Category Archives: United States

“Advice for Countries, Advanced, Developing and Falling: A Call and Response” – Poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo

05 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by in Poetry, United States

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2019 United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo
Photo Credit: Joy Harjo Official Website (Photo by Shawn Miller)

 

My Poetry Corner April 2020 features the poem “Advice for Countries, Advanced, Developing and Falling: A Call and Response” from the poetry collection An American Sunrise: Poems by Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate of the United States. (Note: The following excerpts of poems are all sourced from this collection.)

Born in 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the first of four siblings, Joy Harjo is a poet, musician, playwright, and author of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Her father was Muscogee (Creek) Nation and her mother of mixed ancestry of Cherokee, French, and Irish. Her mother exposed her to poetry at an early age, but painting was her first love.

My mother was a songwriter and singer, Harjo relates in her poem “Washing My Mother’s Body.” My mother’s gifts were trampled by economic necessity and emotional imprisonment. // My father was a dancer, a rhythm keeper. His ancestors were orators, painters, tribal chiefs, stomp dancers, preachers, and speakers… All his relatively short life he looked for a vision or song to counter the heartache of history. Her father’s drinking and abuse ended their marriage.

At sixteen years of age, Harjo’s abusive and violent stepfather kicked her out of their home. She moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she received her high school education at the Institute of American Indian Arts. After graduation, she returned to Oklahoma, gave birth to a son, and returned to New Mexico to pursue a life as an artist. In 1973, as a second-year undergraduate at the University of New Mexico, she discovered poetry. After earning her BA in 1976, she moved to Iowa to obtain an MFA at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

“After all the abuse I had been through, I saw [poetry] as a way to transform what is harsh into something nourishing,” Harjo said, during an interview with Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Laure-Anne Bosselaar in January 2020. “I had found something in poetry not found in painting that was so compelling. I could write about Native women, fighting for our rights in over 500 tribal nations.” Continue reading →

The Choices We Make

09 Sunday Feb 2020

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Pen Scratch Verse 182 by American Artist Michael Caimbeul

 

February 5, 2020. This is the day that the United States Senate chose to acquit Republican President Donald Trump of the impeachment charges brought against him by the Democratic controlled House of Representatives. I found the evidence of his guilt compelling. Except for just one of its members, the majority Republican senators chose to stand firm behind their leader. The loyalty to their party is admirable. It’s a valuable commodity in our times of divisive politics. On the other hand, party loyalty doesn’t always align with the best interests of we the people. Ever since corporations gained personhood and began financing politicians, corporate interests have gained paramountcy.

Today, we live in a New Republic. The balance of power has shifted beneath our feet. All that remains for the President and his Executive Branch of loyalists to consolidate their power is to seize control over the Supreme Court of the United States. All they need is a little more time.

Meanwhile, after centuries of human remodeling, Earth’s web of life is over-stressed and in meltdown. Our planet is overheated. Wildfires across drought-stricken grasslands and forests rage with unusual ferocity. The polar ice caps are melting faster than predicted. Mountain glaciers are retreating. Sea levels are rising, redefining coastlines worldwide. Storms powered by overheated oceanic waters batter our coastal cities and island nations, inundating our lives. Continue reading →

Thought for Today: Dismantling the Doomsday Machine

02 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by in United States

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Here is what we know now: the United States and Russia each have an actual Doomsday Machine… These two systems still risk doomsday: both are still on hair-trigger alert that makes their joint existence unstable. They are susceptible to being triggered on a false alarm, a terrorist action, unauthorized launch, or a desperate decision to escalate. They would kill billions of humans, perhaps ending complex life on earth.

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Does any nation on earth have a right to possess such a capability? A right to threaten—by its simple possession of that capability—the continued existence of all other nations and their populations, their cities, and civilization as a whole?

Excerpt from The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg, Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, USA, 2017.

In 1961, Daniel Ellsberg, a consultant to the Department of Defense and the White House, drafted Secretary Robert McNamara’s plans for nuclear war. Later he leaked the Pentagon Papers.

Only Oil Matters to the Empire

12 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by in United States

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Oil drives our global economies. Oil is power. Oil fuels the Empire. Iraq and Iran together produce 8.3 million billion barrels a day of the liquid gold (figures from Offshore-Technology). Their joint oil reserves amount to 300,903 million barrels (figures from World Atlas). While the world’s largest oil producer with 12 mbbl barrels/day, the United States has only 39,230 million barrels of oil reserves. Venezuela tops the list with 300,878 million barrels. It’s no accident that the Empire is embedded in the Middle East. Controlling access to all that oil is vital to its continued survival.

Guyana will soon be part of that blessed-accursed herd of oil producing nations. With six billion barrels, and climbing, of oil reserves, Guyana now overtakes Venezuela in the overheated top seat. As a small country with racial divisive politics, the developing CARICOM member nation is easy prey for the Empire. It’s also corrupted at its core—the scourge of former colonial territories rich in natural resources. Trapped under the claws of the Eagle since its conception, the country is now secure in its nest.

In his letter to the editor of Guyana’s Kaieteur News on January 7, 2020, Dr. Gary Girdhari expresses misgivings about the legacy of oil giants in oil producing countries, even within their own home countries.

Guyana’s leaders, he writes, “ignore elemental facts, namely, in Africa, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere where oil wealth is secured in the pockets of Big Oil and a select few government officials and their cronies; and where inequality and extreme poverty spiral downwards.” 

Dr. Girdhari shares my concern about the impact of the fossil fuel industry on Earth’s environment and climate. He reminds the Guyanese people: “The International Press is replete with information regarding fossil fuel and its ruination to the environment – regarding carbon emission, depletion of the ozone layer, and extreme climate change. Already the world is witnessing the effects of permafrost melting in the Arctic and deforestation in Brazil and Africa. The tipping point is approaching sooner than we think.” 

I don’t share his hope “for total disbandment of oil in Guyana…and that good environmentally-friendly judgement triumphs.” I believe that it’s too late in the game. Guyana is already in the pockets of ExxonMobil and other players in the fossil fuel industry. 

To the Empire, only oil matters. It is prepared to use severe economic sanctions and military force to secure and control Earth’s oil reserves. Our lives—we the people of Earth—don’t matter. Let the trees burn. Let the ice caps melt. Let the wildlife die.

The Empire began 2020 with an act of war against Iran and Iraq. Warfare is Big Business. Warfare is barbaric. Warfare is self-destructive: It turns our young men into killers of innocent women, children, and babies. Heroes for the Empire.

I say NO to war with Iran. I say NO to the never-ending wars of the Empire. I say NO to more failed sovereign states. I say NO to ‘rubblized’ cities and uprooted broken families. I say NO to ecocide.

I say YES to ending our dependency on fossil fuels. I say YES to the Green New Deal.

 

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Welcome to the U.S. Future – It Looks a Lot Like the Ukraine Past – Opinion — Guyanese Online

24 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in United States

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Trump’s Shakedown Makes Washington Just Another Racket The impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump has pulled my homeland, Ukraine, into the spotlight, and more Americans are talking about it than ever before. Yet few see it clearly. Some still call it — wrongly — “the Ukraine”, and few seem willing to spell the name of […]

via Welcome to the U.S. Future – It Looks a Lot Like the Ukraine Past – Opinion — Guyanese Online

 

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Thought for Today: There is nothing weak about being honorable.

27 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by in People, United States

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Excerpt from Former President Barack Obama’s Eulogy honoring Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland:

[T]here is nothing weak about kindness and compassion. There is nothing weak about looking out for others. There is nothing weak about being honorable. You are not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect…

“The cost of doing nothing isn’t nothing,” [Elijah] would say, and folks would remember why they entered into public service. “Our children are the living messengers we send to a future we will never see,” he would say, and he would remind all of us that our time is too short not to fight for what’s good and what is true and what is best in America.

Two hundred years to 300 years from now, [Elijah] would say, people will look back at this moment and they will ask the question “What did you do?” And hearing him, we would be reminded that it falls upon each of us to give voice to the voiceless, and comfort to the sick, and opportunity to those not born to it, and to preserve and nurture our democracy.

~ Read the complete text of Barack Obama’s Eulogy for Elijah Cummings, published in The Atlantic, October 25, 2019.

Get over it, America!

20 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by in United States

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The Picture of Dorian Gray – Painting by Ivan Albright – 1943
Based on the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)
Photo Credit: Wikipedia

 

Get over it, America! I’m doing nothing wrong. It’s all legitimate. It’s what privileged families and corporations have been doing for generations. Because we can. Money can buy anything and anyone. 

Get over it, America! For generations, our corporations have expanded across the world, exploiting, and amassing wealth so that you can live the American Dream. 

Get over it, America! I’m the only one who can save America from its enemies. I’m the chosen one. I’m a stable genius. I know what’s best for America. Don’t believe the fake news: It’s a witch hunt.  

 

Instead of draining the swamp in Washington DC, as promised, our president has forced us into the swamp with him. He exposes the foul depths of the soul of our nation—much like The Picture of Dorian Gray—in which we the body politic are co-conspirators by our complicity, negligence, or silence. Hate disfigures our countenance. Cruelty shrivels our heart. Greed drags us down to the deep.

There’s no getting over the onslaught we now face daily. But we can say, “enough.” We can seek the light of reason, truth, and justice.    

“Mexican Heaven” – Poem by Mexican American Poet José Olivarez

15 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by in Poetry, United States

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Front Cover: Poetry Collection, Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez

 

My Poetry Corner September 2019 features the poem “Mexican Heaven” from the poetry collection Citizen Illegal (Haymarket Books, 2018) by José Olivarez, a poet, teacher, and poetry slam performer. Born in Calumet City on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, he is the son of Mexican immigrants. Despite all the odds, he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University.

Olivarez’s first contact with poetry occurred through his high school’s poetry slam team. Their poetry had a profound impact on him. In a conversation with Jessica Hopper in July 2018, Olivarez said, “It made me feel like I could question more.” For the first time, he saw a way of becoming his true self, other than the reserved person everyone wanted him to be.

In his poem, “I Tried to Be a Good Mexican Son,” he shares his parents’ disappointment that he didn’t become a doctor, lawyer, or businessman.

I even went to college. But i studied African American studies which is not
The Law or The Medicine or The Business. my mom still loved me.
[…]
i tried to be a good Mexican son. Went to a good college & learned depression isn’t just for white people… Continue reading →

11 September 2001: “Guyanese Roll Call” by Peter Jailall

08 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by in Guyana, Poetry, United States

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Caribbean immigrants remember loved ones at the 9/11 memorial on September 11, 2018
Photo Credit: News Americas

 

On September 11, we will remember all those we have lost on that ill-fated day when a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City turned the world-famous landmark into rubble.

I was living in Brazil when the tragedy occurred, sending a tsunami across the world. More than ninety other nations also lost loved ones that day, including three Brazilian-Americans and twenty-six Guyanese-Americans.

In his poem, “Guyanese Roll Call,” Guyanese-Canadian poet Peter Jailall remembers his twenty-six countrymen and women who died on that day. Their American Dream had been suddenly cut short.

Listen to our roll call
Of those who died
On that dreadful September day,
Following their American Dream: 

Patrick Adams
Leslie Arnold Austin
Rudy Bacchus
Kris Romeo Bishundauth
Pamela Boyce
Annette Datarom
Babita Guman
Nizam Hafiz
Ricknauth Jhagganauth
Charles Gregory Jolin
Bowanie Devi Kemraj
Sarab Khan
Amerdauth Luchman
Shevonne Meutis
Narendra Nath
Marcus Neblett
Hardai Parbhu
Ameena Rasool
Shiv Sankar
Sita Sewnarine
Karini Singh
Rosham Singh
Astrid Sohan
Joyce Stanton
Patricia Staton
Vanava Thompson 

These are our dedicated,
Hard-working country people,
Who travelled from South to North
To savour just a small bite
Of the Big Apple. 

We will always remember them.

Source: Poetry Collection, People of Guyana by Ian McDonald and Peter Jailall, MiddleRoad Publishers, Canada, 2018.

 

While violent anti-immigrant activism spread across America, let us remember that Guyanese and other Caribbean immigrant families also share our nation’s grief for loved ones lost on September 11, 2001.

 

Peter Jailall is a teacher, poet, and storyteller. He has published five books of poetry. In 2011, he received the Marty’s Award for Established Literary Arts in Mississauga, Ontario, where he lives. Since his retirement, Jailall has conducted workshops on Poetry Writing in schools across Guyana and Canada.

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Global Bipolar Disorder — Green Life Blue Water

25 Sunday Aug 2019

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, United States

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Pam Lazos, writing at Green Life Blue Water, observes the signs of climate change around her in Central Pennsylvania. Troubled by the “unknown unknown,” using the  “tortured phraseology” of former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, she calls on us to face reality and cure our global bipolar disorder.

We all know the truth: it’s time for an intervention.  We can help Mother Nature deal with her issues because we are her issues.  The government is not going to save us and neither are the aliens, in case you were wondering.  The only ones who can save us are us.  It’s time to do what we do best as a country — solve problems, innovate, lead so others might follow.  The payoff — as if saving the planet and ourselves wasn’t enough — is that there’s a heck of a lot of money to be made in green technology, but first, we need to cure our global bipolar disorder and think things through in rational, logical terms.

Read her complete post at Global Bipolar Disorder — Green Life Blue Water