The World is Waking Up: Poetry of Resistance from Youth Around the World

From the beginning of time, poems have been smuggled

out of prisons, exchanged on battlefields, passed from hand

to hand, carved on walls, written in the margins, distributed

on street corners, and carried in coat-pockets overseas.

Every culture and generation produce poetry in response

to the injustices of its time. Deeply rooted in resilience, the

enduring nature of poetry and its ability to capture the struggles

of the past can serve as a sustaining force in a sea of turmoil.

If creativity is a form of protest, then the poet is the protester.

Pablo Neruda saw the power of poets and the remarkable

potential of their words: Earth, people, and poetry are one and

the same entity tied together by mysterious subterranean passages.

When the earth blooms, the people breath freedom, the poets sing

and show the way.(1)

When poems are gathered together, they form a mighty

body that is impossible to constrain, like the sea. Every time a

poem touches someone’s conscience, like gathering drops, it

invites the possibility for action, forming a tempest. Thus, the

transformative potential of resistance poetry can serve as a

potent antidote against the injustices of the world.