Garnette Cardogan Reflects on Poetry's Solace, Post-Election

Literary Hub hosts writer and editor Garnette Cardogan's thoughts on poetry's helpful role in a world turned upside-down. His remedy? A little W.H. Auden for starters.

“Where shall we go?” a dear friend asked the day after the election. “Are you going to leave?” inquired another. I lament to a neighbor how one man’s rise to high office feels like a descent for the rest of us. “If you don’t like the results,” someone then declared, “you can go back home to Jamaica.”

Well, I’ve spent over two decades making the United States home. I have no intention, nor any desire, to leave. There are many who would love nothing more than to see their country free of complexions, accents, and beliefs they don’t think belong. But here’s the thing: it’s not only their country. To leave would be to give validity to the lie they have told themselves and keep repeating to us. They’ve swapped their country’s aspirational motto of e pluribus unum for the belittling “Go home!” But this country is my home. I’m not going anywhere. They will have to deal with my foreign, accented, black ass.

I plan to stay put and fight. And fight how? By embracing, by invoking, by insisting on W.H. Auden’s suggestion: “You shall love your crooked neighbor / With your crooked heart.” Nonetheless, if they don’t like me being around, then they can find somewhere else to live. Meanwhile, as I stay put, I’ll sing along with Bob Marley, my Jamaican accent in full lilt: “You a-go tired fi see me face. / Can’t get me out of the race.”

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