¿Y Qué Hacer? by Claire Joysmith

Claire Joysmith, born in Mexico, writes in both English and Spanish, often intertwining both. Central to her life and work is a passion for inter-cultural  ⁄ -linguistic communication that promotes more human understanding. An academic  ⁄  teacher by trade, a translator by conviction and a writer / poet by urgent need, her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies across the Americas, and includes three volumes of poetry.


Author Foreword:

The poem focuses on the thousands of feminicide victims in Mexico (eleven daily, statistics claim), and elsewhere in the world. And how this suffering is translated into stories that feed the news and our lives.  The repetitive chorus-like questions grow into the poem in the Spanish language as a political identification of the poetic voice in an ongoing quest for ⁄ questioning of justice in Mexico— and elsewhere. The victims’ suffering is exponentially multiplied to include the perpetrators, the families of the victims, and society at large. Compassionate containment as well as individual and collective action are of course required.



                               To the victims of feminicide 

        in México and countless 

others elsewhere.


The stars count them, 

telling their stories.


A thousand and one nights 

could not account for them


nor tell a thousand and one 

Scheherezadian stories 

for sheer survival.


¿Y qué hacer?*


The victim dies in agony

once

unravelling karmic knots. 


 ¿Y qué hacer?


The perpetrator dies 

a thousand and one 

times in deep ignorance:

his karma seared for  

a thousand and one 

years to come.

¿Y qué hacer?

The family grieves, weeping,

a thousand and one times,

replicating sorrow, 

perhaps hatred,

their karma suspended

between options.

 

¿Y qué hacer?


How many nights of unabated rage

can be held in a single glass of water

and a sugarcoated sleeping pill?


¿Y qué hacer?


Questions burst into life 

as the relentless future 

seeds in our now.


Who is to receive

multiple compassion?


¿Y qué haré  ⁄ mos?

And what will I   ⁄  we do?




 *And what to do?

Human Rights Art Festival

Tom Block is a playwright, author of five books, 20-year visual artist and producer of the International Human Rights Art Festival. His plays have been developed and produced at such venues as the Ensemble Studio Theater, HERE Arts Center, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, IRT Theater, Theater at the 14th Street Y, Athena Theatre Company, Theater Row, A.R.T.-NY and many others.  He was the founding producer of the International Human Rights Art Festival (Dixon Place, NY, 2017), the Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival (2010) and a Research Fellow at DePaul University (2010). He has spoken about his ideas throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Turkey and the Middle East. For more information about his work, visit www.tomblock.com.

http://ihraf.org
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