Rachel Orta

🧡🧡🧡

My piece "For the Birds / Afterlife" in is this issue 🖤

from “Surge” A long night I spent

Poem of the day - from "Surge" by Etel Adnan

poets.org/poem/surge

In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we, of you we found ourselves reduced to I and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible: we were trying to live a personal life and yes, that was the only life we could bear witness to But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged into our personal weather They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove along the shore, through the rags of fog where we stood, saying I Adrienne Rich In Those Years

Poem of the day - In Those Years by Adrienne Rich

Tell Congress: Ceasefire NOW. Updated 10.16.23 As the Israeli government cuts 2.3 million Palestinians living under siege off from food, water, fuel, and electricity, it also continues dropping bombs across one of the most den...

actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

Mimesis BY FADY JOUDAH My daughter wouldn’t hurt a spider That had nested Between her bicycle handles For two weeks She waited Until it left of its own accord If you tear down the web I said It will simply know This isn’t a place to call home And you’d get to go biking She said that’s how others Become refugees isn’t it?

Poem of the day - Mimesis by Fady Joudah

Ilhan says the public pressure against genocide is working, but we need to keep pushing.

Donate Medical Aid for Palestinians is on the ground in Gaza where they are working to stock hospitals with essential drugs, disposables and other healthcare supplies. map.org.uk Palestine Children's Relief Fund is the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine. They deliver crucial, life-saving medical relief and humanitarian aid on the ground. perf.net The World Food Programme has been distributing fresh bread, canned food and ready-to-eat food to those who sought refuge in United Nations Relief and Works Agency shelters in Gaza. wfp.org Doctors Without Borders is providing support to hospitals and health facilities in Gaza. doctorswithoutborders.org UNRWA is providing medical support, trauma relief, and food assistance on the ground in Gaza. unrwausa.org

Trauma (Storm) BY GREGORY ORR Hunkered down, nerve-numb, in the carnal hut, the cave of self, while outside a storm rages. Huddled there, rubbing together white sticks of your own ribs, praying for sparks in that dark where tinder is heart, where tender is not.

Poem of the day - Trauma (Storm) by Gregory Orr

It is hard to read this poem today and not think of the countless families and children experiencing an overflowing amount of trauma in Gaza currently and for past decades. Continue to share their stories and donate.

So excited to share my two poems out today on @havehashad.com - would love if you’d read them! ❤️ 🩷
#poetry
#writingcommunity

"October" by Louise Glück from "Poems 1962-2012" published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Poem of the day - October by Louise Glück

poems.com/poem/october...

My prose poem “Storm Junked” is in this issue ⛈️

Peace
is not separate from
climate
is not separate from
water
is not separate from
justice
is not separate from
health
is not separate from
agriculture
is not separate from
oceans
is not separate
from biodiversity
is not separate from
peace

Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying BY NOOR HINDI Colonizers write about flowers. I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks seconds before becoming daisies. I want to be like those poets who care about the moon. Palestinians don’t see the moon from jail cells and prisons. It’s so beautiful, the moon. They’re so beautiful, the flowers. I pick flowers for my dead father when I’m sad. He watches Al Jazeera all day. I wish Jessica would stop texting me Happy Ramadan. I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies. Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts care about sound. When I die, I promise to haunt you forever. One day, I’ll write about the flowers like we own them.

Donate Medical Aid for Palestinians is on the ground in Gaza where they are working to stock hospitals with essential drugs, disposables and other healthcare supplies. map.org.uk Palestine Children's Relief Fund is the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine. They deliver crucial, life-saving medical relief and humanitarian aid on the ground. perf.net The World Food Programme has been distributing fresh bread, canned food and ready-to-eat food to those who sought refuge in United Nations Relief and Works Agency shelters in Gaza. wfp.org Doctors Without Borders is providing support to hospitals and health facilities in Gaza. doctorswithoutborders.org UNRWA is providing medical support, trauma relief, and food assistance on the ground in Gaza. unrwausa.org

Poem of the day - Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People are Dying by Noor Hindi

The author has asked on X that if you read this poem, you also donate.

I have one of her poetry collections on loan from the library. I returned all my finished books yesterday, but had misplaced this one. Came home from work today and found it with the intent of returning…but I think now I will spend some extra time with her words this evening before it goes back💙

Reading The Wild Iris a year and a half ago is what brought me back to poetry. Brought me to a place where I wanted to create, to share, to be inspired and to maybe one day inspire others.

RIP Louise Glück 💔

Once Upon a Time by Tyler McAndrew

friday the 13th and i've got a new poem/painting/erasure thing up at @havehashad.com 😈

Overwhelming grief and rage that my government - the one that claims to represent me - can't be bothered to call for cessation, calm, de-escalation, or delay as we all watch a genocide barreling down the tracks

Screenshot of podcast episode from Spotify. Name of the podcast is "the way out is in. Zen and the art of living" and the episode is named "Lessons in Impermanence: How to Handle Life when everything changes."

Podcast ep for the morning. Is the topic of impermanence spooky enough for Friday the 13th?? 👻
spotify.link/gDRY8LDGRDb

It's Friday the 13th, so here's a poem about mortality. Be careful out there.

What Kind of Times Are These BY ADRIENNE RICH There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here, our country moving closer to its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear. I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light— ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise: I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear. And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these to have you listen at all, it's necessary to talk about trees.

Poem of the day - What Kind of Times Are These by Adrienne Rich

Dream Dust BY LANGSTON HUGHES Gather out of star-dust Earth-dust, Cloud-dust, And splinters of hail, One handful of dream-dust Not for sale.

Dreams BY LANGSTON HUGHES Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

Poem of the day, posting two today - Dream Dust & Dreams, both by Langston Hughes

Of course! 🪄

First Memory, Louise Gluck Long ago, I was wounded. I lived to revenge myself against my father, not for what he was– for what I was: from the beginning of time, in childhood, I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved.

Poem of the day - First Memory by Louise Glück

Memento Mori Maya C. Popa How much pain should we knowingly invite— the gallery says all, and all at once. Otherwise, why paint or write if not for ends hidden in plain sight? I watch you disappear into the next room knowing, one day, this room will be my life.

Poem of the day - Memento Mori by Maya C. Popa

Foaling Season BY ADA LIMÓN 1 In the dew-saturated foot-high blades of grass, we stand amongst a sea of foals, mare and foal, mare and foal, all over the soft hillside there are twos, small duos ringing harmoniously in the cold, swallows diving in and out, their fabled forked tail where the story says the fireball hit it as it flew to bring fire to humanity. Our friend the Irishman drives us in the Gator to sit amongst them. Everywhere doubles of horses still leaning on each other, still nuzzling and curious with each new image.

2 Two female horses, retired mares, separated by a sliding barn door, nose each other. Neither of them will get pregnant again, their job is to just be a horse. Sometimes, though, they cling to one another, find a friend and will whine all night for the friend to be released. Through the gate, the noses touch, and you can almost hear— Are you okay? Are you okay?

3 I will never be a mother. That’s all. That’s the whole thought. I could say it returns to me, watching the horses. Which is true. But also I could say that it came to me as the swallows circled us over and over, something about that myth of their tail, how generosity is punished by the gods. But isn’t that going too far? I saw a mare with her foal, and then many mares with many foals, and I thought, simply: I will never be a mother.

4 One foal is a biter, and you must watch him as he bares his teeth and goes for the soft spot. He’s brilliant, leggy, and comes right at me, as if directed by some greater gravity, and I stand firm, and put my hand out first, rub the long white marking on his forehead, silence his need for biting with affection. I love his selfishness, our selfishness, the two of us testing each other, swallows all around us. Every now and then, his teeth come at me once again; he wants to teach me something, wants to get me where it hurts.

Poem of the day - Foaling Season by Ada Limón

Forever – is composed of Nows BY EMILY DICKINSON Forever – is composed of Nows – ‘Tis not a different time – Except for Infiniteness – And Latitude of Home – From this – experienced Here – Remove the Dates – to These – Let Months dissolve in further Months – And Years – exhale in Years – Without Debate – or Pause – Or Celebrated Days – No different Our Years would be From Anno Dominies –

Poem of the day - Forever - is composed of Nows by Emily Dickinson

Just an Emily Dickinson type of weekend 🖤

“Hope” is the thing with feathers BY EMILY DICKINSON “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

Poem of the day - "Hope" is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

Playlist for this that I quickly threw together this morning spotify.link/9wOgJGRcGDb