Lift Every Voice

Photo by Mark Wallace Maguire for Fayette Life & Biz

Revolution is never convenient.
Sometimes it arrives too fast
or agonizingly slow.
It’s being televised, incentivized,
trivialized, transmogrified –
from the news cycle spin
to hashtag hagiography.
Truth is elusive in the thrum,
the drumbeat of division
on a loop, on a loop, on a loop.
These are days of whetting
your instinct, sharp enough
to feel in your gut and then
cut through bone. Sacrifice
will be required to bind up
the division, to stand firm
against revision and rendition.
Your voice, every voice,
 must repudiate the darkness
that threatens to drown the light.
Revolution comes.
Are you ready?


This poem was commissioned by Christeen Snell, the director of the Fayette County Public Library and my longtime friend and collaborator, for the 20th annual Blended Heritage Festival held on Feb. 23. I have had the pleasure of writing the majority of the "theme" poems for this special event. Every year, it's a standing room only crowd enjoying a diverse evening of literature, music and dance. Thanks to Christeen, public services librarian Sarah Trowbridge and the Friends of the Fayette County Public Library.