Occupy Poems

 

More than 2,000 writers have signed on to support Occupy Wall Street at the OccupyWriters website.

Here is the contribution by Alice Walker, civil rights activist, poet, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, The Color Purple.

“If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.” – Alice Walker

the joyful news of your arrest

this sunday morning everything
is bringing tears.
in church this morning
not a church anyone from my childhood
would
recognize

Cornell West arrested at Occupy Wall Street protest at the Supreme Court

as church
a brother singing
ecstatic
about the bigness of love
and then this moment
news of your arrest
on the steps of the supreme court
a place of intrigue and distrust;
news of the illegal sign you carried
that you probably made yourself:
Poverty Is The Greatest Violence Of All.
brother cornel. brother west.
what a joy it is
to hear this news of you.
that you have not forgotten
what our best people taught us
as they rose to meet their day:
not to be silent
not to fade into the shadows
not to live and die in vain.
But to glorify
the love that demands
we stand
in danger
shaking off
our chains.

The World We Want Is Us

It moves my heart to see your awakened faces;
the look of “aha!”
shining, finally, in
so many
wide open eyes.
Yes, we are the 99%
all of us
refusing to forget
each other
no matter, in our hunger, what crumbs
are dropped by
the 1%.
The world we want is on the way; Arundhati
and now we
are
hearing her breathing.
That world we want is Us; united; already moving
into it.