The Hard Work of Witness Poetry Folio

Shortly after COVID-19’s arrival in our state, Mass Poetry put out a call for poems of this moment and we were stunned by the overwhelming response. In a way, these were poems of witness, asking you to pay attention to what was happening in the world during these unprecedented times—the horrible and the beautiful—and to make a record of it: the empty grocery store shelves, the conversations across balconies, the stadiums turned hospitals, midnight beach strolls, the sirens, the sirens, the sirens.But, this historical moment was not solely about COVID: it was also a time when a sitting president openly encouraged white supremacy, when George Floyd was murdered, when a grand jury refused to indict police officers for killing Breonna Taylor in her own home, when a U.S. President refused to concede and insurrectionists stormed the Capitol. And for Black and Brown Americans—who were more likely to die of COVID—it was also about police violence, record unemployment, less access to healthcare, and all the other forms of systemic racism that are always present, but more egregious during the deadliest infectious disease in a century. So today, we offer this special folio: six BIPOC poets bearing witness in extraordinary ways.

Pedro “Flako” Cruz lets the rose growing in concrete tell the story of surviving against the odds. DiDi Delgado deftly plays with the notion of the witness poem, cross-examining Karen on the stand. Christina Pierre Louis creates a living, breathing record of her ancestor, whose “spirit / still dances…in [her] home.” Jeannie Nunes takes on the term “alien,” confronting the promise of America with its own dehumanizing reality. Amanda Shea testifies against the microagressions and spiritual harm of the social media world, where violence against Black lives is reduced to a hashtag. And Durane West creates an opening in a wall, then invites us to look out with him, “holding space…admitting light, or air.”

I urge you to read these poems as a call to action: to acknowledge the human rights violations that are taking place every day in our own country. Do not look away. The hard work of witness is collective attention, but it’s collective action that will bring real change.

Pedro “Flako” Cruz

I Wonder

I’ve always wondered if the Rose that grew from the concrete knew it wasn’t supposed to grow at all?
I wonder if it knew it wasn’t meant to breathe fresh air,
Or that the rules to the race of life won’t be fair,
Or that it was never supposed to feel the heat of the sun,
Or that blossoming wasn’t even an option.

I wonder if it knew.

I wonder if it knew that its very existence would question the laws of nature.
That science and math would argue against its survival.
And that it had every reason in the world to fail and no one in the universe would blame it.
No one would shame it.
After all, how could a rose ever grow from the concrete?

Sometimes I wonder.

I wonder if it ever complained about the living conditions?
Did it feel less than?
Like, “I’ll never be picked for a bouquet because I’m from the concrete.”
Or like, or like, “I fear they judge me because I’m from the sidewalk.”

Imagine that.

I’ve always wondered if it was called names by other flowers?
Did it ever wish to be like the others?
Was it singled out because it was different?

I wonder if people ignored it when they walked by?
Or did they stop and say hi?
Did they even notice it?

It saw no representation of itself so did it consider itself a weed?
Did it ever research the history behind it’s seed?

I wonder.

But then again I wonder, if it did know, would it have even grown at all?
Or would it fold under the weight of the odds stacked up against it and fall?
Did it only blossom because it was blind to the system formed against it?
Or did knowing the system helped it form against it?

Sometimes I wonder.

What if it felt unapproachable because of its thorns?
Unaccepted and misunderstood from the moment it was born.
Wishing to be different just to fit in some generic flower pot.
When will it be clear that they hold the power to make the corruption of power stop?

You see ’cause – we all know a rose that comes from the concrete.
A spiritual warrior of life, dancing to the drums of their heartbeat.
Moving forward, taking steps with sore feet.
Knowing that soon-day they will shower in glo-ry.

The world gives us enough reasons to quit,
all we need is to find one to continue.
It’s either you work in the kitchen or put yourself on the menu.
We come from rich bloodlines of Kings and Queens who ruled over nations.
We have ancestors who sacrificed themselves for small liberations.

So if I’ve been doing this forever, why would I quit?
But I think about it more than i’d like to admit.
I feel like saying “forget it! Ima give it up”
And use the rest of my time here to live it up

But fun and games just ‘aint gonna feed my pockets
So I rather invest in gold, not rock it
I rather go to school and put a paper on what i learned in the streets
all I know is forward, even when the next step smells like defeat

But I can’t give up now, my daughter is watching
my mom is cheering and my grandma’s coughing
my friends are waiting, my community’s pushing
At this point in my journey, self-love is the only cushion

Sometimes I look around and feel like I don’t belong where I’m at
But I close my eyes and think about the rose and there goes that

Sometimes I feel like my environment is overpowering me
But I think of the rose and feel a light from heavens showering me

Sometimes I feel like it’s impossible to grow and get the urge to run
But again, I think of the rose and remember it can be done.

So I tell you this – be like the rose that grew from the concrete and blossom against all odds.

PROMPT
I stand here today because my grandmother made the decision to jump a puddle. What leaps have you made, and where did you land?

Didi Delgado

Karen is called to the Stand

You are Karen, the third, are you not?
Your parents received the GI Bill not afforded to unrepentant negroes
Settled right into the WASPS nest of suburbia
Born of unearned privilege and lines so red
they must have been painted with the blood of those who were excluded.
I don’t have a racist bone in my body!
Let’s discuss the bones in the body Karen.
Is it possible your coccyx doesn’t support you rising for justice?
Have you ever been told your backbone only exists to support your audacity?
Hasn’t Black Twitter explained time and time again
Your phalanges aren’t feelings

That they shouldn’t
dial the police with phony pleas
touch our hair with fervent fascination
Or reach for our children
when you’ve yet to apologize
for demanding we raise your own.

But my family didn’t own slaves!

What will you take ownership of then Karen?
Did they auction or trade Black Lives at the TransAtlantic Bank of the Enslaved?
Is the family run business one of the many institutions built on the backs of Black folk?
Didn’t we discuss the proverbial problem of the backbone?
Isn’t the desire to mimicry and mock the degraded hereditary?

It’s time to stop being so divisive and come together!

Karen, where were you on the night Dr. Tom smacked the bottom
of the first white baby that came out of a nigger gal without her consent?
At what time did you call the police?
You didn’t hear of the labor or the birth?
How can an honest, Christian woman bake a rhubarb pie full of lies and then slice it?

I’ve never seen a solidarity so soiled with silence.
Your white feminism is still a suffrage movement living out loud
Your tears are rivulets of regrets that do not equate to reparations.
Do not pretend you are too out of spoons to have this conversation
all while accusing us of stealing the silverware anyway.

Prompt

Think of a time you were silent during someone’s oppression; even if its your own.
What were you thinking, what were you feeling? What did the air smell like? Who was harmed?
Who was helped? Who is still hurting?
Write all that you can, then cut the poem down to three, six or nine lines.

Christina Pierre Louis

Before the Ashes

Before your body became ashes
And ashes dust
And dust spread in the winter wind
You were glowing
Full and overflowing
With joy
With peace
Like my favorite star in the sky
You shined 
Effortlessly
Hugged and loved selflessly
Determination pumped in your blood
Strength stretched in your limbs
Perseverance flexed in your muscles
Resilience beat in your heart
Humility breathed through your spirit
And your spirit 
Still dances its way through my home
To the melody of a go to playlist
Full of feel good tunes
When the world feels too heavy of a thing to carry 
I carry your memories
Like a good luck charm
Like good pieces of advice 
As if to remind myself of all the amazing things you were and some
And each day 
Each hour
Each moment is a chance for me to do the same
To grow and become an amazing thing
What an honor to be a fruit on your family tree
Our family tree
A legacy thriving
And well worth continuing

Prompt

Think of someone who you love dearly, deceased or living, and write a poem that honors or celebrates
them.

Jeannie Nunes

Aliens

Nha mai My mother
ku nha donna And grandmother
Es e flor di Djabraba Are flowers from Brava
Ma es terra ta trataze suma  But this country treats them
Padja mortu… like dead grass

My mother is an alien
Who never even knew she was an alien
Until she landed on the shores of your huddled masses
Yearning to breathe free
And although her DNA has no link to any little green men on Mars
her identity is still somehow marred
By this little green card
She comes from a not-so-distant galaxy
Brimming with brilliant shades of the chocolate rainbow
Even if they have been overshadowed by blurred colonized lines

My mother is an alien
With native, intergalactic tongues
Deeply imbedded into her tonsils 
That keep her from speaking your proper English
Without a heavily accented twang
She is a daughter of sub-Saharan sand dunes
Who is kin to Kunta Kinte

My mother is an alien
Who left HER mothership to go off and explore other signs of intelligent life
Beyond her own Milky Way
And chase these fleeting asteroids of
white washed American dreams
That sometimes BURST into technicolor nightmares

My mother is an alien
Who has lived in YOUR solar system for almost 50 years
Yet STILL gets treated like she is public enemy #1
And when we ask her about her ongoing battles with homesickness
She admits that she is scared 
Terrified that she may no longer be foreign enough to go back
Yet is still considered TOO foreign to EVER belong here
But if the heart keeps asking for home

And she breaks down and FINALLY listens
And returns to her birth planet of tropical blue waters 
And villages of brown faces
Shell have no choice BUT to stay
And return to the very terra firma that has sheltered her ancestors sanctified bones
For a lifetime of light years…
Abandoning me and these purple mountains majesties
My mother is an alien. 
Who has had to remind a few of your fellow upstanding citizens
That by her simply honoring HER red, black and green
It does not diminish YOUR red, white and blue
She respects her adopted home
But has long grown weary of its slumlord tactics
Drained by an infrastructure 
that continuously fails to acknowledge her culture and and her worth
Yet mocks, kidnaps, then carbon copies that shit 
All for its own privileged convenience
And yet somehow someway 
My mother STILL manages to muster up some patriotic love 
For this land of 
Keeping up with the Kardashians 
Rachel Dolezals
And Donald Trump rallies
I just don’t have the heart to break the news to her 
That it will NEVER love an alien like her
In return

Prompt:

When was a time people made you feel like you didn’t belong? End the poem with a direct address or a question.

Amanda Shea

Social Media

Social media apps  
Got you losing reality 
Didn’t subscribe to desensitization, confusion, fake news and all these comments How do I cancel it 
Before it cancels me 
I thought this was a tool 
Instead I’m being drilled 
Picked at and screwed 
Over my thoughts, images and my image 
When did this become high school 
Snubbed for prom queen the snob always wins 
Subbed in statuses 
I remember the bathroom stalls marked up 
Now it’s bodies 
Not like the subway in Harlem 
Actually bodies 
Everyone wanna be a barb and join a team  
I still have PTSD 
Watching George Floyd’s death changed me 
Triggered me 
How many triggers can be pulled without having to count the bullets Breona can’t tell us 
The neighbors wall speaks louder than her voice 
Another black woman silenced 
In the dead of night 
Protect Black Women is a hashtag 
We are conditioned to put a pound sign 
On tragedies 
Maybe it should be a stop sign 
Bright red so it can be read and not just seen 
But we read people for filth 
Full of negativity 
Questioning myself 
My vibration is low 
Too slow to tap tap tap in on the bigger picture 
Waves of hate can penetrate 
Even the deepest of waters 
With a thirty second soundbite 
Click, then debate 
It’s faster than a chamber 
Why aren’t these monitored ? 

How long is a FB jail sentence anyway?
Is this reality?
Or a social experiment 
A play of sorts 
Where you can be whatever character while being judged on your character 
I hate it in this world 
I lucid dream often 
Traveling vividly 
Opening portals 
That allow me to feel safe 
Where accountability and evolution meet 
The dark web doesn’t lurk here 
It’s too busy trafficking children and women 
In this realm I’m surrounded by my own shadows 
We don’t play games we go hard at work 
To build a cape so big made of Teflon 
No cap, shells would bounce off 
No puncture wounds or sharpened tongues could pierce me 
I’d be at peace instead of overthinking about content 
I’d be content with self 
My emotions couldn’t be altered by the pretentious constructs of how to be, live and breathe 
Competition and comparisons 
Creates division 
Common denominator 
Calling people out 
Instead of calling them in 
DMs replaces conversations 
No need to be direct 
No desire to hit someone’s line 
People blogging 
Gossiping, rumors 
Unhealthy consumption 
Adopting treads that lose weight 
Momentum dies 
But not suicidal thoughts 
Constant battle 
Turmoil 
From turning to devices 
Addicted it’s a vice 
That releases hormones that causes the body to react in pleasure 
Twitter fingers racing like heartbeats 
Perpetuating ideologies of a system set up to destroy confidence and feelings And guess what? 
It all comes at a price 
You can’t buy self esteem
From an Ad or App 
But if you show I.D. you can be Verified 
Blue check marks is your validation Unlocking ID
All of us have super egos 
We gotta keep our egos balanced Gotta take breaks and fast

Prompt

Is grieving linear?

Durane West

window – /windȏ/  noun

Prompt

Write a letter to yourself acknowledging all the ways you’ve grown from past relationships. How has it
strengthened the relationship you have with yourself?

---

---

---

---

---

---