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. 

VERMIN

by Nan Ottenritter

As a child I had a recurring Nazi dream.

A band of proud, uniformed Nazis 
marched down my street, brass instruments
blaring a musical tribute to the Führer
who blasted his own hatred through words.

If the Nazis stopped, turned, and faced your house,
that was it. You were done for. I was so afraid.

My bedroom was on the front of the house.
I peered out from behind the curtain, wishing
with all the fervor a child’s wish could hold,
they would not stop, turn, and face me, face us.

But they did. And there the dream stops.

And continues today.

No longer children, we watch and wait,
words like vermin and cockroach chilling our bones.
We remain childlike in our not-knowing-what-to-do.
We act, but will it be enough? 
We care, but will that make a difference?
We see, but can we change the landscape? 

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA. Her chapbook, Eleanor, Speak, is available from Finishing Line Press. Her works have appeared in the Artemis Journals, TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Life in 10 Minutes, the Poetry Society of Virginia Anthologies, As You Were: The Military Review, and the 2023 Journal of the Virginia Writers Club. She is a 2024 poet for the Writing the Land project.

I AM ALWAYS PROUD... AFTER ALL

by Nan Ottenritter

 

I am always proud when I exit my private polling booth.

To get there, I walk between candidates’ signs,

show I.D., fill out a ballot, watch my paper ballot 

slide into the machine, await its successfully recorded

message, slap an I Voted! decal onto my vest, 

lift my head high, and walk out.

 

After all... so many worked and died for this democracy.

They work still and will believe until the end.

After all... so many throughout the world cannot

do what I just did.

After all... my father landed on Omaha Beach for this.

After all... forces are at play to bring Ukraine to its knees,

Navalny to his death, and democracy to ruin.

 

I still believe in us.

 

After all the many young and spiteful congressmen and women

walk our Capitol’s halls, spewing hate, sucking up greed.

After all profess to understand government, yet have no clue

about how it works, nor possess a will to learn.

After all the verbiage they shout through speeches, they

lack a critical gene that helps them to be critical and think.

They lack a will to listen, a drive to understand, compassion to act.

 

After all that has been done for me, for us.

After all the forces set upon us to destroy,

how can I not cast my vote, lift my head high,

and think, It doesn’t get any better than this.

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA. Her works have appeared in the TheNewVerse.News, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Artemis Journals, Poets Reading the News, Life in 10 Minutes, Poetry Society of Virginia Anthologies, and As You Were: The Military Review. Her 2021 chapbook Eleanor, Speak is available through Finishing Line Press and Amazon. Nan teaches writing, performs, and is a member of the Poetry Society of Virginia. She voted in Virginia on Tuesday.

AFTER WATCHING FRONTLINE'S "PUTIN'S ATTACK ON UKRAINE: DOCUMENTING WAR CRIMES"

by Nan Ottenritter

 

Ukrainians walk through Bucha,

unearth, document, store, and ship bodies,

I cry, wonder why, and

 

how such happens. Let’s be honest.

 

I’ve not seen destruction drop from the air,

roll through streets, hide in forests,

root out the hidden in basements.

 

Deadly games of evil and armaments, and

crimes against humanity were addressed at

the Nuremberg Trials.

 

Where are the guardrails now? Let’s be honest.

 

If families flee, suitcase in one hand, child and dog in the other,

grandmas brave cold subway station nights,

white-garbed men count bodies, and

an every-person inspires and leads his country, then

 

surely we can figure this out.

Nan Ottenritter lives and writes in Richmond, VA. Her first chapbook Eleanor, Speak is available from Finishing Line Press.

THE SADDEST DAY OF MY LIFE: JANUARY 6, 2021

by Nan Ottenritter

on the eve of the January 6 hearings

Television crews and technicians prepare for Thursday night's hearing by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, on June 7. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP via The Washington Post)

I want to say my saddest moment of my life

was when my first love left me, my father died, or

when we pulled the plug on my terminally ill brother.

 

I want to say the saddest day of my life

was a missed job opportunity, a miscarriage,

a failed novel.

 

But truth be told, it was seeing

our stormed Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The cracked glass, ransacked desks.

 

Hearing screams of trapped Capitol Police,

chants of hanging Mike Pence,

the hubris of those unquestioning, disrespectful

 

of all I have come to regard as second only to god,

sacred as only sacred in a secular sense can be.

How can you not appreciate our American democracy?

 

This democracy is the only life I know.

Please don’t take it away from me, from us.

Let me talk to you of miracles,

 

moments of shame and victory,

moments shared and shattered,

moments that are, like it or not, our collective lives.

 

I want to remain with you.

And you?

Nan Ottenritter lives and writes in Richmond, VA. Her first chapbook Eleanor, Speak is available from Finishing Line Press.

MR. POTATO HEAD RESPONDS

by Nan Ottenritter

I, Mr. Potato Head, was a glint in

the eye of George Lerner in 1949.

Birthed by Hasbro in 1952, I appeared

in the first television commercial

aimed at children. I then married the misses,

fathered Brother Spud and Sister Yam,

cared for puppy Spud-ette.

 

With 1964’s safety regulations I morphed

from real potato to shiny plastic. 1987 found me

surrendering my pipe to the Surgeon General

during the “Great American Smokeout.”

A 1992 President’s Council for Physical Fitness

commercial showed me renouncing my

couch potato lifestyle.

 

In 1995 I starred in the Disney pic Toy Story.

After, I joined the League of Women voters and their

“Get Out to Vote” campaign. In 2000 I was inducted

into the National Toy Hall of Fame. I have flown

in Macy’s Thanksgiving day parades, starred in film,

television, and cartoons. I even went green in 2020.

And now this!

 

Wikipedia headlines my entry with

“the title of this article is under discussion.”

You want to make my name gender neutral

to help with identity and family structure concerns? 

I am seventy-two years old. Beloved of

baby-boomers and their offspring,

I am trying to get it right as rain in

 

the old potato patch, and my fellow

spuds concur. If it helps, I will drop

the Mister. I can go with the flow here,

respond to the times we’re in.

For goddess’ sakes, if she can manage the change,

so can I. With love from Potato Head.

(animal/vegetable/mineral)

 

Nan Ottenritter lives and writes in Richmond, VA. Her first chapbook Eleanor, Speak is now in pre-sales at Finishing Line Press. Her thoughts: "I loved writing this poem. As I unearthed more and more information about Potato Head, I laughed at the extended jokes and appreciated the cultural icon that he and his family have become." 

DONALD

by Nan Ottenritter

occupies too much real estate in our heads.

T***p/Pence billboards line our neural highways.

T***p towers pierce our amygdalas, blunting

our love of country, collective compassion.

 

His necrotic amygdala somehow lives on in his head

while our neurotransmitters careen around curves and

our collective blood pressure soars out of control.

Reality’s glare sears through dilated pupils.

 

Our cognitive brains reflect upon where to flee

while, oversaturated with cocktails of our own adrenalin

and miracles of modern chemistry, we continue to fight.

A contribution here, a conversation there; an

 

early ballot here, a court victory there.

The rule of law, shattered, lies at the side of the road.

My American soul runs to the scene, screeches to a halt,

and finds herself saying, yet again:

 

“I can’t wait for this to be over.”  

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA.

THE WAY PAVER

by Nan Ottenritter

“The Four Justices” by Nelson Shanks at the National Portrait Gallery.

for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

She liked to be inclusive,

provide comfort for everyone,

this woman-loved-by-most

who accomplished-so-much.

She preferred to say way paver over

pioneer-champion-prophet-ballbuster-

activist-change-maker-hero-leader

and I think I know why.

A way paver does not part waters;

she lays paver after paver for the journey ahead.

A way paver does not construct guardrails

but provides traction, focused action.

A way paver builds upon those before,

celebrates those after, serves tea along the way.

And when her journey ends, we sip our warmth,

thankful for this paver’s way. 

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA.

LOSERS AND SUCKERS

by Nan Ottenritter

My Dad 

Date of enlistment:                                         21 May 40

Education:                                                     grammar 8, high school 2, college 0

Military occupation specialty:                       Surgical Technician 86

Battles and campaigns:                                 Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Central Europe

Demobilized at the

convenience of the Government RR 1-1:       July 28, 1945

Mustering out pay:                                         $300

For five years, two months, and eight days my Dad served

our country, proudly defeated fascism.

He is my hero, our hero, our American hero.

I wouldn’t trade him for all the fathers in the world.

Nor will I let anyone call him a loser or a sucker. 

Call him that, call me that too for I 

carry his beliefs, his pride, and his trauma.

I was enlisted as an American on the day of my birth,

I am a warrior up until this day, and I will never

muster out, have Donald’s government demobilize me,

stop campaigning for voting rights, justice, equality, 

health care: the battlegrounds of our time.

I will soldier on. Our current enemy will be defeated.

Author's Note: The first half of this is a found poem with language taken from my father’s discharge papers. Battles are unique to time and place, yet have commonalities. I will fight on, not only because it is right, but as an homage to my father and all service men and women.


Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA.

THE MOURNING AFTER

by Nan Ottenritter

Detail of Kehinde Wiley's "Rumors of War"

Drive downtown, in the circles can be found
Stonewall Jackson, Arthur Ashe in Monument town.
Two hooves in the air mean the rider died in battle,
Others want their freedom, don’t make me no chattle.
The history society debunks the horse limbs lore
But slavery, Lost Causes leave generations sore
and hurting from a war and the endless chore
of teaching you, the victor, writing the stor-
ies, the history, the truth of our nation.

On the block in Shockoe Bottom, bound in chains
Or, cause cotton weren’t the only crop, sold down the James.
We scrawl on Jeff Davis Black Lives Matter.
At Robert E. Lee’s feet red paint is splattered.
Say his name. Lynch Trump. This is racist.
Your vote was a hate crime. The south ain’t no oasis.

Yet near Monument Avenue a black man rides,
Nike high tops astride a horse with one foot high.
Pony-tailed dreadlocks, rips in his jeans,
Wounded in the battle of his own life it seems.
Yet regard his hoodied shoulders, straight and proud.
Regard his youth, his gaze, his head unbowed.
Wiley brought him here to Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
The statue sits right here, in Richmond unmarred
the painful mourning after in our own backyard.

Nan Ottenritter lives in Richmond, VA and has driven by the confederate statues for years. Yet in February, 2019 the city council voted to change the name of the Boulevard to Arthur Ashe Boulevard. In December, 2019 Kehinde Wiley’s statue Rumors of War was installed in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It stands in stark comparison to the statues on Monument Avenue. With both of these actions the author began to feel a little proud of what was once the capitol of the Confederacy.

MAKING OF AN ENEMY

by Nan Ottenritter

Last year, American Bridge submitted a FOIA request when it was reported that Trump’s former head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement kept a spreadsheet of information on pregnant minors in his care, including whether the minor had asked for an abortion. Those documents were finally received and Rachel Maddow made them public on March 15, 2019.

after Randall Jarrell’s “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”

From border’s legal crossing I fell into the State.

And I nurtured a rape child in my belly.

Fourteen years old, separated from parents,

Dates of assault, menstrual cycle tracked,

Caged, and baby birthed, I became State’s enemy,

And you wonder why.

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA.