Speak Poetry to Power
I have gathered the following poems I’ve written (many posted online) in response to our current political challenges, some to simply cheery myself up, some to reframe our predicament, some to urge action for the restoration of the good. The first poems here are accompanied by writing prompts, should you be moved to write some poems of your own in reply to what we face.
I have to start with a poem by Du Fu, reminding me that this effort has been with us for some time.
Kim Stafford
At the Fishtrap Gathering in NE Oregon
June 2026
[A political/personal poem from the Tang Dynasty]
It is not that I lack the desire to live beside rivers
and among hills,
hearing the wind scatter leaves, watching
the rain breed fish;
but the thought of disproportion in public affairs
offends my sense of rhythm, and disposes me
to expend the passion that normally takes form
in song and painting,
on matters of administrative interest.
Knowing that all things have their intrinsic nature
I imitate the whale
that perpetually aspires to change the currents of the sea.
Torn by contradictory thoughts, I drink deep.
—Du Fu, c. 750
And here are some poems I've written in response to news and other forms of apprehension. Many of these poems have been posted at www.instagram.com/kimstaffordpoetry
Moderate Republican
(Republican moderari)
Conservation status: endangered. Keystone
species. Identification marks: civility, curiosity,
virtue, ability to entertain symbiotic relations,
exhibiting variant traits within a collective
profile, known to thrive in diverse niches
(alpine, urban, coastal, riparian, rural, upland
steppe). Increasingly rare across its original
range. Threatened by an invasive subspecies
now dominant in most prime habitats. Though
data is limited, recent surveys suggest scattered
local populations are often found in hiding,
increasingly nocturnal due to attrition when
exposed. Top priority for re-introduction to
multiple environments to restore the overall
health of the fragile, global biosphere.
Prompt: Take a phrase that’s common in the news
and explore what else it could mean.
How I Stay Informed
I get my news from trees—headlines
all about green, with deeper detail
rooted below the fold. Receive my
commentary from birds—all singing
top issues each dawn, with long-term
considerations. The weather page
reports the dance of storm and calm.
In sports, in its latest bout with humans,
the sky defends her title. In the style
section, I witness beetle’s prance with
iridescent carapace, resplendent moth
in sashay toward the moon. In community
events: the geese have flown, and trees
are turning gold (their leaves trembling
as fire comes.) But from our editor,
Water, I learn the politics of peace
Prompt: Where do you get your news?
One Way to Make Change
When he was single years ago, my
Anglo friend Jack wrote to L.L. Bean
to say, My wife and I are Black, and
we don’t see Black folks in your catalog—
would it be okay if we ordered a sweater
anyway? A letter came back that said,
Our models are from here in Freeport,
where there aren’t many Black people,
but yes, please, you would be welcome.
And the next season, in the catalog,
both a Black woman and a Black man
smiled straight at Jack, as he leaned easy
in his rocker, pondering what next action
he might undertake to nudge the world.
Prompt: Write about a solo act of your own to make change.
State of the Union
Maybe I missed something—was there
mention of the Union? Was there some
attention to unity, the power of all working
together? Maybe I missed the part about
gratitude, and hunger, and the struggle to
get by for many among us. Maybe I missed
the “yearning to breathe free” reference, or
the part about how Earth is our only home,
and only community can make us great again.
I know it went long, and maybe there wasn’t
time to say how hope in the hearts of our
young people is our most precious resource.
So, our question: What shall we do about that?
Prompt: Write your own commentary on a public event.
Fact Check
(AP) In a major reversal from past practice, news
outlets will begin checking speeches, executive
orders, and proclamations to report when they find
accuracy and basic truth. “Lies aren’t news anymore,”
said one reporter, off the record. “You have to dig
to find what’s real.” In what one editor called
“a prospecting approach,” the new goal in reviewing
political discourse will be to discover nuggets, or even
dust of the authentic. “When you find it,” he said,
“even a little glint can be blinding. However scant,”
he whispered “truth is still gold.” One correspondent,
who wished to remain nameless, said she will tunnel
to find any seam of buried truth, or resort to an open-pit
approach, removing mountains of political overburden
to reveal fact. “In this brave new world,” she said,
“truth is so precious it is traded on the NYSE.
Futures are down, but investors are poised.”
Prompt: Compose your own news story.
While We Speak of Politics
Was that a blur of hummingbird?
While we speak of politics, the air
glimmers bright with pollen. While
we speak of politics, two goldfinches f
lash their wheel from shadows into sunlit
slant and gone. What is real beyond
one miracle, another? Sunset ravishes
the sea seething yellow into crimson
as our voices fade. Dusk velvets
the pines. From their heap of briar,
small birds sound their intricate
and silver chime.
Prompt: Write about what else is happening
besides politics.
So Still
—a song for vigil
They took Eric for a cigarette. They took George
for a twenty dollar bill. Breonna is gone ’cause they
didn’t like her door. Who will be the next to lie
so still?
They took Ahmed for running. They took Laquan because
he walked away. They took Trayvon ’cause he was lookin’ ’round.
Wrong time, wrong place, is all they say.
They took Emmett for a whistle. They took Medgar
for a word. They took Martin ’cause they didn’t like his dream.
Again, they said, it’s time that dream’s deferred.
So still, did they kill you for a thrill? So still, in your casket,
so silent, and so chill. They took away your laughter, let us keep
our tears. They took you in your troubles, in your tender years.
They took you for your color, that’s how it appears. And when will we
decide true justice to fulfill, before we make another
lie so still?
Prompt: Take some names from the news and write a meditation,
a song for vigil.
Joint Session of Congress
After a few tokes, it all began to change—
Mitch cracked a joke from the Kentucky hills
to break the ice, and Chuck told his version
from the Catskills that made everyone
hoot and holler. Blue smoke rose and
someone flicked on the disco light that
made Ted, singing a corrido he’d learned
in Laredo, become a harmless uncle, and
that made Marco cry, as Nancy got them all
in order to learn her favorite line dance:
Boy-Girl-Boy-Girl, she called out with a giggle,
as from the gallery the Marine Band poured down
New Orleans jazz, and they all let the good times roll.
Prompt: Take a phrase from the news and begin to play.
The Supremes
They used to be so great—that string of hits
in the fifties, sixties, seventies? Off the charts.
Their work set a precedent others followed.
When they got unanimous, their harmonies
changed us. You felt a hum everywhere
that came from them. A new kind of freedom
flowed over the land. That one about kids
in school, the one about woman power.
Holy moly, when they held court, they were
on a roll. You didn’t need anyone’s judgment call—
they were tops. But I guess it couldn’t last. They
got some new blood, started doing covers by
splinter groups, lost their mojo. Some died,
some went solo. You couldn’t really call them
The Supremes any more. They stopped setting
the beat. No more anthems, just echoes.
Prompt: Is there a connection between a song or singer
and what is happening now?
This Conversation May Be Recorded
for Quality Assurance
I’m glad somebody cares
when I call customer service
to ask about my last billing cycle, and
get a woman in India with a lovely accent,
her voice freighted by satellite to sort
my payment: “How can I help you?”
And after we delve into enigma, beyond
our conversation, somewhere later, far away,
someone else prepares to listen, for quality
assurance, perhaps a mother in North Carolina
trying to make ends meet, or an immigrant
in Chicago moonlighting to send money home.
Think of it—we send our voices to mingle
out there beyond this great emptiness, speaking
our oldest human contract—“Can I help?”…
and then, alert to the timbre of a human voice,
someone attends to how certain syllables may assure
the quality of our essential bond.
Prompt: Take a phrase from current discourse and explore
what else it might mean.
Child in the Corn Field
Once, sorting mail, out of the blue came a poem
from a man who takes his sleepless newborn son
for a drive in the wee hours, and when his baby sleeps,
he writes little human stories under
a streetlight where all is quiet.
So I wrote him back, and we discussed poetry
and infancy and virtues of the very early morning
until for what he perceived as my kindness, he
wrote me about his sister, who had been a soldier
in Afghanistan.
And so I wrote to her about the importance of her
brother’s poetry, and she sent me a small collection
of her own—poems about what goes on even
as war goes on: the chance life of children.
And from inside her book fell a postcard of a child
in a corn field, somewhere high above the fighting
and I cried, looking out at the haze of trouble
beyond this moment of golden stillness
where our future stood alone.
Prompt: Tell a sequence of learning in your local experience.
New House Rules
In order to get beyond impasse,
Congress has replaced debate
with a listener’s furthering response:
You sound upset…
I see…that makes sense…
Tell me more about that…
I’m sad to hear your pain…
Let me see if I’m understanding…
How does this make you feel?
Have you felt this way before?
Say again what you just said —
I need to understand.
How can I help?
Prompt: Write a prescription for how you think
national affaires might be better practiced.
Oregon Dawn in Spite of the News
Before I can get to the day’s statistics—so
many stricken, so many dead—I’m summoned
by the birds raising a ruckus outside, crows
and jays in festive outrage, chirrr and aria
from the little brown birds, the mournful
dove, the querulous towhee, rusty starlings
in their see-saw mutter, and a woodpecker
flicker hammering the gutter staccato.
On the porch, I’m assaulted by the merciless
scent of trees opening their million flowers
as I inhale the deep elixir of hazel, hawthorn,
maple, and oh those shameless cherry trees.
And just when I’ve almost recovered
my serious moment, I gasp, helpless to see
the full queen moon sidling down
through a haze of blossoms.
Prompt: Tell what is beautiful in spite of all.
Pandemic Coffee
Restoration Ritual
A heaping dose of darkness,
a narrow pour of light,
a ringing spoon of silver
transforming wrong to right.
Deep inside the darkness
let a glimmer be revealed,
a slender path ahead
to where we will be healed.
Dark and light together—
loving how they swirled.
Now you’ve had your coffee,
go repair the world.
Prompt: My poem someone taped inside the elevator at the hospital.
Presidential Alert
THIS IS A TEST
of the National Wireless
Emergency Alert System
No action is needed
This is your President speaking
Please take no action
This is only a test
Please remain calm
and silent
The National Wireless
is invisible and everywhere
Please take no action
No need to be alert
Who says this is an Emergency?
Just because I have your number
No action is needed
This is only a test
of what I can do
if I choose
No action is needed
Please be silent
I am in favor of no action
No need to be alert
THIS IS A TEST
Prompt: Make some minor adjustments to an official message.
Poems for you to use with your own prompts...
Preamble
We the people, and we the other people, in order
to seek Union or live by Discord, promote Justice
or engineer Injustice, confirm domestic Peace or
design Strife, provide for common Safety or advance
Danger, foster general Welfare or sharpen class
Divisions, and secure the Blessings of Liberty, if
only for some, not others, unto posterity, do hereby
ordain this broken Paradigm for the great old U.S.A.
And we the trees in order to be a forest, we the seas
in order to swirl in our usual and accustomed ways,
we the children in order to secure a future, we the wild
diversity of Eden in order to thrive, various and beautiful,
do hereby beg you, divided nation, to be wise and one.
Shadow Government of the Young
Just look around—they’re everywhere
pretending to not be in charge of us.
They let us puppets strut and proclaim,
play house in the halls of power, hunch
and posture in our smoke-filled rooms
repeating all the old lies about how
the way it’s been is the way it has to be.
All the while the young make plans
for their quiet take-over, imminent
restoration of life principles replacing
our long subversion of the good with
money and guns, habits of war and
greed, denial of lives beyond our own.
Before them, we will melt away.
New Age of Grimm
Chapter 1
Once upon a time great trouble came
to the land of plenty. The old king had
died, and the new king cared only for
wealth and power, not the people, so
many were hungry, and many afraid.
Far from the palace, there lived two
orphans, a girl and a boy, whose parents
had been captured and carried away
by order of the king. When they had
sold their possessions one by one, and
eaten the last of the bread, the girl
said, “We must set forth to seek
food and friendship at the mercy
of strangers,” and the boy agreed.
So hand in hand, singing softly,
off they went into the dark wood.
Proverbs for Our Time
“El que calla otorga” (If silent, you have agreed), said the grandmother, when her family feared the tyrant. He is too strong, and we are weak, they said. “Con la vara que midas, “she said,” serás medido” (The stick you measure with will measure you). When they waited instead of being brave, she said “Hay que aprender a perder, para empezar a jugar” (You must learn to lose to begin to play). “He hurts us,” they said, but she replied, “Un clavo saca otro clavo” (One grief cures another). “How can we walk into danger?” they said. “El serpiente,” she said, “solo pica el que anda descalsos” (The snake only bites the one who walks barefoot). “We have lost to him,” they said. “Tan dejado en el mano de Diós,” she said (Lost, in the hand of God). “If we stay still, they said, “maybe this will pass us by.” “Camerón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente” (The shrimp that sleeps the current carries away).
The Syllable Yes
Birds all say it singing. Rising,
the sun says it. With birth, God
says it. First breath, last—say it.
Say it, hasty river. Oh bee, say it
with honey. Say it with your open
arms. Say it by forgiveness. Say it,
kiss and loving look. Say it skipping,
striding. Say it laughing at all
the No. In a dark time, say it: Yes.
The Border
No cruzé la frontera—
la frontera me cruzó a mí.
“I didn’t cross the border,” says the emigrant,
“the border crossed me.” The line is ahead,
then underfoot, then far behind. You leave
home, you travel, you arrive. This happens
every day: you are baffled, you sort your
thoughts, you speak. Fledglings grow their
feathers, spread their wings, then from the nest
on high, they leap. Baby turtles crack the shell,
paddle across the sand, then enter the sea.
“That’s far enough,” the mother says, but
the child goes farther, farther. “I’ve heard
enough,” says the father, but the child keeps
thinking, wondering, guessing in hope.
All our lives we practice crossing over.
Never enough rehearsal, but there you go.
Executive Branch: The Show
Start writing the script now while the material
is so abundant and fresh. Shall it be crime drama?
A musical? A big production with major savings
by casting extras in lead roles? Or maybe a thriller-
comedy hybrid built on villainy and screwball
mishaps almost beyond belief? Or shall we skip
the whole production hassle, and let it play out
in real time on the screen of history? People are
already binge-watching as new episodes drop,
come streaming, come screaming to the screen.
People are already talking about an Emmy for
original drama…or is it trauma? For script…
or is it norms flipped, thought skipped, good
stripped, voters whipped, and future clipped?
Calling Home
How can we kill them—they look like us.
—soldier in Ukraine
An old man, who limped like uncle Alexi, stumbled,
and we shot him. He had a gun, yes, but he wore
a cap like the one you knit for me. One wore a coat
like father’s, we shot him off a bridge into the river.
When I shot one running into the forest, his hands
flew up like brother Oleg, twitching. I remember
grandfather Sasha shouting when he was disturbed
too early, before his tea. Here a greybeard shouted
as we passed, and my commander shot him on his
doorstep. One my age, when he was hit, cried out
“Arina!” Who will have to tell her? If I die, who
will tell you? I can’t sleep—I see these faces
everywhere. When my gun is cold, I am afraid.
When it is hot, I am ashamed. What will happen
to children here, like our Slava, our Ksenia?
And if I live, after I have a hero’s welcome,
tell me, mother, after you hold me
in your arms, what will happen to me?
Thinking about Poets in Myanmar
while Pulling Thistles
You may have tough gloves, an iron fist
to blunt the thorns that prick your wrist,
tickle your mind. We have deep roots.
Your only tool is a blade to pry one root,
then another from stones and earth.
We are millions, millions.
Count on your fingers the roots you have
dug up. Burn them. Study your heap of ash.
Tell yourself that’s it.
But miss one, we’ll send seeds, millions
to settle on your shoulders, in your hair,
in mud on your boots. And look—
everywhere—new thistles underfoot.
The Flavor of Unity
El sabor que nos hace unidos.
The flavor that makes us one cannot be bought
or sold, does not belong to a country, cannot
enrich the rich or be denied to the poor.
The flavor that makes us one emanates from the earth. A butterfly can find it, a child in a house
of grass, exiles coming home at last to taste wind
off the sea, rain falling into the trees, mist rising
from home ground.
The flavor that makes us one we must feed
to one another with songs, kind words, and
human glances across the silent square.
Practicing the Complex Yes
When you disagree with a friend,
a stranger, or a foe, how do you
reply but not say simply No?
For No can stop the conversation
or turn it into argument or worse —
the conversation that must go on, as a river
must, a friendship, a troubled nation.
So may we practice the repertoire
of complex yes:
Yes, and in what you say I see...
Yes, and at the same time...
Yes, and what if...?
Yes, I hear you, and how...?
Yes, and there’s an old story...
Yes, and as the old song goes...
Yes, and as a child told me once...
Yes. Yes, tell me more. I want to understand...
and then I want to tell you
how it is for me.
Inmate Calls Home
Mom, I been all night worried—
this virus thing, they say it gets everywhere.
So don’t go out, okay? Get food, sit tight.
Read. Just read. You like that. Make calls.
Not like visits, I know. You love those friends.
Nights, I hear you tell them things, in my mind.
Mom, I been worried—cabin fever. Yeah, here
on the inside we’re used to that. Lots of practice.
Time crawls like a broken dancer, you watch it.
But Mom, what you gonna do with all that time?
No visits, no go where you want, no bench
in that park you like.
Nights, Mom, no worry. No you worry,
okay? Me, I’m good. I’m so good.
Shakespeare Gives No Call-Back
to an Aging Actor
Thou hath vice and villainy, rich and plenty.
Thou canst strut and fret as a crow at carrion,
or a mewling child denied. I could see thee
as a man of walls and towers, haughty in reserve,
a terror to maids and suckling babes. But thy speech
is twittering, thy pride barren. Thy heart hungers vainly
for that villainous pallor I could fashion to fright
groundlings groveling for thy scraps of anguish,
and also chill those dressed in lace and scarlet fine.
Alas, thy posturings are hollow, thy ravings crowded
thick with shallow words. Thou art no Macbeth
or Lear, couldst not rise to a singing rage, nor go mad
and wander pelted by a storm of sorrows. For all
thy promise, thou couldst not drive my quill, spattering
in fevered haste to pin thee living to the page.
But be not downcast. Have this life. I’ll leave thee
with this consolation small: in some speech, perhap,
rolling from the tongue of a swaggerer, thou shalt be a tale
told swiftly of one who had his brittle time in power, who
would be king, but then was found to be a man.
Savor thy dignity in this, and act well thy part.
American Crazy Quilt
To stitch together old glory right
for these times that try men’s souls some
blues Betsy might piece choice scraps
like I cannot tell a lie about the melting pot
to set beside John Henry’s hammer ringing
twinkle, twinkle little bombs bursting in air,
where oh say can you see, oh beautiful
for spacious operation enduring freedom
is a mission accomplished after Enola Gay’s
day of infamy over there is why we hold
these truths to be as long as the rivers shall run,
as in many one homeland security our great
national nightmare has been lynched, and
the only good Indian reservation system
boarding schools taught the golden spike
as manifest destiny, because the sea of buffalo
homestead act planted the flag in the woods
are lovely dark doodle dandy veteran sang
my old Kentucky to mean ask not what mine
eyes have seen the glory of the separate but
equal right to choose our trespasses frankly,
my dear, the plums were so sweet, but if you
can’t lick ’em join the mob to survive the great
depression, even though roses are red, violets
are blue in the pursuit of happiness Hollywood
is the only thing to fear shall yet endure.
World Making
“The best way to predict
the future is to make it.”
In the morning you make the bed, make tea,
make breakfast, and then begin the real work,
almost impossible, but not quite—that’s the
whole point: it’s not beyond you, it’s in you
to dream, dither, and then to do. A life, too,
has a sleep cycle—you might doze through
ordinary years without questioning your destiny,
then wake from dreams to face it: you are here
to make a world from broken fragments, from
pain, betrayal, lies and greed. You are the one,
not the only one, but the only one you can be.
Find your task and give it all you’ve got.
Sleeping Fish
Studies have shown fish need
about ten hours of slumber
every day to stay healthy,
poised in mother water
open-eyed, plus short naps
taken capriciously as needed—
say today’s netted catch
suspended in bright light
in a restaurant tank
for customers to choose,
or say citizens in tyranny
dozing, fins flickering.
Peace Mountain
Climbing takes a thousand steps, then
another thousand, then beyond counting.
Sometimes someone placed the stone steps
here for you, carried them from the valley
and set them firm for your feet to find.
Sometimes no one made a path for you,
so you follow where the deer stepped,
pushing through. Descending into war
is easy—a few short syllables in anger
or fear, and the killing begins. It is a fire
that feeds itself, hungry for a nation,
a city, a child. It burns the hands of
those who make it. To climb Peace
Mountain takes a thousand steps,
then a thousand more, then beyond
counting. The trick is to begin.
Kristi Comes to Portland
She stood on the roof pointing down
at the people dressed as a frog, a bear,
a chicken. Long strips of yellow tape
kept two sides apart. Nothing burned,
except the fiery gaze behind her shades.
It was a lovely fall day. Crows wheeled,
and the river carried its freight of rain
from south to north. She led a prayer,
gave a pep talk, then she descended,
and her motorcade trailed away
from our training ground for calm.
Anthem in Tyrant Time
It’s not a question of who he is.
It’s not a questions of what he says.
It’s not a question of what he does.
It’s time to see we can agree
none of that matters—because:
It’s a question of who we are.
It’s a question of what we say.
It’s a question of what we do.
It’s time to see we can agree
now it’s a question of who
we need to be.
Omoiyari
思いやり
1.
To learn a little Japanese, beyond konichiwa
(‘hello’) and sumimasen (‘excuse me’), you find
omoiyari where the meaning expands outward from
‘thoughtfulness’ to compassion for the next person
you may never meet, a habit for making things better
at every turn. Humbled, I bow down before this word.
I want to live this habit for my troubled country.
I want to be in the kindness import business.
2.
Walking the city, our son came to a sign:
“This way to the Happiness Museum.” A little
farther on, “Almost there.” Then there it was:
“Happiness Museum,” a sign on the van
before a house with a friendly demeanor.
Inside, just enough room for an easy chair,
a guitar, a few books, where he settled in
to strum and sing, and to look ahead.
A Child’s Eden
To make an AI Data Center
you have to work really hard
to build it big and brutal, ravenous
for water and power, military grade
perimeter fence, and utter disregard
for all local life. No windows, not much
of a parking lot, acres and acres of trees
and fields no longer there. A child’s Eden
is easier—shade of a tree, a climbing tree,
maybe a raspberry bush that bows down
with sweet jewels, tiny curious birds
singing close overhead, now and then
a butterfly folding and unfolding air,
big summer clouds drifting the sky,
and a nest of grass for sleeping. We
need this child growing dreams.
Foolish Young Flowering Plum
It's winter — dark days, still too cold
for bird or blossom — dull sky,
and all our hearts in shadow.
But there — at a ragged cleft
darkened by cedars of gloom
a flash of light cries out —
the incandescent wisp of wild
plum — far too early to be
so happy, so naive, a child
refusing to obey the rules of grief.