From the just published collection of poems Ina Kwana, by Uma Samari
Value
Excerpt from the Butterfly Prison Think Brussels, Paris, Syria, Australian Aboriginal deaths in custody, Black people murdered by police, Central American migrants - which lives are covered more?
Little poem: What I Mean When I Say Survivor
This is one of Brenna Twohy's shorter poems, honest and confronting and for basic female dignity, as always. I, too have loved men who named my mouth ashtray, mistook me for a place to leave burning things when they were done.
Numbers:
42 was the meaning of life. 43 was death – for the 43 Mexican students forcibly disappeared in one go, and for the 43 people in Venezuela killed during rightwing barricades. 11 (April, 2002) was coups and the will of the Venezuelan people trampled on 13 was overcoming defeat. It was when the Venezuelan people... Continue Reading →
3 strong women and their bold poetry that just says it how it is
The Joys of Motherhood - FreeQuency "...who will see criminal before child... I can't take it for granted that they won't kill my son... there's something about being Black in America that has made motherhood sound like mourning ..." Used - Shelby Birch "He called me a queen and I blushed, but it wasn't because... Continue Reading →
List: 40 Books by Oppressed People
My aim is to read these books this year. What a magical wealth of stories, thoughts, strong characters, complex life views, and places to journey to. Its a collection of awesome authors and regions, including indigenous people from different countries, sexually diverse people, hardcore women, industrial workers, migrants, revolutionaries, Black activists, and people who have faced... Continue Reading →
40 Books by Oppressed People in 40 weeks
I've set a goal to read 40 novels or fiction/prose works (eg poetry, memoirs) by oppressed people by the end of this year (1 a week). This includes books by authors in thirdworld countries, women, sexually diverse authors, workers, indigenous peoples, people who face systemic racism, poor people, refugees and more. These people are, in... Continue Reading →
Excerpt: The Butterfly Prison
The first pages of the Butterfly Prison: Who made the story rules? Once, stories had been an oral tradition, a way to teach. Then they were stolen, canned, and sold. But now and then people tried to reclaim stories. They told them in order to redefine corrupted ideas and to name injustice. They broke the... Continue Reading →
Littlebits from poems about strongliving
Sometimes minds come together and make new things in a conversation. Sometimes different people's poems and stories meet, shake hands, and unseen magic lingers among the warmth... Here are some excerpts from the poems of a mate and a luchadora, from her books No God but Ghosts and Monsters and other Silent Creatures ... April in... Continue Reading →
To be alive is a small victory…
There are some little stories worth carrying around with you in a diary or journal or some place so that they can accompany you in life. This is one of those, for me. Eduardo Galeano (my translation), written while he was in exile: I chase the enemy voice that has ordered me to be sad.... Continue Reading →
“White men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality.”
Languages on their own can be tools of power or resistance... Shailja Patel's "Dreaming in Gujarati": (excerpts) I am six in a playground of white children Darkie, sing us an Indian song! Eight in a roomful of elders all mock my broken Gujarati English girl! Through the years I watch Gujarati swell the swaggering egos of... Continue Reading →
The different shapes of death
A child saw death as something to be put up with, and not as something that came in old age, because most of her brothers had been killed. Likewise, some people fear death, some believe in some sort of afterlife, and others don't. For some in this world, death is normalised and funerals are weekly things.... Continue Reading →
Portraits from prison: Using photography to see more
Eva Haule is an activist who spent 20 years in prison, including time in solitary and on hunger strike. She said photography "filled the emptiness". Day after day, seeing the same things, photography gave her the opportunity to see more or to look at things again, differently. In her photos, prisoners are humanized again, and we... Continue Reading →
Out of suffering…
Some Palestinians take grenades and use them as flower pots or for seedlings. Sudanese torture survivors have become councilors for other survivors. How do we recover from suffering? We name it and transform it into its opposite: We fill the craters left by the bombs And once again we sing And once again we sow... Continue Reading →
What is poverty?
The Butterfly Prison on Amazon
Letter to a little person
To new tiny person, New being, seed of human, bundle of questions with a whole world to get to know, remember to delight in falling over. Babies are wonderful at getting up again. Keep that. Remember that imagination is your strength. Wonder keeps you alive. Ask as many questions as you can, always. Play until... Continue Reading →
Christmas was the ‘gift’ brought by the invasion to Latin America
Langston Hughes wrote this poem about Christmas 85 years ago, and it still matters. A U.S. based African-American activist and one of the innovators of Jazz Poetry, he promoted racial awareness, wrote novels, stories, poems and more. Merry Christmas, China From the gun-boats in the river, Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts, And peace on earth... Continue Reading →
Interviewed by war..
By Australian activist and health care worker, Susan Austin: Veteran The sunken couch cradles him. He grips the remote (friend). The baby, the pot plant, her gloss lipstick all study him. Doctors riddle him with diagnoses but it is war that goes on interviewing him each night. He asks alcohol to counsel him but all each... Continue Reading →
When hope hides
... in unreachable corners and it feels like the conservatives run the world (because they do) and life is reduced to a constant struggle to keep your head above the water and not drown...there's poems like this that don't solve it all by any means but do help you step back a bit, and breathe:... Continue Reading →
When the makers of your clothes sing
Six former or current Cambodian garment factory workers make up The Messenger Band, and they have much to sing about their working conditions and the state of the country. "Poor countries are kept in the dark," they sing. Through privatisation, the government has stolen everything from the people, and resold it, they sing. They sing... Continue Reading →
resistance words 