"Defiant" by Patricia Spears Jones

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 22, 2018   Defiant   Patricia Spears Jones

Fruit from one vine tangles with another Making a mess of the intended harvest, yet the lack of calculation is welcome that accident that shifts bodies from shadows into a locus of light midday bright & caustic wounds un-healed   newsreel cameras trap this old & angry man in a bespoke suit lifting white pages & refusing to read them, mumbles unwelcome threats & thanks the nation the nation kicks him out—finally defiant after years of misrule, disruption, murder and the choked voice youth terrorized he wants more blood on his hands so that when he enters his version of paradise all will be red.                Copyright © 2018 Patricia Spears Jones. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "We are seeing strong men across the globe rise up, take resources, refuse to leave. Sooner or later (usually later) the citizenry demands change, as recently happened in Zimbabwe. Watching Robert Mugabe 'perform' a ritual of defiance in the wake of demands for his resignation was the catalyst for this poem. Fortunately, the defiance of the people—the same people he had imperiled—outmatched his. Defiance of authority, resistance to dictatorship is a fact of our lives around this globe." —Patricia Spears Jones   Patricia Spears Jones is the author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2015). Recipient of the 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize, she is the organizer of American Poets Congress, a new collective of poets and cultural workers. Originally from Arkansas, she lives in Brooklyn, New York. Poetry by Spears Jones   A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2015) "A People's Historian" by Kenneth Carroll "Unlawful Assembly" by Kimberly Blaeser "Ask the Locals" by Monica Sok May Guest Editor: Matthew Shenoda   Thanks to Matthew Shenoda, author of Tahrir Suite: Poems (TriQuarterly Books, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Shenoda and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038