Poetry For Social Change: Martín Espada - Imagine The Angels of Bread

Sometime during my illustrious (and I use that term loosely) undergrad years, I became one of "those people" who was fond of poetry, the non-rhyming kind to boot. There's something about hard learned lessons, and hard won victories, or desperate caveats with meanings thinly veiled that seem to pierce the subconscious and lodge deep within the soul.... What was I saying? Oh, yes, poems tell the truth in ways that make you let your guard down.

In honor of that subtle power, I have recently adopted a piece by Martín Espada as my mantra for social change. "Imagine the Angels of Bread" says that all change begins with a vision, sometimes remarkably small, of a world different than the one that now exists. That's a great message for people like me who sometimes can't see the forest for all the trees.


This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roofdeck
or levitating hands in praise
of steam in the shower;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year that darkskinned men
lynched a century ago
return to sip coffee quietly
with the apologizing descendants
of their executioners.

This is the year that those
who swim the border's undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
pulling tomatoes from the vine
uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts
the vine,
the hands canning tomatoes
are named in the will
that owns the bedlam of the cannery;
this is the year that the eyes stinging from the poison that purifies toilets
awaken at last to the sight
of a rooster-loud hillside,
pilgrimage of immigrant birth; this is the year that cockroaches
become extinct, that no doctor
finds a roach embedded
in the ear of an infant;
this is the year that the food stamps
of adolescent mothers
are auctioned like gold doubloons,
and no coin is given to buy machetes
for the next bouquet of severed heads
in coffee plantation country.

If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorum,
then this is the year;
if every rebellion begins with the idea
that conquerors on horseback are not many-legged gods, that they too drown
if plunged in the river,
then this is the year.

So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.

- excerpted from Loeb, P. R. (2004). The impossible will take a little while: A citizen's guide to hope in a time of fear. New York: Basic Books. pp.218-220

Blog #20 - Debriefing 2: High & Low Points in the University Colloquium

By now I have grown quite comfortable with the university colloquium (third time's a charm, right?). The first time I took the class it seemed to me that it consisted of a bunch disparate ideas about the environment thrown together so that FGCU could claim it was committed to teaching it's students about sustainable education. I now realize that that was an extremely cynical, and largely unfair critique. While it's true that the topics we covered during the semester were broad, I believe that it was to the classes benefit. There are a million different ways to live sustainably. There are a hundred-thousand different ways that we can change our communities for the better. There are no less than a hundred points of entrance into the climate change debate.

While I never wish to take a Gordon Rule writing course again, and I had to poke the back of my hand with a mechanical pencil in order to stay awake during some of those late-afternoon videos, I will admit that this course has great merit. Greater still is its potential to motivate students in the future to invest themselves in the world around them, or if not, then at least to pay attention to it.

Blog #19 - Debriefing 1: Finding Meaning in the University Colloquium

The most important lesson I learned (or perhaps relearned) while taking colloquium this semester was that although it is important to care about the natural environment, sustainable living must also include an appreciation for the people in our communities as well. Sense of place is about being invested in the place that you live so that you are careful to treat it well as it nourishes you.

I dream of a world where every person is treated as a valued piece of the whole. I know that sounds terribly cliché, but it’s true. It seems as if all my life I’ve been searching for the other part of me; the other part that is wiser, kinder, freer, more attuned to nature. In every new person I meet I find myself looking for our differences, not as points of divergence, but rather as points of attraction. Imagine a pair of magnets. Their like sides whether positive or negative repel each other, but when the opposing forces are joined their pull toward each other is very strong. If only humans could treat one another like magnets. So often we search out those people who are like ourselves, and fearfully exclude those who are different. And not only people, but also new ideas, policies, politics. The familiar is held close and the strange is kept at arm’s length. But imagine what would happen if everyone chose to embrace diversity or even to seek it out?

I don’t mean to belittle the problems that plague modern society. Many ills like poverty or pollution or violence are the results of centuries of abuse and neglect, and that can’t be wiped away with a simple change in outlook. But the strength of any structure lies in its foundation. What better cornerstone is there for community building than the belief that our differences are not deficiencies, but strengths! I myself can readily admit that in work or play I tend to flock together with birds of my feather. But if I truly desire to live my fullest life, then I must learn to embrace the people who have attributes that I lack. In that way we can build a more complete world together.

Blog #16 - Service Learning Experience

The first time I'd ever "fed the hungry" I was a sophomore in college, and I remember feeling really proud of myself as I passed out those bagged lunches on a Saturday afternoon at Lake Eola Park in downtown Orlando. I was helping my community. I was sharing my heart with those less fortunate. I was being the "good samaritan" that the bible counseled me to be. I was self-satisfied.

The first time I was ever on the receiving end of a soup kitchen line I remember feeling somewhat ashamed. It was a Monday evening, and after working all day long my son and I stood in line with more than sixty other women and children at a Coalition for the Homeless shelter also in downtown Orlando. We were served mashed-potatoes, pork chops, peas, apple sauce, and chocolate cake by a row of the brightest smiling faces I had ever seen outside of a television toothpaste commercial. I ate that meal with a lump in my throat and something like a rock sitting in my belly.

Although I didn't enjoy the meal very much, that was the day my eyes were really opened about how insidious hunger and poverty could be. I had a full time job, I was college educated, and I still found myself in need of help. That was also the day that I realized that helping other people should NEVER be about making yourself feeling good. A side order of condescension will spoil any meal. Trust me, I know.

My service learning project took place at Interfaith Caregivers of South Lee County, Inc (IFC). In 1991 five south Fort Myers churches joined forces to organize and empower their existing community outreach programs. They localized their resources and staffed the mission with volunteers from each congregation, became a 501c nonprofit organization, and then began fundraising and soliciting even greater donations. In 2003, IFC became a partner organization of the tri-county (Lee, Hendry, Glades) United Way. In addition to working with the United Way, whose grants make up a large portion of the annual operating budget, Interfaith is also assisted by many local groups including supermarkets, restaurants, local businesses, service clubs, and social organizations. The day to day work, however, is accomplished mainly by community volunteers some of whom are clients themselves.

The services provided by Interfaith include a food pantry, Meals on Wheels, online food stamp registration, limited financial assistance, transportation services, minor house repairs, educational classes, and free notary services. I worked mainly with the food pantry where we conducted donation check-in, marked off barcodes, checked food expiration dates, wrapped bread, stocked shelves, picked up food donations from supermarkets, and created grocery bags of food for incoming families.

Blog #15 - Climate Change & the Human Impact on the Planet

It is extremely difficult to look out my window on a daily basis and see the effects of climate change all around me. I've noticed changing trends in the weather around me. I know that Florida now is quite different than what it was when I was a young child. Still, it's hard to connect the exhaust from my car with the expensive imported sushi I love and the second new flat screen TV I bought, and deduce that maybe my lifestyle affects more than just me. I think it's only when we step back and look at all the interrelated pieces of the puzzle that we can make sense of this issue.

That's why I think courses like the University Colloquium are so important. Where else would a person stumble across the idea that the ecological footprint of a hamburger could effect the world in such a profound way? How would I know that the glaciers that feed freshwater into the Ganges River are melting away at an alarming rate? I'm sure I never would have seen computer-generated-images of the flooding of New York, if I hadn't taken this class. Michael Moore notwithstanding, I think it's extremely important to make films that can show people the concrete physical evidence that they need to be spurred into action.

My religious background makes it extremely difficult (read: nearly impossible) to believe that the world, or at least humanity, will end in an ice age brought on my global warming. That being said, the idea that human being are doing irreparable damage to the planet is clearly evident. So at least for me, the climate change issue is not about saving the planet from destruction so much as it's about taking care of the resources that I will pass on to my descendants, however many future generations that may be.

Blog #14 - Squeezing More Oil From the Ground

I had no idea that so many of the things I use every day are made from oil. I always thought that if I drove my car less, or if Americans in general drove less, or we invested more in renewable energy, then like magic (Alakazaam!) our oil addiction would be over. Unfortunately it's not so simple. Telephones, shampoo, car seats, tires, hair brushes, golf balls, even prosthetic limbs are all petroleum based products. Don't even get me started on plastics! It is literally never-ending, this worldwide dependence on oil. This is why I can completely understand the time, energy, and money invested in new technologies to extract fossil fuels from the earth.

We have already seen, especially in recent times, the limitations of current technology used to extract crude oil from the earth. Billions of dollars of revenue was lost due to BP latest oil spill, but it strikes me as amazingly ironic that some of the detergents used to clean wildlife caught in the spill are made from petrol by-products themselves. The most viable solution in the long-term would probably be to both refine the existing oil extraction technologies while also reducing oil dependence, but I'm willing to bet that those well positioned to do the research would rather spend their efforts on money making procedures than on energy (natural resource) saving ventures.

Blog #13 - Reduced Reliance on Energy, and Conservation Promotion

When I was a little kid, riding on the city bus, ringing the bell, jumping down the stairs at my stop, all of it fascinated me. As a teenager though, the bus was always late, always crowded, always slow, and always smelled. When I got my first car I thought I had kissed public transportation goodbye (I even became a pro at parallel parking), but when gas prices skyrocketed I reconsidered my old friend.

But riding the bus in southwest Florida is horrible (at least in the tri-county area). If commuting by car from Lehigh to Estero takes forty minutes in good traffic, I shudder to think of the "three hour tour" it would become by bus. When I asked at the Fort Myers Redevelopment Agency if plans to rehab the waterfront and downtown included any considerations of public transport, I received a flat, marginally apologetic "no".


I shrugged my shoulders about it all until I moved to southern California and had to live under that oppressive brown sky. All of a sudden I became obsessed with public transportation. Memories of being smooshed against rush-hour commuters in the DC subway became fond recollections. I waxed poetic about the autumn views from the windows of the Amtrak trains that run from Boston to New York. I framed a picture of my four-year-old son staring out the windows of an Orlando city bus.

I don't mean to ramble on and on about planes, trains, and buses, but the fact of the matter is that most people (especially in Florida) are so caught up in their egocentric, isolationist lives that the idea of sharing their morning commute with perfect strangers, or of going shopping on someone else’s schedule, is so appalling that they’re more than willing to put up with the traffic jams, and smog, and highway runoff, and rising gasoline prices, and a host of other environmental ills. Not that riding the bus in Lee county would ameliorate all those problems, but at least it’s a start.

I never thought there would come a day when I longed for public transportation. I guess it's a sign that I'm getting older.