Poem of the Week

Peaceful action

Sonya Posmentier

sitting in is

riding the bus is not

riding the bus is not eating

grapes is picking up a small handful of salt

from the sea (after which,

seventeen years later,

India gained independence from Britain)

is a women’s parade is

singing is

sitting in but not with arms linked

is riding the bus but not close to whites

and not pregnant and not exposed to the window

where the sniper’s bullet can enter and shatter

your legs, is

not eating grapes but not

not eating anything

is picking up a handful of salt but not from the sea

they say is their sovereign territory

is a women’s parade with animal hats but not

with wire hangers

is singing

but only where the sound of your voice will uplift

and not unsettle

The Yale Review · “Peaceful action” by Sonya Posmentier

how did this poem begin for you?

I wrote this after being arrested and banned from several campus buildings for attending student protests against the genocide in Gaza. Our university president said, “These were not peaceful protests.” She seems to know nothing of the history of nonviolent civil disobedience. Meanwhile, she ignores the large-scale violence against Palestine. Poetry can invite us to imagine “peace” and “violence" with precision and nuance that political rhetoric sometimes lacks.

Sonya Posmentier is a professor, writer, and activist/organizer in New York City. She is the author of Cultivation and Catastrophe: The Lyric Ecology of Modern Black Literature.

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