Racisms

Words against the worst 

Everything is bad. Like, really bad, and I’m not just talking about Israel’s genocide in Gaza — although I am also talking about that. Last month, a homeless woman in Kentucky was detained by police, who then stole and destroyed her mattress while she went into labor on the street. We should expect more stories like this soon, as homelessness has gone up 18 percent this year alone. 

Experts and your own eyes will tell you rising housing costs and poverty play a part, but the White House blames this record-breaking rise in homelessness on “illegal immigration.” The Center for Constitutional Rights released a report back in October detailing how ICE has been turning everyday citizens into vigilantes with its “Citizen Academy” program, so that immigration thing should sort itself out any minute now. 

I know we’re all hoping Biden will commit some grand gesture in the name of the people on his way out, but so far he’s been too busy pardoning William Gallion, that lawyer who defrauded hundreds of his clients out of tens of millions of dollars. Maybe I’m being unfair, because on the other hand, Biden also pardoned Michael Conahan, a former judge who took nearly $3 million in illegal payments to send more than 2,300 children, some as young as eight years old, to a for-profit child prison. Wait — maybe that’s the same hand? It’s hard to tell anymore. 

It’s easy to get confused, given the current state of the media. CNN’s Clarissa Ward is facing allegations of having staged the rescue of a Syrian prisoner. The billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times killed an op-ed critical of Trump. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough went to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ass, after spending years calling him Hitler. ABC settled a defamation lawsuit with the president-elect to the tune of $15 million, even though experts have said the network had an exceptionally strong case. Pod Save America host and Crooked Media founder Jon Favreau is also a founder of United States of Care, a nonprofit created to fight against Medicare for All. 

So, yeah. Everything is bad, there are no good guys, and the most the media has to offer is ever-more inverted definitions of “good.” We’re at a loss that feels tangible, and this is when the necessity of art becomes clear. When things get low is when we need to know others have also felt this. We watch and re-watch that clip from that movie. We listen to that song on repeat. We read that one line over and over. 

So I asked Portland’s 2021-2024 Poet Laureate Emeritus, Maya Williams, if she would share a couple of poems for the New Year. Maya is available for bookings, readings, workshops, poetry commissions and more at mayawilliamspoet.com.

“The Apocalypse Is Us”
after Antmen Pimental Mendoza and AB from MCC 

apocalypse is questioning

apocalypse is destruction

apocalypse is rebirth

apocalypse is chance

apocalypse is miracle

apocalypse is spillage

apocalypse is chunky mashed potatoes at its best

apocalypse is Octavia Butler’s premonition

apocalypse is grief at its worst 

apocalypse is triumph

apocalypse is protest

apocalypse is lesson

apocalypse is the tide of my stepparents’ fury flipping in and out

apocalypse is youth making their presence known on a hot day in Boston

apocalypse is Job, Jesus, Judas, and Jada Pinkett Smith

when is apocalypse weapon versus salve?

when is apocalypse outside of religious, nonreligious, or irreligious text?

when is apocalypse next?

when is apocalypse next for you? 

when is apocalypse next for me?

“Won’t You Play with Me?”

And laugh as the sun shines through our eyes and teeth? 

As our feet in the grass collect dirt and pebbles that hurt 

too good? As we become adventurers from a place of pure 

curiosity and not harm? When rain comes down, we could 

catch the raindrops on our tongue to taste the air shift? 

Discover immersive temperature changes? Use sticks 

as dolls? Use ladybugs or caterpillars as co-conspirators? 

Sit in a pile of mulch while we read through Matilda or 

Esperanza Rising? Gaze at cumulus clouds that are actually 

giraffes or trains? Embody tigers through our arms and legs? 

Roar with our whole chests? Loud enough to make the neighbors 

join us or hate us? Hide behind my mom’s Brazilian statue we 

refuse to name in case they have a name we don’t know? Roll 

down a hill just to run it back up again? Let the sun return to crisp 

the mud dry and our hair frizz? Turn a park’s jungle gym into a castle? 

A fifty year old tree into a mountain? Make the outdoors our fortress? 

So the indoors won’t claim to own us? 

Breathe it all in with me, won’t you? 

Samuel James also writes “Banned Histories of Race in America” at samuelj.substack.com.