We Can’t Breathe – Against Police Tyranny
Source: IFWEA

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, my Poetry Corner March 2015 features the poem “Pantoum for Ferguson: 20 Miles a Day” by American poet Angela Consolo Mankiewicz.

The modern pantoum is composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and the third lines of the next stanza. As you’ll notice in Mankiewicz’ pantoum, the repeated lines take on a slightly different meaning and punctuation.

The pantoum’s pattern of rhyme and repetition is the perfect poetic form for giving us the sense of the four-step forward and two-step backward movement of race relations in America. Continue reading →