To love is to risk, to be dangerous enough to sigh, cry, laugh, and jest in the most harrowing of conditions, in grief, and in the solemnity of witness. Dreams of love and liberation are filled with laughter, wit, and irreverence or they are not full. In Room’s Wits End issue, humour and satire act as release valves for what’s not yet said but needs to be said, as an open palm to the reader to grab tight and come closer, and as permission to look the enemy in the eyes (or forehead) and fight back harder. That open palm, that squeeze, that release are balms and fuel–to “become a menace to [our] enemies” as June Jordan writes, we must continue to make spaces for laughter and honour risks in our truth-telling.
Humour does not belong to the oppressor, it belongs to us. We’ll need every tool to survive the times we are in, to love and trust heartily and unabashedly through it all. These poems offer love with a twinkle in the eyes, using satire as blades and rolling waves of laughter as sustenance and shelter. This Valentine’s Day, Room has gathered love poems from writers who subvert power, use laughter to open, and present love as a defiance of impossibility. Come laugh, and resist with us.
“On the Eve of yet another Nakba, a Dream,” by George Abraham via Scalawag Magazine
of abandoning this shithole called American life
& teleporting to the largest Filasteeni potluck
imaginable: no shelling, no blockades or walls,
no post-9/11 era terrors of surveillance, no wild
-fire lies to feed the American public, no America
to need feeding — everyone will eat here & have
their fill.
“Letter To The Local Police,” by June Jordan, from DIRECTED BY DESIRE: THE COLLECTED POEMS
As I say, these roses, no matter what the apparent
background, training, tropistic tendencies, age,
or color, do not demonstrate the least inclination
toward categorization, specified allegiance, resolute
preference, consideration of the needs of others, or
any other minimal traits of decency
“How to Write a Settler Poem” by El Jones, from Abolitionist Intimacies
Avoid anything that’s contemporary or relevant
The words oppression or white privilege just aren’t poetic or elegant
And after all Canadian poetry should make you feel benevolent
Like, I’m a good progressive white liberal Canadian and I’m special
Poetry that can be read on CBC and makes you feel intellectual
Being a poetry reader should ideally make you feel
Like you’re better
Than regular people
“Dinosaurs in the hood,” by Danez Smith, via Poetry International
let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.
Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.
there should be a scene where a little black boy is playing
with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window
& sees the T-Rex, because there has to be a T-Rex.
“Lick My Butt,” by Justin Chin via Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Margins
Lick my butt & tell me about
Michel Foucault’s theories of deconstruction
& how it applies to popular culture,
a depressed economy & this overwhelming
tide of alienation.
“Poem Without Love,” by Tarfia Faizullah, via Poets.org
You hurt my feelings
I say to the trees. You never
ask me how I am I whisper
to the breakfast taco, before
an indelicate but determined bite.
I miss you, I confront
the chair in the stranger’s yard.
Your strong + silly arms. Your sin-sturdy legs.
“Triple Sonnet for my Aggressive Forehead,” by Dorothy Chan via Poets.org
Dad thinks my forehead is too Godzilla, too Tarzan, too Wonder Woman,
tells me not to tie my hair back,
exposing it, like it’s the Frankenstein Monster
from beneath my childhood bed,
or the mollusk that challenged the world,
and Dad, I love you, but you should know
that I’m a nightmare as a woman
“noooo don’t be a birthright apologist you’re so sexy ahha,” by Summer Farah, via BAHR // بحر
I place my country in your palm.
I cannot help but leave
traces of dirt when my arms fall
from your waist. this does not mean
points on a map are defined
by the line of our thighs.
“Kinanâskomitin,” by Dallas Hunt, via Malahat Review
thank you
to the families
that feed us,
soft-footed near
traplines and
ambling for
tree lines
“my dream about being white,” by Lucille Clifton via Poets.org
no lips,
no behind, hey
white me
and i’m wearing
white history
but there’s no future
in those clothes
“Cold Sore Lip Red Coat,” by Hoa Nguyen, via Poetry Daily
Look at the map upside down so that south
Is north and north is south
it’s the other
way around because it’s the commonly agreed to
thing (visual language of the colonizer) or
snowful awful tearful wishful
“Famous,” by Naomi Shibab Nye, via Poets.org
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
“Friends,” by Wendy Trevino, via The Tiny
Sometimes it feels like we live
In a huge Etch-A-Sketch
& someone is shaking it
Really hard.
We’re fucked.
You get used to it &
you want to be strong
Enough to feel ok
“All The Kids With Rhythm Bang on Metal Locker Doors At Lunchtime,” by Joselia Rebekah Hughes, via Split This Rock
Black able rack able
hack able tack able
lack able slack able…nah…
For more writing and art that illuminate the role of humour in questioning power and resisting, check out Room 48.1 Wits End .
