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“Poem About my Rights”

Year Published: 1980 - Author: 

Poem about My Rights
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By June Jordan
Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can’t
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/or thinking
about children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence:
I could not go and I could not think and I could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own
body and
who in the hell set things up
like this
and in France they say if the guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that if he
and his buddies fuck me after that
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they fucked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
which is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:
Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
in the hell is everybody being reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition and
before that
it was my father saying I was wrong saying that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a
boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
that I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in other
words
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very
familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
me
I am the history of rape
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
myself
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heart
I have been raped
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/
but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent
to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon
idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life

June Jordan, “Poem About My Rights” from Directed By Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Copyright © 2005 by The June M. Jordan Literary Trust. Used by permission of The June M. Jordan Literary Trust, www.junejordan.com.
Source: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (2005)

June Jordan, Black Feminist Poet was author of 27 books of poems. She also founded the organization, "Poetry for the People." "Poem about my Rights" was first part of the collection, *Passion: Poems, 1977-1980.(

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Galileo Recants

Year Published: 1955 - Author: 
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June 22, 1633
I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, arraigned personally before this tribunal, and kneeling before you, Most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors-General against heretical depravity throughout the entire Christian commonwealth, having before my eyes and touching with my hands, the Holy Gospels, swear that I have always believed, do believe, and by God’s help will in the future believe, all that is held, preached, and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

But whereas — after an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture — I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this new doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favor, without presenting any solution of these, and for this reason I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves:

Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church, and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that should I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfill and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening, (which God forbid) any of these my promises and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. So help me God, and these His Holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands.

I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633.

"My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?" --Letter from Galileo Galilei to Johannes Kepler Galileo Galilei was forced by the Roman Catholic Inquisition to recant his scientific findings, most fundamentally that the earth revolves around the sun, as well as the views put forth in his book, A Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. From Finocchiaro's translation of the Inquisition judgement: "Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. Indeed, although Galileo states in the preface of his book that the character is named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, "Simplicio" in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton".[80] This portrayal of Simplicio made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defence of the Copernican theory. Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. The sentence of the Inquisition was delivered on 22 June. It was in three essential parts: -Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions.[84] -He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition.[85] On the following day this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life. -His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.[86] "E pur si muove" (and yet it moves) - Galileo before his death

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excerpt, “The Blues I’m Playing”

Year Published: 1934 - Author: 
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from “The Blues I’m Playing” by Langston Hughes, 1934

The girl at the piano heard the white woman saying, “Is this what I spent thousands of dollars to teach you?”

“No,” said Oceola simply. “This is mine. . . . Listen! . . . How sad and gay it is. Blue and happy—laughing and crying. . . . How white like you and black like me. . . . How much like a man. . . . And how much like a woman. . . . Warm as Pete’s mouth. . . . These are the blues. . . . I’m playing.”

Mrs. Ellsworth sat very still in her chair looking at the lilies trembling delicately in the priceless Persian vases, while Oceola made the bass notes throb like tomtoms deep in the earth.

James Mercer Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poetry, and was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences.

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Power

Year Published: 1977 - Author: 
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Power
BY AUDRE LORDE

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn’t notice the size nor nothing else
only the color.” And
there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4’10” black Woman’s frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody’s mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”

Audre Lorde, “Power” from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. Copyright © 1978
Source: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1997)

A self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing the injustices of racism, sexism, and homophobia. … As she told interviewer Charles H. Rowell in Callaloo: “My sexuality is part and parcel of who I am, and my poetry comes from the intersection of me and my worlds… [White, arch-conservative senator] Jesse Helms’s objection to my work is not about obscenity…or even about sex. It is about revolution and change.” … Explaining the genesis of “Power,” a poem about the police shooting of a ten-year-old black child, Lorde discussed her feelings when she learned that the officer involved had been acquitted: “A kind of fury rose up in me; the sky turned red. I felt so sick. I felt as if I would drive this car into a wall, into the next person I saw. So I pulled over. I took out my journal just to air some of my fury, to get it out of my fingertips. Those expressed feelings are that poem.”

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The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness

Year Published: 1969 - Author: 

BOOK COVER SUMMARY:
You are a prisoner in a concentration camp. A dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness. What do you do?

– – –

He lapsed into silence, seeking for words. He wants something from me, I thought, for I could not imagine that he had brought me here merely as an audience.
“When I was still a boy I believed with my mind and soul in God and in the commandments of the Church. Then everything was easier. If I still had that faith I am sure death would not be so hard.
“I cannot die…without coming clean. This must be my confession. But what sort of confession is this? A letter without an answer…”
No doubt he was referring to my silence. But what could I say? Here was a dying man—a murderer who did not want to be a murderer but who had been made into a murderer by a murderous ideology. He was confessing his crime to a man who perhaps tomorrow must die at the hands of these same murderers. In his confession there was true repentance, even though he did not admit it in so many words. Nor was it necessary, for the way he spoke and the fact that he spoke to me was a proof of his repentance.
“Believe me, I would be ready to suffer worse and longer pains if by that means I could bring back the dead, at Dnepropetrovsk. Many young Germans of my age die daily on the battlefields. They have fought against an armed enemy and have fallen in the fight, but I…I am left here with my guilt. In the last hours of my life you are with me. I do not know who you are, I only know that you are a Jew and that is enough.”
I said nothing. The truth was that on his battlefield he had also “fought” against defenseless men, women, children, and the aged. I could imagine them enveloped in flames, jumping from the windows to certain death.
He sat up and put his hands together as if to pray.
“I want to die in peace, and so I need…”
I saw that he could not get the words past his lips. But I was in no mood to help him. I kept silent.
“I know that what I have told you is terrible. In the long nights while I have been waiting for death, time and time again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn’t know whether there were any Jews left…
“I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace.”
Now, there was an uncanny silence in the room. I looked through the window. The front of the buildings opposite was flooded with sunshine. The sun was high in the heavens. There was only a small triangular shadow in the courtyard.
What a contrast between the glorious sunshine outside and the shadow of this bestial age here in the death chamber! Here lay a man in bed who wished to die in peace—but he could not, because the memory of his terrible crime gave him no rest. And by him sat a man also doomed to die—but who did not want to die because he yearned to see the end to all the horror that blighted the world.
Two men who had never known each other had been brought together for a few hours by Fate. One asked the other for help. But the other was himself helpless and able to do nothing for him.
I stood up and looked in his direction, at his folded hands. Between them there seemed to rest a sunflower.
At last I made up my mind and without a word I left the room.

Imagine you are a prisoner in a concentration camp. A dying Nazi SS soldier asks for your forgiveness for his part in a horrendous crime committed against hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children. What would you do? This is the unfathomable dilemma for Simon Wiesenthal in his autobiographical account. The second section of the book is a collection of responses from individuals around the world who reflect on what they may have done in the situation described.

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Ghazal for White Hen Pantry

Year Published: 2015 - Author: 

beverly be the only south side you don’t fit in
everybody in your neighborhood color of white hen

brown bag tupperware lunch don’t fill you
after school cross the street, count quarters with white friends

you love 25¢ zebra cakes mom would never let you eat
you learn to white lie through white teeth at white hen

oreos in your palm, perm in your hair
everyone’s irish in beverly, you just missin’ the white skin

pray they don’t notice your burnt toast, unwondered bread
you be the brownest egg ever born from the white hen

pantry in your chest where you stuff all the Black in
distract from the syllables in your name with a white grin

keep your consonants crisp, coffee milked, hands visible
never touch the holiday-painted windows of white hen

you made that mistake, scratched your initials in the paint
an unmarked crown victoria pulled up, full of white men

they grabbed your wrist & wouldn’t show you a badge
the manager clucked behind the counter, thick as a white hen

they told your friends to run home, but called the principal on you
& you learned Black sins cost much more than white ones

Published by the Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/58588

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1700% Project – “Otherance” Performance Script

Year Published: 2010 - Author: 

V1 (voice 1)= Jorge Felix V2 (voice 2)=Amina Demir,
V3 (voice 3)=Cristal Sabbagh V4 (voice 4) =Clover Morell
Note: Each performer will begin with their own personal epigraph (an event/memorable moment that contextualizes their personal relationship to violence). The following narratives are written and based on the above performers’ personal experiences.
V3 (cristal):
I was 4 years old when I watched the KKK terrorize families on TV.
I was 4 when my family’s car stopped at a red light in Mississippi.
I screamed and hollered when I noticed two cardinal klan’s men on the side of the road.
In my 4 year old mind these men were going to kill all of us!
V1 (Jorge):
The feds invaded my home at 2am. They were looking to stop me from speaking…
from showing artwork by Puerto Rican political prisoners. As a curator, I know art incites
in ways that can both threaten and uphold our freedoms.
V4 (Clover):
I have been witness to oppression since I was a child, far before I could swallow it’s sharp form.
I cannot be free unless I stand for everyone’s freedom. I will not forget the taste of your hatred.
V2 (Amina)
I am no longer the great great grandaughter of a man brought to the US on slave ships.
I am no longer a daughter of a Kurdish freedom fighter from south eastern Turkey.
9/11 made me just like them. A stereotype. A terrorist. A towel head.

The number 1700% refers to the exponential percentage increase of hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims and those perceived to be Arab or Muslim since the events of September 11, 2001. The text, a performance poem titled 1700% by Anida Yoeu Ali, is an unapologetic response to injustices directed at the Muslim community. The poem is a Cento (100 lines of found writings) based on filed reports of hate and bias crimes against “Arabs” and “Muslims” since 9/11. The narrative-based poem is the original text to which all other iterations of this project is created upon. Anida Yoeu Ali (b.1974, Battambang) is an artist whose works span performance, installation, video, images, public encounters, and political agitation. She is a first generation Muslim Khmer woman born in Cambodia and raised in Chicago. After residing for over three decades outside of Cambodia, Ali returned to work in Phnom Penh as part of her 2011 U.S. Fulbright Fellowship. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach to artmaking, her installation and performance works investigate the artistic, spiritual and political collisions of a hybrid transnational identity.

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brown out shouts!

Year Published: 2016 - Author: 

brown out shouts!
this is for matea who dances the bomba
with hands that crest moonhips
and kisses harder than she loves herself.
every trans, genderqueer, futchie, fairy, AG,
anything with roots arches toward her, they can’t help it,
their arms like petals soaking up her light.

and this is for my student, hard ass krystal who doesn’t want anything
to do with brasso or that jrotc uniform, however constructs a sonnet
as simple as some of us make our beds. he just wants 3 meals a
day for his brother and a brand new binder for his chest.

for Javi who takes his tequila quick.

for aqua starr black.
because they had the bravery to re-name
themselves: aqua. starr. black.
sometimes you just gotta call out your power
cuz no one else is gonna do it for you.

maria is a dancer clasping onto hardwood by the heels
but serves our coffee at the diner always w/ a smile.
she’s pissed off cuz her wife cannot afford to go to the hospital.
although, you can’t see it, her heart breaks because no papers or government
can explain how this person in the bed makes her laugh
like a gutteral fool.

for JP who draws sketches sneaking them in your purse.

for Celiany whose caliber demands that the very least her lovers
have the following traits: dexterity, initiative, and someone who can put it down.

for every son shaped in bullets, your heart as compact as
a trigger, your voice a sharp wind song that wants to lay a forehead
down on the chest of your boyfriend.
let your letters survive the wars, jail cells,
let the meter of your words swoon your lovers back to the bed,
as you take turns turning off the alarm on the nightstand with
your toes, elbows, orgasms, and in between kisses.

for that one lonely Korean guy Jake who found me in a group of
500 white people in the frenzy of the Sugar Club in Dublin, Ireland.
I make due, he said. & we can still see him shrugging in the strobe lights,
hungry for somewhere else.

this is for you this afternoon, spring cleaning your blues away,
maybe in your favorite t-shirt, maybe you called in sick,
maybe missing your family back home, maybe your voice is hoarse
from asking strangers for food, maybe you lost a lover or
are losing yourself, lost in the whimsy of musical notes.
the rhythms can consume the sadness, if you let it.

for my dearest sarwat who sat on a hill, held up the sun, looking at all the
fiiiine transmasculine and queers of color and said without
saying, mm mmm I deserve this.

for español, pangasinan, patois, pidgeon, mandarin
love poems you write.

for those immigrants, babydykes and trans youth who sprout out
from neighborhoods described to tourists as, don’t go there. its dangerous.
rolling up their windows from our existence.

for you who fights for our rights,
for you who laughs too loud,
for you who eats too much,
for you who twists wrists by paintbrush,

for you who will not let your spirit pass up a sunset or a protest
even when you think you deserve less sometimes.

for you
because there’s a brown out right now
and by that I mean there is no electricity,
which means life is crashing and pouring down

and by that I mean I am lonely,
which really means
that we are brown and transgender and queer and out
and we’ve been told too many times that all of those

cannot belong all at once. that based on those odds,
we equal death.

for you / for us / for we
because without explanation, we exist
and you, you like all of our ancestors before,
you live it so fiercely that even when injustice sets in,

this rumbling sky houses your breath and
that is better than any survival story,
that, that is joy being born.

Additional Information About the Text or Author: A Campus Pride Hot List artist, Trans Justice Funding Project Panelist, and Trans 100 Honoree, Kay Ulanday Barrett aka @brownroundboi, is a poet, performer, and educator, navigating life as a disabled pin@y-amerikan transgender queer in the U.S. with struggle, resistance, and laughter. K. has featured on colleges & stages globally; Princeton University, UC Berkeley, Musee Pour Rire in Montreal, Queens Museum, and The Chicago Historical Society. K’s bold work continues to excite and challenge audiences. K. has facilitated workshops, presented keynotes, and contributed to panels with various social justice communities. Honors include: 18 Million Rising Filipino American History Month Hero 2013, Chicago’s LGBTQ 30 under 30 awards, Finalist for The Gwendolyn Brooks Open-Mic Award, Windy City Times Pride Literary Poetry Prize. Their contributions are found in RaceForward, Poor Magazine, Fusion.net, Trans Bodies/Trans Selves, Windy City Queer: Dispatches from the Third Coast, Make/Shift, Filipino American Psychology, Third Woman Press, Asian Americans For Progress, The Advocate, and Bitch Magazine. K. turns art into action and is dedicated to remixing recipes. Recent publications include contributions in the upcoming anthologies, “Outside the XY: Queer Black & Brown Masculinity” (Magnus Books) and “Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices” (Trans-genre Press). Their first book of poetry, When The Chant Comes, is due out from Topside Press in summer 2016. Check out their work at kaybarrett.net

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Exerpt from “Sources”

Year Published: 1983 - Author: 

“That’s why I want to speak to you now.

To say: no person, trying to take responsibility for her or his identity, should have to be so alone. There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors. (I make up this strange, angry packet for you, threaded with love.)

I think you thought there was no such place for you, and perhaps there was none then, and perhaps there is none now; but we will have to make it, we who want an end to suffering, who want to change the laws of history, if we are not to give ourselves away.”

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