HAPPY 200TH BIRTHDAY WALT!

“Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.”

—Walt Whitman (from “Song of Myself”)

ANOTHER FAVORITE QUOTE FROM WALT WHITMAN (IN HONOR OF THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH, MAY 31ST 1819)

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and the crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body..."
—Walt Whitman (from the preface to the 1855 edition of LEAVES OF GRASS)

ANOTHER FAVORITE OLD QUOTE (IN HONOR OF THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF WALT WHITMAN''S BIRTH)

"...and then I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way."  —Walt Whitman (from Specimen Days)

MEMORIAL DAY

As I understand it, and experienced it as a kid, Memorial Day is when we honor those in the military who died in wars. A lot of folks confuse it with Veterans Day, which is in November (originally Armistice Day celebrating the end of World War One, the war to end war) and honors all veterans, even those, like me, who never saw combat. In thinking today about those mostly young "warriors" who died in wars, I can't help but focus on the lives they still had ahead of them that never were, and the contributions they might have made to our world. What a tragic waste of potential.

YESTERDAY

Spent my birthday yesterday morning and afternoon with my two sons, Miles (who said something to make me laugh in the selfie of all three of us in the kitchen of my apartment) and Flynn (who's goofing, which I'm reacting to, in the shot Miles took of us at "brunch"...

POETS

Shot of me with Bette Bland, Rachel E. Diken, and John White (who blew us all away) after reading (and reciting) our poetry at the Orange NJ Music City Festival last Saturday. [photo by Lori Sutherland, I think]

MUHLAYSIA BOOKER R.I.P.

I didn't know Muhlaysia Booker personally. But her death has broken my heart in so many more ways than even the deaths of close friends and family members. Because she embodies all that I have written and demonstrated and fought to defend in the struggle for equal rights for all.

Not only was she obviously a beautiful young woman, but a transgender woman of color, the most likely segment of our population to suffer violence at the hands of mostly men, but unfortunately often with the support of some women.

Muhlaysia suffered an excruciatingly violent beating not long ago that was captured on video, which I find impossible to watch all the way through and even only seconds of watching unfortunately inspires in me a violent response, including fantasies of vigilantism, like beating the beater to as close to death as humanly possible. Now, Muhlaysia has been found shot to death (not that long after the beating, but after the beater had been released from jail!).

The police at the moment I'm writing have no suspect in custody, nor as far as I know have they announced any suspects (the beater has disappeared, which should create some idea of who might be a likely suspect). The saddest aspect of this for me is that the men beating Muhlasyia and the women egging them on were, like Muhlaysia, African-American.

The deep-seated fear and disdain and even hysteria that too many men and women have in response to transgender women (and men, but women in particular), is too often reinforced by just about every social norm as expressed in entertainment and news (how often do these murders, let alone beatings, appear in any news you pay attention to?) and everyday conversations and interactions.

Time for a broad movement to defend and support transgender women.