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Saturday, October 28, 2023

SPEAKING, UNSPEAKING

by Lavinia Kumar


A “McCarthyite Backlash” Against Pro-Palestine Speech: From university disciplinary hearings to death threats, supporters of Palestinian rights are facing a wave of reprisals. —Jewish Currents, October 20, 2023. Rick Friedman / Alamy Stock Photo: Students rally for Palestine at Harvard University on October 14th, 2023.


First, Fourteenth, speech freedom laws—a speaker’s 

Right to let words fly like leaves from trees, and now new

Edited 19th century pro- anti- Protestant, Catholic is back

Excoriating religions, their people, morphed to

 

Swarms of crowds, anti- pro- Palestine, Israel, a revived 

Partisan diatribe, a pugnacious polemic

Energized by freedom of speech, guns, flags, politicians

Elected to lance wise trees, plant dissent, grow weeds of disquiet,  

Champion division and decomposition—while vultures

Hover over words, freedoms, human rights, and

 

Instantly Wall Street funders plunge down to scarf

Numerous dollars, from universities, they gave, yes,

 

Donated, but today want to scavenge back, yes

Adamantly against “free” speech they don’t approve…

Names spattered, posted, across media, a strings-attached

Generosity, employment conditional on proscribed screed 

Engineered, implanted, into young minds, those abundant in

Rallies on world streets, for freedom. For truly free speech. 



Lavinia Kumar’s recent poems appear (or will soon) in Poets Choice, Kelsey Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Jersey Journal of PoetryTiny Seed.