“Sometimes language is all we have, and poetry has proven time and again to be a great equalizer, transformer, and community-builder. Especially during the pandemic, many people found shelter in poetry as a way to process personal and collective traumas. Poetry that offers sustenance or healing, or that inspires during a time of major upheaval, often has the power to bring people together, to initiate change, or to call forth action.” InspirationActionPoetryChangeCommunityHealingTraumaPoemsShelterSustenance Author:Aileen Cassinetto
“A lifespan, a split second That changes everything Carry each other The poet says, this matters More than anything” WritingPoetryPoemPoemsPoetsPoetics Author:Aileen Cassinetto
“To draw our borders, we needed more than firecakes. More than a pound of meat with bone and gristle, or salt fish and a gill of peas. We needed the faith and grit of people who were not yet Americans.” AmericaPoetryPoemImmigrantsAmericans Author:Aileen Cassinetto
“To be an American is to recognize the sacrifice of the widow and the orphan; it is to understand the weft of tent cities expecting caravans, and the heft of a child in a camp not meant for children, or sitting before a judge awaiting judgement. What do we say to the native whose lands we now inhabit? What do we say to our immigrant fathers who held certain truths to be self-evident? Do we now still pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. There are no kings in America. Only gilded men we can topple again and again.” AmericaPoetryDemocracySacrificeKingsPoemImmigrantsNative AmericansFounding Fathers Author:Aileen Cassinetto