Infoxicated Corner Political Punch Poems By Jessica Reidy

On September 5, 2014, NPR ran an essay by critic Juan Vidal titled, "Where Have All the Poets Gone?" which suggested that American poets no longer write political work. Because I find this assessment of contemporary American letters to be very incomplete, I wanted to take the opportunity to create a dialogue on the subject by curating a series of compelling political poems from contemporary American poets. I christened this series "Political Punch" as an affectionate reflection on the cocktail of poets who decided to honor me with their participation in my little Infoxicated Corner; it was intended to celebrate the glorious mix of poetics, voices, and life experiences all being shaken and stirred into a sense of community and conversation, being distilled into burning gulps of experience for the reader. Leaving aside all the boozed-up metaphors, it was also intended to celebrate my experience of American letters, in all their willingness and ability to pack a political punch. These two poems, by Jessica Suzanne Reidy, meld a thoughtful representation of the Romani historical narrative -- layered with centuries of suffering, bigotry, and injustice -- with images of grace, and the power of authenticity. Enjoy! MURDER AND TRADITION Violetta and Cristina, Gypsy girlsselling jewelry on the strandwere led into the sea, and screameduntil they drowned. Waves rolled the bodies in;lifeguards laid them on bright towelsin the sand. 70 indifferent bathers ate sandwiches,unwrapped their sweets, chatted, sippedsoft drinks beside the sopping corpseson Torregaveta beach, near the "Gypsy camps"in Naples, torched the previous week. Those Gypsy girls would not have swumwhere modesty forbade, but Italian authoritieswaved off the darker plots, blamed the Gypsiesinstead, the way they often do-for centuries it's been the lightby which gadj'e strike their match,soak handkerchiefs in kerosene, lob the bottles at grieving familiesand thus disperse their need. TRANSFIGURATION OF THE BLACK MADONNA (EXCERPTED FROM "ZENITH") "Gypsy Goddess; Gypsy Saint"Black Madonna, full of snakes, let your crescent down. Wield the sickle, rush the milk, and salt the serpents' mouths. Golden bangles, black milk snakes-these adorn your arms. Blue sky cloth cut for (you) Sarah, Sarah Black, Madonna Shadow, cut for goddess saint of wanderers, cut predestined, cut of chaos, cut the star palm bowls. Slip the feathers under scales and reform the body whole. You were a slave who sailed the chasm, sailed the sea and sun. Persecution sprang a river from the monster: milk, and spit, and blood. In the monster lived a woman and the woman's soul-you wore her face and wore her tresses spun from black snake gold-golden teeth and golden brow, golden tail and root. The milk snakes split their nests and fled and now your mouth is ruined. There is no birth, there is no death, there's only mutant growth, and milk snakes dyeing Sarah's skin with heaps and heaps of gold. There is no sickle, there is no moon, there is no blood or salt. There's only Sarah sailing through the dream in which she's caught. Jessica Reidy is a mixed-Romani (Gypsy) heritage writer from New Hampshire. She earned her MFA in Fiction at Florida State University and a B.A. from Hollins University. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart, and has appeared in "Narrative Magazine" as Short Story of the Week, "The Los Angeles Review", "Arsenic Lobster", and other journals. She's a staff-writer and Outreach Editor for for Quail Bell Magazine, Managing Editor for VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, and Art Editor for The Southeast Review. She also teaches creative writing, yoga, and sometimes dance. Jessica is currently working on her first novel, "Zenith", set in post-WWII Paris. It is about Coco, a half-Romani burlesque dancer and fortune teller of Zenith Circus, who becomes a Nazi hunter.