The Picket and Strike in general bring to mind many personal stories in all shapes and forms. Sometimes this expression can be very simplistic or highly poetic. This post is dedicated to particular poems, phrases, points, and simple word associations written by people on the picket line and involved in the strike in general! Please feel free to write your own poems, points, words associations, and phrases and share them here! More to come…
Collected by Hannah Backman, FES, Main Gate!
Points
“Solidarity, Consciousness, Interpolation”- Andrew Winchur
“Friendship, Bathtub, Sugar”- Hannah Backman
“Activism, Community, Learning Experience, Praxis”- Nancy Ghuman
“Shifting, Unclear, Uncomfortable, Tension, Locating an Exit and a Way to That Exit, Learning how to Respectfully Engage with our Colleagues, Very Uncomfortable” -Anonymous and Anonymous
“Exhaustion, Exhilaration, Enemy” – Anonymous
“Oscillating emotions” – Romanda
Phrases
“A generation that hates war will not bring peace, a generation that loves peace will bring peace”- Anonymous, quoted by Anonymous
“I love walking in circles.” said no one. ever.
Poetry
The Line, A Reflection by Hannah Backman:
Walking ’round in circles is hard on your mind
Sleepless nights, dwindling time
We are here ’cause we believe we can change the world
But the day-to-day its growin’ old
We bundle up in warm clothes, put a smile on
We got raw passion in our hearts, pure determination in our minds
We are tired, sick, withering inside
We want it to bad so we put in the time
We are fighters and we strike to win
Teachers, students, educators, sick of the admin
So we are here and we will stand strong on the line
Solidarity, friends, we’ll be just fine.
Picket Parade 