MASS SHOOTING #12

300 block of West Biddle Street, Jackson, MI, May 9, 2026

“Jackson Police investigate afternoon shooting that injured 4 locals.” —Mlive

by Ron Riekki

“watched his childhood;

Amid strange faces and strange forms.”

—Mary Torrans Lathrap,

“The Wanderer's Grave”

“We're gonna draw a little bit of everybody's blood.”

—MacReady (played by Kurt Russell)

in The Thing (1982)

 

“freedom which is a crater

I keep falling in.”

—Major Jackson,

“On Disappearing”

            i: Prologue

 

Between Fourth of July 2025 and Memorial Day 2026,

there have 837 separate shooting incidents in Michigan,

In 325 days, there have been 15 mass shootings here,

about one mass shooting every 22 days.  I started going

 

to mass shootings on July 4 last year.  On my birthday,

mid-May, we reached 1,000 people shot in Michigan in

just 11 months.  Currently, 1,042 people have been shot.

I have only one more month to go.  I can’t do it anymore.

 

 

            ii: Dialogue

 

On the way to Jackson, I pass a park, and a bail bonds office.

This is my first mass shooting I’ve gone to where the mass

shooter is a female, her bond set at a quarter of a million

dollars.  A May 9 headline reads “Attempted murder charges

 

against shooting suspect dropped shortly after her arraignment.”

The victims: a 21-year-old male shot twice in the chest and

once in the arm, 28-year-old male shot in the face and arm,

25-year-old female shot in the pelvis, and 23-year-old female

 

shot in the arm.  This doesn’t feel like a poem.  I don’t feel

like writing a poem.  I don’t feel sometimes driving to these

mass shootings.  The repetition.  The petitions that do nothing.

Worse.  It seems to be spreading to all of us.  A virus.  I feel

 

disgusted.  I discuss this with a woman who lives less than

a block from the shooting.  I’m talking to a female about

a female mass shooter who just shot two females in the arm

and, of all places, the pelvis.  The symbolism.  The city bright

 

green today.  I talk to her at the foot of her garden and

there are two men nearby.  Anna and Dan and an unnamed

man who reminds me of Seasick Steve (the musician whose

name I thought was Steve Gone Wild, but is actually Steve

 

Gene Wold, half-guitarist-wizard half-pirate); his doppel-

gänger floats in and out of the discussion of danger and

anger and it’s very city focused, talk of Romulus, Detroit,

Jackson.  And the three of them seem like they’d fit in with

 

the entourage of Action Bronson (of F*ck, That's Delicious

fame).  They tell me Jackson needs more community gardens.

On the way here, I passed a bike park, another park, a b-ball

court, and then the abandoned park near their home with its

 

rusty swings and weeds and graffitied slide and need of

upkeep and another basketball court, but this with no nets.

They tell me it’s the youth, that we didn’t do mass shootings

when we were young, tells me he handled a gun at age 8,

 

has a gun now, says “the problem is the access.”  Or is it

the excess?  Its infinity.  ∞.  I ask this.  He says they need gun safety.

I ask how gun safety is going to help a mass shooter.  It seems

gun safety is an oxymoron.  We talk more on how “it’s a vicious

 

cycle,” and when change is attempted “they get roadblocked

by the government.”  Anna says the problem is the chronic

violence of TV, video games, music, movies.  We’re not far

from Mount Evergreen Cemetery.  I don’t know about

 

the mount, but there’s green everywhere today.  I feel jaded.

It feels I’ve had this discussion before.  Gun owners telling me

there’s too much access to guns.  ?  They’re nice.  They’re open.

They’re enjoying the summer day.  One heard the gunshots.

 

One didn’t.  They tell me those who were shot know who did it,

but they don’t want to speak.  News says people are afraid

to talk, worried about getting protection.  There’s apparently

40 unsolved murders in Jackson.  We chitchat.  Wide open.

 

I worry America is guns.  Guns won.  Hell, it’s confusing.

It is Hell.  Kamala Harris, a Democrat, brags about owning

a Glock.  The Republican President can’t own a gun

due to his felony conviction.  They talk about how you’re

 

safe if you keep your nose clean, if you “stay away from

trouble,” from “people congregating.”  Perhaps we’re saying

you can prevent mass shootings by simply staying away

from people.  The myth that COVID reduced mass shootings.

 

We trade one virus for another.  I’m tired.  We don’t have any

solutions.  Or maybe we have too many solutions.  There’s no

silver bullet.  The conversations are triggering.  You try to offer

up solutions but get shot down.  We need to set our sites on

 

something better.  The language is gun-drowned.  Steve

tells me I need to go, that the dog wants to come out—

Zeus, their German Shephard.  He tells me the dog’s hairs

are standing on end, that he wants to come after me, that

 

it’s best to leave.  As I’m walking away, he shouts to my

backside, “If he doesn’t know you, he’s very aggressive!”

 

 

            iii: Epilogue

 

The realization, driving home, is that this wasn’t the only

mass shooting in Michigan on May 9, another in Muskegon.

 

And, on May 9, more mass shootings in Reddick, Florida,

and in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  We’re perfecting mass

shootings.  We’re teaching the normalization of mass

shootings.  Gun purchases increase after mass shootings.

 

The beauty is the ugliness.  Gun violence and capitalism

F*ck each other.  But there’s this strange revelation that it’s

the gun owners who get killed.  It’s gun owners who have

increased suicides in their homes.  It’s gun owners who have

 

increased homicides in their homes.  It’s gun owners who have

increased accidental shootings in their homes.  Safety comes from

actual safety.  It’s a horror film.  “Don’t go in!”  Guns are the thing.

And guns are The Thing.  It.  And It.  “The horror, the horror.”

 

 

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.  

SO, GHISLAINE: A CANARY OR A HAWK?

by Catherine Harnett

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

are you melodious: a yellow-feathered thing, aloof
and loyal only to its keeper; from sunny Gran Canaria,
where nudists stroll along the bright blue seashore
and helicopters land and lift like damselflies
 
or a taloned bird of prey, a hunter of small mammals,
carnivorous and stealthy, sharp-eyed; with a spectacular loud
courtship: the female bares her claws, tempts a mate
attracted to her savagery, they stick together all their lives.
 
You play both roles with aplomb, content to charm,
perched in an unlocked cage; and hungry, swooping in
for the kill; but it comes down to this: both
are dangerous, a beak and claws, the chance you’ll
sing.

Catherine Harnett is a poet and fiction author from the DC area, the epicenter of corruption. She has published three books of poems and has completed another manuscript.

SPINNING THE CYLINDER

by Akua Lezli Hope

Sonya Massey (above) ducked and apologized to an Illinois sheriff’s deputy seconds before he shot the Black woman three times in her home, with one fatal blow to the head, as seen in body camera video released Monday. An Illinois grand jury indicted former Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson, 30, who is white, last week. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. —AP, July 23, 2024

Because I am disabled, black and female in an under-resourced part of the world
Because I have called for help in the past and got harm
Because in a recent need for assistance I wept to 911 confessing my fear
Because Sonya Massey said on meeting the cop at her front door, “Don’t Hurt Me”
Because I saw her neat yard, glimpsed flowers, the vacuum cleaner in her kitchen, her robe over t-shirt and pj pants, her slippers, her neatly wrapped head
Because someone prowled around her white house, like mine, and cops found 
a black SUV with busted out windows next door
Because she was right to call and wronged
Because I saw her shot to death in her kitchen after apologizing, “I’m Sorry” on PBS
Because I couldn’t weep again and again and again but I haven’t slept for days
Because some of you will see this as anomalous, I testify that it is not
Because I am not dead from my bad encounters, only wounded and afraid 
Because my friends rescued me 
Because I live in a small town and don’t know how those chosen to police were chosen
Because there were all these red flags
Because, for those like me, asking for help is playing Russian Roulette
Because I never know if there’s a bullet in the chamber and if it’s pointed at my head


Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, sculpture, and peace. A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, NYSCA, SFPA, Elgin, & Best of the Net, Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations. Editor of NOMBONO, the first BIPOC speculative poetry anthology, she seeks work for a new anthology of disability themed speculative poetry at disabilitypoetics.com.

A NEW DAWN

by Dick Altman 

Alex Edelman / AFP via Getty Images

As the poet might have awakened to it…

After an historic,
all-night zoom
with world’s leadership,
she—America’s new president—
stood on California’s shore,
sun rising directly behind her,
ray’s emanating
from her silhouette,
as from the Statue
of Liberty’s crown,
to announce America’s
new proclamation
of emancipation.
 
An emancipation,
she exclaimed,
that would usher in
a new era
of global freedom,
not imposed,
but welcomed,
in every corner,
and at every level,
of humanity.
 
We need to fight,
she said,
not each other,
but for each other,
for the planet,
to sustain and nourish
each other,
for the world of work
to offer dignity
and opportunity,
for economies to thrive,
as they compete,
with best ideas,
realized at best price.
 
We need to recognize,
she went on,
to honor
our collective individuality,
our shared commonalties,
the dissonant music
that entwines,
and enriches our lives,
rather than fractures,
if we let it.
To recognize the need,
she stressed,
for borders of heritage,
rather than walls
of defense,
for borders of possibility,
rather than denial.
 
We can all wish
for a perfect world,
she said,
in that dream
we all inhabit,
each in our own measure,
loving thy neighbor,
and the flowers
always in bloom.
Yet it is imperfection
that permeates life,
and the striving
to overcome it.
In that we are all joined.
 
Let America,
once again,
by word and deed,
by shake of hand,
hug or clap on shoulder,
remind we breathe
the same breath,
share the same night,
wake to the same sun,
shining on similarity
and difference,
without exception.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.

RESIGNED

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Having now seen how quickly the truth can become a casualty amid controversy, I’d urge a broader caution: At tense moments, every one of us must be more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture, however well organized or well connected they might be. Too often they are pursuing self-serving agendas that should be met with more questions and less credulity. —Claudine Gay, The New York Times, January 3, 2024

Some attribution errors, not deliberate,

in academic essays, and her posture
of defending freedom of expression

in campus rallies, for this the first

black woman to head the country's

most famous university resigned?

For the witch-hunt of our McCarthy

times, communism replaced by

anti-Semitism, even if Palestinian

people are also Semitic, even if

murder of twenty-two thousand

civilians, including eight thousand

children in Gaza does not mean

a holocaust, even if now

on the entire earth there

are about 700,000 thousand

people in a state of famine,

of whom 577,000 live in Gaza,

four out of every five Palestinian.

And at Harvard University (also

at Penn), female leaders resigned.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press has just published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun. (Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

IMPRESSIVELY LATE

by Harsimran Kaur

Several women’s organisations across [India] have opposed the government’s move to increase the age of marriage of girls from 18 to 21 years, which has been ironically touted as a measure of women’s empowerment. … Similarly, ‘Young Voices: National Working Group’ formed in response to the task force, comprising 96 civil society organisations, in its report published on July 25, 2020, had also opposed this move. The report brought out after surveying about 2,500 adolescents across 15 states stated, “…Increasing the age of marriage will either harm or have no impact by itself unless the root causes of women’s disempowerment are addressed.” —Flavia Agnes, “Increasing Marriage Age for Girls May Only Strengthen Patriarchy,” The Times of India, December 19, 2021

my friend got married at seventeen

in a gurudwara

singing the hymns her mother sang some

twenty-five years ago

on a cold day in January

her henna – impolite

her body wrapped in Red

her tiny legs blurting out of her salwar:

“maybe it’s too soon.” i don’t know

her forehead smeared in red

eyes black, cajoled

driven out of existence.

all i know is that she is my friend

who loves Jell-O, baked cookies & comfy blankets

i don’t know who taught her marriage

i didn’t know a red bindi on her forehead before

& seven pairs of bangles made from glass

hanging loose from her wrists

two for one.

brought from the corner shop with no name

i didn’t know red grew in a land that

burns, buys, believes, blue

& meanders our lives 

like the Ganges

Harsimran Kaur is a seventeen-year-old author of three books. Her work has been recognised by The Royal Commonwealth Society, Oxford University Press, and the International Human Rights Art Festival. She is currently a senior in high school in India.