DAUGHTERS

by Clare Richardson-Barlow

Judith Butler

Amid all the other breaking news consuming the United States this month, the University of California, Berkeley, arguably the nation’s most elite public university, gave the Trump administration a list of 160 names of faculty, staff and students, as part of an investigation into “alleged antisemitic incidents”. While all the names on this list are significant, one name in particular that UC Berkeley handed over to the Trump administration stands out: Judith Butler, the eminent queer theorist, literary theorist and philosopher, and one of the most famous public intellectuals in the United States today. In addition to Butler’s name representing one of the most high-profile academic scalps demanded by the Trump administration in its campaign against higher education so far, Butler’s name is also notable for another reason: Butler is proudly and publicly Jewish, and has written extendively about their Jewish identity and how it informs their politics. In the name of “fighting antisemitism”, the Trump administration is publicly making an example out of arguably the most famous Jewish public intellectual in the country today. —The Guardian, September 22, 2025

They pass the names along,
as though paper could hold a body.
Butler’s among them—
the one who told us
gender is a stage,
a script rehearsed until it feels like bone.

Now the government calls their name,
writes it as accusation,
as though thought itself
were treason.

I think of the mothers in Palestine,
their daughters’ names whispered
to checkpoints and borders,
written into files,
circulated in offices
where no one sees their faces.
A name becomes a burden to carry,
a permission denied.

Butler compared it to Kafka—
to McCarthy, to lists, to silence—
and I believe them.
A list is never just a list.
It is the beginning of forgetting
and the rehearsal of fear.

And still,
I return to the crib
where my baby curls her hand around mine,
her pudgy fist the size of a plum.
She cannot ask yet what it means to be a girl,
but already the world
is writing her story,
already she is among the daughters
who must learn to abide.

Butler’s voice is not just theirs.
It is the echo of every woman
who has been told to hush,
every mother
who has watched her child’s name
crossed out by a hand of power.

What is silenced will not stay silent.
What is written down
will be read again.
Even in exile,
even in mourning,
Her many voices endure—
not performance,
but song.

Clare Richardson-Barlow is a writer, political economist, and lecturer at the University of Leeds. Her work spans academic, policy, and creative forms, with a focus on climate, energy, and justice. Before academia, she worked in Washington, D.C. think tanks on international policy. Her poetry and essays often explore womanhood, memory, and myth, especially how women’s voices are silenced and reimagined as strength. Originally from Oregon, she now lives in Yorkshire.

SHAME!

 by Pepper Trail

Author’s note: This poem responds to the House passage this week of a bill barring transgender girls and women from participating in women's athletics.  The bill is only the latest Republican attack on transgender youth, an attempt to deny their identity and very existence. In the words of the NY Times, this is "part of a nationwide push by conservatives to restrict transgender rights as they make culture issues a centerpiece of their political message." This has been led by Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump and enthusiastically taken up by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican governors and state legislatures around the country.  As the parent of a transgender son, I am horrified at this rush to demonize our most powerless and vulnerable children, a cynical play on ignorance and fear that will unquestionably increase suicide rates and mental health crises.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

TALKING ABOUT TREES

by Bonnie Naradzay

The Great Conjunction of 2020 will brighten the darkest day of the year as the two giant planets of our solar system draw closer together in the night sky than they have been in centuries. By chance, the day that Jupiter and Saturn will appear closest for Earth-based stargazers is Dec. 21, the winter solstice, which is the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere. Photo: The galactic core area of the Milky Way over Maskinonge Pond in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta on July 14, 2020. Jupiter is the bright object at left, with Saturn dimmer to the left (east) of Jupiter.Alan Dyer / Universal Images Group via Getty Images file via NBC, December 9, 2020.

What kind of times are they, when

A talk about trees is almost a crime

Because it implies silence about so many horrors?                       

—Bertolt Brecht, “To those Born Later”

 

Thin ice limned the pond early this morning

and a slick of frost dazzled the green fields

yet pink blossoms still drifted across a few limbs

of the lone ornamental cherry tree.

In the slant of sun, the great blue heron stood

knee deep in water, and ducks have returned

among reflected shapes of pondside trees – 

bare branches outstretched like hands of penitents.

I have been arguing all evening with my friend

via email about Odysseus. He says Odysseus 

could have built that raft any time he wanted 

to escape from Calypso’s island, but I say not until

Athena persuaded Zeus to send Hermes down.  

I see Odysseus down by the seashore, weeping there,

as the great hexameters roll out in the receding waves.

Then we spar about the Suitors. They must be killed, 

he says, for their conspiracy. I ask, what about diplomacy?  

(It is Advent. The people are armed for insurrections here, 

spouting obscenities. “Sir, have you no sense of decency,” 

someone finally asked McCarthy, not so long ago.)  

My friend mentions Thersites. He has me there.

Jesus healed the blind man and asked him what he saw.

He said, “I see men like trees walking.”

Tonight I see two planets grow closer in the night sky.

(I have grown numb about the latest attacks

on civility.) Priam came for Hector’s body 

in the dead of night. Achilles welcomed him

and stopped the war for Hector’s funeral rites.

Recently I read about the Christmas truce in World War I

for the burial of the dead. Someone brought lights.

Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.

       

Bonnie Naradzay's recent poems are in AGNI, the American Journal of Poetry, New Letters (Pushcart nomination), RHINO, Tar River Poetry, EPOCH, Tampa Review, Kenyon Review Online, Potomac Review, Xavier Review, and One Magazine. For many years she has led poetry workshops at a day shelter for the homeless and at a retirement center, both in Washington, DC.                                          

HOW TO SPOT A FASCIST, or WHAT I LEARNED FROM MADELEINE ALBRIGHT

by Kathy Conway

You could look for colors—black shirts for Mussolini, brown
ones for Hitler, red t-shirts and baseball caps for Chavez,
yellow stars on Polish children separated from mothers at railroad stations.

Listen for righteous us/them propaganda, use of simple words,
untruths to incite aggrieved followers, as Hitler did, repeating lies
until they were accepted as truth.

Listen for insults, bullying, ultimatums, rants—"huge, very dangerous"
to silence those who disagree—the press, media, cohorts, partners -
a la Mussolini.

Be suspicious of unbridled nationalism, separating families at borders.
False charges of being "Red" helped McCarthy to intimidate, create fear in
innocent people and muzzle Congress.

Be alert for a huge ego demanding loyalty, not to country
or constitution, but to him personally, who, with warped reality,
listens only to his own gut, ignoring experts and advisors.

Watch for leaders who declare a state of emergency
like Erdogan, try to build a border wall like Orban or promise to
"drenare la palude"—drain the swamp—like Mussolini.

Heed if they goad violence against perceived enemies with
pumped-up machismo, incite prejudice or seek to destroy faith
in an independent press, electoral process, courts, military.

Notice how he gets away with it. The public doubts he'd
do more—until he does, incrementally. His followers believe
he's working for them, against "others".

Be leery of copy cats who, like Peron, aspire to be Hitler.
Do they admire and cozy up to Kim Jong-un,
Mohammed bin Salman or Putin?
                                                 

Kathy Conway splits her time between a cottage on the coast of Maine and her home outside Boston.  She has taught memoir poetry in Maine and Florida. Her chapbook Bacon Street is about growing up in a large family.