"Nice Voice" by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day January 14, 2020   Nice Voice   Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

When my daughter whines I tell her to say what you want in a nice voice.   My nice voice is reserved for meetings with a view, my palm outstretched saying here. Are our problems. Legacies rolling out like multicolored marbles. Don't focus so much on the 'doom and gloom' they keep saying. We don't want to depress. Everyone. This is only our survival. We rely heavily on foreign aid I am instructed to say. I am instructed to point out the need for funds to build islands, move families from weto after weto, my mouth a shovel to spade the concrete with but I am just pointing out neediness. So needy. These small. Underdeveloped countries. I feel myself shrinking in the back of the taxi when a diplomat compliments me. How brave for admitting it so openly. The allure of global negotiations dulls. Like the back of a worn spoon.   I lose myself easily in a kemem. Kemem defined as feast. As celebration. A baby's breath endures their first year so we pack hundreds of close bodies under tents, lined up for plates I pass to my cousin, assembly line style. Our gloved hands pluck out barbeque chicken, fried fish, scoop potato salad, dew-like droplets of bōb and mā. Someone yells for another container of jajimi. The speaker warbles a keyboarded song. A child inevitably cries. Mine dances in the middle of the party. A pair elbow each other to rip hanging beach balls from their strings. The MC shouts Boke ajiri ne nejim jen maan. The children are obstructing our view. Someone wheels a grandma onto the dance floor. The dances begin here   is a nice celebration of survival.            Copyright © 2020 by Kathy Jetnil-Kijner. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 14, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "I wrote this poem to help me process my work in the realm of climate change, international negotiations, and the heaviness of negotiating for our survival as atoll islanders facing the threat of our islands disappearing. How healing it can be to find traditional, thriving community practices to celebrate our survival." —Kathy Jetnil-Kijner   Kathy Jetnil-Kijner is the author of Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter (University of Arizona Press, 2016). She is the Director of Jo-Jikum, a non-profit organization based in Majuro Marshall Islands. Poetry by Jetnil-Kijner   Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter (University of Arizona Press, 2016) "Notes on a Mass Stranding" by Kamilah Aisha Moon "Kid, this is the first rain" by Jeffrey Bean "Children Walk on Chairs to Cross a Flooded Schoolyard" by Patrick Rosal January Guest Editor: Meg Day   Thanks to Meg Day, author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A about Day's curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year. A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. 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   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038