George Floyd -

Teaching Hollins University, Spring 2020

A sunny Monday morning in Brooklyn. The air goes from chilly to warmish back to chilly–a good winter day in the metropolis. Quiet too–that post Christmas quiet when friends and family are satiated, gifts opened and delighted upon. Or they are returned for that refund. But this year’s Christmas was already quiet. Few people traveling and those that do under extreme circumstances as in a neighbor saying he was driving to Florida to wave at his grand children there. New strain of Covid is keeping him masked up and off airplanes. That kind of Christmas. But along with all kinds of caution, my neighbors have gone all out with lights and decorations–with the exception of Our Lady of Victory a RC church, no one has times for creche but oh those lights. I do miss the blow up Santa and elves, but the family that put them up each year have left.

Indeed, this is a year of departures: the awful and shameless deaths of people from COVID19. The predatory and stalking deaths of Black Americans by police officers from the North to the South with the death of George Floyd added an horrible symmetry as it recalled the death of Eric Garner-both claiming their loss of breath: “I can’t breathe”. Indeed the loss of breath from the police, from the virus, from a variety of environmental accidents, episodes, intentional destruction. And BIPOC (not my favorite acronym) bore the brunt because of systematic and sustained structural issues: racism, sexism, poverty, economic stress. The loss is huge and how it will be balanced remains an issue.

But, a great fight has been joined this year. More people voted in the national election for the first time since the 1960s! Democracy really was on the line and yes, it still is. But the BidenHarris ticket won and by a solid majority. That Trump and is supporters continue the fiction of voter fraud show just how much work we will have to continue to do. The Trump people like to blow up city blocks, kill unarmed protestors and drive cars into people demonstrating for justice. Whether you say defund the police abolish the police or reform the police, you are saying that current policing across this nation is poor and THINGS GOTTA CHANGE.

So this year many things changed for me. I lived in Virginia for 4 months on campus at Hollins University where I was the Louis D. Rubin Writer in Residence. I was prepped to do amazing things: teach, write, read, socialize, explore Virginia and maybe even East Tennessee. And well I taught a really great course with a terrific group of graduate and undergraduate students. I went to JMU at Harrisonburg for a Furious Flower book launch. Before the shutdown I got to eat and drink at interesting restaurants in Roanoke. And then it stopped. And while my Brooklyn friends locked down; I was left isolated. It was challenging but I learned to trust my instincts while living on an almost deserted campus. I learned to listen to the birds, watch the squirrels, rabbits and on Mother’s Day in May, foxes. People helped me get through the residency, but all of those glorious plans remained unfulfilled.

Much is riding on the coming year, but despite many things that did not happen; many things did in 2020. I published important new work both prose and poetry. Two prose works: memoirs–were published, the most recent at https://www.pangyrus.com/category/essay-memoir/. The New Yorker published two poems: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/16/nia

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/30/betye-saars-mystic-chart-for-an-unemployed-sorceress

I curated a Radical Poetry Reading for The Brooklyn Rail New Social Environment https://brooklynrail.org/events/2020/09/16/radical-poetry-reading-with-patricia-spears-jones/

and am pleased that CA Conrad asked me to join an experiment as part of The Poetry Project’s Annual New Year’s Day Fundraiser which goes virtual. https://www.poetryproject.org/events/the-47th-annual-new-year-s-day-marathon

huge moon huge dreams

And finally like many of you I did what I could to keep in touch with family and friends; to support social justice; remove Trump; and stay healthy. None of this is easy. But nobody’s bored. I know I am not.

Keep these words in mind in coming year: CREATIVITY, GENEROSITY, KINDNESS, INTELLIGENCE, LOVE. We will need all of these things to keep our minds and bodies whole and prepared to struggle for a just world where human dignity is standard, not neglected. Where art is exalted not exhausted. Where we will be able to hold each other again. Yes Black Lives Matter. Yes, the environment matters. Yes, disarmament matters. Yes, the struggle for peace continues.

Macon Street, Brooklyn 2020

When I returned to Brooklyn, the sun was bright, my apartment cleaned but utterly re-arranged. It was jarring, disturbing, it felt like a violation. The kind person who stayed in my space for a couple of months had tried to make the space her own and that makes sense but she failed to put things back. And all of this was while dealing with the extreme lock down in New York City.

The virus took a huge toll on the city and esp. Central Brooklyn. At least two people in the neighborhood that I know (knew) were taken by the virus. Others buried many more. All that grief, sadness during lockdown with few ways to physically connect have left people prepared to greet this extraordinary spring after a winter when the president and his advisors sent conflicting and often useless messages, but the main one was WE WILL NOT TAKE CARE OF YOU. This to the now 100,000 plus citizens who have buried their loved ones. People were prepared to walk into the sunlight,greet the spring. Little did we know what this spring would bring.

Six years ago, Eric Garner was killed by the police who were using an illegal choke hold in broad daylight. A week or so ago, George Floyd was killed by the police who were using an unsanctioned choke hold. Both men said as they were dying “I can’t breathe”. That is an awful symmetry.

Helicopters are in the air over my neighborhood on this hot June Day. At 2 p.m. the Memorial for George Floyd will take place. Floyd’s murder on top of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are what can only be seen as the last straw. Thousands upon thousands of American citizens are taken to the streets from tiny towns to Minneapolis where Floyd’s last breath was taken. Thousands upon thousands of citizens are expressing intense REVULSION towards the president and his henchmen; towards the widespread militarization of policing from small towns to major urban centers; thousands upon thousands of Americans of all shapes, sizes, abilities, sexualities, gender identities, ethnicities, and races have expressed solidarity with Black Americans who have daily met with contempt and bias from police and who have born the deadly brunt of COVID-19. This righteous revolt show that Americans are ready to change the narrative.

What is next is going to ask of us extraordinary work. America has 400 years of creating systems of policing and oppressing people of African descent. From enslavement; the Black Codes; Jim Crow; discrimination and violence (night riders, lynching, etc,) Black Americans have fought to break down and demolish institutionalized racism, but we can’t do it alone. Institutionalized racism serves White people and their allies with social, economic and cultural privilege(s). The refutation of those privileges so that a more just , generous and caring society may truly develop is going to be hard for many to deal with. It will take generations. But it has started.

My dear friend, Soraya Shalforoosh, a terrific poet from posted a poem by her son Dylan who is 11. Dylan is Persian, Algerian, and Polish-American is still in elementary school and he is part of a generation who is anti-racist. The children truly are beginning to perform that new world I and so many others have fought for and still seek. Revulsion towards those who oppress, withhold justice and murder is so deeply felt. This revolt may lead a place of societal transformation., at least we can continue to push push push for that change. As Charlie Parker played when I was a child: NOW IS THE TIME.

George Floyd

When I first saw the video on tktok

I was scared but

I watched it again

I knew the video was real

But I felt so sad and also at the same time

I wanted to punch that cop

I sat with that feeling

Why is he racist?

Why did it happen?

Did George do something wrong?

Or no?

I skipped videos and saw people being peppersprayed

“ I can’t breathe”

That night i figured out how to change my profile to the Black Lives Matter fist

I was also thinking to myself if I was black, I could be next.

That made me worried for other people, especially my friends. who are black

I was worried for my cousin who is black .

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