GREETINGS FROM ARKANSAS

by Mohja Kahf

Lake Wilson, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Photo by the poet.

Thirty years I’ve taught in Arkansas

Sometimes in Arkansas I paddle the lake

under foliage forty-three shades of glory and jade,

as kinetic as my students’ creativities,

and the state forges fetters for thinking minds:

Act 372 tried to make queer library books a crime,

but it turned out Act 372 was a crime

 

Thirty years I’ve curated space for students

to think through choices, weighing in hand,

like palming the heft of Lake Sequoyah pebbles

before picking one to skip across the surface

The state puts hands on our bodies now:

Arkansas Act 180 makes abortion illegal

even after rape, killing more than choice

 

Thirty years I’ve taught in Arkansas

where ice makes bright blades of branches in winter

while daffodils sunshine up through the snow

Forgetting that we live on colonized land,

my state lets ICE deport dreamers

and taxpaying international students,

but defends a mob that scorched the nation’s capital

 

Thirty years I’ve mattocked rocks to upturn soil

where love can grow, and imagination

Act 710 calls boycotting Israel antisemitic hate

makes anyone who wants to speak on campus sign

a pledge never to boycott Zionist Israel—

I’m a proud supporter of nonviolent boycott,
and Act 710 is antisemitic and hateful

 

Sometimes I float the swim hole near Ponca,

thanking my friends who saved the Buffalo River

from hog carcass dumps by agribusiness

till the next polluter tramps in these waters

The state claims that wanting justice for Palestinians 

means wanting to trample on Jewish peoples—

I wish the state would read a queer Palestinian library book

 

Sometimes in Arkansas I hike Hemmed-in-Hollow

and the sunset is streaked purple and healing

My state produces white phosphorus for Israel

to streak skies in Gaza and Lebanon, over Arab folk’s homes

Sometimes my state breaks federal law:

the Leahy Act forbids weapons for war crimes

White phosphorus on civilians is a war crime

even if the civilians aren’t white

 

Thirty red-gold autumns I’ve taught in Arkansas

planting bulbs that push through thirty springtimes

The white phosphorus arsenal risks workers’ health

in Arkansas’ Blackest and poorest city in the Delta

Act 237 calls teaching critically about racism a shame,

calls what I do on campus indoctrination:

Act 237 is a shame and indoctrination

 

Thirty years I’ve taught in Arkansas,

more hemmed in than ever, and hollow here ring

guarantees of First Amendment freedoms

If I invite a white phosphorus expert to campus,

they’d have to sign a loyalty pledge to Israel

Sometimes I hear the queer purple music of the Ozarks,

and the state forges fetters for thinkers and dreamers

Mohja Kahf is author of a novel and three poetry books, including My Lover Feeds Me Grapefruit. Kahf’s work has been translated to Turkish, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, German, Portuguese, Urdu, and French. She is a supporter of the Palestinian-led nonviolent movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions since that movement’s inception in 2005. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and a 2018 Lifetime Award in Inclusive Education from the Northwest Arkansas Democratic Black Caucus, Kahf has been a professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Arkansas since 1995. 

DECLARATION OF A TERRORIST

by Taylor Norris

Knee on a neck, 

Match poised to strike,

With a final exhale, 

Flames did ignite. 

 

A firestorm erupted,

Fervent movement did arise, 

Suffocated by a tsunami, 

Of "All Lives Matter" cries. 

 

Abusive power wears many masks, 

Yet speaks a single tongue,

A requiem of callousness, 

Tide of lives wrung.

 

Seized, silenced, deprived of voice, 

Crushed by tempest creed, 

As the faceless gasp for breath, 

Dragged beneath waves of greed.

 

Palestinians butchered by golem rampage, 

While leaders fiddle in their gilded bubble,

Israel's broken promises rain down,

As last dregs of conscience soak into the rubble.

 

Students denouncing genocide, 

Abducted off streets like trash,

Futures and rights vanished, 

Disappeared in a Gestapo flash.

 

Ukrainians in scorched ruins stand tall, 

Courage unwavering, despite the pain,

Their sacrifice met with jealous disdain,

As an American führer bows to Putin's reign.

 

Sudanese starve on apathy alone, 

Wasting away to hollow bone, 

While the privileged eat cake, 

Glutted, glued to their phone.

 

Immigrants condemned, banished beyond aid,

Hostages snatched to a circus cage,

Mercy extinguished; identity stripped,

Erased by those with contrived rage.

 

Tiny tots seen, once heard, now lost,

Voiceless, cast out with derision,

Birthright a farce, a due process mirage,

Dispelled with coldness and precision.

 

Judges defied, jailed with contempt, 

Justice held ransom, chained to the bell, 

As cracked scales teeter on the brink, 

Ears crane for liberty's death knell.

 

If my conviction of unity, 

Is intolerable sedition, 

Call me a TERRORIST, 

I embrace the affliction.

 

Truth-teller in an age of lies, 

Empathetic when compassion dies,

Revolutionary when liberties decline,

Relentless when cruelty is the infection by design,

Outspoken when silence is the golden law,

Resilient by refusing to withdraw,

Inclusive when others build walls of divide,

Solidarity with the denigrated caste aside,

Transformative in spirit that cannot abide.

 

The most sacred amendment, first on the parchment, 

Will withstand your calculated bombardment,

If TERRORIST I must be, in your criminalized fiction, 

I'll wear your pointy yellow badge with distinction.

 

While propaganda devours, 

Truth strikes with bolt and thunder, 

Electrified, embers take flight,

Defiance echoes, never again forced under.

Taylor Norris treads the thin verse between comfortable and the disturbed that can’t be unseen. In the stone age that was pre-y2k Taylor was a film critic for a LGBTQ publication and was published in two poetry anthologies with a poem translated for a Spanish newspaper. Taylor was also produced in Best Short-Lived 2.0 in San Francisco. After a long hiatus, she is returning back to her roots.

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 19^th 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 Poetry, Tiny Seed.

A PROFESSOR'S DILEMMA

by Maureen Rubin

500 academics and counting have signed the JVP Academic Advisory Council letter in support of Angela Davis. Jewish Voice for Peace calls on the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to rescind their cancellation of the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award intended for Professor Angela Davis. The cancelling of this award by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is unjust, insulting and ill-conceived, especially because it is likely premised on Professor Davis' long-standing support for Palestinian human rights. The decision seems to stem from a misinformed view that to advocate for Palestinian human rights is somehow offensive to the Jewish community. —Jewish Voice for Peace

“Hell no. We won’t go!” “Hey! Hey! LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
Angry slogans soar while we march in our bell bottom jeans and tie-dyed tee shirts.

We can barely breathe. We cover our innocent collegiate mouths with wet washcloths to ward off the tear gas.  But washcloths couldn’t stop the bullets at Kent State.

College students are marching again. Dressed in yoga pants and ripped jeans they now yell “Fight the power. Turn the tide.  End Israeli apartheid” Same anger. New slogans.

They are BDS.  They demand Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions for Israel. They are Palestinians. They hate all things Israel.

They use tough tactics. They ban Israeli speakers from their campuses. They seek to forbid college funds from supporting the Jewish state. They pass resolutions.

They win at Barnard. George Washington.  University of Minnesota. Pitzger College. And now the US House of Representatives.  A new freshman Member of Congress admitted she backs BDS.

They demand freedom, justice and equality, just as we did.  But is it the same?

But my job is to teach aspiring journalists to cherish the First Amendment. “Democracy demands free speech,” I say. I quote Tallentyre. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

As I hammer the necessity of free speech into my student’s sponge-like brains, I always think of my causes.  The good ones.  The right ones. Viet Nam.  ERA.  #MeToo.

Free speech lives on college campuses.  They are safest of all places. Safe to debate. To argue.  To protest. To march.  To learn.

David Duke came to my campus.  I told my students to go see him. I quoted Justice Brandeis. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”  Let them spew their hate on my campus.  Openness exposes idiocy.

But now, there is a cause that is not mine. There is a cause that makes me sick. I am a Jew and I do not want angry Palestinians working for their change in my backyard.

But don’t these protesters have the same rights as we did?  How can I teach my students to cherish the First Amendment rights of hateful BDS?

I can’t.  I am a hypocrite.

Maureen Rubin is an Emeritus Professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge. In her 30 years on campus, she served in a variety of administrative positions, published widely and received numerous teaching and public service awards.  Prior to joining the university, she was Director of Public Information for President Carter’s Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs in the White House, and held similar positions for a U.S. Congresswoman and several non-profits. She has a JD from Catholic University School of Law In Washington, D.C., an MA in Public Relations from University of Southern California and a BS in Journalism from Boston University.  

CIRCUS BUT NO BREAD

by Janice D. Soderling

Image source: Ann Telnaes Archive

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday continued its abolition of limits on election spending, striking down a decades-old cap on the total amount any individual can contribute to federal candidates in a two-year election cycle. --NY Times, April 2, 2014


Democracy is not for you.

She's for those who can buy

her wholesale. You can kiss good-bye,

your obsolete world view

that politicians' pas de deux,

adagio, is danced for you.

Democracy!



For businesses are people too.

Like other folks they like to screw

around. Now lift your glass on high

and toast King Cash. Mud in your eye,

Democracy.


Janice D. Soderling is a previous contributor to The New Verse News. Recent and forthcoming work at The Rotary Dial, Rattle, Hobart, Blink|Ink, B O D Y, Shot Glass Journal et al.