News Poem: ‘Belongings’

“Much of the text, though not the brief catalog in the last stanza, is found and remixed reportorial language … “Belongings” points to the final stanza but also to “belonging” and exclusionary boundaries (physical, economic, etc.).”  — Aaron Anstett

The Colorado Independent‘s News-Stained Poetry Project features poems that are about the news, products of the news, responses to the news. “News stained” is meant as a badge of honor, a reference to the long tradition of the poet as witness. As Carolyn Forché wrote, politics can sometimes be seen as a “contaminant to serious literary work,” something to be avoided. But that way of thinking, she said, “gives the political realm too much and too little scope… It renders the personal too important and not important enough.” News developments, whether or not they are reported, shape our personal lives every day. We don’t often think in the moment about how that is happening and what it means. We should think more about it. Poets think about it. And we want to help encourage them to write more about it.

Please send submissions to tips@www.coloradoindependent.com, subject line “poem,” with a short bio and some mention of where and when the poem was written.

[Photo by Aunti P]