The outrages, for any person of conscience in the United States in the trump 2.0 era, almost come hourly. Many warned of a constitutional crisis were we to find ourselves in this situation. Disappearing non-violent citizens and tourists to for-profit gulags while key cabinet members demonstrate no familiarity with the concept of Habeas Corpus ought to tell you something. That right has an 800 year history, in the West. If poets respond to the thousands of these human rights violations and unconstitutional and cruel actions with rhetoric, it will get lost in the zone that has been, by design, “flooded with shit,” to quote a trump supporter and former confidant. Rhetoric is simply an ego response to an ego act, and I am partial to the poetics of Jack Spicer who famously wrote in the 1950s that, “The muse is patient with truth and commentary, as long as it doesn’t get into the poem.” It should also be noted poetry is unique among literary arts for being able to tap into the prophetic realm. In the words of George Quasha, “The prophetic sense is affirming the the oldest function of poetry, which is to interrupt the habits of ordinary consciousness by means of more precise and highly charged uses of language, and to provide new tools.” In this interview, four Winter in America (Again contributors discuss current events in a USAmerica gone mad. Allia Abdullah-Matta (also an editor on this anthology), Jim Dott, Dane Cervine, and Lorin Medley read their own poetry and considered the pitfalls inherent in such efforts.

To check out more work from Winter in America (Again contributors, find the book here.

Check out more of what the Lab does at https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or at https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/cascadian-prophets-podcast-2/.