Poet Richard Blanco was inspired to share his poem, “Declaration of Interdependence,” after hearing Sen. Jeff Flake’s speech from the senate floor last week:
“I rise today with no small measure of regret — regret because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by ‘our,’ I mean all of our complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs,” Flake said. “It is time for our complicity and accommodation of the unacceptable to end.”
Blanco was inspired to share a poem about how objectifying and stereotyping political opponents has become the default. He viewed Flake’s speech as a call to action to return to democratic ideals, to politics for the common good.
Blanco included excerpts from the Declaration of Independence in his poem to draw a comparison between the Founding Fathers expressing their opinions and calling for more equitable government, and people like Flake explaining current-day gripes about the state of politics.
His poem is from a forthcoming book, “Boundaries,” a collaboration with landscape photographer Jacob Bond Hessler. Together their work investigates the boundaries of race, gender, class and ethnicity.
Here’s an excerpt of Blanco’s poem, “Declaration of Interdependence”:
“A history of repeated injuries and usurpations…
We’re the grit of his main street’s blacked-out windows and graffitied truths. We’re a street in another town lined with Royal palms, at home with a Peace Corps couple who collect African Art. We’re their dinner-party-talk of wines, wielded picket signs, and burned draft cards. We’re what they know: it’s time to do more than read the New York Times, buy fair-trade coffee and organic corn.
In every stage of oppressions we have petitioned for redress…
We’re the farmer who grew the corn, who plows into his couch as worn as his back by the end of the day. We’re his TV set blaring news having everything and nothing to do with the field dust in his eyes or his son nested in the ache of his arms. We’re his son. We’re a black teenager who drove too fast or too slow, talked too much or too little, moved too quickly, but not quick enough. We’re the blast of the bullet leaving the gun. We’re the guilt and the grief of the cop who wished he hadn’t shot.”
Richard Blanco joins us twice a month for Village Voice. He’s a Presidential Inaugural Poet and a professor at Florida International University teaching poetry. His latest project is “Boundaries,” a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler. “Boundaries” comes out this Thursday.
