Free, Free Palestine #194

(my speech at yesterday's rally in front of Senator Klobuchar's office, downtown mpls)

It is important for us to be out here today to cry outrage at the recent attacks on Gaza and the West Bank. At last count, 169 Palestinians paid with their lives (39 of them children) in Israel's latest assault Operation Pillar of Cloud, and while there is currently a ceasefire, we know that a moments peace is not enough to last. Because what has happened in recent weeks in Gaza is awful, but what's been going on there for decades is far worse.

Gaza is best described as an open air prison, where Palestinians live in dilapidated house, under curfews, and dealing with checkpoints where IDF soldiers continue to torment, harass and kill Palestinians all of the time. Just before this offensive by Israel began, a 13 year old boy was killed by soldiers. It is an everyday reality in occupied Palestine. And Gaza is under siege, and being purposely kept at near starvation levels by the Israeli government, who decides what goes in and what comes out. Let's not forget the flotilla in 2010 carrying desperately needed goods, food and medicine to the people of Gaza that was attacked in international waters by the IDF and boarded, and those activists where killed. Shot in the back of the head for trying to bring aid to people who are being intentionally deprived of basic needs.

The UN has called the situation in Gaza a humanitarian crisis, "a crisis of human dignity" and yet, the mainstream media will never cover this side of the story. That is why it is so important for us to be out in the streets in protest of these conditions. Because the media's take on the situation is bought and paid for by Israeli interests- and that goes for our politicians as well.

In the anti-war movement, we talk a lot about the futility of putting a "puppet government" in charge of another country whose interests are not the people's, yet we so rarely get to see so clearly how our own politicians are held up by these same strings, and how their actions are dictated by the unconditional flow of money into Israel (to the tune of 8.5 million dollars a day!) Because that's our tax dollars being used to buy drones, and bombs, and bulldozers for the IDF (and if you insist that all of this is for defense, then try explaining what the bulldozers are for).

We need to continue to speak out and to tell our own government, elected officials like Senator Klobuchar, to stop funding Israeli crimes. We want an end to the blockade of Gaza, an end to the apartheid state, and for all Palestinians to be free to return to their homes.

The people of Palestine are under attack, so what to we do?

Stand up, Fight back!



 (side note: immediately after giving this speech I learned that the UN voted to make Palestine a non-member state. Hopefully, this is a step towards real peace for Palestine.)
Here is what the vote looked like. 

Heroines that wear boots, not heels

If I was a SUPER HERO

and this was a comic book

and I had a sidekick

he would be my fact checker

my editor, a computer-savvy word nerd

(and he would be desperately in love with me).

And so would the bad guys, of course, 
and the city commissioner, because
I'm a girl.

And that's how they treat girls in comic books.

And I would wear some kind of full body bathing suit

thing with a short cape or a short skirt

(either or). Come to think of it,

I might not like this comic book life

in platform heels, with double D tits.

But I do with I could fly though!

That might be worth the stares.

And if I really did have SUPER POWERS

I'd like to think I'd do my share of saving lives around here.

As it is, I do my best, and I'm just me.

Just need to find myself a travel partner, I guess

and go start an adventure.

Thank You Minnesota!

OK, I didn't vote for the guy. But I'm not ganna lie, I'm happy Obama won. A good friend of mine and I were talking about the possibility of Mitt Romney winning this election and she said 'hard as that may be to swallow, it would make the anti-war movement grow'. It is true that it is harder to challenge a democratic president (even if he is a wire tapping, NDAA authorizing, predator drone assassinating war monger like all the rest), but at least we got the lesser of the two evils. I mean, at least the puppet on the left has some respect for women.
So, we can all exhale or celebrate or go back to work or whatever, the election is over. I am still in a blue state, and we beat back two nasty amendments that constituted attacks on minority voters and families. And I'm told MN had the highest voter turn out of any state. I feel, as I feel lots of people also expressed to me yesterday, that a little sanity is returned to the American collective conscience. A little bit of hope for humanity is restored. I'm proud to be a Minnesotan voter right now. Thank you everyone who did your part.

Oh my, I won a grant.

Great news! I won the Verve grant for spoken word poetry for 2012!!!

I won! I can't tell you how over-the-moon-happy I am to be a part of this program and to get to do this project! It involves this little blog and hopefully some new, amazing poetry, and filming the whole thing and seeing where it takes me. I will have more details about the whole thing soon (I promise) but for now I am thrilled to be writing my bio for the press release and waiting for next Wednesday when I get to go to Intermedia Arts and meet the other awardees and learn about the program and receive a big fat check!

The really thrilling part of winning this grant is that it feels like the gun shot of the start of the next race. I put all this work and effort into writing the grant and applying for it in the first place, I can hardly believe I actually get to go and do this now. My year of awesome is just getting started! And, as a poet, I've come to accept that there is no money in my field of work. Every poet I read has a day job. So the validation and encouragement are nourishment to my artistic little heart (and the money will be nice). I can't wait.

So, now I really want the poetry show on the 18th to go well. It looks like we have a musical act lined up (one of my favorite local musicians, actually) and fingers crossed, we will get the whole thing filmed!
Hope to see you there!

Radical poet coming to MPLS!

So, I am really excited to share with you this show I've been helping to put together. My friend, Jared Paul, an amazing poet and activist, is coming to Minneapolis on tour this fall.

Oct 18th at Mayday books(301 Cedar ave, Mpls)
Doors at 8pm, show at 8:30pm
$5-10 suggested donation

I am going to do some poetry too (of course) and hopefully we will have a musical act to open (details TBA). This is going to be a lot of fun. I've never really organized an event like this, I hope it is a big success.

So, come one, come all, and tell your friends! Hope to see you there!
Here is the link for the facebooks: http://www.facebook.com/events/284771691635585/

1 year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street NYC

 (my speech at our rally at People's plaza, Mpls 09/17/12) 


It’s great to be back here. I can’t tell you how many memories happened right here on this plaza. Memories that have solidified into a single lump of time for me-
The Occupation of Minneapolis: People’s plaza.
Tough as nails, dense and complicated. Life is a messy thing. We learned that first hand out here. It was one of many lessons.

I slept right over there, under the stars and under a tarp. We slept in the overpass when it rained, and people sent us pizzas and deliveries of coffee when it got cold. I didn’t know anybody, and I didn’t have any expectations- just here to see what this was all about. The 99% what’s that about? People over profits. What’s all this?

It’s crazy to think it’s been a year, and here we are. A lot has happened for us, and across the country, and around the world. I can tell you what I learned, man, I fought the law and the   law won. When we tried to sue the county over the way they were treating us, they basically laughed in our faces. We tried to hold an intersection in front of U.S. bank to talk about home foreclosures and the cops cleared us out and threw the book at us. The occupation didn’t last. It couldn’t stand. It wasn’t allowed to. And now here we are, still coming together, but without the buzz and the anticipation and the media attention. Yet here we still are.

Well, nobody said it was going to be easy. And I don’t think anyone seriously committed to change came down here expecting that the establishment was just going to give in, that the police would be there to clear the path to freedom. They are the ones who set up the roadblocks, send in the infiltrators, who pass out drugs and call us the problem. The media was never on our side either! They weren’t going to pick up this story and do all the work for us, spreading our message far and wide and undistorted. So Middle America doesn’t get us- so what? No one ever mentions that they don’t want to, that it’s easier to stay safe in their little boxes and be mindlessly entertained.
And when the going got tough, the crowd got smaller. (laughs) 
But here we still are.

So, are we going to listen to the news?
and let them tell us that we’ve gone away?
Are we going to listen to the politicians?
who are clamoring for our attention right now, and let them fool us into thinking that this figurehead or that one is the answer to all of our problems?

Of course not- it’s nonsense.

The occupation may have fizzled out, but we are awake now. There is no going back from here. So, yes, it’s good to look over the last year and learn what we can and reminisce, but I came here with a mind and a hope for the future. Because hope is not a trade marked phrase of the Obama administration. Hope is not a bullet point on a flyer. It is a personal endeavor. An individual contribution to the whole. So I came here tonight with my hopes and my dreams for the future, and a little poem that I’d like to share called Beautiful World, cause this isn’t over- it has only just begun.

Beautiful World

I have lived my life in fear and found no solace there. I learned that even with your head in the sand your other end is left blowing defenselessly in the wind. I have also learned since not to go marching into darkness just to prove you're not afraid of things you should be. I'm on guard with good reasons these days (knowing the worth of my own dead weight) and I must balance my values of freedom and dignity on a regular basis. Minneapolis, war-front that I love.

I have learned the importance of community, having support systems in place to watch our own backs and back alleyways. And the 1st use for society is survival. Skills shared openly and resources for everyone not owned, sold or traded. Or at least I imagine it could be like this. I've learned the power of our dreams and local politics.

And I have learned to be patient, and when not to wait around for permission to change because change is inevitable and the only question is direction, and yes, I am here today with an agenda. I wanna set it right and see what happens. I want to get it right, and give it some room. A little sunlight and attention to bask in, to bloom.

See what becomes of creation when you give peace a chance. A plot of land in a shared space under my care can flourish. We are so rich when we work together and for everyone. We are so rich when we work together and for everyone that it bares repeating. I go on, believing this and then making it come true. And I've seen it work and so have you. And isn't it a more beautiful world when we do?


[ this is, of course, the anniversary of the start of Occupy in NYC. There will be a similar demonstration to mark the start of Occupy in Minneapolis on Oct 7th 2012 and I hope that it is at least as well attended as this one, if not bigger. Hope to see you there!]