Poetry for a Nation in Upheaval
Poetry by Jed Meyers, B.A. Van Sise, Sophia Latorre-Zengierski, Sandra Fees, Earl David Freeland, Francisco Castro Videla and more.
Dear Readers,
This week, writers speak to a nation in upheaval. Jed Meyers takes a walk through the marshes of his mind and the tumultuous politics calling through the newswire. B.A. Van Sise pens a poem for Trump’s loyalty purge at the Department of Justice. Earl David Freeland writes about the Black history the White House doesn’t want us to remember. Francisco Castro Videla shares a haiku from a weary world. Sandra Fees dives deep into the grief of political loss. And Sophia Latorre-Zengierski gives a bird’s eye view from the funeral of President Carter.
As Donald Trump and Elon Musk mass-fire the federal work force, impoverish and paralyze beloved national monuments and pal up with Putin, among so many other egregious acts, it’s a pretty healthy time to start doing what it is you do when the world order is going topsy-turvy. Texting friends near and far for solace, implausible international back-up plans, and political welfare checks. Getting really into embroidery. Dodging the headlines for days, then reading what feels like the entire internet in a single night. I’ve done all of the above this past week. Meanwhile, Musk and Bannon are giving out Nazi salutes, ICE agents are arresting parents as they drive their kids to school, and Yosemite just laid off its only locksmith—the government is literally taking away the keys to the country. We’re in for a long fight and fear is more than fair. But we can’t give up, and we can’t get to work without sourcing deeply from who we are, what we know and where we come from.
Our poetic path forward begins with Food As Invocation, our current open call led by Kashiana Singh. We’re asking poets to invoke what nourishes and connects us—vital tools for what’s to come. It’s coming up on closing time, but in this house there’s always room. Come to the table by Sunday, February 23.
In poetry,
Elle Newton
Poets Reading the News
P.S. We’re on Blue Sky now.
💌 P.P.S. They can’t take our joy! Some of us PRTN editors had quite the San Francisco Valentine’s at Black Bird Books’ monthly open mic hosted by Laura Booth, who read a moving piece about the park service layoffs, and Christine Deakers who shared her latest poems. Viva!
Poets Reading the News begins 2025 with an open call led by Kashiana Singh – poet, author of The Witching Hour (Glass Lyre Press, 2024) and our journal’s managing editor. Here in the heart of winter, at the edge of accelerating change, we turn to that which offers nourishment, endurance and connection – tools which will be vital in the years to come.
The act of creating and consuming both food and poetry is intended to gather and collect breath, a process whereby we go inwards, where silence finds a resting ground. Eating can be called an act of meditation, and poetry has been likened to prayer over the centuries. And while nourishment is personal, it is traditionally most powerful as a community act, encompassing relationships, cultures, identities, memory, medicine, bodies and economies. Writing with food therefore is an act of communal healing and an embodied transition of memory.
Poets are invited into this open call through many doorways, with an eye to where the kitchen table stands within the present world. Surprise us. Bring us to your table.
Kashiana will be teaching an online writing workshop, Poetry Begins at the Kitchen Table, for Tupelo Press this Saturday, February 22. Learn more and register here.
Next Among the Countless Gales
Jed Meyers
“These sessions sound like hope—hope I’ll need
while other wings approach...”
Curriculum Redacted
Earl David Freeland
“History is a neat stack of pages,
but the edges bleed if you hold them too tight…”
The Guillotine
B.A. Van Sise
“And now, it’s here: every
board a law, each nail a tree…”
Disinherited: A Lament
Sandra Fees
“Remind me again, how we make it through. And,
for whom. How we once wore the white
viburnum of suffragists. And, now…”
Rotunda Viewing
Sophia Latorre-Zengierski
For President Carter
“A single spotlight illuminates the simple man
beneath the flag and inside the wood…”
The Rest of the World: A Haiku
Francisco Castro Videla
From my table:
EAT THE RICH
A Woman’s Hymn
I did not come here to ask.
I did not come here to beg.
I came to say it plain,
I came to paint it in blue,
to carve it into the concrete,
to spit it into the wind
so it carries across the country
like a mother’s wail in the night.
.
EAT THE RICH.
.
Because they ate first.
They ate the rent, the groceries,
the gas, the light bill, the medicine.
They ate the schools and left our children hungry.
They ate the wages and left us to bleed out
in warehouses, in fields, in backrooms,
in nursing homes, in checkout lines,
in break rooms where we cry between shifts.
.
EAT THE RICH.
.
Because I have folded too many shirts
for a paycheck that disappears before I touch it.
Because I have wiped too many floors, too many counters,
too many old men’s mouths,
too many tears off my daughter’s face
when I tell her we can’t afford that field trip.
.
Because I have stood in line at dawn
for a doctor who won’t see me.
Because I have made meals out of nothing.
Because I have watched my mother work
until her back broke, until her hands curled,
until her body forgot how to rest.
.
Because the rich do not know what tired means.
Because the rich have never woken up afraid.
Because the rich have never held a child
and prayed to God that they don’t get sick
because sickness is something we can’t afford.
.
EAT THE RICH.
.
Because they will not stop.
Because they do not care.
Because they will sit in their towers
while we drown in their debts,
while we choke on their wars,
while we bury our dead
and go back to work the next morning.
.
EAT THE RICH.
.
And don’t tell me to wait.
Don’t tell me to work harder.
My mother worked.
My grandmothers worked.
Their hands built this country.
Their backs carried this country.
Their sweat watered this country.
And still, we are starving.
.
I do not want crumbs.
I do not want patience.
I want the whole goddamn table to turn.
.
EAT THE RICH.
Before they eat us all.