I never thought anyone would have the guts to publish this collection of five poems or a five-part poem written in five days in June 2020. Robert Paul Cesaretti proved me wrong! Ginosko is King! This is spicy hot stuff, lots of raw political opinion and sentiment. As I wrote this I was angry, it shows.
Maybe this is not just a poem sequence but also an historical document. We need more people telling what it's like right as it's happening because looking back always takes the sting out of a moment. Young people can read about or see films about: Kennedy's assassination, King's I have a dream speech, the moon landing, the Beatles coming to America, the Vietnam War, the No Nukes movement, Watergate, the AIDS epidemic, Gay Rights movement and a hundred other things that if you were there, if you lived through it, you get it, you still feel it, otherwise it's lifeless. Now journalists debate Nixon and his presidency in a blahblah bothsides way, for us he was the Devil! The Devil! So poets get to work, write what's happening right now. Be angry, find brave publishers like Robert Paul Cesaretti and Ginosko. We'll need the record when we're old.
I posted online my 100 daily outbursts written during total lockdown here in Sicily as the QUARANTINE CHRONICLES, and these five are about the period directly following that. We were afraid, I was afraid, to go out, to do anything, the virus was still rampant. It was also the period leading up to the US elections and also the time of the George Floyd murder / BLACK LIVES MATTER protests. It felt overwhelming and still does.
Quiz: what book/series of poems was I reading when I wrote section 5? Winner gets a free book.
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