Do You Hear What I Hear? Will You Listen?
An urgent plea written as a catena rondo poem
Do you hear what I hear? Will you listen? Voices echoing hatred from the past Survivors question how long it will last Do you hear what I hear? Will you listen?
Voices echoing hatred from the past Rhetoric of anger and division Cloud lessons of history with revision Voices echoing hatred from the past
Rhetoric of anger and division “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” We heard that once before in Germany Rhetoric of anger and division
“They’re destroying the blood of our country.” Holocaust survivors heard it before Must they fear again a knock at their door? “They’re destroying the blood of our country.”
Holocaust survivors heard it before This man wants the power to determine How to destroy people he calls vermin Holocaust survivors heard it before
This man wants the power to determine How to get rid of the “threat from within” Who is the threat? Brown-skinned women and men? This man wants the power to determine
How to get rid of the threat from within Do you hear what I hear? Will you listen? Can’t you see he wants to learn the lesson How to get rid of the threat from within
Do you hear what I hear? Will you listen? Voices echoing hatred from the past Survivors question how long it will last Do you hear what I hear? Will you listen?
I wrote this poem in reaction to the growing number of news reports citing xenophobic, racist, and fascist remarks made by the former President of the United States and the present candidate for the Republican nomination for President, Donald J. Trump. I am including links to the most recent news reports containing quotes made by Mr. Trump. Let me state that I believe in our two-party system in the United States. However, Mr. Trump no longer presents ideas compatible with traditional Republican values. I am appalled at the lack of condemnation of Mr. Trump’s outrageous and inflammatory statements by members of the Republican Party. I am unbelieving that even the other candidates who are seeking nomination for president of the United States are not condemning his remarks. Is their silence assent? I know that we, as Americans, can do better.
The following links are for mainstream news articles. Each one cites public remarks by Donald Trump which are referenced in my poem.
A note on poetic form:
Robert Lee Brewer, poetry editor for Writer’s Digest had this to say about catena rondo poems: I found the catena rondo in Robin Skelton’s The Shapes of Our Singing. In fact, Skelton created the form, and it’s a lot of fun. He took the name from catena, which means chain, and connected it with rondo, which means circle. And the poem is a bit of a “chain circle,” because of its intense repetition within stanzas and the poem as a whole.
Here’s how to write a catena rondo:
The poem is comprised of a variable number of quatrains Each quatrain has a rhyme pattern of AbbA The first line of each quatrain is also the final line of the quatrain The second line of each quatrain is the first line of the next quatrain The final quatrain should repeat the first quatrain word for word There are no rules for meter, syllables, or subject matter. Just a lot of rhyming refrains.
I chose this poetic form because of the “intense repetition within stanzas and the poem as a whole” to emphasize the message: “Do you hear what I hear? Will you listen?”
I love interacting with other writers. Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments. Even if we disagree, we can still express our opinions in the United States. That’s the beauty of democracy.
Thank you to the editors of Illumination for publishing my poem. If you are interested in writing for Illumination Integrated Publications, visit this site: