On July 24, a federal judge in Detroit continued to block the deportation of more than 1,400 Iraqi nationals, many of whom are Christians and could face intolerance and even execution should they be returned to their homeland. This week, Florida Poet Laureate and regular CL columnist Peter Meinke turns to poetry to express his reaction to the treatment of immigrants at the hands of the current U.S. administration. —Ed.
“Immigration Arrests Stun Iraqis in Michigan Who Fled Over Christian Faith”
(Headline in the New York Times, July 5, 2017, pg. 1)
God of our Fathers
In God We Trust may disappoint
Iraqi Christians in Detroit
now getting tossed like bric-a-brac
on boats to Baghdad an attack
unChristian mean and paranoid
They trusted us because they joined
and took to heart our bills and coins
that stamp across their front or back
In God We Trust
How can we fight those who exploit
the poor and dispossessed? Let’s point
ten million fingers at this hack
who grins and tweets with heart burned black
(then kicks and grabs them in the groin):
‘In God we trust!’
—I’ve been experimenting with old poetic forms, like the villanelle (“One Year Later,” in CL’s June 8 issue) and the rondeau (above), seeing if this would be an effective way to write about politics, tamping down and controlling the anger. This is a Poet’s Notebook, after all. The rondeau’s most famous example is “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae (1872-1918).