw crinkling it,
how dare he tinkle their laughter at you.
Here's a fine basket of riddles:
If a mouth shoots off and no one's around to hear it, who can say which came first — push or shove, bang or whimper?
Which is news fit to write home about?
I Do Not Trust People Who Hang American Flags on Their Front Porches
Crystal Valentine New York City Youth Poet Laureate
like predators displaying a gnawed carcass,
still wet and furnace enough to keep its bones warm but not breathing, in front of their howling wasteland with the carcass's mangled fur serving as the only
welcome mat.
I know a man who carries a gun in his
front pocket just to remind me he can scatter my pulse across my
front yard without a newspaper making a sound.
The man, of course, is my president.
The gun, his cabin that he chauffeurs around like a freshly polished ammunition belt.
Once he caught my eye through the television set,
held it for so long that my mother had to run and get the Bible, lay hands on me,
whisper prayers to a God who did not spare her father.
Now she doesn't ask why I don't watch Fox Five,
why I look away from the screen, cover my eyes as if my ears can't see the bullets too.
I will only watch the news if God's mouth appears in front of a blue charted screen in place of the
anchorman,
apologizes as his tongue splits his lips into another
eulogy:
And on Tuesday there is a 50 percent chance of mothers wading across sidewalks once christened by their daughters' double-dutch cord.
And on Wednesday bullets will hail from the sky upon River Park Towers and we will only cover the story about the mother who threw her baby from the tower's gasping window hoping the river's arms would baptize her child before she is transferred, like so many other wet and wailing bodies, to my front steps.
And Thursday will be the 3rd day in a row that Jimmy does not rise from his casket and the police will have to come stop his father from clawing at the state-owned soil with his bare hands.
And on Friday —
When you are housed in a body as dark and shifting as mine there will always be a casket overflowing with new names for
rain.
Once, the American flag draped its cotton body over my God's good sermon and my family down in South Carolina went up in flames.
A whole generation on my mother's side contorted to ash because their throats could not devour their own smoke.
My mother asked if I wanted to wear pigtails to the funeral,
like I did when I was a child.
That flag curves in the wind like a smile right next to your front door.
Of the many ways to say: Please Stand
Kimberly Blaeser Wisconsin Poet Laureate
1. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], Partial Differential Equation
What we erase from polite conversation. Bodies on fire. The historic cleansing of the landscape, the sweep of humanity west, west, west. Environmental r ism.
All things being equal, things are never equal. Think of scope. Like the reach of the imperial. Or consider variables. Value. Or commodity. Ways of seeing. Seven generations into the past; seven generations into the future. Angles and perspectives. Convenience policy, a tally mark across generations. Uranium mining. Atomic bomb detonation at White Sands. A complicated table of fallout factors. Plume of greatness.
Or how to solve for survival.
2. Zongide'en, Be Brave.
Another partial differential equation. Let's say a corporation proposes a mine. Variables include Tyler Forks. Bad. Potato. Rivers. A 22-mile, 22,000-acre strip of land. Jobs. Maanomin. Open pit. Exceptional or outstanding resource waters. Legislation. Iron oxide. Fish. Blasting and pulverizing. New legislation.
The functions depend upon the continuous variables. Fluid flow, for example. And changing laws. Somewhere along the granite line, someone enters. Let's say they have put down one life and taken up another: the solution of the PDE.
Warriors (walleye, Indian, new-age) face arbitrary functions. Changing laws. Guards. Guns. If the life is stretched over two points. It vibrates. We cannot measure that vibration in this generation. We can sing it, or make it into light.
History Lesson
Oscar Mireles Poet Laureate of Madison, Wisconsin
My mother Elisa was picketing outside the cattle car trains that were quietly lined up to deport Mexican nationals from Minneapolis Minnesota in the 1920s Yes, it was her and three other women,
my Aunt Juanita and two friends Carmen and Josie Flores they were afraid to hold up the picket signs that protested the mass deportations yet were more afraid worse things would happen if they didn't do anything A local policeman warned them it would be best if they left otherwise he would be forced to take action but they stood there waving their picket sign like a flag as the last train fell into the sunset
The Arc
Rob Hardy Poet Laureate of Northfield, Minnesota
The Edmund Pettus Bridge rises in a long arc a hundred feet above the Alabama River.
On Sunday, the seventh of March, 1965,
the men and women marching out of Selma couldn't see until they'd reached the top of the arc the violence waiting for them on the other side.
They thought they saw death waiting in the wall of billy clubs raised to block the road ahead.
But the marchers followed that descending arc,
still believing it would bend toward justice.
Sometimes we seem to have come so far,
to have risen near the height of history's moral arc,
only to descend. But we keep moving forward.
We come from different places and different faiths,
to live together in this city of bridges, where the land arcs upward on either side of a moody river,
dreamed into this sacred space by a man who believed in brotherhood, who believed in justice,
who believed that we would all join hands and walk together into the promised land.
Dr. King understood that belief is a bridge to carry us from where we are to where we want to be.
To get there, we still have to rise up and march.
The arc of the moral universe still needs the weight of people standing together to make it bend.
"A Piece of American History"
Mary Weems Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights, Ohio
George Zimmerman's description of the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin
Murder, Murder most foul.
News reporter's eyes dim as she talks
picture of the gun is shown it looks used and dull as a dead face
I smell blood in the body before it is spilled innocence and skittles innocence and skittles
I am still as a breezeless summer night anger leaves footprints that follow Trayvon walking home listening to God's trombone
I read "The starting price is five thousand dollars" wonder how this amount compares to the Black lives killed since Trayvon without anyone being found guilty of a crime.
Adagio
Karen Kovacik Indiana Poet Laureate
after Tranströmer
This morning I rip out forty flawed rows of a beloved scarf. The unraveling
makes the yarn loops quiver. This span that would have warmed your neck
surrenders in quick breaths. Last night four horsemen bloodied the electoral map.
Now I again cross my needles,
find the rough pulse of the yarn.
How small the future is: a poke,
a wrap, then slipping off.
The slowest of music, this adagio:
blue notes climb and descend
the cryptic staff of a wool concerto,
my only flag. It signals: "We contest."
Knitters in every language twist and lift.
It's the quietest revolution.
mend in progress
Wendy Vardaman Poet Laureate of Madison, Wisconsin
fix | mend | repair | restore | darn | heal | overhaul | service | patch | piece | rehabilitate | renew |
stitch | square | correct | right | resolve | amend | recover | ameliorate | revamp | knit | recondition |
refit | refurbish | rejuvenate | rectify | rebuild | reconstruct | connect | balance | tune | rivet | zip |
accommodate | adjust | renovate | modify | make do | revise | alter | help | recuperate | improve |
reclaim | treat | remedy | palliate | attend | do up | soothe | weld | hook | resuscitate | revive | salve |
revivify | regenerate | reconcile | reanimate | harmonize | dress | conciliate | doctor | fasten | join |
link | secure | tie | unite | weave | assemble | rally | save | reclaim | bridge | rebuild | suture | solder |
button | transform
Red White and Blue Seuss
Zora Howard New York City Youth Poet Laureate
One youth Two youth Our kids Uncouth Skin brown Face down Hands up Black brute Your hood My hood Face slammed Car hood Cop cars Stay parked Your block My block Streets like Land mines Black op Men marked Law stop Law frisk Law strike Leave scars Law just Law kill Law will Walk still Tell him Scold him Black boy Doctrine Five O Hunt us Target Practice Young Defenseless Labeled Reckless Light begets Us fire won't End us
A System Cannot Fail
Carla Christopher Poet Laureate of York, Pennsylvania
If I don't break the law,
maybe they won't kill me.
If I don't steal cigarettes,
sell cigarettes,
carry weapons,
carry toy weapons,
carry Halloween costume weapons,
cell phones that bulge a pocket like a weapon,
pill bottles that curve my hand like a hand that probably wants to,
or might have once held at one point,
a weapon
If I promise not to defend myself against their weapons,
maybe they won't kill me.
If I don't drink liquor,
or soda with my skittles If I don't eat my words before spitting back the injustice I'm choking on I ... STILL ... can't ... breathe
If I don't breathe,
maybe they won't kill me.
Or maybe no matter what I do they will come for me,
through the wires of my cell phone,
through the vaccine-filled needle,
through sentencing and prosecution,
through protection from indictment,
through the ghosts of Tuskegee,
through the slice of a knife dividing my piece of American pie into a revisited 3/5th compromise
If you can kill me, and it only counts some of the time does it not dehumanize me completely?
I am a Black woman
and since that dug my grave the day my mother gave me life,
at least let me hold that
and drag it like a nigger chained to the back of a rough road riding flatbed.
I WILL riot in my mind and in my lines and in my ideas — until the matrix overloads and my rioting explodes into the streets,
crumpling metal and shattering the glass of soul eye windows and double-pained ceilings,
until the heat from my rage incinerates page and screen and stage and my meaning rises like a sword wielding phoenix from Biblical ashes
I will take The Tower down.
Reclaimed
Carla Christopher Poet Laureate of York, Pennsylvania
My afro is a hipster halo mimicking the sun,
my dashiki another sneaky reference to the Black Butterfly I have become since discarding the sticky chrysalis of a monochromatic existence —
my colors run unchecked through finish lines and pearly gates I am Heaven
's gold streets I am Oya, sister and life mate of Chango I dance with fire and rule the winds and I go wherever I please, these feet tap dance to the rhythm of destiny Ease on down,
ease on down ...
skin so rich and golden brown desert and soil fight to claim me but I am
still The Sun's.
not telling the truth
Joel Lipman Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio
UNITE
"Call a friend or coworker. Organize allies from churches, schools, clubs, and other civic groups. Create a diverse coalition. Include children, police, and the media. Gather ideas from everyone, and get everyone involved."
Sacred Stone Camp
Kimberly Blaeser Wisconsin Poet Laureate
140 years after Little Big Horn,
after gold hungry prospectors trespassed onto Lakota land in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie,
new oil hungry corporations threaten to repeat that history —
repeat the violation of tribal sovereignty repeat brutality toward Native people repeat disregard for the valor of earth the sacredness of the resources of this planet the waters that give us life.
When our waters are threatened,
I stand with Standing Rock.
When tribal treaties are disregarded,
I stand with Standing Rock.
When sacred sites are desecrated,
I stand with Standing Rock.
When armed militia mace peaceful protestors,
I stand with Standing Rock.
Moving oil makes money — spilled oil contaminates water.
When 783 million people do not have access to clean water,
when 3,300 ruptures or leaks of crude oil and liquefied natural gas have occurred on U.S. pipelines in the last six years,
we do not need another precarious pipeline.
The Lakota People will not become rich from oil passing through their lands —
the Missouri River is their wealth.
In the Dakota plains the people of Standing Rock do not need the prophesied Black Snake slithering false promises of energy independence —
the ageless force of prairie winds is power.
If the Dakota Access Pipeline is too dangerous for the populations of
Bismarck it is too dangerous for the Native people of Standing Rock.
When we are not equal under the law,
I stand with Standing Rock.
When the gate price of oil bankrupts our future,
I stand with Standing Rock.
When the fossil fuel agenda bulldozes dissent,
I stand with Standing Rock.
When Indigenous nations come together for Water,
I stand with Standing Rock.
When Indigenous nations gather to sing, dance, and pray,
we don't need rubber bullets shot point blank we don't need cavalry history repeated.
At a peaceful protest by Water Protectors we don't need attack dogs we don't need faces maced we don't need women locked in cages.
We need energy justice we need a leader who says stop a judicial system that says stop —
stop illegal digging stop penalizing the poor stop ignoring climate change stop fracking stop desecrating sacred sites stop endangering our waters.
When Indigenous Nations from the Sami to the Sarayaku have sent delegations to Sacred Stone Camp to stand with Indigenous Water Protectors,
where do you stand?
I stand with Standing Rock.
When Indigenous people are
4 percent of the population,
but stand as protectors for more than 80 percent of the world's biodiversity,
where do you stand?
I stand with Standing Rock.
My Mother's Pussy Hat
Rob Hardy Poet Laureate of Northfield, Minnesota
On Monday, an ice storm postponed the Martin Luther King celebration.
Ice coated the streets and the sidewalks.
There was no firm footing anywhere.
Overnight, the rain turned to snow and the world went suddenly white.
On Tuesday morning, I cleared the ice from the sidewalk in front of the house,
because this is how we do things in a cold climate: we give ourselves hernias so that others won't break their necks.
A sidewalk reminds me that the borders of our lives are porous, that to tend our own small frontage on democracy we must take on the burden of strangers,
and put our backs into the work.
I spent the whole week wondering how.
On Friday afternoon, a dense fog rose,
too much like the ghost of something we had left to die. In spite of the darkness and unsteady hands, my eighty-year-old mother stayed up all night knitting herself a hat. All night it grew from its long umbilicus of yarn,
taking the shape of something both pantherine and gynecological.
When Saturday dawned, pink and hopeful,
my mother's pussy hat was one of millions, as if with enough pink yarn women could knit a whole nation back together.
Excerpted from "Undocumented"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Michigan State University.
Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword Lisa Russ Spaar xiii
Editors' Notes xv
Who We Are, What Is Ours: An Introduction Denise Sweet xvii
Prologue Andrea Scarpino xxi
Resolve Louise Bogan xxvii
Rosa Rita Dove xxviii
Act: "In the face of hate, silence is deadly. Apathy will be interpreted as acceptance-by the perpetrators, the public, and-worse-the victims. If left unchallenged, hate persists and grows."
Trayvon, Redox Rita Dove 3
I Do Not Trust People Who Hang American Flags on Their Front Porches Crystal Valentine 5
Of the many ways to say: Please Stand Kimberly Blaeser 7
History Lesson Oscar Mireles 8
The Arc Rob Hardy 9
"A Piece of American History" Mary Weems 10
Adagio Karen Kovacik 11
Mend in progress Wendy Vardaman 12
Red White and Blue Seuss Zora Howard 13
A System Cannot Fail Carla Christopher 15
Reclaimed Carla Christopher 18
Not telling the truth Joel Lipman 19
Unite: "Call a friend or coworker. Organize allies from churches, schools, clubs, and other civic groups. Create a diverse coalition. Include children, police, and the media. Gather ideas from everyone, and get everyone involved."
Sacred Stone Camp Kimberly Biaeser 23
My Mother's Pussy Hat Rob Hardy 26
Sophia tells me Carson Borbely 27
Evangelist Cavana I. O. Faithwalker 29
Heat Rob Rolfe 32
The Hole Rob Rolfe 33
The Real World Meredith Holmes 34
Nogales, Arizona Karla Huston 35
Raising the Flag Howard D. Paap 36
Bawaajige Kimberly Blaeser 38
I Say Amen Joyce Sutphen 40
For Ibrahim Qashoush Laren McClung 41
Calligraphy Joel Lipman 42
Support Victims: "Let victims know you care. Support them with comfort and protection."
Regarding the Care of Homeless Children Kimberly Blaeser 45
Tecoani and Alejandro Rick Kearns 48
Monochrome Prison Aliki Barnstone 50
Your Neck: A History Karen Kovacik 51
Nameless Rebecca Zseder 53
Gray Note Mary Weems 55
Mercy William Trowbridge 56
Esperancia Barbara Buckman Strasko 59
No Details Rob Rolfe 60
The Potter's Hand Norbert Krapf 61
Return to the Surface of the Earth Wearing My Miner's Helmet with Its Third Eye Russell Thorburn 63
Some Things I've Noticed about Jesus Ellie Schoenfeld 65
North Star David Jones 67
Our home on native land Damian lopes 69
BeriBeri Joel Lipman 72
Do Your Homework: "An informed campaign improves its effectiveness."
Bacteria Donald Hall 75
Bully Bliss Tony Pena 76
She Is So Fragile, This Figure, Set Here to Stand Sarah Sadie (Busse) 77
Black and White Photographs Joyce Sutphen 79
American Psalm: Viola Liuzzo-American Hero M. L. Liebler 80
The Narcissistic Poets Mad-Lib Kevin Stein 81
Postcards of the Homefront Kevin Stein 83
The ballad of lauta nelson Yolanda Wisher 85
The Progress of Servitude George Elliott Clarke 90
The True History of Jesse Williams George Elliott Clarke 94
Pulling Out James Armstrong 99
Burial Ground Larry Jensen 101
Visitations Emilio DeGrazia 103
Carina Peter Meinke 104
La mémorial des martyrs français de la déportation Damian Lopes 105
Patriotism Ken McCullough 108
Signs of the Times Howard D. Paap 109
Mortality varies Joel Lipman 111
Create an Alternative: "Every act of hatred should be met with an act of love and unity…Hold a unity rally or parade to draw media attention away from hate."
Thirty-Six-Thirty Carla Christopher 115
Why Our Boys Create Their Own Scars: A Mother's Lament Carla Christopher 117
Holstein and Stones Patricia J. Goodrich 119
Idle No More: Dec 19/1012 Fred Wah 121
Confiscated Weapons Christopher Bursk 122
Close Your Eyes, I Tell the Men Christopher Bursk 124
Social Justice George Bowering 126
Dixie Land Blues Naomi Long Madgett 127
I Whip My Hair Back and Forth Crystal Valentine 128
We Are Born with Our Hands Bleeding Crystal Valentine 130
Devils Plague Cavana I. O. Faithwalker 131
Beyond the last sandbar John B. Lee 132
The Geo-Politics of Uptown Skunks Rick Kearns 135
Eleanor Beardsley in Paris Joyce Sutphen 137
Lady Freedom Among Us Rita Dove 138
Make them think I am king Joel Lipman 140
Speak Up: "Hate must be exposed and denounced … An informed and unified community is the best defense against hate"
Comprehensive List / of All Benefits / to Being Disabled / in Contemporary America Jim Ferris 143
Voices Rebecca Zseder 144
I Was A Male Impersonator for 40 Years Christine Howey 146
The Female Circumspection Act Christine Howey 148
Let The Poets In Craig Czury 150
Passage Pauletta Hansel 152
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Smog Anna Yin 153
For All the Russian Wolfhounds-the Borzoi-Slaughtered During the Revolution, 1917 George Kalamaras 156
Pack-A-Day Dog George Kalamaras 158
The Shell-Shocked Rocking Chair Roger Nash 160
Dance of the Old Year, 2016 Anna Yin 162
West of Syria Patricia Clark 163
The Man on the Train or. What J Have Been Named Into Otter Jung-Allen 165
I'm Gonna Get the DTs over DT in the DC Christine Howey 166
Little Napoleon / or: Foreign Policy Marvin Bell 168
Atonement Heather H. Thomas 169
November 10, 2016 Pauletta Hansel 170
How ma / ny flags / were too / many fla / gs for / the dead Joel Lipman 171
Lobby Leaders: "Elected officials and other community leaders can be important allies [in the fight against hate]."
Freedom Ride Rita Dove 175
The Book of the Dead Man (Desperate in America) Marvin Bell 177
There Was a Man [excerpts] Andrea Scarpino 179
Re Politics of Location Fred Wah 182
Women's March Siduri Beckman 183
George Popham Joel Lipman 184
Look Long Range: "Expand your community's comfort zones so you can learn and live together."
Chazen ArtUW at the First Folio Exhibit the day after a woman loses the presidency like a heart balloon ripped from her fist Wendy Vardaman 187
Tribal Mound, Earth Sutra Kimberly Blaeser 190
After Rivers Tom Cull 192
[Short Film With Gun and Flame] Dennis Hinrichsen 195
Signs of Life in a Sundown City Samuel Hazo 198
It's Okay if we wreck this planet Sue MacLeod 199
Silo L. S. Klatt 201
Kandahar time Damian Lopes 202
Waiting for Independence Day Fireworks 2013 Martin Achatz 206
Fire on the Waters Aliki Barnstone 208
Code Word Joel Lipman 209
Teach Tolerance: "Bias is learned early, often at home. Schools can offer lessons in tolerance and acceptance. Host a diversity and inclusion day on campus. Reach out to young people who nay be susceptible to hate group propaganda and prejudice."
Trouble Writing Siduri Beckman 213
Tempting Mystery Karla Huston 217
Foreshadowing Means Nothing to Us Kids Thomas O'Connell 219
Diversity Day Yolanda Wisher 220
Blues & vision for PS whatever Yolanda Wisher 221
Paper Dolls Thomas Leduc 225
For Which It Stands Samuel Hazo 226
This Great Lake Town Larry Jensen 228
The Brooder House Rabbits Rodney Torreson 230
Ground Truthing on her twentieth day Liz Zetlin 232
Wait Whitman on the TTC David Helwig 234
Imagination is Your First History Teacher Gail Bellamy 235
Talking to Strangers Deborah Cooper 236
The Warnings Liz Zetlin 238
Blues for PS Whatever 2 Yolanda Wisher 240
Mistakes Joel Lipman 241
Dig Deeper: "Tolerance, fundamentally, is a personal decision. It comes from an attitude that is learnable and embraceable: a belief that every voice matters, that all people are valuable, that no one is 'less than'… Look inside yourself for prejudices and stereotypes. Build your own cultural competency, then keep working to expose discrimination wherever it happens-in housing, employment, education, and more."
A Poem Does Invite Sarah Sadie (Busse) 245
After Dr. Bonganjalo Goba's Death Sandra Fees 247
The farm wife receives a certified letter Shari Wagner 249
Keeping Time at the Family Detention Center Sandra Fees 250
Asylum Thwarted Sandra Fees 252
On Grief: November 2016 Pauletta Hansel 254
Contagious Jim Ferris 257
A Life Reborn Howard D. Paap 260
The Rhoads Family Shari Wagner 262
He tells me John B. Lee 264
À Rimini George Elliott Clarke 267
Dialectics Sheila Packa 273
If Only Sarah Sadie (Busse) 274
20 Percent Laurence Sansone 275
Inflammatory Conditions Joel Lipman 276
What Can You Do?: "Pick up the phone. Call friends and colleagues. Host a neighborhood or community meeting. Speak up in church. Suggest some action. Sign a petition. Attend a vigil. Lead a prayer. Report acts of hate-fueled vandalism, as a neighborhood or a community. Use whatever skills and means you have. Offer your print shop to make fliers. Share your musical talents at a rally. Give your employees the afternoon off to attend. Be creative. Take action. Do your part to fight hate."
Contributors 281