The Chaos Section Poetry Project published my poem “The Exiled Colossus” on their site and in their new anthology, Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival. Thank you, Nick Allison and Rachel Armes-McLaughlin! Please visit the site and read other poems from the anthology.
The Exiled Colossus
A golden shovel* sonnet after “The New Colossus”
by Emma Lazarus
The suffering of people de-fame-d
and cast from this land
based on their skin color, not where they stand.
The would-be king, who speaks with flame-s
and double checks his list of name-s,
refuses refugees a hand.
Instead, he issues heartless command-s.
Without the the facts, DHS frame-s
Poet Renee Nicole Good, shot by ICE when she
drops off her school-age child. Now a poor
child with his mother! — Are foreigners no longer free
to safely seek refuge on our shore?
As for me—
Will I, too, be shown the door?
© Barbara Leonhard
*A golden shovel is a poem form created by the poet Terrance Hayes and inspired by Gwendolyn Brooks. Writer’s Digest published a good article on how to write a golden shovel.
Here are the rules for the Golden Shovel:
- Take a line (or lines) from a poem you admire.
- Use each word in the line (or lines) as an end word in your poem.
- Keep the end words in order.
- Give credit to the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines).
- The new poem does not have to be about the same subject as the poem that offers the end words.
For my golden shovel, I broke the rules and used the last words in each line from “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus. I used bold for the words I borrowed for my golden shovel.
The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
(Copied from The Poetry Foundation)
You can purchase the paperback version of Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival for under $10.00.
It’s cheaper on IngramSpark. More details are available at this link.
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