We can’t all be like Rosa Parks, set down for good

sonnet no. xcvii

A note for this, since the poem itself is awkward alone. Action is a state of being that is uncontrolled by the actor. Once you begin to act, the outcome is a force hard to rein in. I think for most of us, at least for me, that stops us from acting out, since we cannot control the consequence.

This poem is dedicated to the women who refused to give up their bus seats in the months or years before Rosa Parks refused. It is not meant to diminish Parks herself, but to emphasize that activism isn’t one person doing it the first time and getting it right. Poetry is like that too, as this awkward poem admits.

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