Chapin City Blues

There’s a post I have sat on for a few months now. A post that I am not sure if I should write. 

It started back when we lost Andrea Gibson, one of my favorite poets. The shock that I felt when I read the news. The way my emotions boiled. It was as if I lost a family member or friend. In their own words, Gibson didn’t want anyone to say they lost some battle, instead they said, “I’ll be a winner that day.”  

Their poetry helped heal something inside of me. Helped me become a better person. After years of hiatus, their words would inspire me to write poetry again. I remember Jenn, a pen pal from my days on LiveJournal first introduced me to their work. A recording on YouTube of their famed poem “I Do.”  

Whenever I could, I would introduce others to their works. At bring-your-own-book clubs, gift exchanges at work, and through my blog when I started my annual celebration of National Poetry Month.  

In 2023, I shared their poem “MAGA hat in the Chemo Room.” At a time when the country’s wounds were still healing, the poem reminded me why we write. Why our voices mattered when so much hate is being slung around in political discord. At a time when rightwing media fueled their war against queer and immigrant bodies, their words echoed in my head: My politics aren’t my politics. My politics are my soul and I’m not going anywhere without my soul. 

And I wonder if the pain I felt the day I learned of their passing is the same pain that those on the far right felt when they saw his death.  

When I heard the news of his death, I knew things were only going to get worse on their side. How the hatred he seeded for years would bloom in their hearts and they’ll continue their attacks on queer and immigrant people. And while they mourned—and they did mourn—they politicized his death, almost as if in celebration of it. It wasn’t his life’s work that motivated them, it was his death. They sold out an arena. They sold merch. They made it into a dictator’s rally. A call to arms.  

ICE agents on the street arresting anyone who doesn’t look like their definition of an American. The president (ab)using his powers to send military forces into American cities because he doesn’t like citizens using their First Amendment rights.  

It’s painful to watch.  

And I wonder what happens in the end.  

With attacks on education. Attacks on freedoms. Attacks on citizens. The political assignations of democratically elected individuals. How the president only fans the flames of hatred—I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.  

What the world needs now are more poets, more activists like Andrea Gibson. Like Assata Shakur. Like Gloria Anzaldúa.  

“and all they know of hate/is that it couldn’t beat the love out of me” 

“and all they know of hate/is that it couldn’t beat the love out of me”