Land Back Rivers flowingScreens overflowingwith deathA keyboard of rubbleTechnology’s offeringRetina-burned imagesSeared into our conscience Violence reveredDialogue destroyedLives snapped into piecesDeath’s drones and sirensThe soundtrack of these days This is the world we witnessAs we bow and breakBeneath the onslaughtBut return we doOver and over and over againTo the olive grove’s heart.
Tag: Palestine
Poetry for the Peeps! A Litany of Refusals to Become Ghostly!
We had the honour of supporting the students in response to their encampment for disclosure and divestment from Israel at Universities across the U.S, Canada, and internationally. This blog is dedicated to the young people who show us that conscience and compassion are still bringing hope to those who wish for justice against settler colonialism…
Poetry for the Peeps! Citizen Heart
Today is my father’s birthday. Since he was a poet, translator, lover of, and professor of comparative literatures, it is fitting that he should be born in World Poetry Month. The poems and visual arts today are a tribute to him (Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, 1938-2020)). The poems below would have engaged him and certainly been part…
Poetry for the Peeps! Affirm Life!
The poems and art pieces chosen here reflect on themes of injustice, oppression and deprivation, and specifically starvation as a weapon of capitalist social organization and war The poems speak to a reality that has been ongoing in places where man-made famine and war have deprived people of their most basic necessities and rights ,including…
To Wake Up Human!
Antonio Gramsci would have aptly described our times, smug and blood-thirsty as the “time of monsters”. Unbelievably, it’s been 173 days of military onslaught that has brought calamity and massacres to the Gaza Strip. The suffering seems endless. Having seen the testimonies of so many children and youth, the murders, the detritus of bombardment, it’s…
World Poetry Day!
March 21st is a day which celebrates both the power of poetry and calls for the elimination of racism globally. Today’s post shares the words and pictures of poets and artists speaking to the need for justice and for poetry. As the great Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton said, “poetry, like bread, is for everyone.” Even…
Poetry for the Peeps! Humanity or Nothing
Today is a day when poetry and art speak for themselves. I think it is the 160th day of genocide, nearly 6 months since October 7th and we’ve seen things go from bad to worse with regard to the human rights of Palestinian peoples. Israel, U.S and the European powers who have big investments of…
Nothing More Hopeful Than Solidarity! Poetry for the Peeps
Today I continue my journey of sharing the words of artists and writers speaking out against genocide. For no matter how the ICJ stops short in calling for a permanent ceasefire to hostilities on Gaza, we around the world know the truth of the matter. I share today the beautiful words and vision of Canada’s…
Poetry for the Peeps! A Year to Remember
2023 has turned out to be a year to remember for all the wrong reasons. It has exposed the heartlessness at the centre of settler colonialism and empire. The inhumanity of the world’s leaders, the logic of capitalism and the global push to fascism are all so clearly spelled out for us. And the mainstream media has…
Poetry for the Peeps! Against Devastation
Once again I find myself still reeling from not only the onslaught of terror that is being perpetrated in the name of Israeli expansionism, but also the apathetic and two-faced world in which we dwell. The disconnect between the kleptocrats who rule us (disguised thinly as bourgeois democrats) and those of us who appear to…
Poetry for the Peeps!
We are seeing the rise of the new era of capitalism in its decadence, that is, decline. The thrashing tail and head are swinging all of us on this globe from side to side, twisting reality, employing doublespeak, and criminalizing compassion. In the midst of this slaughter of civilians and children, with over 12000 dead…
Poetry for the Peeps! Suheir Hammad
Palestine/USA I will notdance to your wardrum. I willnot lend my soul normy bones to your wardrum. I willnot dance to yourbeating. I know that beat.It is lifeless. I knowintimately that skinyou are hitting. Itwas alive oncehunted stolenstretched. I willnot dance to your drummedup war. I will not popspin beak for you. Iwill not hate…
Ear to the Ground 