RAIN YEAR ROUND

by Christine Jackson

AI-generated graphic by Nightcafé for The New Verse News.

Under my tarp shivering, boots soaked, mud. Jesus an attack in this rain? We were ready, sure. My back muscles still zinged from days of digging burying metal cases under the trees, tamping soggy ground. Like for small graves. High school kids hacked into the Jay Six list. We were next. Tonight. My phone flashes a text from Irene in the vols tent by the road: 3 F150 pickups. A thrum of thunder rolls over the wintry field behind the library and my taut nerves. Trucks rumble into the parking lot. Profane confusion among bobbing flashlights. My binoculars pick up a dozen long-beards in ragtag camo and epaulets, oilskin duster coats. One horned helmet. Flagpoles with bayonet tips. I tap a quick text to our people.

 

Sprays of shattered glass and a percussive thud from a flash bang mean they are inside. Tipped shelves clatter. Rows of racks collapse, crash. Guttural whoops over their empty victory. The library’s massive alarm leaps to life, out-whooping them, pulsing louder in the rain. They scramble, cursing along the slick walkway. I huddle at the edge of the woods, my rifle close to defend sacred ground, the buried texts. We knew the Project’s targeted titles, so many, Shakespeare, Orwell, Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King. We saved what we could, but for how long?

 

The F150s roar away.  More would follow.

We had truth. Was it enough?

Icy rain continues to fall, steady, insistent,

pelting the tarp overhead like birdshot.

 

Christine Jackson is retired from her day job, three decades of teaching literature and creative writing at a South Florida university.  She continues to clock in on a life-long night shift writing poetry.  Her work has appeared in an array of online journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, and South Florida Poetry Journal.

THERE ARE MONSTERS UNDER MY BED

by Celeste DeSario

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

I jolt awake wondering…
Where do the monsters go at night?
Are they hiding in the shadows?
In my closet? Under my bed?
My curtains, tightly drawn—I’m safe.
But… are the monsters still out there?
Lurking? Waiting? 
Or are they only in my head?
 
Biding their time,
They will creep into the hamlets, villages, towns, cities, 
Seducing men cloaked in blue, gray, brown uniforms, wearing badges, pointing guns.
 Masked. 
 For whose protection? 
Social Media, politicians, distort the truth even as visuals show us snippets of reality,
And now, AI, distorts images using Deep Fakes, making decisions based on values not aligned with ours, well, with values we once held respected, agreed upon. 
Is AI listening to our conversations, recording our fears, sharing them…with? 
We don’t know. That’s why we should worry.
 
Those monsters creep into Judicial chambers,
Where we assign fancy Latin terms, 
Like Mala Fide—acting in bad faith,
Or Proper ex Parte Communication—Defying justice, the court’s authority and dignity.
Tearing down our laws, 
And everything that carefully glues our country together.
Makes us free.
Makes us proud.
Makes us a republic we love.
 
Scenes crafted in sick, twisted minds play out in our towns, on our screens, 
Eventually, in our backyards.
Maybe even our living rooms.
Who is roaming the hallways of our colleges?
Our libraries?
Places we once found refuge for serious thought,
Contemplating futures we understood. 
 
Okay, now you are just listing. Stop being so dramatic.
You are scaring me.
 
Look carefully. The monsters have infiltrated our schools.
They need to get those kids,
Need to inject them with bigotry and hate.
Remember the song, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
So, they teach them. 
Yanking books off the shelves that instill dangerous, harmful ideas.
Like tolerance, inclusion, acceptance,
Twisting words and history,
Until we don’t recognize who we once were.
Using Doublespeak, Political euphemisms.
“I am the greatest peacekeeper in the history of the world.”
(Yes, bomb those fishing boats and those on them,
Demonize any country that doesn’t agree with me,
Detain citizens. Call them illegal. I don’t care.
Just do it. 
I’ll keep dancing to distract them. Make them laugh. Make them love me.)
 
They know spectacle distracts us, so,
They organize marches.
Political parades.
Use pennants, colorful flags, music,
Precision marching, a lot of saluting.
Film your leaders from below so they appear all -powerful,
So, they dominate the frame,
And then dominate what lies beyond the frame.
They appear…unstoppable.
But it’s just a trick. A low camera angle. We all know how that works.
See? We can stop them anytime we choose.
 So, do we choose now?
Choose now. 
Now.
I will fill up a cart from Amazon: that will save me.
Click. Sleep mask.  Click. Noise cancelling headphones. Air purifier. Click, click, click.
 
I will upload a new photo on my Instagram page.
See? 
Everything is okay. 
There is Nala the Cat,
Wearing a Superman Cape, and a gold crown.
Doug the Pug wearing funny sunglasses and a hat and a Christmas sweater.
 
Maybe TikTok can save me?
Just upload a new video.
Zach King, we need some of your digital magic,
Your sleight-of-hand.
That’s how it starts. That is also how it ends.
 
When you ask if there are monsters under the bed,
I assure you,
They do exist.
And when they crawl out,
There is little we can do to get them back under.
Except recognize them.
And it starts with that.
It simply starts with that. 

 
Celeste DeSario is an award-winning educator and former tenured professor of Literature and Writing at Suffolk County Community College. She is the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence and a National Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas. After years of teaching the greats, she has stepped out of the classroom to craft her own worlds of impossible choices.

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. 

ANOTHER CHAPTER

by Peter A. Witt

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to a Texas county’s removal of 17 books from its public libraries, leaving in place a lower court ruling that allowed the purge. —Newsweek, December 8, 2025

On the second Monday in December,
the Supremes sang a song
of banishment and dark days ahead,
as the Enemies of the Public Library plotted
what volumes to next remove from public view.

Gutting school libraries wasn't enough
for your local paragons of illiteracy,
who meeting in the dark corners
of McDonalds over cheap coffee
and an egg on your face McMuffin,
nominate books, one vote
enough for a frontal assault
on the collective knowledge
available for children, teens,
adults, seniors to read.

When challenged these keepers
of the gates of darkness proclaim --
you can still buy a copy, get
gifted a copy for Christmas
(there has to be some irony here),
or loaned a copy by a friend.

So goodbye Gender Queer,
All Boys Aren't Blue, The Bluest Eye,
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,
and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

Not to mention the classics:
To Kill a Mockingbird,
The Catcher in the Rye,
The Great Gatsby,
Animal Farm, and
The Grapes of Wrath.

Next year the Enemies
will switch their focus
to the Amazons
and the Walmarts,

and the year after that
to independent bookstores,

until nothing's left
but official books
of the thought police class, 
though even those
may be axed some day
as too woke.

Peter A. Witt by chance lives in Texas and is a recovering university professor who lost his adjectives in the doldrums of academic writing. Poetry has helped him recover his ability to see and describe the inner and outer world he inhabits. His work has been twice nominated for the Best of the Net award and has appeared in a variety of online and print publications. He also writes family history.  His book about his aunt was published by the Texas A&M University Press (Edith's War: Writings of a Red Cross Worker and Lifelong Champion of Social Justice). He is also an avid birder and wildlife photographer.

AVERAGE DAY IN AMERICA

by Tina Williams

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

I’m not hearing so well lately 

and as my audiologist enters 

values on her computer 

my eye catches her cup 

which has a goat on it 

and I remember the time

I was at the coffee shop

named for a ruminant 

and there was a woman 

sitting outside

with a latte in one hand, 

paperback in the other, 

and a goat jumped 

on her table and with 

one jerk snatched 

the book and began

to eat it, whole 

chapters at a time, 

looking her in the eye 

all the while while 

everyone watched.

What could any of us 

have done at such 

a moment in history?

It was an average day.

All the words were there. 

Then they were not.

 

Tina Williams lives in Texas where the ACLU tirelessly monitors and battles the banning of books from libraries.

HOW TO SPOT A FASCIST

by Helen Jones

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Don’t think they come with jackboots in the dawn
Or kick your door in on a freezing night.
Now fascists take control with Facebook ads
And Tik-Tok videos to make you laugh,
Let you believe that facts can just be changed,
Decide reality is just a trick.
 
Then suddenly your job has disappeared
Raw work-experience kids have wiped you out,
Universities are threatened, books are banned,
Medicaid blown apart and foreigners locked up,
Poor people die and old alliances break.
 
          Fascists begin with elections
          When you are not paying attention.

Helen Jones was born in Chester, U.K. She gained a degree in English, many years ago from University College London and later an M.Ed. from the University of Liverpool. She is now happily retired and spends a lot of her time writing and making a new garden. Her poetry has been published in several journals in the U.K., and she is currently working on a novel set in fifth century Deva.

THE TURNING TIDE

by Mary Janicke

 
a great tsunami washed ashore
            destroying all in its path
books tossed off library shelves
            young people left to drown
in a sea of bigotry
 
then the storm abated
            the tide receded
the public surveyed the damage
            and saw the harm done to the community
                        by the bigots and blowhards
and voted the transgressors off the island
 
civility returned
            respect for one another returned
and most importantly
            books were returned to library shelves
so that knowledge 
            could again be shared

Mary Janicke is a gardener, poet, and writer living in Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous journals.

Editor’s note: The tide turned in Texas, but the wave of book bannings continues elsewhere. Sign EveryLibrary’s petition against book bans here: https://action.everylibrary.org/bannedbooks?utm_campaign=govdislikes_1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=votelibraries

BAND TOGETHER

by Ron Riekki

Print by Alessandra Roth available at Pixels

If you give gifts for the holidays this year,
I hope you’ll consider Kobabe’s Gender Queer,
 
and don’t forget Mike Curato’s Flamer,
because a tradition that I would love to start
 
is equating the holidays with banned books and banned art,
like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-
 
Time Indian sitting underneath the Christmas tree
alongside The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky—
 
even though it is claimed to be sexually explicit with profanity—
my hope’s for the opposite of Fahrenheit 451
 
where adults have free speech and the children aren’t dumb
and muted and lack understanding of different religions
 
and cultures and worldviews and more.
So please give the gift of George Orwell’s 1984
 
and Feast of the Seaweeds by Haidar Haidar,
and do it before this poem gets banned
 
like North Korea banning The Quran, and Hunan,
China, banning Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
 
Along with the dreidel, matzo, and mistletoe,
I hope your holidays are filled with George by Alex Gino
 
and Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
and Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier,
 
because they can’t ban books if we give them away
in the thousands, no, millions, this Christmas Day.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).

HIGHLIGHTS

a Back-to-School Abecedarian

by Jen Schneider

as vape pens shaped like highlighters 
bait back-to-school shoppers, and
calendar dates countdown to zero while 
   consumer price indexes shoot for the moon, I
doodle, dabble, and deliberate on 8.5 X 11 
evergreen notepad paper (Cornell pre-prints too costly),
factoring when, if ever, I might be able to retire.
 
gone are the days of happily-ever-after endings, the
hazmat team conducted their first of three scheduled exercises as the
ice cream truck, full of artificially flavored red, white, and blue rockets, circled
just in time for the teaching team’s fifteen-minute extended recess.
 
knowledge always much more than arithmetic, fiction novels, and crafting, but
lately my elementary teacher training (fully laminated) has been saturated with 
metrics and mandates for safety drills, evacuation plans, and 
naughty lists (I inadvertently neglected to submit my PD hours on time). 
 
obscure classroom updates (air conditioning still unaccounted for) battle exhaustion as
prep for required curriculum standards span 3,200-page, unillustrated documents—
    pronouns, prayers, and phonetics sources of persistent debate

quiet time cancelled along with Gender Queer, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Maus,
required reading heavily regulated. the school board’s pencils more pointed than
standard stick-figure sketches. with all of us stretched thinner than Silly Putty,
terrifying wars against AP African American Studies and critical race theory intensify. Sigh. I
 
used to fear bee stings (but now plan for virulent viruses) and I
used to trace united states outlines (but now track threats on social media pages). as
 
verified accounts confuse and Matchbox cars, Lego trucks and resident gerbils 
veer off course (circular cycles and run-ons spiral), while weekends are spent prepping to
 
welcome a new set of smiles in rain slickers, with fresh boxes of Crayola crayons and
X and Y graph paper stocked and stacked like formidable towers—what’s
 
yesterday is now         suddenly  today, and with no available substitutes and

zero room for error, I hope and pray, for a year of highlights, none of which are newsworthy.

Jen Schneider is a poet, essayist, and educator. She is the author of several books of poetry, with her most recent collection 14 (Plus) Reasons Why, published with free lines press, now available. If she’s not writing, you can find her teaching legal and justice courses in her favorite city.

A TEACHER’S PRAYER

by Michelle DeRose

Texas schoolchildren as young as four years old are being given Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon books, teaching them to “run, hide, fight” if a gunman enters their building. —The Guardian, May 25, 2023

If we must die in classrooms
barricaded by books 
stacked against doors, 
praying that the weight 
of words makes metal 
wade through air made
dense with sentences, 
that students find 
a window to safety 
with a tolerable drop, 
that we stop the onslaught 
just long enough for a few 
to return to their own rooms,

may we at least select the books.

Michelle DeRose has been teaching English at the college level for thirty-five years. Some of her most recent poetry can be found in As You Were: Military Experience and the Arts, Dunes Review, The Lakeshore Review, The Healing Muse, and Making Waves.