Writer's block and protest signs

Springfield, Missouri: The Women's March (photo by Gerard Nadeau)

I write a blog post every day—twice. I also write creatively every day. I journal every day. I teach online, so I write online lectures and comments almost every day. I post a dozen Facebook updates and dash off a few tweets every day. And I’m currently writing a textbook, which I work on—every day.

But today, equipped with a small piece of poster board, some fat Sharpies, and even some glitter glue, I couldn’t think of anything to write. I couldn’t even think of a picture to draw. 

That’s how I ended up at my local Women’s March in Springfield, Missouri, empty handed—just me, standing for something with my body and not my words.

Apparently, I need at least the length of a blog post to get my thoughts out. 

The funny thing is, if I knew someone who was struggling to make a sign, I’m sure I could think of a great slogan. Several. 

When the sign represents oneself, though, and one is a writer, that white space can be daunting.

What do I care about? Lots. What do I care most about? Which of my concerns do I want to publicly declare as I participate in an historic event? It’s something I mulled over while marching this morning. 

One thing I felt very deeply was how much I cared about all of those women marching around me, stretching for blocks in both directions. My favorite sign I saw today had at its center that familiar election slogan, “I’M WITH HER,” but emanating from it were a dozen arrows, pointing at women all around—pointing at me. And I don’t know that woman, but I was with her, and I am with her, and I will be with her. We are sisters.

An elderly man, very tall, walked beside me, his steps short and careful, and his sign articulated a fear I share: “This administration has alarming ties to Russia.” The man had printed out this straightforward phrase and taped it to a poster board, and he held it up, black and white, very frank. What probably felt like a large font on his computer looked small in the context of a protest.

Here was a guy who had a fear (which I share), and he put it in plain words. Why didn’t I do that? Too many fears, I guess, and not enough good ways to say them.

I saw a lot of one-word signs that said things like “RESIST” and “LOVE,” and signs with familiar political slogans, like “FIRED UP” and “YES WE CAN.” I could have done that, too, but it didn’t feel like enough.

Yesterday, an expatriate writer friend, Shannon Cain, posted a video of herself at her home in Paris, where she was making a sign. Shannon is one of my favorite writers, and unlike our new president’s bold brag, she actually does know all of the best words. But in her video—a closeup of her sign under construction, the audio on but her actions silent—Shannon had painted the name of the president, and through it she slowly and deliberately painted the center stroke of a bright red prohibition symbol, also known as the universal no.

Watching Shannon’s sign construction was, as one of her friends posted, cathartic, as something unspeakably wrong was happening across the globe in our nation’s capital. I watched her slow, gentle stoke, obliterating that corrupt and self-serving name, and I felt soothed. It was right to call out evil. The point was never to say something clever. It was always to say something right.

I could have put anything on my sign, or I could have chosen to bring my fierce and determined self and walk with empty hands and occasional raised fists. Either way helps the cause. That’s how a movement works. You contribute what you can. You take turns filling the needs you see. If words fail you, someone else will speak up. The people we march with have each other’s backs. We even rally for the good of onlookers and counter-protesters, even if those people don’t allow themselves to see it.

So these are my words. I guess I needed space to get them out, and when I look back now, I see they don’t convey all I’m feeling. There aren’t enough signboards in the world.

Words sometimes fail us—all of us. It’s another important reason to come together—to share the load.

Poem366: POETRY OF RESISTANCE, edited by Francisco X. Alarcón and Odilia Galván Rodríguez

It was difficult to decide which poet’s collection to feature on an Inauguration Day that is itself devoid of poetry. Today’s event did not feature an inaugural poet, and in a country where the majority of the citizenry did not vote for him—and a huge majority of voters voted for his opponent—January 20, 2017, was a drizzly, prosaic day.

But the United States is a diverse and pluralistic culture, and a symbolic day deserves an important selection. The anthology Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice (University of Arizona Press, 2016), edited by Francisco X. Alarcón and Odilia Galván Rodríguez, seemed an apt and obvious choice for an alarming, confusing, resistance-filled day.

The volume includes some ninety voices raised against oppression and mistreatment of immigrants, and in doing so it upholds the dignity of humanity. One of the nicest aspects of the volume is the diversity of the names—roughly seven dozen of them reflecting perspectives of non-majority writers.

And their foci are also diverse, though united in overarching purpose. Poems in the volume address class divisions, racial discrimination, domestic violence, the environment, and natural disasters. The volume foregrounds Chicanx/Latinx voices while including others, and that is an unusual and welcome approach.

I appreciate the straightforward honesty of the volume. For example, “Poem With a Phrase of Isherwood” by Francisco Aragón, is written to Jan Brewer, the former Governor of Arizona, and it pulls no punches:

Cruelty is sensual and stirs you

Governor, your name echoing the sludge

beneath your cities’ streets. It spurs

the pleasure you take

whenever your mouth nears

a mic, defending your law … your wall.

The poem describes Brewer’s face, “its contortions and delicate sneer,” as it recalls her demeanor at public events.

So many of the poems are very beautiful in their treatment of children and families. Jorge Tetl Argueta offers an example in “Nuestros niños y niñas” / “Our Children.” He writes,

Nuestros niños y niñas

son guerreros

son gorriones

tienen vocales y coraje en sus corazones

Nuesros niños y niñas

no son extraterrestres o ilegales

son como los niños y niñas

de todo el mundo

In English, this portion of the poem says,

Our children

Are warriors

Are hummingbirds

They have voices and courage in their hearts

Our children

Are not aliens or illegal

They are like all children

Of the world

Our children, the poem reports, are “Hermosos como el agua” / “Beautiful like the water.” And this resonates with me, like all the best poems do: all children are beautiful; it is true.

Some of the poems talk directly to those they address, like a small poem by Karen S. Cordova, again addressing an Arizona law targeting immigrants. The poem, “Sonnet for Police Officers Charged With Enforcing SB 1070,” begins by asking the officers responsible for carrying out the law to “please remember” …

racist code for “without papers” is WOP;

your ancestors were strangers here—their toll

seeded your freedom. Bullies kick kids. Stop

striking la genre, who only see hope,

when they risk their lives to clean stained toilets,

maybe yours.

The poem concludes by imploring these officers to “Protect us from threats / to Señora Liberty: pendejos / and their white bigot fence ‘round Chicanos.”

So many poems avoid talking about the messy world. In our daily lives, the mail comes, the TV hums, inelegant messages accost us from all sides. Yet a poem generally deals with more essential and beautiful things, leaving out the noise, just as an outdoor photographer might PhotoShop power lines from a landscape.

But these poems let messy, complicated life be messy. In, for example, “Border Inquest Blues,” Odilia Galván Rodríguez writes,

at what crossing

could my poems

become bread

or water to offer

a people

the thousands

who cross so many

miles of misery

perched on trains

like birds

with clipped wings

who only fly 

in their dreams

but decide to search out

the promise of a better life

at any cost

It’s a compelling question, and those of us who cower today within what we believe is, or should be, a “sweet land of liberty,” must begin to ask such things, even if—especially if—our own families are not the ones under threat.

Poetry provides a way for things to happen, and this anthology offers many excellent models for our shared march forward.