Our Spirits Carry Our Voices
Edited by Karla Brundage
In 2016, a group of poets from Oakland, California, embarked on a literary exchange with poets from Accra, Ghana, and Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. The goal of the exchange was to create healing and reconnection among Africans and African Americans, who have long been separated due to the calamity of slavery and many current socioeconomic factors. We chose to experiment with a form of poetry called renshi, a Japanese genre known as linked or chained poems, in which the poet uses the last line of the partner’s poem as the first line for a new poem. A door was opened! Like digital pen pals, we exchanged poetry for over a year. The result was beyond anyone’s expectations. Real friendships began to blossom. In 2018, just before Ghana commemorated the “Year of Return,” a group of the American poets traveled to Ghana, meeting our exchange partners. This book reflects our process and our journey.
Red Dreams, Volcano Visions
By Kathryn Waddell Takara, PhD
An exciting pocketbook of poetry that offers Takara’s firsthand observations and reflections of the 2018 Kīlauea eruption, including the following poem.
Pele and Fissure 8
It’s a spectacular show, lava fireworks
ominous, eerie, fiery-painted skies.
There are variable, color-filled clouds
corals, magentas, rubies
irregular shades of gray and black.
Surprising impermanent weather
patterns appear
while molten rock gushes torrential
reveals the heartbeat of Fissure 8.
Kanaka maoli understand
the powerful process.
Let go of illusions of control.
Allow for the robust untamed cycle
of evolution.
Recognize the signs.
It’s still too smoky
to fathom the future
in an unpredictable present.
Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics
By Kathryn Waddell Takara, PhD
This poem, originally published in Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics by Kathryn Waddell Takara, refers in part to the then-President of Zimbabwe, the late Robert Mugabe (Feb. 21, 1924 – Sept. 6, 2019).
Meltdown
Under the rule of a zealot
Opponents beaten and discouraged
Thwarted elections
Forgotten revolution
The meaning of democracy.
Wild animals near extinction
Illegal hunters
Heedless, greedy poachers
Elephants and rhinos at high risk
Rare tusks for ancient Chinese remedies
Jewelry, decorative art, piano keys
Endangered even on animal preserves
Where empty nests dot the abandoned trees in leafless intricacy
All Nature a sunset witness.
Ignorant collaborators
Hungry, envious of Western wealth
Commit unspeakable acts of cruelty to feed their families and greed.
Awesome independence corrupts
Distorted collective vision of progress
Ignores economic meltdown
As policy supports political intimidation
Social unrest dominated by bully tactics.
Discontent rumbles under the drought of inequality
Like magma inflates before an eruption.
