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Image via MPD150

“Abolishing prisons and police” was one of those concepts that sounded super radical to me… until I actually listened, and learned more about it.

I know that a few links aren’t going to persuade everyone, but I do think it’s really important to think critically about the stories we’re told about justice, policing, and order, along with the stories we’re not told. Especially right now, as the narrative about the police killing of George Floyd, and the narrative about what needs to happen next, take shape.

“What about the murderers?” “How will we stay safe?” “It’s too unrealistic!” Whatever concerns pop into your head, know that you are not the only person who has asked them. Here are FIVE of the readings and resources that have been most useful to me on my own journey toward understanding the necessity of dismantling the current system.

We must look beyond police for community safety (Star Tribune)
As public health experts have been saying for centuries, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A police-first approach to public safety fails to address the underlying causes of crime, while contributing to our status as the most incarcerated country in the world, and one with incredibly high levels of police violence. Why don’t we try something different?

Thinking about how to abolish prisons with Mariame Kaba (Chris Hayes’ podcast – audio and transcript)
I’m a prison-industrial complex abolitionist, which means that I have a political vision and ideological commitments and belief in organizing, that we have to organize towards a horizon where we no longer have prisons, policing, and surveillance. That we figure out other ways of addressing harm within our communities.

“Building a Police-Free Future: Frequently-Asked Questions” (MPD150)
Police abolition work is not about snapping our fingers and instantly defunding every department in the world. Rather, we’re talking about a gradual process of strategically reallocating resources, funding, and responsibility away from police and toward community-based models of safety, support, and prevention.

“Reformist reforms vs. abolitionist steps in policing” (Critical Resistance)
These charts break down the difference between reformist reforms which continue or expand the reach of policing, and abolitionist steps that work to chip away and reduce its overall impact. (This graphic is really cool, but there is a similar, potentially easier-to-read piece here).

Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind (New York TImes)
Abolition means not just the closing of prisons but the presence, instead, of vital systems of support that many communities lack. Instead of asking how, in a future without prisons, we will deal with so-called violent people, abolitionists ask how we resolve inequalities and get people the resources they need long before the hypothetical moment when, as Gilmore puts it, they “mess up.”

BONUS UPDATE: Some writing from this past week’s Minneapolis Uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd:

Longer Reads:
Of course, these links are just a start, but I think they frame the argument really well. If you want to dig deeper into the data, the history, and the policy side of what needs to happen, here are some books and other resources that might make good next steps:

A parting thought: I wanted to share something here that was a little more focused than the “here are 35379 things people can do” pieces floating around out there. Of course, “learning more” isn’t the same as action, and isn’t enough to create the changes we need. But it is an important step, especially for those of us just getting involved for the first time.

One reason an abolitionist approach makes so much sense to me is that, as these readings show, it isn’t just an abstract philosophical concept- it’s a process with some pretty concrete, practical, winnable steps. Here in Minneapolis, I’d definitely recommend people check out Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective, the coalitions that are kind of at the center of this kind of organizing, as well as MPD150 (a group I’ve worked with for a while now; some cool stuff on the horizon too). An easy action step is to follow those groups on whatever social media platforms you use, and stay plugged in.

There’s short-term work that needs to be done (protesting, taking care of each other, contacting city council/mayor to demand divestment from police), and there’s long-term work that needs to be done (pressuring local policy-makers via elections, lobbying, direct action, and public pressure to shift resources away from police and toward community), but both can be done with an abolitionist framework. A last link: I’d encourage people who are interested in taking action to check out Deepa Iyer’s “My Role in a Social Change Ecosystem” to help with that process.

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Image: Thanos’ empty armor being used as a scarecrow

I’m supposed to be working on poems for my new book; I wrote this instead.

In the Marvel cinematic universe, costumed superheroes battle an assortment of global threats: Loki invades Earth with an extraterrestrial army. Ultron threatens to replace humanity with artificial intelligence. The forces of Hydra infiltrate the governments of the world and seek to bring them down from the inside.

But the ultimate villain, the larger threat looming over the more than twenty films leading up to the MCU’s climax, is Thanos. A being of unfathomable power, Thanos is also an antagonist with a specific philosophy. He believes that the problem with the universe is too much life, too many mouths to feed, too great a strain on finite resources. So his solution, his goal, is to wipe out half of all life in the universe; he believes that by doing this, the remaining half will thrive.

In these films, it is taken for granted that Thanos is the villain, and that his plan is as nonsensical as it is horrific. In the real world, however, his general philosophy – that there are too many people, that we’re going to run out of food and resources unless we control the population – is something that a lot of people (including mass murderers in El Paso and Christchurch) actually believe. Whether we call it Neo-Malthusianism or eco-fascism or whatever fancy name, it very often goes hand in hand with anti-immigrant bigotry, yellow peril xenophobia, and a sociopathic focus on rugged individualism over community, empathy, and cooperation. Pandemics make it worse.

Over the coming years, we’re going to see more of this. So here are three frames, metaphors, and counter-arguments that have been useful to me. Hopefully they can be useful to you, as well.

1. If there are a hundred people, and a hundred apples, and one person has 90 apples, and the other 99 people have to share ten apples – the problem is not that there are too many people.

The eco-fascists will tell you that there aren’t enough apples, but the truth is that as a species, we have all the resources we need, right now, to make sure every person on earth has food, shelter and access to a healthy life. The problem is that we spend billions of dollars on F-35s and stealth bombers, while propping up a system that allows a tiny minority of people to hoard unfathomable amounts of wealth that they couldn’t spend in a hundred lifetimes. The issue isn’t scarcity of resources; the issue is the system we use to distribute those resources.

2. If a pandemic comes along and kills a few million humans, disproportionately affecting the elderly, the poor, the vulnerable – refugees, prisoners, people without access to health care – that is not “the ecosystem resetting itself.” That is not “mother earth fighting back.”

I know it can sound like a cool, edgy hot-take to be like “humanity… is the real virus,” but my nieces and nephews are not viruses. My friends who are nurses and advocates and educators and working-class people just trying to live are not the problem. “Humanity,” as a general concept, is not to blame for the climate crisis. A handful of obscenely wealthy capitalists and the multi-billion dollar extractive industries they control are to blame for the climate crisis.

And while it can be annoying when some hippie on Twitter says stuff like that, it’s important to understand how that rhetoric connects to xenophobia and racism. As Trump and his supporters start calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” or the “kung-flu,” we have to remember how historically, anxiety about overpopulation and disease has led to crackdowns on those labeled “other,” whether immigrants, religious minorities, or whatever scapegoat those in power wish to use to distract from their own incompetence. Today, we’re already seeing hate crimes targeting Asians and Asian-Americans. We must have zero tolerance for this.

Sidebar: two important links for people who might find themselves in arguments about this: The World Health Organization’s explicit recommendation to NOT name diseases after places or people and a news story with proof that Trump and/or his speechwriters are going out of their way to change the name from what is recommended to what benefits them politically. It’s sick.

3. As a purely intellectual exercise, the idea of 100 people on a sinking ship and only ten being able to fit on the lifeboat might lead you to some “harsh but fair” conclusions. In reality, though, we have more choices beyond “most people die” and “everyone dies.”

To continue this metaphor, we could bring more lifeboats on the ship. Stepping back, we could design the ship to more elegantly fit additional lifeboats, and/or be more resistant to sinking in the first place. Stepping back further, we could institute regulations on the shipbuilding industry that mandate that ships must have enough lifeboats for all passengers. 

Outside of this hypothetical, it’s worth remembering that in real life, who do you think is most likely to have access to a “lifeboat?” The rich, the privileged, and the powerful have a vested interest in making the rest of us think that there aren’t enough resources to go around, because that minimizes pressure on them to share what they see as theirs alone.

***

To return to the MCU: using the infinity gauntlet, Thanos became effectively omnipotent. If he truly cared about making sure there were enough resources to go around, rather than wiping out half of all life in the universe, he could have snapped his fingers and created more resources, or ensured that humans and aliens across the universe distributed those resources in a better way.

The fact that his “solution,” seemingly the first and only course of action he considered, was to murder half of all life tells us a lot more about him than it does about the issues he claimed to be concerned about.

Of course, Thanos isn’t real. But his philosophy is. Watch out for those whose imaginations are big enough to envision millions dying in a pandemic, but aren’t big enough to envision a more just, equitable system that would allow all of humanity to thrive. It’s on us to dream bigger, to work together, and to save ourselves. Nothing is inevitable.

FURTHER RESOURCES:

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A good document pulling together some links and “how-to” resources on mutual aid and pod-mapping; basically, how we can support one another, in our communities, through the COVID-19 situation.

Additionally, a few thoughts of my own I posted on social media a couple days ago:

A million links to share, but to avoid stressing people out, here’s a brief summary of what I’ve been reading regarding covid-19; shared this the other day, but a few edits:

First, let’s remember that there’s a lot of room between “everything is fine” and “it’s the apocalypse.” Don’t panic, but please take it seriously: lives are very much at stake, especially older people, people with compromised immune systems, and frontline health care workers, and those people matter.

I’m thankful for everyone pointing out how, like a lot of big problems, the covid-19 pandemic requires solutions at both individual and institutional levels.

As individuals: there’s been a ton of good writing, articles, resources, etc. on specific things we can do: take extra care to wash hands, avoid unnecessary travel and gatherings, cancel events, offer to get groceries/supplies to people who might be more at risk, go out less, etc. This can make a real difference.

Also important: read credible sources; don’t fall for conspiracy theories, or racism (watch GOP politicians pivot to calling it “the chinese virus” or whatever), or facebook-style “I don’t know anything but I’m going to authoritatively state that this isn’t a big deal and it’s exactly like the common flu.” It’s not.

On the institutional level, we always hear calls not to “politicize” crises like this. But this crisis is political.

When people don’t have paid sick leave, they work sick, and that makes things worse– and that’s politics. When the Trump administration eliminates the position of “senior director for global health security and biodefense,” that’s politics. When millions of people don’t have health insurance, so don’t seek out the care they need, that’s politics.

So yeah, we can physically avoid one another for a while, while simultaneously committing to uniting together to tackle these underlying issues. This crisis will pass, but these bigger problems will ensure that another crisis won’t be far behind… unless we act- voting, organizing, mutual aid, everything.

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I live in Minnesota, and it’s a Super Tuesday state. So pretty soon, I’ll be voting for which Democratic nominee I’d like to go up against Trump in November.

For me, it’s only a conversation about Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. I have no interest in the other candidates. That isn’t to say I absolutely wouldn’t vote for (for example) Biden if he wins the primary; it’s just to say that in the primary, I will be voting for a progressive.

I’ll keep this brief and straightforward: Between Sanders and Warren, I’m going with Sanders. Below, I’m going to share some of my thought process. I’m not sharing this because I’m any kind of expert or authority; I just think it’s a good practice to talk out why we’re supporting who we’re supporting. If this can be useful to anyone else who’s trying to decide, great.

I think both Sanders and Warren have good platforms (at least relative to other candidates, past and present), and I even prefer a couple of Warren’s specific policies. But in general, just reading through their websites and doing the math, I align more with Sanders. But policy isn’t my main argument here. Platforms shift, especially as a candidate moves from the primary into the general. No matter who the candidate is, it’s going to be on us to hold them accountable. It’s going to be the movement-builders who apply pressure to those platforms and drive change.

So I’m MOST interested in what the movement-builders are saying.

Both Warren and Sanders have a bunch of great endorsements from individual politicians. Where Sanders pulls ahead, for me at least, is in endorsements from activist organizations (and unions!) on the ground, doing movement-building work every day. Don’t just listen to me, read these endorsements from some of the most inspiring organizations in the country:

  • Sunrise Movement
    We know that no matter who the next President is, we will need to turn millions of people into the streets and disrupt business as usual in order to win a Green New Deal. But our movement has spoken clearly. We believe a Bernie Sanders Presidency would provide the best political terrain in which to engage in and ultimately win that struggle for the world we deserve.
  • Mijente
    We need urgent change on a whole host of issues – climate change, deportations, education, health care. To get that change, first things first, we gotta get Donald Trump out and make him a one term president. We need a candidate who can assemble a vibrant, diverse coalition that presents a clear alternative. Today it’s official – we believe that candidate is Senator Bernie Sanders.
  • Dream Defenders
    Bernie is not our political savior. It is the movement behind him that will change this country: We are not electing a savior, we are electing a political opponent who we will hold accountable to meet our demands. Bernie Sanders knows he can’t change everything on his own. His campaign slogan, “Not Me, Us” is all about building a movement of millions to fight in the streets and at the ballot box to force the hands of legislators to listen. This is how change happens.
  • Democratic Socialists of America
    When Bernie says “not me, us,” he’s talking about an urgent political project: building a mass movement of working people that can change society. We’ll start with Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, powerful trade unions, tuition-free college, and an end to mass incarceration – but we won’t stop there.
  • TakeAction Minnesota
    “Bernie Sanders is the clear choice,” said Mai Chong Xiong, Board Chair of TakeAction Minnesota. “Bernie has built a bold, powerful movement because he listens to the people and knows our power. When working people organize and rise up together, we win elections and build a democracy, government and economy that works for all of us. The momentum keeps growing because families, communities, and climate can’t wait for action. We are ready to get to work.”
  • Make the Road Action
    Daniel Altschuler, managing director of Make the Road Action, said that the organization has been impressed by Sanders’s willingness to listen and learn from the grassroots advocacy community in putting together an immigration platform that reflects their priorities, including placing a moratorium on deportations and dismantling the immigration enforcement agencies. (source)
  • People’s Action
    “We know that Bernie will stand with the multiracial working class because he has always stood with us,” People’s Action National Board of Directors President Lizeth Chacon said. “He’s proven that he can listen and work with the grassroots when it’s time to be bolder. When we launched a call for safe, accessible, sustainable, permanently affordable homes for everyone, Sanders heard our blunt call for action. Now the vision of our Homes Guarantee is reflected in his housing policy. That’s just one example of him making movement politics mainstream.”

I was originally going to share a deeper dive into my own thoughts on policy, but I think these endorsements are both more important, and more persuasive.

And it’s not just about the endorsements themselves; look closely at what they’re saying. There’s so much language in those statements that explicitly recognizes that real change isn’t driven by individual politicians. It’s driven by movements, and the Sanders campaign is uniquely, at least in my experience, in conversation with the movement work happening outside the election. One last link: check out Boots Riley’s thoughts on that dynamic.

A Note on “Electability”
That word is in quotes for a reason. It’s not that electability isn’t real, or that it doesn’t matter; it’s that pundits and talking heads (and, let’s be honest, most of us) aren’t always very good at predicting who’s electable and who isn’t.

The last two presidents of the US are a bumbling fascist conman named Donald Trump and a progressive (at least in rhetoric) Black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Neither were ever considered “electable.” Go back and read the op-eds, or listen to the clips of “experts” on cable news, in 2008 and 2016. At the end of the day, “electability” can only be measured in winning elections.

And Sanders is winning right now. At the head of a movement that includes the most diverse base in the primary, the most youth, and the most straight up VOTES, he’s the frontrunner, and best-positioned, right now, to take on Donald Trump in November.

And yes, Bernie Sanders will face negative ads, like every candidate. They’ll say he’s a communist, that he’ll destroy the economy. But that’s the work: if people are nervous about democratic socialism, or overhauling the healthcare system, or the Green New Deal, it’s on us to take that opportunity to have a real conversation about those issues- a conversation that can lead to action no matter who sits in the White House.

They’ll say he’s too radical. It’s on us to talk about how often popular, commonsense policy positions get framed as “radical.” Health care is a human right. The climate crisis is real. No one should have a billion dollars while children go hungry and families struggle to get by. If these statements are “radical,” then it is PAST time for more radical politics.

It’s on us to make the case. It’s on us to make connections. It’s also on us to hold each other accountable — as Sanders himself has — when we witness harassment or the kind of toxic behavior that has become associated with his campaign (whether we believe that association is fair or not; in politics, the perception of a problem is a problem).

Electability isn’t some inherent quality that an individual just “has” or not; it’s something we create, through our advocacy, our volunteering, and our votes. We have agency. We can get involved and help push for real change- both inside AND outside of electoral politics.

If you already agree with me, be sure to check out opportunities wherever you live to get involved, to do some door-knocking, or even just to donate.

If you’re looking for more information in a general sense about the primary, a good resource is Vote Save America, with a guide on how to register, the whole voting process, and how to get involved.

Related: a few expanded thoughts on voting in general, and how it can fit into a movement-building strategy without *becoming* the strategy.

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a photo of some soil and a plant + the text "poetry playlist: reproductive justice"

(Updated 6/28/22)

It isn’t always time for poetry. When the Speaker of the House reads a poem on the day the Supreme Court overturns Roe, it makes me ashamed to be a poet. But only for a moment. As always, poetry is not “the work,” but it can support, and inform, and impact the work.

The actual work, of course, is organizing, and finding ways to support the people who are organizing. In this moment, that means supporting abortion funds, getting plugged in to existing reproductive justice networks, and following their leadership.

The poems collected here (listed below, also in playlist form) are potential doorways into dialogue, tools for people doing the everyday work of narrative-shifting. Telling our stories and speaking out about the issues we care about isn’t everything we need to do, but it is still part of the puzzle.

I make a lot of issue-based lists of poems on this site, and as always, the caveat is that lists are always imperfect and incomplete, based on my own experience/networks, NOT any kind of definitive or authoritative collection. My hope is that these poems can be starting points for further exploration:

Finally, these aren’t poems, but if there’s anyone for whom this is a new issue, or you’d just like to learn more, or get involved, a few links:

This post was originally the announcement for my new (at the time) poem. I just wanted to edit it so the list was at the top, and my poem here. Here’s a video, the full text, and some thoughts on the process:

As I often do with new poems, I wanted to share a few notes on process, and then some poems by other writers that tackle the topic in different ways.

A Few Notes on Process
This is a poem about a specific issue, but it’s also a poem that is exploring a couple different impulses:

  • I’m really interested in how we, as artists and writers, respond to fascism. I’ve written about this before, but I think ONE thing to think about is the importance of saying something, even when that something isn’t perfect or revelatory or magical. This isn’t a perfect poem, haha. It isn’t the most creative thing I’ve written. But it was important to me to stand up on a stage and say it, as soon as I had the opportunity. The poem might continue to get revised and people might catch a new draft at some point, but to me, the timeliness was more important than the timelessness.
  • The poem is also the product of a lot of conversations I’ve had with activists, organizers and advocates who work on issues related to gender, feminism, and reproductive justice. The refrain is always “men (especially cis men) need to speak up more.” That can seem super obvious, but it can be easy to forget when you’re “in” that world; for me, I’m around powerful voices who speak out on these issues all the time- that’s just my community. So I’ve often felt a pull to step back- which CAN be a healthy impulse! It can also, however, sometimes be an excuse to not do any work. It’s like, yes, it’s messed up that “men talking about being pro-choice” is still seen as bold or interesting- but that’s not an excuse not to do it.
  • I’m also really interested in multi-vocal responses, how no one poem has to be “definitive.” Multiple poems can present different angles of an argument, different POVs, etc. There are some examples below, but this framework has helped me as a writer: a poem doesn’t have to be all things to all people. A poem doesn’t have to be the conversation; it can be one piece of a much larger conversation (and different pieces may be able to do different “work” for different audiences, in different contexts). That realization, for me, has been freeing.

I don’t have a lot of faith in the power of poems to changes minds, especially about issues like abortion rights. That being said, poems can do so many other things. They can open up spaces for dialogue, they can provide useful frameworks or metaphors for understanding, they can contribute in ways both large and small to the ongoing push-and-pull of how the larger culture frames and understands complex issues, and they can plant seeds (while watering other seeds that have already been planted!)

Thank you! Please feel free to share. Full transcript:

Continue reading “A Few Poems on Reproductive Justice”

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Confederate statue in Durham torn down; image from here.

EDIT: This was originally posted in 2017 and was focused on Charlottesville, but I’ve since added more resources to the list, and broadened the scope to disrupting and dismantling white supremacy in general. My hope is that it can be useful to teachers, but also anyone looking to do this work.

At the top of this week, the Washington Post published this piece by Valerie Strauss: The first thing teachers should do when school starts is talk about hatred in America. Here’s help. The following links contain more ideas for resources, readings, and lesson plans, and may be a good place to start for educators who know that current events matter, and that not talking about Charlottesville makes a statement to your students that’s just as loud as any conversation or critical exploration.

Because my background is in using spoken word as a tool for narrative-shifting and opening up spaces for authentic dialogue, I also wanted to share a few poems that have been on my mind lately. As always, list-making is tricky. This is not a list of the “best” poems about this topic, or even a list of just “poems about racism.” 

This is a list of poems that might be useful for educators looking for artistic work that can prompt some critical thinking about white supremacy.

I’m also thinking about this list in terms of what work needs to be done in educational spaces. Understanding the motivations of– and contextual factors that cultivate– white supremacists is one angle, but so is making connections between the explicit hate espoused by neo-nazis and the more subtle, implicit ways that white supremacist ideology pops up in everyday life. I think these poems, in different ways, explore those connections. Maybe we shouldn’t need personal, human stories to create empathy, to illuminate that other human beings matter. But they can be tools for that, when it’s called for. These poems also use metaphor, symbolism, narrative, and other tools to push the listener beyond the notion that racism is just “people being mean to each other because they’re different.”

Of course, not every poem is appropriate for every audience. Be sure to review before presenting, both in terms of language/accessibility stuff and relevance. Also of course, “talking about racism” is a first step, not a last one, and we should challenge ourselves to find ways to embed anti-racist approaches and policies into our schools and institutions in more concrete ways as well.

Joseph Capehart – “Colorblind”
This poem uses humor to open up space for a powerful critique for the very common idea that “not seeing color” is the answer to racism. “You want to strip me clean; bleach away the parts of me that make you uncomfortable… when you say ‘colorblind,’ you are asking me to forget.”

Patricia Smith – Skinhead
A classic poem that seeks to explore the motivations of hateful bigots, without ever making excuses for them. There’s so much in here about empathy (in a critical sense), perspective, and what lenses people use to see the world.

Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre – “How to Explain White Supremacy to a White Supremacist”
I wanted to write something about how “white supremacy” is bigger and more insidious than just literal white supremacists marching around with torches. But this is also about highlighting the *connection* between those people and the everyday acts/attitudes/policies that make them possible. Pushing back has to happen at multiple levels too– denouncing and disrupting specific acts of terror, but also uprooting their worldview in the classroom, the office, the church, the comment thread, the home, and everywhere.

Kevin Yang – “Come Home”
This poem is warm, funny, and approachable, using empathy-generating personal stories to make a larger point about xenophobia, the refugee experience, and finding home. “Call me Hmong before you call me American, because Hmong is the closest word I know to home.”

T. Miller – “Ten Things You Sound Like When You Say AllLivesMatter in Response to BlackLivesMatter”
Another piece that uses juxtaposition and humor to highlight the absurdity of how white supremacy is, and isn’t, talked about in the US.

Bao Phi – “Broken/English”
This poem is heartbreaking. Sad poems can be useful when crafting activities or discussions focused on walking in someone else’s shoes. “Year after year she makes flowers bloom in the hood, petals in the face of this land that doesn’t want her here.”

Anthony McPherson – All Lives Matter (1800s Edition)
I can’t think of a better deconstruction of the excuses and rationalizations that white people use to distance themselves from white supremacy. Obviously, this won’t work for every audience, in every situation, but it can be a very powerful exploration of how rhetoric can be used to mask racism.

Christy NaMee Eriksen – If Racism Was a Burning Kitchen (text only)
Talking about racism involves *talking* about racism, and this piece has always been a favorite of mine because of how it illuminates how those conversations so often go. It’s absurdist, and even funny, but it points to something deadly serious and can be a useful entry point for talking about how we talk about racism.

Carlos Andrés Gómez – “12 Reasons to Abolish C.B.P & I.C.E”
So much white supremacist terrorism takes root in xenophobia and anti-immigrant hate. This poem can be a first step toward interrogating that.

Adam Falkner – “The Definition of Privilege”
For a concept that is so straightforward, privilege can be a challenging thing to talk about for a lot of people. This poem tells a story that breaks it down.

William Evans – “They Love Us Here”
Students sometimes struggle with the notion that tokenism, “positive” stereotypes, or other forms of “benevolent racism” are harmful. Even well-meaning people can contribute to a white supremacist society. This poem can be an entry point into that conversation.

Denice Frohman – “Borders”
Yet another poem showcasing the power of storytelling; this is a poem that might have different things to say to different audiences- but they’re all valuable.

Jared Paul – “5 Times My Skin Color Did Not Kill Me”
Storytelling can communicate information in ways that facts and statistics can’t. In this poem/TEDx Talk, Jared Paul simply tells five stories from his life that illustrate how whiteness works in context, even for people who would not consider themselves privileged.

Aamer Rahman – “Reverse Racism
“I’m cheating here since this isn’t a poem; it’s just really good. One reason we talk so much about “racism” in the US rather than “white supremacy” is because racism can be (incorrectly) framed as attitude. And anyone of any identity can have a bad attitude. But white supremacy is about power. It’s about history. And this short video illustrates that perfectly.

I hope this list can be useful; feel free to use it as a starting point to create your own. 

Of course, these are all for sparking dialogue, because dialogue matters. But action also matters. Whether it’s a classroom full of high-schoolers, a book club, a discussion group in a church basement, or some other setting, what matters is how we translate these discussions, these epiphanies, and these feelings into action.

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For teachers, student affairs folks, social justice activists, and beyond: this is a playlist of 30 poems that have been useful to me in classrooms, facilitated discussions, and other educational spaces.

It’s not a list of the “best” poems ever, or the only poems about these various topics; but there is some really powerful work here, work that meaningfully engages with these issues and can serve as great entry points or dialogue-starters. If you’re a teacher, another kind of educator, or just a person who understands the power of art, story, and conversation, I hope you find something to use here.

Of course, be sure to review the poems yourself first, since not every poem is going to be relevant or appropriate for every audience. Aside from these 30 poems, though, I hope people can fall down rabbit holes finding more work from these poets and these channels.

Additional lists and resources here.

Also wanted to share this piece that’s been on my mind a lot this summer, as I get ready to hit the road again this fall: Towards an Antifascist Pedagogy by Guy Emerson Mount. A relevant quote for educators, poets, and everyone: “Following Davis and Robeson, the first rule of an anti-fascist pedagogy then is to refuse to continue with ‘business as usual’ and recognize that the anti-fascist battleground is everywhere.”

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***Update: Be sure to check out my new Spoken Word and Slam Poetry Resource Hub***

You can read the full text below, but this post is also a zine; click here to download an 11×17 PDF to print/share copies. Folding instructions here.

There’s no one way to write, perform, publish, or live poetry. This post simply shares some tools, resources, and perspectives that have been useful to me as a poet, especially a spoken word poet.

Spoken word is about the idea that everyone has a story, and every story matters. While it’s often talked about as something new, it’s deeply connected to the history of the oral tradition, the storyteller, the griot. For a (relatively) more in-depth introduction, check out Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Spoken Word and Slam Poetry.

1. Show Up: Attend an Open Mic or Poetry Slam

One of the best ways to get involved is to simply dive in—whether as a performer or just as an audience member. Spoken word is built around open mics, poetry slams, and other spaces in which anyone can show up and share something. “Showing up” might also mean checking out events or programs where we’re not performing—go to another poet’s reading, or the launch party for a literary magazine’s new issue, or a panel discussion: these can all be spaces to learn more, have fun, and build community.

While I realize that not everyone reading this lives in the Twin Cities, here is my big list of Twin Cities open mics, slams, and other opportunities. If you’re here, use it. If you’re not here, do a little searching and find the similar events in your community.

Of course, if you’re reading this during the pandemic, this may be easier said than done. But “showing up” can mean more than physically attending events. With a little research, you may be able to find a virtual open mic (like Sabrina Benaim’s) or other kind of online community, which relates to the next point.

2. Build Your Cypher: Connect with Other Writers

(2024 update: check out my new ZINE on starting your own poetry club, writing circle, or other collective effort)

There is a stereotype that writing *must* be an intensely personal, individual act. And I don’t think that’s right. To me, writing is about community. Many high schools and colleges have poetry clubs, and showing up to those can be a great first step. If you’re a student and your school doesn’t have one, start one! For those of us not in school, maybe there’s a local literary or arts organization that offers a writing circle. There are also online writing circles, like Neil Hilborn’s.

As an introvert, I also know that this point can also be easier said than done. But it doesn’t have to be as formal as a club or student organization. What counts is community—maybe it’s just a circle of friends who meet up once a week to give each other feedback. Maybe it’s an online document that multiple people can edit. Maybe it’s literally just one other person. But getting feedback from other writers, having someone to bounce ideas around with—that can be really powerful.

3. Read More, Watch More, Write More

The deluge of poetry on social media over the past five years or so has meant that there’s more poetry than ever before, right at your fingertips. I’d argue that this is a good thing, but the flipside is that there’s a lot of not-so-great work out there too. That’s fine, but it can make learning and growing as an artist a challenge: is the IG poem with ten thousand likes a “good” poem? Is your poem, that didn’t win the poetry slam, a “bad” poem? What does that even mean?

There aren’t easy answers to those questions, if there are answers at all. The key is to never stop developing your critical eye/ear. This is work. Almost every poet or artist I know whom I would call successful has years and years of work under their belts. That work doesn’t have to be some fancy, inaccessible degree—but it does have to be work. It can be fun, though. Here are a few thoughts and resources:

  • In terms of books, there are too many great poets to shout out here, but a couple of presses that regularly publish work by poets who also participate in spoken word: Write Bloody, Button Poetry, Coffee House Press, Haymarket Books—I could go on and on; feel free to add more in the comments. There are also journals and zines like Poetry Magazine, Paper Darts, Mizna, Muzzle, and many, many more.
  • Every April, TruArtSpeaks shares a daily writing prompt. Other sites, organizations, and accounts do this as well. Try to find some you like, and potentially try writing a 30/30 (30 poems in thirty days).
    • Poet Ollie Schminkey also regularly shares some great writing prompts here.

4. A Few Links Related to Publishing and Career Stuff

My work generally focuses on performance, so I don’t have much advice when it comes to publishing. But I can share a few links that may be useful:

5. A Few Tips and Tools I’d Share With Myself If I Had a Time Machine

Advice is a tricky thing, since we all write for different reasons. Some just write for fun, or for a release. Some are trying to get published and build careers. Some are creating work to support movements and inspire people. So an important framework for me is the idea of TOOLS, NOT RULES: general tips and tactics that may or may not be useful based on what we’re trying to do. I asked a few poet friends to share some:

  • Read! “Too many poets don’t read anyone but themselves, or random quotes on social media. Read books—poetry, but also fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, everything. Audio books count.”
  • Have writers’ block? “Take a break and get inspiration from other media: movies, music, visual art, and beyond.”
  • Stage fright? “A powerful tactic that we tend to forget because it’s so simple is to practice. Build relationships with your poems through repetition.”
  • The most important part of writing is revising. “Let your first drafts emerge in whatever way makes sense for you, but don’t be satisfied with them.”
  • Take your time. “Especially with social media, there can be pressure to share everything, get published, go viral, etc. right away. I wish I had recognized that pressure for what it is: completely artificial, and often harmful. Set your own pace.”

The poems that stick with me:

  • Tend to be driven by images, not just ideas. They’re not just “deep thoughts” or manifestos; they use imagery, storytelling, and metaphor to go beyond the surface of an idea or issue. This relates to the concept of “showing vs. telling,” but again, for me, that’s a useful a concept to understand, a tool—not a rule.
  • Tend to have creative HOOKS: the concept or angle that makes a poem fresh. How is your love poem, elegy, or call-to-action different from all the other ones out there? How is it uniquely yours?
  • Tend to be focused and specific. They don’t try to tell “the whole story.” They take one moment from that story, zoom in, and explore it.
  • Tend to be more concerned with being timely than timeless. I appreciate poems that engage with the world as it is, and/or try to help me envision a better one. Feel free to disagree!

Check out my list of a few poems that illustrate these concepts (not necessarily the “best” poems or anything like that; just ones that I think represent spoken word in a powerful way and might serve as a useful introduction to the culture) here.

(BONUS POINT) 6. Live Your Life

Writing is important, but the best poems don’t come from locking ourselves away in a cabin and just writing for 20 hours every day. They come from engaging with our community, showing up to things (and “showing up” can mean a lot of different things, not just in-person activities), experiencing the world, having conversations, organizing and rabble-rousing, thinking critically, and then writing. Have fun.

It can also be very… tempting to see how poetry exists on social media and want to just immediately jump into sharing freewrites on IG and expecting overnight fame and fortune. And while that approach may work for a tiny, tiny number of people, it generally isn’t a good way to build a career. Social media can be a good way to share our work, but it’s most powerful when it’s supplementing what we’re doing offline (like building relationships, performing, showing up, reading, writing, etc.), not being a substitute for it. That’s a whole other post, but wanted to share that thought.

A running theme through all of these points is the idea that craft matters. Of course, if you’re just writing poetry for your own healing or enjoyment, whether some other poet or critic likes it or not is beside the point. But if you’re someone who is trying to make a career out of it, or really wants to find some measure of concrete success (book sales, publishing credits, a larger audience, etc.), then I hope these links, thoughts, and resources can be useful.