Find even more resources for creative troublemakers here.

A difficult title: I started simply wanting to collect “anti-ICE” poems, but obviously that kind of negative focus potentially limits the collection in terms of tone and substance. So this is something a little more broad. AS WITH ANY LIST, this is absolutely incomplete; it’s just a handful of poems (with a particular emphasis on spoken word and performance videos) that I’ve come across in my work and that I’d consider using in education/advocacy settings.

Same idea with my lists on Palestine poems, consent poems, whiteness poems, and various other lists here – these lists are “snapshots” of a much larger range of work that engage with an issue in a compelling way. If nothing else, I’m just setting up this page for myself, so I can have a quick reference when I want to find these poems. But if they can be useful to you too, even better!

• Carlos Andrés Gómez – 12 Reasons to Abolish C.B.P & I.C.E
• Denice Frohman – Borders
• Joaquín Zihuatanejo – Poetry Prompts for Detained Children
• José Olivarez – When We Win and against citizenship
• Fatimah Asghar – If They Come For Us
• Pages Matam – Immigration & Customs Entemophobia – On Sight!
• Paola Gonzalez & Karla Gutierrez – At The Wall, US/Mexican Border, Texas, 2020
• Kevin Yang – Come Home (or 8 Responses to the Phrase ‘Go Back to Where You Came From’)
• Ada Limón – A New National Anthem
• Bao Phi – Refugerequiem
• Mercedez Holtry – We’re Here to Stay
• Tatiana Ormaza and Juliana Hu Pegues – Under the Table

As the situation here in MN develops; a few local voices:

• SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE – Salt of the Earth + Spring is Coming
• Ollie Schminkey – Land of 10,000 Lakes
• Muna Abdulahi – The poem is Good
• Carl Atiya Swanson – They Tear-Gassed a Baby
• Tish Jones – The Children Are Watching
• Trung Le Nguyen – Just before Christmas, I got a puppy
• Junauda Petrus – untitled
• Ed Bok Lee – Civilization
• Isavela “Isa” López – We Are Not Your Immigrants
• Kevin Reese – RED AND BLUE GETS YOU PURPLE (THAT’S WHY THEY STARTED HERE)
• Isha Camara – Notes on Renee, on Minneapolis
• Kyle Tran Myhre – Let Your Heart Be a Whistle + One Does Not Simply Walk Into Minnesota
• KTM + SMP – Worthy of the Stone
• Tufawon – No One Is Illegal
• Essays + other writing by local artists:
  • Bao Phi in Time Magazine
  • Danez Smith in Harper’s
  • Shannon Gibney in the Star Tribune
  • Ifrah Mansour at Hyperallergic
  • Kao Kalia Yang at Lithub (and many more essays from local writers here)
  • Ricardo Levins Morales (blog)
  • Kyle Tran Myhre at Racket
  • Naomi Kritzer’s blogs on How to Help: (1) for Twin Cities Residents and (2) for people outside MN
• Check out this two-hour “asynchronous panel discussion” featuring me, Ollie Schminkey, Isha Camara, and SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE sharing specific tools and tactics for poets and other creative communicators looking to speak out in this historical moment.

Once again, I’ll just reiterate that this list is woefully incomplete, just a snapshot of the incredible work being done right now by poets, writers, and other culture workers. Let’s keep adding to this list, both in a literal sense and a figurative one.