DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION AND HOPE

by Cathy Lee

Today, in a quiet English classroom

In Southeast Ohio,

An English teacher 

And special needs teacher 

Discussed how to incorporate 

The work of students in the special needs classroom

In this year’s school-wide literary anthology

Of poems, stories, and art.

This year’s theme 

is hope. 

Some of these high school students will 

Be able to circle images of pictures

That give them hope.

Some of these students 

Have the ability to write a few sentences

And draw a picture about

what gives them hope.

Most of these students 

Rarely get included 

in school-wide projects,

Often remain hidden

And anonymous

Like Boo Radley.

But we 

are working 

To change that. 

While pompous politicians 

Flaunt their abilities to dismantle 

Programs for DEI, 

We move forward,

Inviting the voices

Of our fellow humans  

Who can name hope

By circling an image of a bird,

Or drawing their dog,

Or writing about a yummy piece of apple pie. 

Mmm, mmm. So good.

Cathy Lee is a wife, mother of almost adulting daughters, one in college and one in high school, and a high school English teacher in Southeast Ohio. She enjoys running, baking, and reading. 

WHEN ALMONDS APPEAR

by Judy Trupin

Before we speak of war

of enemies

of those deserving to die

please imagine your grandmother

in her lilac flowered housecoat

nylon, I think

holding out a chipped blue plate

with slightly burned almond cookies.

you don’t like almond cookies

but you take one

chew it out of love

your grandmother smiles

and you return the smile.

as you lean in to hug her

her image dissolves into the other

the one you have learned to hate

the ones whose offspring perhaps are killing your neighbors

as your relatives are perhaps killing hers.

her bones are sturdier than your grandmother's

the skin on her arms a few shades different from yours

her dress a soft moss green

but she still holds the chipped blue plate of almond cookies

an offering

you invite her in

you'd like to ask her to call in her offspring

and you will invite your parents, uncles and aunts

to sit together 

smooth out all that matters

but that is not to be.

your grandmother returns

scatters almonds on the countertop

one for every child killed this week

dough appears

you cannot tell from where.

the grandmothers in tandem

pound smooth and roll

partition it for the almonds

one for every child 

you watch 

you count the endless stream of cookies

as tray after tray  is set in the oven.

Outside

the war goes on.

Judy Trupin is a writer, yoga instructor and teacher of adult immigrants. She has recently left New York City behind and is exploring life in Pittsburgh.

CLEARVIEW AI

by Alan Walowitz

So the way it works is that you upload someone's face—a photo of someone—to the Clearview AI app, and then it will return to you all the places on the internet where that person's face has appeared, along with links to those photos. —Kashmir Hill, author, Your Face Belongs to Us, on Fresh Air, September 28, 2023

 

The haze stalls long enough

to allow us to continue our work:

to make ourselves seem here, and not here,

in equal measure—to assure anonymity

yet convince the world, and us, we’re real.

Our wish to be seen, but not a target,

of the law or of derision.

Though it might be wise to wear bright colors

when we walk among the trees.

 

The sun in our eyes or an unsteady hand

might account for any low resolution,

what the app might call, Failure to recognize. 

Still, we might someday desire

to see the face from our dreams,

who’s bound to be found, among the billions

of images kept in the cloud

for moments when we’re lonely.

 

No one owns our face, we claim,

not the sun, or the trees, or the gently bleeding sky

where our image has been scraped from the assorted

public places we’ve foolishly lent ourselves.

This the price for being bound to this planet?

Though, in the end, perhaps a Court will claim,

we had no inherent interest being here. 

Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry.  His chapbook Exactly Like Love comes from Osedax Press. The full-length The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems is available from Truth Serum Press. Most recently, from Arroyo Seco Press, is the chapbook In the Muddle of the Night written with poet Betsy Mars. Now available for free download is the collection The Poems of the Air from Red Wolf Editions.

WHAT (KIND OF) COUNTRY

by Jen Schneider

Adam Maida / The Atlantic ; Getty

what (kind of) country / ‘tis of thee
hosts parents on video streams 
to plead for safety of schools & children
/ amidst stains & stained solutions / full

of propositions & prepositions
 

to paint / not of 
            watercolors / of blood

to stay quiet / not to 
            nap / to survive

            to arm teachers / not of 
            books / with bullets

            to dial 911 / not as 

            a drill / as a final word

 

to dodge rocks turned rounds
to climbs hills turned mountains
to fight – against & again  

for their lives / before men
            in suits / in primetime
 
what (kind of) country / ‘tis of thee
values weapons more than life
counts more guns than people 
hosts rallies alongside funerals
for primetime performance 

what (kind of) country / ’tis of thee
identifies children by sneaker color
normalizes imbalance / numbers
of mass shootings & days in a year
with guns the leading cause 
of death of children / primed
for primetime performance  

what (kind of) country / ‘tis of thee
invokes names & images 
of emmett till / napalm girl
on primetime to debate / the value of life

scales forever tilted against the innocent
a country stained & forever shamed

my country / ‘tis of thee
            / of thee i weep

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

COLORING

by Laura Lee Washburn

This drawing is part of an exhibition in Tucson, AZ of original watercolors and other artworks by kids whose families have fled to the U.S. seeking asylum. Casa Alitas operates a refugee shelter in a former Benedictine Monastery and offers art-making classes to traumatized kids released from detention.

“It’s not what you look at that matters,

  it’s what you see.”

—Henry David Thoreau

In the blue pool with jogging women
every morning this month I’ve seen
in distant tree yellow busted balloon.

I have ridden the packed dirt
on a brown three-speed bike
almost into long black snake.

I have been to the marsh
where green leaves reflect
from brown tannin waters.
I will go there again.

I have felt unease, eaten
too much sugar, sagged
at the loneliness of bad friendships.

I’ve helped light one hundred and forty candles
after dark, listened to testimony, heard
the names of six dead migrant children:

Darlyn, Jakelin, Felipe, Juanito, Wilmer, Carlos.
I’ve read the judicial arguments on soap
and sleep, toothpaste, blankets.

When the green leaves blow,
I watch through bamboo blinds,
live action but dim impressions of bright.

I have driven in blind white
sun on the turnpike’s upward curve
and made it south enough to see again.

I have driven twenty in storm
shocking white water rains
when the pea-sized summer hail
begins to tap.
I have not turned
around at the lake in the road.
 —I have judged and been judged—

Stupid people    this local woman
hosted a vigil because of “images” she saw.
How does she know [How does she know?]
the images are really detention centers?
    people who serve the DARK!
    scum invading      disease and violence
our president taking down the evil
Stop believing or search for the truth
everything is really a lie!

Laura Lee Washburn has taught how to tell creditable sources from biased sources, has never been held in a cell, and donates her time to a Southeast Kansas organization that helps women in poverty resolve crises.