Author’s Note: Protests in Mexico this summer brought teachers and the government into battle, ultimately killing nine teachers. The situation isn’t easy or clear to figure out–on either side–but this seems like something a modern Countee Cullen would write about. The New York Times: Clashes Draw Support for Teachers’ Protest in Mexico

“Oaxaca, Too, Is Worth Its Song”

by Christina M., with thanks to Countee Cullen

I said:
Now will the poets sing, –
Their cries go thundering
Como las voces abandonando
Into las orejas del mundo,
Like leaders blind
Into the world’s mind.
Against ignorance and pride and all things fell And war,
Their strophes rise and swell
To jar
The foe smug in his citadel
Remembering their strength and energy
In tunes for boasting memory,
I said:
here too’s a cause actualidad
For those whose eyes are sobre la verdad
Here in epitome
Is all disgrace
And epic wrong,
Like a fire to brace
The minstrel heart, and blare it into song.
Surely, I said,
Now will the poets sing.
But they have raised no cry.
I wonder why