Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.
Copyright © 2015 by Ross Gay. Reprinted from Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database.
I always took it for granted, the right to vote
She said
And I knew what my mother meant
Her voice constricted tightly by the flu A virus
& a 30-year-relationship
with Newport 100s
I ain’t no chain smoker
she attempts to silence my concern
only a pack a week. That’s good, you know?
My mother survived a husband she didn’t want
and an addiction that loved her more
than any human needs
I sit to write a poem about the 100 year Anniversary
of the 19th Amendment
& my first thought returns to the womb
& those abortions I did not want at first
but alas
The thirst of an almost anything
is a gorge always looking to be
until the body is filled with more fibroids
than possibilities
On the 19th hour of the fourth day in a new decade
I will wake restless from some nightmare
about a bomb & a man with no backbone
on a golf course who clicks closed his Motorola phone
like an exclamation point against his misogynistic stance
He swings the golf club with each chant
Women let me grab
Women like me
Women vote until I say they don’t
In my nightmare he is an infective agent
In the clear of day
he is just the same
Every day he breathes is a threat to this country’s marrow
For Ida & Susan & Lucretia & Elizabeth Cady
& every day he tweets grief
like a cynical cornball comic’s receipts
like a red light signaling the end of times
The final night of 2019
& my New Year’s Eve plans involves
anything that will numb the pain
of a world breaking its own heart
My mother & I have already spoken
& her lungs are croaking wet
I just want you to know I don’t feel well
& I pause to pull up my stockings beneath my crumpled smile
On this day I sigh
I just wanted to dance & drink & forget about the 61.7% votes
My silk dress falls to my knees with the same swiftness
defiant as the white feminist who said “I’m your ally”
then voted for the demise of our nation’s most ignored
underpaid, imprisoned & impoverished citizens
Every day there is a telephone near
I miss my mother
In the waiting room of the OB/GYN
Uptown bound on the dirt orange train seat of the subway
O! How my mother loves the places she can never go
Her bones swaddled with arthritis & smoke
So she relies on my daily bemoans
The train smells like yesterday, Ma
They raise the tolls & fix nothing for the people
My landlord refuses to fix my toilet, my bathroom sink, my refrigerator
The city is annoying like an old boyfriend, always buzzing about nothing
& in the way of me making it on time to the polls
This woman didn’t say thank you when I held the door
& who does she think she is?
Each time I crack & cap on the everydayness of my day
My mother laughs as if she can see the flimsy MTA card
The yellow cabs that refuse to stop for her daughter
In these moments she can live again
A whole bodied woman with a full mouth
to speak it plain
I ask my mother what hurts?
What hurts?
How can I help from here?
3000 miles away
Alone in a tower between the sea
& the Mexico borders
My mother sighs a little sigh & says
Nothing
I just wanted to hear your voice
Copyright © 2020 by Mahogany L. Browne. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative and published in Poem-a-Day on March 21, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.
I was meant for all things to meet:
to make the clouds pause in the mirror
of my waters, to be home to fallen rain
that finds its way to me, to turn eons
of loveless rock into lovesick pebbles
and carry them as humble gifts back
to the sea which brings life back to me.
I felt the sun flare, praised each star
flocked about the moon long before
you did. I’ve breathed air you’ll never
breathe, listened to songbirds before
you could speak their names, before
you dug your oars in me, before you
created the gods that created you.
Then countries—your invention—maps
jigsawing the world into colored shapes
caged in bold lines to say: you’re here,
not there, you’re this, not that, to say:
yellow isn’t red, red isn’t black, black is
not white, to say: mine, not ours, to say
war, and believe life’s worth is relative.
You named me big river, drew me—blue,
thick to divide, to say: spic and Yankee,
to say: wetback and gringo. You split me
in two—half of me us, the rest them. But
I wasn’t meant to drown children, hear
mothers’ cries, never meant to be your
geography: a line, a border, a murderer.
I was meant for all things to meet:
the mirrored clouds and sun’s tingle,
birdsongs and the quiet moon, the wind
and its dust, the rush of mountain rain—
and us. Blood that runs in you is water
flowing in me, both life, the truth we
know we know: be one in one another.
Copyright © 2019 Richard Blanco. This poem originally appeared in in How to Love a Country, 2019. Reprinted with permission of the author.
I always took it for granted, the right to vote
She said
And I knew what my mother meant
Her voice constricted tightly by the flu A virus
& a 30-year-relationship
with Newport 100s
I ain’t no chain smoker
she attempts to silence my concern
only a pack a week. That’s good, you know?
My mother survived a husband she didn’t want
and an addiction that loved her more
than any human needs
I sit to write a poem about the 100 year Anniversary
of the 19th Amendment
& my first thought returns to the womb
& those abortions I did not want at first
but alas
The thirst of an almost anything
is a gorge always looking to be
until the body is filled with more fibroids
than possibilities
On the 19th hour of the fourth day in a new decade
I will wake restless from some nightmare
about a bomb & a man with no backbone
on a golf course who clicks closed his Motorola phone
like an exclamation point against his misogynistic stance
He swings the golf club with each chant
Women let me grab
Women like me
Women vote until I say they don’t
In my nightmare he is an infective agent
In the clear of day
he is just the same
Every day he breathes is a threat to this country’s marrow
For Ida & Susan & Lucretia & Elizabeth Cady
& every day he tweets grief
like a cynical cornball comic’s receipts
like a red light signaling the end of times
The final night of 2019
& my New Year’s Eve plans involves
anything that will numb the pain
of a world breaking its own heart
My mother & I have already spoken
& her lungs are croaking wet
I just want you to know I don’t feel well
& I pause to pull up my stockings beneath my crumpled smile
On this day I sigh
I just wanted to dance & drink & forget about the 61.7% votes
My silk dress falls to my knees with the same swiftness
defiant as the white feminist who said “I’m your ally”
then voted for the demise of our nation’s most ignored
underpaid, imprisoned & impoverished citizens
Every day there is a telephone near
I miss my mother
In the waiting room of the OB/GYN
Uptown bound on the dirt orange train seat of the subway
O! How my mother loves the places she can never go
Her bones swaddled with arthritis & smoke
So she relies on my daily bemoans
The train smells like yesterday, Ma
They raise the tolls & fix nothing for the people
My landlord refuses to fix my toilet, my bathroom sink, my refrigerator
The city is annoying like an old boyfriend, always buzzing about nothing
& in the way of me making it on time to the polls
This woman didn’t say thank you when I held the door
& who does she think she is?
Each time I crack & cap on the everydayness of my day
My mother laughs as if she can see the flimsy MTA card
The yellow cabs that refuse to stop for her daughter
In these moments she can live again
A whole bodied woman with a full mouth
to speak it plain
I ask my mother what hurts?
What hurts?
How can I help from here?
3000 miles away
Alone in a tower between the sea
& the Mexico borders
My mother sighs a little sigh & says
Nothing
I just wanted to hear your voice
Copyright © 2020 by Mahogany L. Browne. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative and published in Poem-a-Day on March 21, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.
I’m sorry, could you repeat that. I’m hard of hearing.
To the cashier
To the receptionist
To the insistent man asking directions on the street
I’m sorry, I’m hard of hearing. Could you repeat that?
At the business meeting
In the writing workshop
On the phone to make a doctor’s appointment
I’m-sorry-I’m-sorry-I’m-so-sorry-I’m-hard-for-the-hearing
Repeat.
Repeat.
Hello, my name is Sorry
To full rooms of strangers
I’m hard to hear
I vomit apologies everywhere
They fly on bat wings
towards whatever sound beckons
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry
and repeating
and not hearing
Dear (again)
I regret to inform you
I am
here
Copyright © 2020 by Camisha L. Jones. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 3, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.
Birthday, birthday, hurray, hurray
The 19th Amendment was ratified today
Drum rolls, piano rolls, trumpets bray
The 19th Amendment was ratified today
Left hand bounces, right hand strays
Maestro Joplin is leading the parade
Syncopated hashtags, polyrhythmic goose-steps
Ladies march to Pennsylvania Avenue!
Celebrate, ululate, caterwaul, praise
Women’s suffrage is all the rage
Sisters! Mothers! Throw off your bustles
Pedal your pushers to the voting booth
Pram it, waltz it, Studebaker roadster it
Drive your horseless carriage into the fray
Prime your cymbals, flute your skirts
One-step, two-step, kick-ball-change
Castlewalk, Turkey Trot, Grizzly Bear waltz
Argentine Tango, flirty and hot
Mommies, grannies, young and old biddies
Temperance ladies sip bathtub gin
Unmuzzle your girl dogs, Iowa your demi-hogs
Battle-axe polymaths, gangster moms
Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Lucy Burns and Carrie Chapman Catt
Alice Paul, come one, come all!
Sign the declaration at Seneca Falls!
Dada-faced spinsters, war-bond Prufrocks
Lillian Gish, make a silent wish
Debussy Cakewalk, Rachmaninoff rap
Preternatural hair bobs, hamster wheels
Crescendos, diminuendos, maniacal pianos
Syncopation mad, cut a rug with dad!
Oompa, tuba, majorette girl power
Baton over Spamalot!
Tiny babies, wearing onesies
Raise your bottles, tater-tots!
Accordion nannies, wash-board symphonies
Timpani glissando!
The Great War is over!
Victory, freedom, justice, reason
Pikachu, sunflowers, pussy hats
Toss up your skull caps, wide brim feathers
Throwing shade on the seraphim
Hide your cell phones, raise your megaphones!
Speak truth to power
and vote, vote vote!
WARNING:
Nitwit legislators, gerrymandering fools
Dimwit commissioners, judicial tools
Toxic senators, unholy congressmen
Halitosis ombudsmen, mayoral tricks
Doom calf demagogues, racketeering mules
Whack-a-mole sheriffs, on the take
Fornicator governators, rakehell collaborators
Tweeter impersonators, racist prigs
Postbellum agitators, hooligan aldermen
Profiteering warmongers, Reconstruction dregs
Better run, rascals better pray
We’ll vote you out on judgement day!
Better run, rascals better pray
We’ll vote you out on election day!
Copyright © 2020 by Marilyn Chin. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative and published in Poem-a-Day on March 7, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.
I always took it for granted, the right to vote
She said
And I knew what my mother meant
Her voice constricted tightly by the flu A virus
& a 30-year-relationship
with Newport 100s
I ain’t no chain smoker
she attempts to silence my concern
only a pack a week. That’s good, you know?
My mother survived a husband she didn’t want
and an addiction that loved her more
than any human needs
I sit to write a poem about the 100 year Anniversary
of the 19th Amendment
& my first thought returns to the womb
& those abortions I did not want at first
but alas
The thirst of an almost anything
is a gorge always looking to be
until the body is filled with more fibroids
than possibilities
On the 19th hour of the fourth day in a new decade
I will wake restless from some nightmare
about a bomb & a man with no backbone
on a golf course who clicks closed his Motorola phone
like an exclamation point against his misogynistic stance
He swings the golf club with each chant
Women let me grab
Women like me
Women vote until I say they don’t
In my nightmare he is an infective agent
In the clear of day
he is just the same
Every day he breathes is a threat to this country’s marrow
For Ida & Susan & Lucretia & Elizabeth Cady
& every day he tweets grief
like a cynical cornball comic’s receipts
like a red light signaling the end of times
The final night of 2019
& my New Year’s Eve plans involves
anything that will numb the pain
of a world breaking its own heart
My mother & I have already spoken
& her lungs are croaking wet
I just want you to know I don’t feel well
& I pause to pull up my stockings beneath my crumpled smile
On this day I sigh
I just wanted to dance & drink & forget about the 61.7% votes
My silk dress falls to my knees with the same swiftness
defiant as the white feminist who said “I’m your ally”
then voted for the demise of our nation’s most ignored
underpaid, imprisoned & impoverished citizens
Every day there is a telephone near
I miss my mother
In the waiting room of the OB/GYN
Uptown bound on the dirt orange train seat of the subway
O! How my mother loves the places she can never go
Her bones swaddled with arthritis & smoke
So she relies on my daily bemoans
The train smells like yesterday, Ma
They raise the tolls & fix nothing for the people
My landlord refuses to fix my toilet, my bathroom sink, my refrigerator
The city is annoying like an old boyfriend, always buzzing about nothing
& in the way of me making it on time to the polls
This woman didn’t say thank you when I held the door
& who does she think she is?
Each time I crack & cap on the everydayness of my day
My mother laughs as if she can see the flimsy MTA card
The yellow cabs that refuse to stop for her daughter
In these moments she can live again
A whole bodied woman with a full mouth
to speak it plain
I ask my mother what hurts?
What hurts?
How can I help from here?
3000 miles away
Alone in a tower between the sea
& the Mexico borders
My mother sighs a little sigh & says
Nothing
I just wanted to hear your voice
Copyright © 2020 by Mahogany L. Browne. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative and published in Poem-a-Day on March 21, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.
eenie meenie minie moe
catch a voter by her toe
if she hollers then you know
got yourself a real jane crow
* * *
one vote is an opinion
with a quiet legal force ::
a barely audible beep
in the local traffic, & just
a plashless drop of mercury
in the national thermometer.
but a collectivity of votes
/a flock of votes, a pride of votes,
a murder of votes/ can really
make some noise.
* * *
one vote begets another
if you make a habit of it.
my mother started taking me
to the polls with her when i
was seven :: small, thrilled
to step in the booth, pull
the drab curtain hush-shut
behind us, & flip the levers
beside each name she pointed
to, the Xs clicking into view.
there, she called the shots.
* * *
rich gal, poor gal
hired girl, thief
teacher, journalist
vote your grief
* * *
one vote’s as good as another
:: still, in 1913, illinois’s gentle
suffragists, hearing southern
women would resent spotting
mrs. ida b. wells-barnett amidst
whites marchers, gently kicked
their sister to the curb. but when
the march kicked off, ida got
right into formation, as planned.
the tribune’s photo showed
her present & accounted for.
* * *
one vote can be hard to keep
an eye on :: but several /a
colony of votes/ can’t scuttle
away unnoticed so easily. my
mother, veteran registrar for
our majority black election
district, once found—after
much searching—two bags
of ballots /a litter of votes/
stuffed in a janitorial closet.
* * *
one-mississippi
two-mississippis
* * *
one vote was all fannie lou
hamer wanted. in 1962, when
her constitutional right was
over forty years old, she tried
to register. all she got for her
trouble was literacy tested, poll
taxed, fired, evicted, & shot
at. a year of grassroots activism
nearly planted her mississippi
freedom democratic party
in the national convention.
* * *
one vote per eligible voter
was all stacey abrams needed.
she nearly won the georgia
governor’s race in 2018 :: lost by
50,000 /an unkindness of votes/
to the man whose job was purg
maintaining the voter rolls.
days later, she rolled out plans
for getting voters a fair fight.
it’s been two years—& counting.
Copyright © 2020 Evie Shockley. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative, and appeared in the Spring-Summer 2020 issue of American Poets.
1
The century speeds along
Sound & dust & color & light
Clouds speed over ballgames & wars
Nerves hanging off them Women watch
early election results Stressed-out women
in hats & choirs Women sitting under
suburban stars Women with husbands
or wives Housed or unhoused women
with herbs or guns Women with
friends & cats who are always tired
New medium or old to the world order
Who pull their masks tightly after the fires
2
Over 52,000,000 minutes... ...since the 19th
Amendment,,,,,, Over 26,000,000 women voted
after that ;;;;;; mostly only white women because
of the poll tax... Now let’s just think about that...
There are 53 minutes in a micro-century:::
We place extra dots as eyes for extra vision: : :
There are two periods in the 19th Amendment
i place them here . . for women
who want to be women or don’t
We were dodging the little zeroes between mystery
& meaning.,. history & hope We were walking or
driving i was flying left till my left wing broke
3
Some women vote with armed guards Some
have their forearms stamped The branches
of the oak are breaking off The particle
spirits are being used up There are two
men in amendment There is gerry in gerrymander
There are eyeless vans from Amazon outside
like hearses carrying the corpse of profit
Some women do not like to vote They think
the revolution will come faster The land
is blighted Muriel Is weather better if you
order on line Is earth’s orbit polyethelene
i thought of not voting but there isn’t time
4
The great dead teach the living not to hate or
to try to love imperfectly At what point
did voting really begin Wyoming (oddly)
was the first state Some practiced law
but couldn’t vote Seneca Falls 1848
Lucy Stone abolitionist could not vote
Impossible to reconcile what you want
with what you are …… i’m voting extra
with my shoe ✔✔✔ Applying text corrupter
here for how long justice takes 1̸̡̛͍̫̝͚̍̒͊̂2̴̨̙̱͚̀̽̒͘͠ͅ3̷̻̪̥̗̥̈́̽̎̓͗1̸̡̛͍̫̝͚̍̒͊̂2̴̨̙̱͚̀̽̒͘͠ͅ3̷̻̪̥̗̥̈́̽̎̓͗
We leafleted in 1968 Come out of your
house & stand now You count too
5
The right of citizens to vote,,,’’’ shall not (she’ll not)
be denied or abridged /// ;;; ;;;
(i’m adding 46 marks of punctuation for 46
years till 1966 Voting Rights Act)
by the U******nited States or by any State
.…..>>>>>> & the names will survive
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper,,,,,, Hallie
Quinn Brown . . Mary Church Terrell
& Congress shall not remove cage kill & undo
citizens because of age ability gender race
etc. Some vote despite perfectionism
Messy marks in tiny tiny hollow squares
6
i voted first in 1972 tear gas My Lai Weather
Underground mostly voted against things then
Agent Orange the draft had gone
to the trailer park with leaflets We were new to
the Pill nice sex or terrible with skinny stoned boys
Smog in LA We stayed in the dorm burning incense
Can’t remember who i voted for ankles showing
under the curtain Metal bar on top
like you were taking a shower Mostly always voted
Just had the habit Once wrote in my friend
The land is blighted Adrienne Absentee ballot
i tear the numbered stub then i mail it in
7
Seatmate on the plane speaks first
older woman taking care of herself dental
assistant from Virginia i suspect she voted for t
Friendly over-60s whiteness is our commons
Our legs stick to fake leather flying over some
cleaned up rivers still adding carbon to the air
Her $12 cheese plate dwindles We talk We both
love our jobs She puts small instruments in patients’
mouths i use small instruments with patience
She’s going to Las Vegas to play black jack Laughs
Our story sails along inside oblivion
Our electrons speed inside oblivion
8
The yellow minutes of our coasts
The saturation of our voices
Centuries of women sick on a ship
Decades of women sick at the office
Women in tents in a marketplace
where the orange canary sings beside
the masterpiece they made At times i hear
the queen of ants At times i feel the great
dead choose for us to keep unreasonable
joy & revolution in the craft we made
We fed refusal to the storm to live
in the dream in revolt in realism
for Adrienne Rich & Muriel Rukeyser
for my granddaughters
for JB, AH, ER, JR
Copyright © 2020 Brenda Hillman. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative.
I make peace with this being a beginning:
speaking
when commentary makes me unbelieve
in my body / saying No
when asked if I found a church home
in my respective
shelter city / saying Because
they’re not good people when asked why I don’t attend
family functions / spreading the good word
of moving out
of a town you could never call home
If home is really where the heart should be
my heart is somewhere in Fort Worth, Texas
between sundry items at Ramey Market
or sinking in Kool-Aid
at Madea’s Down Home Cooking
I don’t remember a time I wasn’t lying
about how much something harmed me
I run with the opposite
of progress
every time my father speaks
Congress is no match
to the grave I choose to lay my mind
in / I’m making peace
with all of the I’s in this poem
unfortunately being the speaker
& I am tired
of making peace with small
progress being a precursor
for my death
& ignoring the pleading for A/C
permeating through my clothes every time
a Texas summer gets hotter / I make
peace
with all the living things around me
shaking my hand as if we’ll make it
through this
unscarred & together
& the sun
is just a metaphor for my falling–
Reprinted from Freedom House. Copyright © 2023 by KB Brookins. Used with permission of the author. All rights reserved.
Clean up after yourself. Pick up
that book chile, you still got
a good back. Seek therapy.
Don’t kill the creative in you.
Don’t kill Black people. Get a job —
one that doesn’t make you
the dictator. Take back 400 years
of overcontested leadership. Give
thanks to the futures you’ve stolen.
Give back what your people call
inheritance. Wash your hands; cut
the grass; don’t kill Asian women.
Don’t have what you call bad days.
Don’t think that — due to fear planted
in the roots of your kin — you can’t get rid
of yourself today. Get a job —
one that doesn’t require blood from me.
I’m low on iron & desire to tell you
once again. Quit playing. There’s a puddle
of blood you’ve shoved into a corner.
There’s a mop and my people
wringed into a bucket of waste. I’ll wait.
Copyright © KB Brookins. This poem originally appeared in Drunk Monkeys, May 16, 2022. Used with permission of the author.