A New Poem on Occupy Wall Street by Drew Dellinger

Occupy Wall Street
by Drew Dellinger


We need global
citizens for some sit-ins
again.
I say we all meet
on Wall Street
and lock down--
lock the whole block down!



I take exception to the rule
of the greedy and the cruel.

This fall, school’s in session
and the lesson is Wall Street.
It’s time for action
and your name’s on the call sheet.
It’s time we all meet
and name what it is:
the game has been rigged
to enrich corporate
business interests that sent this economy spinning.
Charlie Sheen is not the only clueless dude that thinks he’s winning.

See, the one percent done spent all the rent.
And now the rent’s due, so we’re coming to a tent near you.

We’re the like-minded ninety-nine percent
standing up to corruption with loving dissent.

We stand for justice,
and the future,
and all of humanity.
Embracing all people.
Yes, even Sean Hannity.

The message is simple:
greed, injustice, and eco-destruction have to go.
Pay attention corporate media. We’ll try to say it slow.

It’s time to
rock the nation,
rock this occupation.

It’s time for people to peacefully fight back.
Tell Congress and the media we’re taking the mic back.

Tell the jaded it’s that long-awaited revolution.
Put away the pepper spray and re-read the Constitution.
These cops are paid to go crazy, yo.
But we’re peaceful.
Don’t tase me, bro.

We came to incite insight,
unite and discuss this.
We came to hang, and to bang the drums of justice.

Let’s occupy
with our love and our light.

Let’s occupy
the earth and the sky,
and live with all beings
as a planet-wide tribe.

Occupy the divine mind residing inside.

See, I’m the type writer
that’s known to light fires
and prone to inspire
the moment’s own higher desire.

‘Cause history knows it’s the time
for resisting the team at the scene of the crime.

Tell your friends I’ll meet ‘em there at Freedom Square.
They can’t stop us, from Seattle to Chiapas.
It’s our mission to envision
what comes after the catastrophe.
How do we move past
the capitalist disaster?

Our communities need us.
We are all leaders.

How could we ask for anything less than the future?


--Drew Dellinger

Who is 'On the Bus with Rosa Parks' Author, Rita Dove?

Rita Dove (b. 1952) was encouraged by her parents to read widely from a young age and she explored all that the local library in Akron, Ohio, had to offer. Dove went on to study English at Miami University, Ohio, was a Fulbright Scholar at Tübingen in Germany, before joining the renowned University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her glittering academic career was soon matched by her growing reputation as a poet, her first collection, The Yellow House on the Corner, appearing in 1980. Seven years later her third book, Thomas and Beulah, based on her grandparents' lives, won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993 Dove became the American Poet Laureate, making her both the youngest recipient of this honour and the first African American. Her many other awards include over twenty honorary doctorates, the National Humanities Medal from President Clinton and, in 2006, the Commonwealth Award of Distinguished Service. She currently holds the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia and was recently elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Dove is an inspirational figure for African-Americans and for women, and her own work reflects these two important facets of her life, featuring many iconic names including Billie Holiday, Rosa Parks and Hattie McDaniel. However, Dove is as much interested in what she has termed "the underside of history" exploring the quiet lives of those who, like Thomas and Beulah, are omitted from the official record. Be they famous or humble, Dove's sensual technique collapses the barriers of history to bring the reader into intimate contact with her subjects. Celebration becomes the best form of protest, whether it's the soldiers returning from the Western Front who play their music "right up white-faced 5th Avenue" ('The Return of Lieutenant James Reese Europe') or Dove herself dancing so ecstatically in 'American Smooth' she and her partner take off for a moment from the earth. Ultimately though, like her dancing body, Dove's poetry isn't restricted by notions of race or gender.

The critic Helen Vendler has said of Dove's poems that they "fall on the ears with solace". This is partly due to Dove's musical instinct (she played the cello from a young age) which underpins her immaculate sense of phrasing. Whatever form she is working in, her poetry lives up to her own high ideals: "I believe that language sings."