New Year, New Coup
How much more outrage do we have left to give?
Dear Readers,
Just how much more outrage do we have left to give? Yesterday, it seems, we were invited to make a rough estimate. On the heels of the deadliest day in the pandemic's history, and on streets where Black Lives Matter protesters met militarized forces only months ago, thousands of Trump supporters led an unprecedented attack on democracy and the peaceful transition of power. For this words alone do not suffice - we need poetry. Submit to our open call for an attempted coup here.
Which brings me to a kind of political gathering I'm very happy to invite you to.
In 2017 we hosted an unforgettable inauguration/protest reading in Oakland, and we're excited to do it again four years later - but this time for a very different president. In this cathartic inauguration performance on Saturday, January 23 at 11am PST, poetry will intermingle with silence, collective language and action as we reflect on the inauguration and the four years that led us here. We want to hear what you have to say - send us your poems here.
And as we rev up for a different chapter, we've got a couple New Years offerings on Medium: our Poets Reading the news 2020 year in review, along with our most-read poems of 2020. Thanks for holding us over this year, community.
And below, poetry for the moment by Kay L. Cook, Lea Page and Emily Hockaday.
In solidarity,
Elle Aviv Newton
Poets Reading the News
This Day Acts Like
By Kay L. Cook
This day acts like
it has no end struttin’ around the old block.
This day acts like
it has no plan sneakin’ inside those unlocked doors
diggin’ out bribes from hungry pockets
whisperin’: “it’s not a crime if they’re not human”.
This day snacks on history all day long weaponizes whiteness
consuming itself while avoiding mirrors
How else does it feel safe and secure when the light turns to orange
then shines on brown and black waiting for the blue
moon reflecting monumental shadows?
All the while darkness searches for space
meant for replenishing hope.
This day acts as if hope can be invented new every day everyone entitled to buy it
as if a little bleach and money can’t hurt
as if compassion is passé
as if the law says so…
I Spoke to Haywood's Grandma Today
By Lea Page
I spoke to Haywood’s grandma today.
I don’t know Haywood, and I don’t really
know his grandma, either, but she was
the one who answered. I’m making
get-out-the-vote calls to Georgia.
If the person on our list isn’t available,
we’re supposed to mark that down
and move on to the next number. But
after telling me her grandson isn’t home,
she asks to whom is she speaking. My
mother didn’t raise me with manners,
but I have enough sense to know
that when a voice like that asks who
you are, you answer.
My name is Lea and I’m a volunteer for
Reverend Warnock’s Senate campaign, I say.
I can’t tell if she can tell I’m not from
Georgia, or that I live in Montana now,
after growing up in DC, or that I came for
the sky and stayed for the meadowlarks.
I tick the boxes: Reverend Warnock can
count on Haywood’s grandma’s vote.
Yes, she has a plan. She’s going in person.
Early, she says. She wants to be sure.
I picture Haywood’s grandma standing
in line all day. Here in Montana, there are
no lines. Our country’s history could be
distilled into that divide: line versus no line.
I’m shy, an introvert. I happily spend
my days alone, shifting winds and
penetrating light my only companions.
But I love my voters. I love their firm,
Oh, yes. They will speak, and I find
myself leaping up from my chair,
no old-time phone cord holding
me back. Instead of reading the
scripted lines, I say, If we work together,
I think we can do this. In addition to
not having been taught manners,
I was also not taught about working
together. I wasn’t taught to believe,
to hope, to dream. I wasn’t taught
how to speak or how to love.
Oh, yes, says Haywood’s grandma. She
tells me that working together has always
been the way. And, she says, we must
have patience. She laughs, and I hear
in her laugh that having patience is no
laughing matter.
We talk some more, and I admit I’m not
the most patient person—I have all this
nervous energy and probably should make
more calls. She laughs again—I hear
no hard edge and I am used to hearing
hard edges—and then she blesses me.
Not a bless-your-heart-you-poor-idiot
kind of blessing, which I surely deserve,
but a hug-through-the-line kind, and I
understand that I am, in this moment,
truly blessed because I have received her
lesson, which is to keep on, regardless.
Mirages (Three Poems)
By Emily Hockaday
In the Pine Grove
I could almost forget that this is not the world
I was promised. The floor is springy; an owl hoots
above in the upper limbs of a white pine. I didn’t know
pines could grow this tall. What is missing is the dull roar
of traffic on the Jackie Robinson, the ice cream truck
melody, the dinging of helado vendors, chatter
from the blacktop and playground below the park,
an easy breath, mindfulness, any number of ingredients
to keep my sanity. My daughter remains resilient. She flings
herself between the new, small pines, planted to replenish
the unique habitat here in the middle of Queens. Her fingers
reach without worry. I try to locate the tree we planted
three short years ago, my body already encumbered
with pregnancy. It is now one tree among many, and who knows—
it may be one of those that has now died. I didn’t think
about the ease in my life. This is what I know we have
been doing wrong. And really: nothing was promised after all.