Tag: amandagorman

Knitting · Spirituality

Red Hat Resilience

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blue house with snow, Minnesota flag and wintery morning sun

In August 2024, I bought a Minnesota state flag to hang on our Kutzky Park front porch.  It was a point of pride that my Governor was a vice-presidential candidate.  I unfurled the flag again on that frigid Saturday last month, the day of the first of reoccurring ICE out of Minnesota NOW! marches.  This time the flag on our front porch is a subtle sign of protest on a quiet street in a new neighborhood but also a sign of resilience; proud that Minnesota residents will not be bullied.

Like you, I am experiencing the challenge of how to watch the news and yet stay sane.  How to be aware of the life and death actions happening in our community and just a few miles up the road, and around the country, as well as celebrate how good people are coming together.  Since it is easy to get caught up in the onslaught of news, I am trying to avoid the trap of doomscrolling.  As you know, that is tough when the most basic of American tenants are dismantled before our eyes.  When those principles – literally written in stone – “Give me your tired and your poor…” are discarded. 

I limit my morning routine to checking several reliable news sources but then shift to the arts – knitting sometime during each day and a daily dose of poetry, a gentle salve for a bruised soul.  Simple words on paper (or a screen) that capture the complexity of modern emotions.  There are times when the Poetry Foundation’s Poem for the Day is a good fit while other days, I dig a little deeper often returning to the words of former poet laureates Joy Harjo, Ted Kooser, or Amanda Gorman. 

Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet, an award-winning author, a banned book author, is an accomplished writer who captured our angst within hours of the murder of Renee Nicole Good and again after the fatal shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti.  Her words honoring Renee Good reminded us:

Change is only possible,
& all the greater,
When the labour
& bitter anger of our neighbors 
Is moved by the love
& better angels of our nature.

Some mornings, I listen as her lyrical voice recites poignant words that go with the quiet flow of fiber through my fingers; a meditative quality of one stitch after another, moving from skein to project to finished item which, at the moment, are red Melt the ICE hats.

I am an early participant in today’s red hat phenomenon.  You may have heard how the owner of a small yarn store in St. Louis Park wanted to re-create the visual impact of the sea of pink hats seen worldwide at rallies in 2016.  The design draws on Minnesota’s Norwegian heritage and that country’s resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II

The Norwegian Resistance Museum in Lillehammer has on display red beanies from that era and copies of the Nazi alert forbidding anyone, under threat of punishment, from possessing a red hat, regardless of age.  Red hats have become a worldwide statement.  Over 100,000 copies of the pattern have been sold to crafters in 43-countries and over $650,000 has been distributed to metro area non-profits supporting immigrants.

Today, whether we march, or sing, or knit, let’s follow Bruce Springsteen’s call to “take a stand for this land and the stranger in our midst.”  Words that universally resonate and are making this new anthem a number one song in countries around the world. May love unfurl and lead us wherever we go:  into the streets, into caucuses or voting booths, at public meetings or any place where love creates community, justice, art – and into a practice that makes the fibers of our hope into something strong enough to give us warmth, shelter, and resilience – much like red Melt the ICE beanies.

Reading

For Renee Nicole Good

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When the incomprehensible occurs (again) on a Minneapolis street, maybe the only solace can be found in poetry. The creative genius of Amanda Gorman provides gentle salve for my bruised soul.

For Renee Nicole Good 
Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026
 
by Amanda Gorman 

They say she is no more, 
That there her absence roars, 
Blood-blown like a rose. 
Iced wheels flinched & froze. 
Now, bare riot of candles, 
Dark fury of flowers, 
Pure howling of hymns. 

If for us she arose, 
Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief, 
Crouches our power, 
The howl where we begin, 
Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater 
Of the worst of what we’ve been. 

Change is only possible, 
& all the greater, 
When the labour 
& bitter anger of our neighbors 
Is moved by the love  
& better angels of our nature. 

What they call death & void, 
We know is breath & voice;  
In the end, gorgeously,  
Endures our enormity.  

You could believe departed to be the dawn 
When the blank night has so long stood. 
But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone, 
When they forever are so fiercely Good.
Reading

A Gathering of Poetry | October 2024

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Every time I hear Amada Gorman read her poetry I shiver with inspiration.  To be so young and yet so eloquent.  This past summer in Chicago, during the Democratic National Convention, she walked proudly unto the stage and laid this challenge before each of us: 

This Sacred Scene

We gather at this hollowed place because we believe in the American dream.

We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the Earth, and if our earth shall perish from this country.

It falls to us to ensure that we do not fall for a people that cannot stand together, cannot stand at all.

We are one family, regardless of religion, class or color. For what defines a patriot is not just our love of liberty, but our love for one another.

This is loud in our country’s call, because while we all love freedom, it is love that frees us all.

Empathy emancipates, making us greater than hate or vanity. That is the American promise, powerful and pure. Divided, we cannot endure but united, we can endeavor to humanize our democracy and endear democracy to humanity.

And make no mistake, cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote, but tomorrow is not written by our odds of hardship, but by the audacity of our hope, by the vitality of our vote.

Only now, approaching this rare air, are we aware that perhaps the American Dream is no dream at all, but instead a dare to dream together.

Like a million roots tethered, branching up humbly, making one tree, this is our country. From many, one; from battles won; our freedoms sung; our kingdom come has just begun.

We redeem this sacred scene. Ready for our journey. From it together, we must birth this early republic and achieve an unearthly summit. Let us not just believe in the American dream. Let us be worthy of it.

© 2024 Amanda Gorman

Check the Gathering of Poetry pages shared by Bonnie and Kat for more October verses.

Spirituality

Draw the Circle Wide

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I cannot remember the conference city or the name of the hotel lobby bar where I joined my friend for a late afternoon glass of wine but, even after all these decades, my memory of our discussion is clear.  My friend Estelle arrived agitated and ready to resign from a prestigious committee.  As I tried to discover what had caused her distress, she kept telling me I would not understand.  I, of course, argued I would.  Finally, she said “I am tired of being responsible for representing an entire race of people.”  And she had been right, I didn’t understand. 

Even when serving as the sole female on an otherwise all male committee, no one thought I spoke for all women.  But Estelle was constantly expected to speak for all people of color.  As a talented black woman, often the only person of color in a sea of white, she was put in that untenable situation; expected to know of the needs of an entire community as if the rich, complexity of life was a simple monolith and she held the key. 

There is a challenge within every cultural exploration; to learn and celebrate the beauty of that which is different without inadvertently co-opting a tradition not our own.  To not to fall into that misguided complacency that created such stress for my friend.  While I can revel in the lyrical quality of an Amanda Gorman poem; agonize over the brutal reality of black life in white America as portrayed in a cinematic adaptation of an August Wilson play; even get caught up in a who-dun-it following Walter Mosley’s infamous detective Easy Rawlins through the grime and glitter of LA, I must remember – whether fiction or fact – that those descriptions are just a brief glimpse into lives different from my own.

The challenge is to appreciate the uniqueness of each person’s life, to recognize that each difference in upbringing, family food tradition, or the myriad of diverse life choices that make a whole person, is to recognize that the opportunities for personal growth are endless.  That with each book I read, movie I see, or story that I hear, I only hold a very small thread in a rich tapestry of another’s experience.