photo by Markie Jones Photography

After “graduating” from CLP (shout-out to Cohort 27!) and in COVID-19 quarantine with my husband and our two children, I signed up for a virtual poetry workshop. In a time when everything was weird and anything was a possibility, poetry seemed like it would go well with the other new things I’d added in to my schedule — including driving meals to those unable to pick them up, and a face-masked / social-distanced version of our usual ladies’ wine night.

Poetry was not my typical writing medium. Rather than wanting to write poems, I signed up for the class as a way to further expand my consciousness — something I’ve been doing since being admitted to CLP (maybe even a tad bit sooner). I felt like a poetry workshop might allow me to get outside of my comfort zone in more ways than just writing new things.

To my surprise, I mostly enjoyed writing poems! It turns out poetry, in and of itself, isn’t as daunting as I’d expected. The process is like most other writing I’ve done. You put words to paper, and then you refine those words, until it reads as something you’d be willing to share (or you feel is “complete” for other reasons).

The poem I wrote that most closely resembles Complete to me is below. I call it “How to Knock Down a Neighborhood” because I wrote it specifically as an emotional response to our town mayor’s decision to remove the basketball nets from area parks about a month after quarantine in Connecticut began.

How To Knock Down a Neighborhood in America

So maybe you had to (or felt you had to) break

apart the basketball hoops and, further, to shame

those who didn’t get the message.

Your show of power, or control, or whatever

you feel our town has granted to you, was as hollow

as a deflated ball.

Did you think about the young black man

on his way to meet his friends who now has one less

house to worship within?

Or did your good intentions stop at white and privilege

And the security of having a neighborhood where

your friends and your friends’ parents look

just like you?

I grieve for those displaced by your strategies,

supposed to be the best for all mankind.

I madden when I walk by the vacancy

of your senseless seizure.

Maybe to you leadership means swift, crisp action; abortion

with empty explanation; memory over spaces where mistakes

can be made.

Maybe that’s why they gather to pray to the basketball backboard

despite your finger wagging

blame blame blame.

I’ve been exploring anger this year (good timing!). I wrote this poem from a place of anger, and not just because of the lack of compassion on the part of our town leadership. I’m also mystified as to why our town citizens did not push back against the poor leadership and the policies that came from it. What makes me most angry is that a decree was handed down rather than a conversation being had. To me, that’s not leadership. Nor is it effective.

Since writing the poem, I’ve challenged myself to be more than a passive voice in my community. I don’t yet know the exact right things to say or do. I’m learning, which involves unlearning. I do know that participation starts with compassion for self and others — even for the mayor of our in-need-of-healing town.

And I know that it’s my responsibility to say something when I see something. Poetry is one way to do that. Or maybe, it’s the pre-way to do that: a tool to clarify my thinking and feeling, which then leads me to the next step.

Reach out to Lee Lee directly: leeleethompson@gmail.com

print