The poets have been getting to work about the latest catastrophe, each on their own timeline and in their own way. Working through shock, outrage, despair and fear as well as they can…and, when they are ready, they’re starting to pour it out into poetry.
I am a coward in many ways when it comes to horrible things happening in the world around me. Sometimes I shut down, terrified that these feelings will catapult me over the thin edge I walk into an irreversible act of self-destruction.
When I went to one of my regular poetry readings on the Sunday after the election, I knew what I was going to hear during the open mic. A part of me wanted to stay home, afraid that it would be too much for me. But I went, and I’m very glad. I’m glad I found enough courage to show up and be present with everyone’s pain and anger and fear.
A few years ago I might have been impatient with it somehow, wanting the poetry to give me a break instead of drawing me deeper into the emotions of the time. Now it seems perfectly natural that we all (yes, me too) tended to have poems reflecting what was going on. A baby cries with the voice that’s available.
Lori Lynne Armstrong 