Aka, the poetry page. When I’m too lazy to write an op-ed about a problem, I usually address it in a more creative format.
So here are the problems of the world – immigration, war, and college friends graduating and moving away – in poetry form.
Halfway And Then Some
A number of my favorite college friends are graduating this year (2019). This poem is for them. Though it can also be read as a graceful sort of tantrum.
child
On children who grew up in wartime.
Refugee
On the topic of Syria, and how we only acknowledge those horrors when it’s too late.
Advice From A Bushranger
Bushrangers were Australian outlaws and escaped convicts – people who lived off armed robbery and took refuge in the Australian bush. One of the last and most famous of these bushrangers was Ned Kelly (1854 – 1880). This poem is based off Peter Carey’s novel True History of the Kelly Gang, which I was forced to read in high school. Turns out, it wasn’t a bad book. This is what I took away from it.
Aleppo
Trigger warning: Mentions of war and suicide.
When Aleppo fell to Bashar al-Assad’s forces in 2016, many families committed suicide together rather than live under the government regime. The circumstances that force families to make these choices are unfathomable. This poem does not do the tragedy justice, but it does try to understand.
Let Me In
Written from the dual perspectives of a Latinx immigrant trying to cross the US-Mexico border, and a Syrian refugee trying to make it to Europe.
Dream-Drowned Sailor
Context for this poem: ‘Twas revealed to me in a (day)dream.