THE DAY I FOUND OUT TIMOTHY SNYDER MOVED TO CANADA

by Nan Ottenritter

after “The Day Lady Died,” a lunch poem by Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 pm in Richmond, VA a Monday

several days after Saturday Night Live’s skit

featuring James Austin Johnson 

portraying President Trump airs.

I will watch more TV news tonight.

Yes, perhaps not a great idea.

 

Dinner is served on TV table trays, 

7:00 pm sharp to see if Amna will join Geoff

on the PBS News Hour, and learn about 

what they consider important 

                                     

    I scroll, remote in hand,

to my YouTube library, search TCM for a 

movie I might have saved, and do what I

swear I wouldn’t – start watching recorded 

segments of Rachel and Lawrence and 

Amanpour (I like her the best. What’s not

to like about Walter Issacson interviewing

Ron Chernow about Mark Twain?)

Holy cow! Life in TV-media-land is good

 

so I opt out and switch to another streaming 

service to pick up an interview with one of my

favorite authors on fascism—Timothy Snyder.

The interviewer asks about his living in 

Canada now—what’s it like? The food in my 

stomach curdles 

 

and I learn that his academic inquiry resulted

in a move to Canada. He said the move had nothing 

to do with Trump. But for a moment I paused and 

imagine many, along with me, stopped breathing

Nan Ottenritter has published chapbooks Eleanor, Speak (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and My Year 2023 (2024).  She co-edited Discovery, Recovery: A Journey with Veterans (2023) and has been published in Artemis, Still Points Quarterly, Poetry Society of Virginia Anthologies, Dissent: an anthology to end war and capitalism (2023), and Writing the Land: Virginia (NatureCulture LLC, 2024). Her concern about American democracy has prompted her to read and understand the books of contemporary historians and host informal Citizens' Salons with friends, neighbors, and strangers in informal settings. 

NOTES FROM THE WEEKLY MEETING OF THE 75-YEAR-OLD ANTIFA PROVOCATEURS

by John Hodgen

Welcome back, Martin. How’s the noggin?
(Laughter.) (Applause.)
You really used your head this time, big fella. Careful when you log in.
Taking one for the team, Martin. Way to go. One for the cause.
And great job with the Fake Blood Pellet in the Ear trick.
And the old Backwards Trip and Fall Stutter Step. Worked like a charm.
All that practice paid off. A perfect 10 from the Russian judge. Terrific.
Wall to wall on OANN. And you got the CNN and MSNBC crowd alarmed.
You’re a meme now. More people have seen you fall than watched the Towers.
Score one for ANTIFA. Talk about defunding the police. Fight the power.
And you even got all the police scanner info with your secret decoder ring.
Proud of you, big guy. Let’s get started now for your next gig.
Mar-a-Lago. The old swan dive under the golf cart. Do your thing.
This is going to be big.

Editor's Note: The 75-year-old man hospitalized after he was pushed by a police officer during a peaceful protest last week in Buffalo, New York, suffered a brain injury as a result of the incident, his lawyer revealed Thursday. Kelly Zarcone said her client, activist Martin Gugino, "is starting physical therapy," which Zarcone called "a step in the right direction. As heartbreaking as it is, his brain is injured and he is well aware of that now," Zarcone said in a statement. "He feels encouraged and uplifted by the outpouring of support which he has received from so many people all over the globe. It helps. He is looking forward to healing and determining what his ‘new normal’ might look like." The New Verse News offers this poem to cheer him and those who have come to know and love Martin for his work and sacrifice. We wish him all the best.

John Hodgen is the Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University in Worcester, MA.  Hodgen won the AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry for Grace (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005).  His fifth book The Lord of Everywhere is out from Lynx House/University of Washington Press.