Something a lot of people don’t know is that a lot of groundbreaking research on gender and sexuality was happening in Weimar Germany. Another thing people forget is that the city of Cordoba in Spain, in the era before Reconquista, is often called the “ornament of the world” by historians, due to the ways that Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived and worked together in relative harmony there. The United States wants you to believe that pre-Columbian America was a “pristine wilderness” instead of the most well-managed garden in the history of the world. Empire destroys narratives that don’t fit into its narrow conception of the world. Empire kills what it hates, salts the earth behind it, and then tries to say “that’s the way it is.” 

Wherever you live—city, suburb, or country—there is something under attack right now. A neighborhood threatened by gentrification, a public library threatened by bigots, some wildfire threatened by an oil pipeline or climate change. Write a poem to celebrate that thing. Write a poem to defend it from attack. Then, go out into the world and actually find a way to defend it from attack. 

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Chris Corlew (he/him) is a writer and musician in Chicago. With Bob Sykora, he co-hosts The Line Break, a podcast about poetry and basketball. With Brendan Johnson, he is 1/2 of LAZY & ENTITLED, a writing and musical collaboration. He can be found blogging at lazy and entitled dot org, on Bluesky @thecorlew, or on Instagram @shipwreckedsailor11