Write Poems, Break Spells

Musings on #NationalPoetryMonth

Welcome to April! Welcome to National Poetry Month!

Poetry is vital to me. As an artist working in words, sounds, and ceremonies, I love language—its complexities, its power to unite and divide. Writers devote entire careers to capturing poetry’s potency. Why is it urgent for poets yet dismissed as frivolous by society? Perhaps because emotion and sensitivity are coded as feminine—and thus devalued—while patriarchy insists men are “logical,” despite how fragile egos can spawn tyranny.

Poems are spells. It’s been said bad storytellers make spells, but great ones break them. I love breaking spells with my poems, songs, comedy, speeches, and chants.

I recently attended Oakland’s Hands Off rally to capture protest signs—especially those with unique wording. Some of them were even poetic. Watch my video and let me know which poster speaks to you most.

I also want to share two poems I’ve written for National Poetry Month.

Many poets aim for a poem a day, but missing a few days is fine. The first poem is inspired by a Gabriel Cortez prompt; the second is inspired by a prompt from my latest Interview with a Muse podcast episode. Let me know which lines resonate with you.

And remember, our love for one another is more powerful than all the systems conspiring against us!

My people

My people are anxious girlies and inquisitive they/thems

My people sip lattes and miss the BART train to the city

My people walk swiftly through barrios, greeting anyone who’ll lock eyes

My people expose what’s below the surface of things like pulling at a sour California orange peel, the fleshy truth caught in between our fingernails

My people have anger issues, kind hearts, thighs thick to save lives

My people are femmes who’ve considered suicide but stay alive out of spite

My people are unafraid of grey hairs, of laugh lines, of joking till our bellies ache

My people have PTSD, ADHD, OCD but know acronyms can’t contain the galaxies we have for brains

My people are brilliant

My people celebrate mistakes, learn from mishaps, abolish the police in our heads and learn longing for liberation instead

My people sunbathe in summer but if we want to soak in hot liquid we prefer claw foot tubs; we only love up on men who’d gladly drink our bath water

My people are artistic mothers and childfree aunts

My people are waiting to discover me just as much as I’m waiting to discover them

We put out telepathic want adds in the back of our minds:

“Radical, creative girlie seeking platonic life partners to ride out the fall of empire and remake the world as utopian wet dream. (saw you dancing on your enemies’ graves and couldn’t help but smile. Will embrace as much tenderness as necessary to love you in all your complexity).”

So Much Light

I will not bow down to fear or surrender at the doorstep of sorrows no matter how they crescendo

I will not live a small existence, not when I contain multitudes, not when I have holy ghosts in my throat and urgent love oozing from every pore

I will not sweat small stuff or make mountains out of molehills

I will not create a prison of feeling or sculpt nightmares from unknowable things

I will not bow down

My back is straight

I will hold the posture of a ballerina and the one two punch of a prized fighter

I will not become rigid or anguished or give up my furious dreaming for the stale promise of delusion, apathy, or xenophobia

I will not look away when my neighbors are disappeared, when the cost of food sky rockets, when my history becomes contraband

Love is contraband in hell, too

I will not bow down or look at my feet

That might mean I’d miss the light at the end of the tunnel

And there’s so much light.