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chanter1944I'm posting this, publicly and for free, in the wake of the utter explosive excrement storm that was this past week in the States. It's intended as part defiance, part necessity, part reminder of human decency.
For a summary: In Brampton, Leigh puts her thoughts about the neighbor to the south, and the people who cross the border, in writing. Sandy has a hand in too, but it's a relatively small one. TW for all kinds of references to institutional and societal prejudices on the basis of race, class, gender and sex, and economic status. Also for some very bittersweet imagery.
"Give me your tired."
"Give me your exhausted, your glassy-eyed, your dust-ground-in footsore, your shift workers, your ladder-scrabblers with splinters under their nails, your children with brass knuckles and brass ring-chasers' bruises in layers. Give me your ragged, your wrung-out, your hoarse from shouting across factory floors, your can't-win-I'm-a-woman people."
"Give me your poor, your poorly, your scratched six ways from Sunday, your sick folks choking on the treatable diseases of the body and mind, your just plain yearning to breathe, your discarded uninsured, your bleeding, your broken."
"Give me your can't-get-ahead, I'm black/brown/gold/red, your bright, your ignored, your pinned with a hundred filthy and unearned names, your deserving of an education."
"Give me your huddled, your blanket-clutching, your frantic keepers of heirloom quilts, knitted socks, pictures of infants now twenty years old and a hundred more remaining trailing threads of family legacies. Give me your yearning, your desperate, your scrambling, your best-way-out, your only-way-out, your no-other-way-out citizens. Give me your queer, your needy, your limping, your honest, your dañadas, your disowned sons, your gold-hearted, your pitch black and perfect."
"Give me your strange, your ugly, your shy, your esoteric, your loud, your longing. Give me your voices, your truth seekers, your social warriors, your moderates, your sensible, your sensitive. Give me your dreamers, your tuned-in, your own with their savings and their hope for the future, any future crumpled together in one hand, your old, your runaways, your aching hearts, your carriers of dilapidated suitcases, your sad-eyed magnets to true north."
"Give them to me alive."
"Give them to me. I want them."
I lift my torch. I raise it high--I'm going to let it shine--I light my torch.
"What's more, I'll take better care of them than you will, big sister."
"And you ought to be ashamed of yourself, for that."
Leigh shows this particular bit of, by her own description, slightly melodramatic poetry to only one person in Brampton.
It makes Sandy marvel, through his tears, at both his own astonishing good fortune and the mental kindred that is his wife.
He underlines the penultimate line in pencil. Leigh doesn't smile, but she nods what looks like uncommonly dark agreement before she closes the notebook on their work.
Notes are here:
*Leigh is quoting and riffing on the inscription from the Statue of Liberty.
*Dañada, translated from Spanish, is 'damaged girl'. In other words, damaged goods.
For a summary: In Brampton, Leigh puts her thoughts about the neighbor to the south, and the people who cross the border, in writing. Sandy has a hand in too, but it's a relatively small one. TW for all kinds of references to institutional and societal prejudices on the basis of race, class, gender and sex, and economic status. Also for some very bittersweet imagery.
"Give me your tired."
"Give me your exhausted, your glassy-eyed, your dust-ground-in footsore, your shift workers, your ladder-scrabblers with splinters under their nails, your children with brass knuckles and brass ring-chasers' bruises in layers. Give me your ragged, your wrung-out, your hoarse from shouting across factory floors, your can't-win-I'm-a-woman people."
"Give me your poor, your poorly, your scratched six ways from Sunday, your sick folks choking on the treatable diseases of the body and mind, your just plain yearning to breathe, your discarded uninsured, your bleeding, your broken."
"Give me your can't-get-ahead, I'm black/brown/gold/red, your bright, your ignored, your pinned with a hundred filthy and unearned names, your deserving of an education."
"Give me your huddled, your blanket-clutching, your frantic keepers of heirloom quilts, knitted socks, pictures of infants now twenty years old and a hundred more remaining trailing threads of family legacies. Give me your yearning, your desperate, your scrambling, your best-way-out, your only-way-out, your no-other-way-out citizens. Give me your queer, your needy, your limping, your honest, your dañadas, your disowned sons, your gold-hearted, your pitch black and perfect."
"Give me your strange, your ugly, your shy, your esoteric, your loud, your longing. Give me your voices, your truth seekers, your social warriors, your moderates, your sensible, your sensitive. Give me your dreamers, your tuned-in, your own with their savings and their hope for the future, any future crumpled together in one hand, your old, your runaways, your aching hearts, your carriers of dilapidated suitcases, your sad-eyed magnets to true north."
"Give them to me alive."
"Give them to me. I want them."
I lift my torch. I raise it high--I'm going to let it shine--I light my torch.
"What's more, I'll take better care of them than you will, big sister."
"And you ought to be ashamed of yourself, for that."
Leigh shows this particular bit of, by her own description, slightly melodramatic poetry to only one person in Brampton.
It makes Sandy marvel, through his tears, at both his own astonishing good fortune and the mental kindred that is his wife.
He underlines the penultimate line in pencil. Leigh doesn't smile, but she nods what looks like uncommonly dark agreement before she closes the notebook on their work.
Notes are here:
*Leigh is quoting and riffing on the inscription from the Statue of Liberty.
*Dañada, translated from Spanish, is 'damaged girl'. In other words, damaged goods.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-20 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-20 01:55 pm (UTC)