I run the NYC Poetry Festival and just recently completed my introduction to the book. I am going to share the first few paragraphs with you, since they seem so relevant to RONIT AND JAMIL, the ideal of justice. The older I get, the more important social and political relevance has become in my life and my writing.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from
his point of view….until
you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Atticus
Finch, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
May 13th, 2016, was the 44th NYC Poetry Festival,
and what stood out that day was the abundance of poems that understood the
meaning of the word “empathy,” the ability to put oneself in another’s
position, to understand what he or she might be feeling. This is particularly relevant today, in June,
when a lone gunman entered a club in Orlando, Florida, killing forty-nine
people. Pulse is a gay night-club, so this was evidently an enraged response to
our freedom and our culture.
Yet there is another response that has emerged since this time: a
cry-out to justice. Across our nation, people of all ages, genders and
sexualities suddenly perceive themselves as citizens of the world. Being a
citizen of the world necessitates a level of cooperation, caring and morality,
and no one understands this better than our student poets.
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