By Jamie Lynn Connors
The venue may have shifted. But the participants still had plenty to say.
Poetry lovers and activists gathered — virtually, of course — for an hour last week to reflect on personal and political issues in a program titled, I am Deliberate and Afraid/ of Nothing: Poetry & Protest.
The Mayo Performing Arts Center collaborated with its Morristown neighbor, The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Program, to debut this free event on Facebook and YouTube.
Originally scheduled for March 19, 2020, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, the presentation moved online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Dodge Poetry Festival also will be virtual this year.
Some of the speakers at Poetry & Protest identified themselves as activists and protestors. You can read their bios here.
The event’s headliner, Tyehimba Jess, dedicated his virtual stage to black poets and people of color before reading his own work.
“Because of our current political circumstances and because of sloganeering of our current resident of the White House, this poem could have been written yesterday,” said the Pulitzer Prize winner, before reading the 85-year-old poem by Langston Hughes, Let America be America Again.
Rashad Wright related his passion for defending people of color as an activist and poet.
“When I was 18 or 19, my first few stages were street corners, speaking during protests about all the violence that was going on in my city,” the Jersey City activist said.
“My form of protest is about the empowerment of a disenfranchised community.”
Wright’s poems highlighted his pride in his skin color, while addressing the unfair treatment he receives, and his rational fear of police.
Wobbling on that starting line…he thinks there’s a lynch mob out in the crowd, he said, reciting his poem Black Runner Boy, which summarizes his feelings as the sole member of the cross country team at New Jersey City University.
He got that police siren sculpted muscle tone, and out of breath is starting to look natural on him.
J.C. Todd, who authored three books and has had poems published in several professional journals and magazines, also focused on policing and prisons in her poems.
Please told a story of her daughter growing up as American history became more corrupt.
As she learned her ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ the nation reconfigured justice to increase profit through Brick-and-Mortar industry building prisons, the author recited.
A new industry, corrections, and a new war, the war on drugs, to fill the cells with bodies. Mostly black, so that out of work men, mostly white, could be employed.
Addressing the concepts of white privilege and protesting, Vincent Toro contributed three poems to the event.
“This one is inspired by the entire history of protest movements on planet Earth,” he said, introducing his final poem, Areytos for Shipwrecked. “It’s dedicated directly to all of those who are out there risking their health and safety to do the good work right now.”
During the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice, protestors have been leaving the isolation and safety of their own residences to gather and walk the streets.
While Toro focused on his experiences with today’s political scene, Marina Carreira spoke of her issues with the coronavirus.
“By dinner, I’m clogged dry with coffee and emails, lists of flowers I’ll plant and herbs I’ll forget to take,” said the queer daughter of Portuguese immigrants. “I never imagined the end to look like this.”
Before the concluding the session, Jess addressed another ongoing crisis, the conflict in Yemen.
He criticized American bombs and drone strikes that have killed Yemeni children.
“When we’re talking about the violence of the police state here in the United States,” he said, “we’re also talking about the violence of the police state abroad across the globe.”
“We’re talking about ‘Defund the Police,’” Jess said. “But I believe it makes sense to think about defunding the military and taking that wealth and reinvesting it in this country, for the infrastructure and the people and education and healthcare.”
