"Congratulations! This is amazing! I will definitely check it out :)"
NOT YOUR USUAL MEDIA “COVERAGE”
Poets for Living Waters – New Statements / Poems
I don’t have the answers. I barely have the questions. But I’m not egotistical enough to imagine I can come up with a solution or complete understanding on my own. I also don’t think sitting in front of the TV, feeling angry and impotent, is the answer. This is our Chernobyl. Our genocidal war with our own environment. We may implode with oil and shed a tear for the dead fishing industries. Swim among tar balls and swollen sea turtles. We’ve done it to ourselves, grown up obeying the homegrown U.S. ethos of “Progress. Increase your wealth. Produce, produce, produce!” We panic when the GDP wanes. If we don’t have full-time jobs we spend the bulk of days doing, we feel empty and worthless.
But what are we contributing to? Americans aren’t afraid to work, no question. But we don’t seem to have our eyes on the horizon—we don’t seem to know what all of our blood, sweat and tears are building. We mourn the men who died on that oil well platform; we applaud their determination to do their jobs. But the oil – why has this lust and greed and profit-for-oil dictated how we heat our homes, run our machinery, get us around? Why do our jobs rely and focus on getting and selling the black sludge?
Why do we live with this reliance? When I note that I don’t have the answer, I am simultaneously aware that the current ways we live are inherently, and traumatically flawed. We are co-dependent users, whether we realize and admit it or not. My children–and yours–will have to deal with the fallout of this legacy – the future? It’s finally time to change the view. Now we are forced to ask the questions in our own backyards: How else can we carry on? How can we replace our reliance on oil? What harm have we done? How can we slow down the pace, stop working for greedy oil profit margins and think more humanely about exactly what our jobs are?
These are just a few of the questions we’ve begun to ask. We now must get other Americans to ask these questions. The media isn’t going to pose them. Our media is owned and run by big business. They will not imagine better ways of life for us. America has done great things; we still have the power to do more. If we can just start envisioning a different future than the one on our horizon (and TVs) right now…
Please find a number of new statements and poems linked below from regular Americans, necessarily increasing in dialogue and scope, asking vital questions – please participate, think aloud, figure out what world you’d like to be borne into and what world you’d like to leave your children living in. Share with your friends, family, co-workers, and strangers alike. Let’s become our own “think tank” and stop giving big business the power to tell us how to live our lives. We’re still here – it’s not “too late” to respond, to change things in small ways at first — if the effects of this spill will be felt for decades, so should our actions in response to it! Thanks for joining this growing nationwide conversation…
IF THE CATASTROPHE GOES ON BY FRANZ WRIGHT
ATLANTIS MADE EASY BY EVIE SHOCKLEY
BIRDS AND WORDS BY BILL MARSH
THREE POEMS BY KATE SCHAPIRA
THREE POEMS BY CARLY SACHS
TWO POEMS BY ALICIA OSTRIKER
THE HAND THAT SLANTS BY PATRICK DURGIN
TWO POEMS BY KIRSTEN KASCHOCK
THREE POEMS BY JEFF NEWBERRY
THREE POEMS BY PHILIP METRES
“WHO HAS NO LAND HAS NO SEA” BY FADY JOUDAH
OIL SPILL BY TARA BETTS
THREE POEMS BY GORDON MASSMAN
FORT MORGAN BY JOSEPH P. WOOD
GREAT AWAKENING BY RODRIGO TOSCANO
TWO POEMS BY NICOLE COOLEY
ODE TO THE PELICAN BY ALISON PELEGRIN
SLIPPINGGLIMPSE BY STEPHANIE STRICKLAND, CYNTHIA LAWSON JARAMILLO, PAUL RYAN
THREE POEMS BY SAM SCHILD
TWO POEMS BY JAN HELLER LEVI
HATCHLING BY LISANNE THOMPSON
THREE POEMS BY JULIAN T. BROLASKI
FIVE POEMS BY JAMES WAGNER
OIL BY JUDITH BARRINGTON
TWO POEMS BY TAMIKO BEYER
FROM KETJAK BY RON SILLIMAN
THE DAY AFTER THE END OF HISTORY: A BIRTHDAY POEM BY T. CLAYTON WOOD
SPILL BY ANGELA SORBY
TWO POEMS BY BROOKS HAXTON
FOLLOWING THE RUN BY GRACE CAVALIERI
TWO POEMS BY MICHELE BATTISTE
TWO POEMS BY MARTHA SERPAS
TWO POEMS BY FRANK SHERLOCK
PHILADELPHIA WORLD OCEANS DAY READING!
THREE POEMS BY ELIZABETH TWIDDY
TWO POEMS BY CAITLIN PLUNKETT
APORIA BY ROBERT PHILBEN
IN EXTREMIS [+ VIDEO] BY NEIL DE LA FLOR
LICKETY-SPLIT BY ANNE HIGGINS
A MOODY STREAM BY STEVE DALACHINSKY
THE FLOODING THAT WRITES ITSELF BY EILEEN R. TABIOS
TWO POEMS BY MELISSA TUCKEY
ORIFICE BY MARCELLA DURAND
DESCENDING BLUES BY BRANDON LAMSON
AN ORDINANCE OF POSSESSION BY TONY MANCUS
TWO POEMS BY MOLLY GAUDRY
CHANDELEUR SOUND BY MARTHE REED
DEEPWATER HORIZON POEMS BY NICOLE MAURO
HONORING WORLD OCEANS DAY — BROOKLYN ACTION
TEMPUS FIDGET BY GEOFFREY GATZA
HONORING WORLD OCEANS DAY–ALASKAN ACTION
FOUR POEMS BY MICHAEL ROBINS
SPIRIT BEAR BY CONRAD DIDIODATO
FIVE POEMS BY AMY SARA CARROLL
ECHOES BY NATHAN HAUKE
CALL FOR WORK – GULF COAST POEMS
Poets and Writers Magazine — “Poets Take Action in Wake of Gulf Coast Disaster“
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