i am a guerrilla by Chaun Webster

i am a guerrilla by Chaun Webster

i am tired of clean calm words
cold and hollow
i swallow whole resistance histories
and spit people’s justice
at the paper tiger.
could care less about your currency
i set fire
to dead presidents
my residence is not
the coffee shop
i am not a poet
having temporarily traded
my pen
for the machine-gun
i am a guerrilla
i am angry
and i will never forget
the face of my enemy

_________


Forgive me for using brief or understated terms/words, but this poem is amazing in many ways. Chaun was able to capture a side of the so-called "victim" that we see in much of our history. We often view these people as helpless, or maybe even with pity. We see the end of their history, a brain washing of their minds and languages, an erased culture. However this poem says, "Hell no, I'm still here." It says that the victim one once thought may have existed is actually not a victim, but a person that will fight and continue to fight...

It's a very very powerful poem. It gets me thinking that's for sure. It's a different poem that encompasses someone's reality (and not the American-wiped-clean-of-real-history-culture-and-ethnic-identity-riches-and-the-joneses-are-better fantasy)and is interpreted through the medium of poetry. Not many people can do that.

However, just because it is a powerful and very good poem doesn't mean that I have to like it. It doesn't mean that I don't like it either. To be honest, my mind is still processing and considering how I feel about it. It's crazy, because as Hmong person, I come from a people with a history of always being the "victim." We weren't the "guerrillas" because "they" were. I'm not sure if I even like that word "guerrilla" since it has been associated so much with our enemies...I don't know. But man, sorry to cut the thoughts so short, but this is still a really good poem.