Christine Potter: “The story about the plane with the emergency escape window that blew out stayed in the news a long time, probably because we have all flown on airplanes and worried about something like that happening—and also, of course, because the pilots of that flight landed it with nobody killed or badly injured. I hate flying worse than almost anything else, but I do it when I have to, so of course I read the news articles, horrified and fascinated. The whole thing also felt like a metaphor for something much bigger.” (web)
The paper opens at the pressure of the pen and the ink sinks into the fiber.
I almost wrote “welcomes” but the paper doesn’t make that decision. It doesn’t “allow” the ink to enter it, either. Paper exists in its absorbent state and whatever presses upon its surface, whatever arrives, it is powerless against.
Just as the pen is powerless, once the tip is pressed down, to prevent the ink from flowing out.
I almost wrote “escaping” but that seems to imply capability, more choice in action, the ability to avoid, than what is held by pen and ink.
Welcomes. Allow. Escaping.
It’s like Gaza. The people in their homes do not welcome or allow the explosions. Like the paper, their homes simply sit, open to, powerless against, the incursions of missiles and bombs and bullets. Targeted or not, the explosives don’t escape to Palestinian homes.
Richard Krawiec: “The continuing tragedy of Palestine brings daily video of destroyed homes, people defenseless to the ordinances inflicted on them. To the point where the UN just a day ago, Friday January 5, called Gaza ‘uninhabitable.’ Yet, people are powerless to stop the flow of attacks.” (web)
Nicholas Montemarano: “When Donald Trump visited Iowa this week, he continued his longstanding tactic of fearmongering about ‘terrorists’ and people from ‘mental asylums’ crossing the border from Mexico to the United States. My imagination took things from there: How would Trump respond to something seemingly miraculous happening in Mexico? The double meaning of the title occurred to me only after I’d written this persona poem.” (web)
Abby E. Murray: “This poem is what I feel my gut saying every time I wish for peace in the new year, especially this year, as it culminates in more war and uncertainty than last year. I imagine this new year as the mother of our future, listening to our prayers for peace that remain unfollowed by action. She wants us to get off our asses and make the peace we need ourselves.” (web)
Sophie Kaiser Rojas: “It’s the last week of 2023, and the New York Times posted their 2023 Year in Pictures. As I scrolled through their review of a year colored by global conflict, I was shocked by how, without the captions, it’s hard to tell from which of the many wars the images were taken. I also found myself needing to take a break from the article, which left me reckoning with the ease at which I clicked out of the tab. Having recently read Ukrainian poet Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic (essential reading, especially now), I’ve been thinking about the way figurative language has the potential to both embody and reduce an experience. I wrote a villanelle that I converted into a pair of sonnets, which are in dialogue with Kaminsky’s work, as well as with the specific photos and captions by Nicole Tung, Lynsey Addario, and Tyler Hicks. Their pictures document the war in the Ukraine, and they resound hauntingly in the images of the war in Gaza and other violence around the world.”
Wendy Videlock: “I guess I’ve come to believe the more wars that pile up, the more destructive things appear, the greater the imperative toward service, wisdom and the creative impulse.” (web)
Lisa Suhair Majaj: “On December 7th, Gazan writer Refaat Alareer was killed along with family members in a targeted Israeli airstrike. Refaat was a professor of literature, a poet and writer, beloved inside and outside of Gaza for his words and for his role in the non profit organization We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a youth-led project seeking to tell the stories of Gazans. Scores of Gazan poets, writers, artists, musicians and journalists had been killed in the past months. In a recording made before his killing Refaat said, choked with tears, ‘The situation is very bleak. We don’t even have water …’ Days before his death Refaat pinned this poem to his Twitter account.” (web)
