A Book Recommendation and a poem of Gratitude to Small Americans

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Mary Lee. Thank you for hosting! Be sure to stop by her excellent blog A(nother) Year of Reading.

It’s been a very sad and scary week in the news. At the end of this post, I will share a poem I wrote yesterday, to express my anger and frustration about unrestricted gun rights. By definition it has mean the erosion of safety and freedom for all who live in America.

But first, a celebration in the form of a lovely new picture book:

JUSTICE RISING: 12 Amazing Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement, by Katheryn Russell-Brown is hot off the press for 2023. Published by Viking, it begins by telling the readers that black women were “the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement.” It then goes on to prove it with short narratives of twelve “Sheroes” who organized, registered voters, wrote music and fueled the Movement. 

SAY THEIR NAMES

1.  Ella Baker
2.  Ruby Bridges
3.  Claudette Colvin
4.  Dorothy Cotton
5.  Fannie Lou Hamer
6.  Correta Scott King
7.  Diane Nash
8.  Rosa Parks
9.  Bernice Johnson Reagon
10. Gloria Richardson
11. Jo Ann Robinson
12. Sheyann Webb
13. Freedom Marchers

There were several on this list who I hadn’t learned about, such as JO ANN ROBINSON (1912-1992). Maybe some readers here haven’t either. Her story began one day in Montgomery, Alabama when Jo Ann was kicked off a bus for not sitting in the back. She fought back. A year later, she led the Women’s Political Council to fight for changes in unfair bus seating rules. Later, when Rosa Parks in 1955, she led her group to print flyers to encourage Black people to stop riding busses, and begin the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

All the narratives of the “sheroes” in this book are concise, easy for young children to read and understand and are all accompanied by colorful and engaging illustrations by Kim Holt.

One of the narratives tells the story of Ruby Bridges, who was the first black child, flanked by men with badges, to integrate a school in Louisiana. Her story is the subject of a Disney Movie. Unfortunately, some parents in Florida have decided that learning about her bravery will make white kids feel bad, so this week, have banned the movie in a school. Some white children will not have the chance to be inspired by her bravery and learn how one child stood up for herself. They might need that bravery themselves someday.

I will end with something political and I debated whether to share my thoughts on this blog. It’s hard not to be political because it seems politicians hold our children’s fate in their hands.

When I worked as a doctor in and ER we had a trauma room. We saw mostly car accidents in that room in the 1980’s in Syracuse. Rarely gun shot wounds. Today the incidence of gun violence, including suicides, are more numerous and more lethal everywhere.

With unlimited gun rights, there will be unstoppable injury and murder. Gun owners are not a monolith of responsible behavior, as some gun advocates seem to imply.

Strangely, I don’t see in the midst of the horror, the outrage in gun rights advocates or a fervent desire to keep children safe. All I can come up with is that the status quo serves them. These injured innocents serve a purpose.

Gun advocates know that in order to have unrestricted gun rights, innocent lives are the price. Homicide and suicide are unavoidable in a country of four hundred million guns. This week, a dispassionate Congressman from Nashville at the scene of a school shooting stated that Congress isn’t going to fix this problem. He spoke as if the were discussing pesky pot holes in the streets.

This state of affairs inspired this:

WHAT WE OWE TO SMALL AMERICANS.  

Nine year olds
huddled under desks,
or dashing outside,
to the rat tat tat
of bullets,
or bleeding on linoleum 
near the art room
along with teachers 
janitors, 
and principals 

are paying the price
of our twisted freedom,

along with the parents
of kids at Sandy Hook 
and Nashville,
and Tops and Walmart shoppers,
living as if their lives weren’t 
about to end
in the coffee aisle
or meat department.

Will anyone dare face
the injured and dead and, 
besides thoughts 
and prayers,
say, "Thank you
for your service?" 

© Janice Scully 2023 (draft)

Thanks you if you read my grief inspired poem. Thank you, Mary Lee, for hosting. The good news is that the sun shone in Syracuse, like a beam of hope. I remain optimistic, like a lost cat that knows it will somehow, someway, find its way home.

17 thoughts on “A Book Recommendation and a poem of Gratitude to Small Americans”

  1. That’s a heartbreaking poem about a very sad day. Well, days. Thanks for speaking up!

    The book sounds cool! The school Ruby Bridges integrated was in New Orleans, though she was born in Tylertown, Miss. It’s ridiculous that young Floridians can’t watch a movie about her.

  2. Janice, oh, my goodness. Yes, you can speak up, sister. Your poem is powerful and needed. Haunting. “bleeding on linoleum” and “living as if their lives weren’t
    about to end” Oh, my! Thank you for speaking up. I’ve written to my congressman twice this week about this, but you are right, they don’t want to do anything. By the way, you may have a left out a word on the number of guns in America. Sadly it’s over four hundred million guns.

    1. Thank you, Denise for your comments and the correction. Yes, four hundred million guns.

  3. This book sounds fantastic! It will make a great pairing with SHAKING THINGS UP: 14 YOUNG WOMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD.

    I’m with you in frustration and sorrow over the state of our country’s political swamp.

    And here’s another small edit for your post — my name is Mary Lee, not Mary. Thanks!

  4. Thanks for highlighting this book, Janice, and for airing your sorrow and outrage. I’m here to suggest that really, in a democracy, there is nothing that is not political, including the practice of poetry–if you take as your definition of political “relating to the government or the public affairs of a country.” We live here, we write here, we empathize here, we fear here. Our poetry can express anything it needs to. Thank you for yours.

  5. Thank you for speaking out, Janice. Your thoughts are powerful because they come from the heart. You speak for many.

  6. Thanks for recommending this book, Janice. I’ve added it to my to be read shelf! And 400 million guns. Oh my god. I try to avoid political stuff on my blog too. Partially because I avoid confrontation and partially just because I need an escape from the bad news. Thank you for your powerful poem. Something about the art room and the coffee aisle… Those tangible spots made this poem something I could hold in my hand. Even when I don’t want to.

  7. Janice, many thanks for sharing this book and your research on the number of guns in America. It seems an outrageous number. There is so much violence happening in schools these days that it is hard to believe. I grieve for the parents who lost their little ones. It is so right that you speak out. Your poem is one to send to Washington.

  8. Janice, many thanks for sharing this book and your research on the number of guns in America. It seems an outrageous number. There is so much violence happening in schools these days that it is hard to believe. I grieve for the parents who lost their little ones. It is so right that you speak out. Your poem is one to send to Washington.

  9. I’ve read about some of these women, but not all, Janice. Thank you for sharing this new book. Yes, it is a sad time in the US, I agree. It feels as if we need to work very hard for changes, especially in the area of child safety. One of the saddest parts of my teaching was working with my students to do what would feel safe to them in lockdown and then talk to them after each mass shooting. I remember them all.

  10. Thank you for sharing your poem Janice. Personally, I’m glad you’re “getting political.” Though, the very idea that saying children’s lives are important and children should be protected from mass murder is “political” is horrific… and that in itself underscores the point of your post. We must take action as a nation to fight this epidemic of gun violence that leaves children afraid for their lives in art class.

  11. Thank you for this book recommendation and for speaking up about gun violence. I remember Columbine like it was yesterday and we have had so, so many tragedies since. I’ve been teaching the whole time. Each one is just horrific and terrifying. We have to do better.

  12. Thanks you for speaking out, Janice. I did an author visit at the Covenant School this time last year. I’m processing what has happened. I can’t understand how or why this country values guns more than children.

Comments are closed.