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Even before arriving at Chancellors Hall at Stony Brook Southampton, turning the corner to the sprawling campus, protesters gathered on Montauk Highway greeted you. The signs they held up later lined the walls in the auditorium as the East End’s gathering of a nationwide movement known as Writers Resist got under way.
Men and women of every age and ethnicity filed in and the signs—a picture of Gandhi, posters that shouted “Congress always has health insurance” and other protests—were put aside. Pens were taken in hand. It was a fitting beginning to an afternoon designed to honor democracy and celebrate history and the promise of a diverse nation. Once pen was put to paper, the writings revealed that the East End community is concerned and ready to fight for these liberties.
Sunday was appropriate, too, as it was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. What better day for people to be given a voice to openly discuss their fears about the current political climate, to discuss action steps and to leave knowing they are not alone?
The afternoon was divided into two parts: the Teach In and the Speak Out.
The Teach In portion featured writer-led workshops in both English and Spanish. MFA in Creative Writing student Afua Ansong talked about why it’s important for immigrants to speak out. Roger Rosenblatt, the award-winning author of “Kayak Morning,” “Unless It Moves the Human Heart” and “Making Toast,” talked about the importance of writing, storytelling and bearing witness. Joined by author and organizer Julie Sheehan, the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Stony Brook Southampton, as well as MFA alumna Maggie Bloomfield and two MFA students—informal workshops were held with writers’ prompts to encourage attendees to record thoughts and feelings: “What’s the bravest thing you’ve done or seen in the past few months?” “What are you most worried about now for you, your neighbors or family members?”
The responses were moving—diverse and varied and yet woven together with the common thread of uniting, resisting, expressing.
One woman read a poem on global warming. Southampton writer Mary O’Brien read a protest piece that harked back to her protesting days in 1992, giving her a sense of deja vu.
Mr. Rosenblatt commented after many of the readers. When Shelter Island resident Jean Lawless stood up and answered the prompt with “This is the bravest thing I’ve ever done,” Mr. Rosenblatt said, “It may be the first in a sequence of brave things you will do.”
Ms. Lawless went on to talk about how many of her neighbors are Latino and some are undocumented. She has started a petition and has taken it to local officials, designed to protect her neighbors. “We are a sanctuary town. We will protect our neighbors. We will stand on the Fourth Amendment. Our police will not aid federal officials who threaten the liberty of our residents,” she said.
Penny Kerr, a songwriter, also from Shelter Island, spoke of how she was writing a song about being on the “wrong side of right.”
“I’m blue,” she read. “I play the blues, I have the blues. I voted blue.”
Mr. Rosenblatt commented that this was about “citizens rising up and saying what is on their minds and in their hearts.”
Ms. Sheehan joined him on stage and announced a follow-up program to take place in two weeks. “And here’s your homework,” she said. “Tell the story of a time when you were bullied or picked on or someone you love was bullied or picked on.” Titled “Next Steps Letter Writing Session,” the program will convene on Saturday, January 28, at 10 a.m. The idea is for participants to turn their work into a letter to an elected representative or newspaper editor.
One participant who was very vocal about the subject of bullying was acclaimed conceptual artist and social activist Hope Sandrow of Shinnecock Hills. “Writing about personal experience is what good writers do,” Mr. Rosenblatt encouraged.
“I know the effects of a bully like Donald Trump: his harsh words like the aggressive conduct he brags about, seep into every open pore … clogging each breath with fears. Immobilizing hopes of escape,” she said. “I know because I lived in a home dominated by a similarly volatile tempered man titled my ‘father.’ He was also a successful businessman, liked and respected in our small community: that’s because he presented differently outside the door of our home. Unlike Trump, my father knew to keep that side of him confined to the walls of our house. Even though my mother never stood up to him nor the family doctor who raped me.
“I know there’s no alternative to clearly protesting Trump’s conduct and policies in this culture of abuse. He might not hear because he’s not a good listener and he’s supported by similar serial abusers—but we must continue our resistance to his assaults. In the next four years, everyone will know what it’s like to be in an abusive relationship without the chance to leave. And will no longer have to question what it was like for me, your neighbor next door, the woman at The Retreat with her children.”
Sue Rumph, a Southampton resident, came because she knows Ms. Sheehan, but said she left with a lot of information. “It was wonderful to listen to people’s experience. I really knew so very little about these subjects. I know a lot more now.”
After a short break, the second half of the event began with a reading from Mr. Rosenblatt: a piece titled “Don’t Love Thy Neighbor.” Adrienne Unger, the program coordinator at the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University, who read her poem “Internment,” followed him. Author Ursula Hegi read from her acclaimed novel, “Stones from The River.” Ms. Ansong read some poems from Lucille Clifton and one of her own. Megan Chaskey, a poet and educator, and her husband, Scott Chaskey, a poet, farmer and educator, read works from Native American Faithkeeper Oren Lyons, Robert Kennedy and Wendell Berry. And poet Grace Schulman read an original poem as well the Emma Lazarus poem “The New Colossus,” which is engraved on the Statue of Liberty with its famous line, “Give me your tired, your poor.”
Next, Ms. Sheehan had the audience take part in a “Twitter Storm.” Participants were handed passages of the Langston Hughes poem “Let American Be America Again” to tweet with the hashtag #WritersResist. Ms. Sheehan exclaimed, “I’ve already been retweeted!”
More inspired readings followed. Philip Schultz, the Pulitzer prize-winning poet and director of the Writers Studio, read Thomas Paine’s “The American Crisis.” He was followed by writer LB Thompson, screenwriter Tracy M. King-Sanchez and Professor Michelle Whittaker. Medical assistant Otilia Aguilar de Nava read in Spanish and then English from her own memoir, and founder of the Poetry Exchange and the New York City Ballet Poetry Project Kathryn Levy read her own poem as well as an excerpt from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”
After the program, participants mingled in the lobby over drinks and snacks and bought books on sale courtesy of Canio’s Bookstore in Sag Harbor, a sponsor of the event.
While the event was local, the cause is worldwide and categorized as a first step in focusing public attention on the ideals of a free, just and compassionate society.
As Ms. Sheehan said, “It’s important for people to come together and recognize that this country has been through very hard times—including a civil war—and we can get through anything if we can come together, whatever our differences, to affirm our democracy.”
on Jan 18, 2017