Poetry Corner: Deported

POETRY CORNER

– 03/08/17

Hosted by Kathabela Wilson

Our theme this week, “Deported” is a strong, real and heart wrenching topic for us all. Our country is built on immigrants and for those who come here to be afraid of deportation threatens our feeling about who we are and our future. Our Poetry Corner displays the power of poetry as a force of nature in times like this, when we feel our roots are threatened . . . and what could be more disturbing than that? Our poets speak out from Southern California where deporting is an everyday fear, to UK, and Australia. It is a US problem, an international problem, and a personal problem, always!

~ Kathabela

Alter Alter Artwork by Toti O’Brien.

Donna Buck

this dark morning
in her daughter’s lunch box
an “I love you note”
a memento just in case
mama’s picked up, deported

Donna Buck lives in Carlsbad, California. As a retired schoolteacher she says: “Most of my former Early College High School students are “Dreamers” (students who came to the United States as very young children and who have lived here most of their lives). They had under the Obama administration the opportunity to attend college and many of them are finishing now. They are the first in their families to attend college. Most of their parents are undocumented immigrants. Now with the new administration, they and their parents live in fear because of the deportation sweeps by I.C.E. The students fear the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will be ended abruptly and their college programs suspended, and that their parents may be picked up and deported suddenly, any time. These sweeps are happening in their community. There have been many instances of this already in the news and this is happening more and more. My poem is my sense of their parents’ fear and grief at being forced to live this new reality on a daily basis.”

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Bloodline. Artwork by Toti O’Brien.

Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy

these authorities

a president here
a terrorist there

deporting people
out of their country
out of their world

Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy lives in Birmingham, UK. He says “Day by day, we are riven by misunderstanding and doubt. Sadly, those wielding power, some elected, some self-appointed, are deepening these divisions. People are being thrown out of or turned away from their homes (“their” being subject to interpretation.) His poem is a “cherita,” a short story-telling form of six lines, that embodies a short, powerful narrative.

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Babel Artwork by Toti O’Brien.

Gerry Jacobson

looking back…
you stand on the pavement
looking forward
the cruel taxi
pulls out from the curb

Gerry Jacobson lives in Canberra, Australia. born in London, UK and has family and friends there. He says: “The tyranny of distance. Sometimes the leavetaking is like going in to exile. Remember the song: ‘T’aint the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but my darling when I think on thee’.”

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♣ We welcome and encourage your response especially in the form of short poems. You may reply by leaving a comment below.