Beth A. Fleisher<\/p>\n
Hour 11<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Prompt 11:\u00a0 Write a poem about or set in a place you have never been to. It could be a real concrete location, or something more metaphorical, imaginary or fictional \u2013 somewhere over the rainbow comes to mind.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Peoples\u2019 House<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We walked down Black Lives Matter Plaza<\/p>\n
to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Peoples\u2019 House.<\/p>\n
It used to be called the White House, but after<\/p>\n
the murder of George Floyd by a White<\/p>\n
Minneapolis police officer,<\/p>\n
and the months of Protests across the country that followed,<\/p>\n
the White House became a bunker<\/p>\n
for the Never Named One,<\/p>\n
and the peoples were kept out by nine-feet-high,<\/p>\n
black riot fences and concrete barricades.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When the White House was liberated<\/p>\n
on January 20, 2021, on his first day in office,<\/p>\n
our new President<\/p>\n
issued an Executive Order renaming<\/p>\n
the historic building the Peoples\u2019 House,<\/p>\n
and we stopped at the large, new sign<\/p>\n
to get our pictures taken.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was a new day in America, and at the Peoples\u2019 House.<\/p>\n
We could see and feel the difference.<\/p>\n
On the South Lawn, the flag of the National Congress<\/p>\n
of American Indians now proudly flies<\/p>\n
beside the U.S. flag<\/p>\n
and the Black Lives Matter flag.<\/p>\n
Secret Service agents hand us bottles of water<\/p>\n
when we enter the East Wing, and the President<\/p>\n
and his wife greet us and welcome us.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Our tour guide lead us to the Oval Office, and<\/p>\n
we were happy to see that the portrait<\/p>\n
of slave-owning Andrew Jackson \u2014 best known as<\/p>\n
\u201can Indian fighter\u201d for his brutality and genocide<\/p>\n
against Native Americans \u2014 was gone, removed to storage.<\/p>\n
In its place hangs a painting of Chief Crazy Horse,<\/p>\n
a great leader of his people.<\/p>\n
On another wall, a portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n
honors his life and legacy.<\/p>\n
Throughout the Peoples\u2019 House, paintings and statues<\/p>\n
glorifying racism and oppression had been removed,<\/p>\n
and artwork showing inclusivity and justice for all<\/p>\n
is now lifted up and admired.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When we finished the tour and left, we felt that<\/p>\n
the Peoples\u2019 House truly represented all of the people.<\/p>\n
It was a good day to be at the Peoples\u2019 House.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beth A. Fleisher Hour 11 Prompt 11:\u00a0 Write a poem about or set in a place you have never been to. It could be a real concrete location, or something more metaphorical, imaginary or fictional \u2013 somewhere over the rainbow comes to mind. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1455,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71017"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78470,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71017\/revisions\/78470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}