Poetry may not motivate folk to register to vote
So I had another of my many hare-brained ideas: I thought mebbe I'd write some poetry and head off to a community poetry night to see if I could snag some voter registrations
Lesson 1. Writing voter registration poetry is hard! This took more time than I expected!
Lesson 2. Community poetry nights can go on a long time! I was there about four hours in all!
Lesson 3. Either I met a whole lot of civic-minded poets or else mebbe some folk didn't tell me the whole truth. Anyway, my net voter registration score was zero. That's a new low for me in number of voter registrations in number of registrations per hour of effort
So I'm recycling my poem here:
Fannie Lou said later
she finally just got sick and tired
of bein sick and tired
Back in 62
Fannie and some friends took a bus
26 miles to the county courthouse
to register to vote
And when they got there
police were everywhere
First on the long registration form was:
what your name?
and next:
who you work for?
They all filled out the form
then got back on the bus again
to go the 26 miles
Fannie Lou was sick and tired of it
And the police followed them
stopped the bus
and fined everybody ridin on it
for ridin in a bus painted the wrong color
made them all dump out their pockets
that’s how the police fixed the fine:
just took everybody’s money
eighteen dollars and mebbe some change
Fannie Lou sure was sick and tired of it
She got home in the dark without any change
her boss was waitin there
and he told her she was fired
and he kicked her out of her house that he owned
Fannie Lou was so sick and tired of it
She found friends to stay with
and when she’d been there a few nights
somebody shot sixteen bullets through the window
Oh! Fannie Lou was sick and tired of it
but Fannie Lou was also real sick and tired of bein sick and tired
so she didn’t stop
Today the police don’t follow you
when you want to register to vote
your boss can’t fire you for that
you don’t have to go 26 miles on a bus
and the form isn’t very long
You can register here and now
and you can vote in May and November
You can take a minute to stand
on Fannie Lou’s strong shoulders
if you look, you'll see
that’s why she’s standin back there in 1962 and 63
I pray:
dear Lord
next time I’m feelin sick and tired
please give me some of Fannie Lou’s blues
and make me sick and tired
of bein sick and tired
too
amen
= new reply since forum marked as read
i "wrote" it this week -- but it's just telling the true story of fannie lou hamer: it's telling about her spiritual gift, and in a way it's her strength that flows out of it; so it's really not mine
maybe the poetry night wasn't a bust. when i walked into the local campaign office about an hour ago, there was a group of women standing on the walk a few doors up, and one of then yelled "Go!bama!" And then another one of them recognized me from the poetry night. And so I got a volunteer card!
thank you for telling us about that, struggle4progress!
and thank you, again, more, for ALL you do!!
