Monday, May 21, 2007

So Muslims are Terrorizing Americans (Andrew Costanzo)

(Note: In Jennifer Semple Siegel's Introduction to Literature class, students are offered the option of writing a creative response to a poem, story, or play. Andrew Costanzo chose to write a poetic response to Jimmy Santiago Baca's poem "So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans.")

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Are we? Do we come in
with tanks and guns and say:
Be afraid, terror has come?

Do you put down your weapons,
and concede to terror, and then
wage your war?

I hear we are terrorizing your country,
do we come in, voice high, and
while you are invading another country,
terrorize yours?

Even as you watch TV, and
See the terror that your bombs
and your soldiers have wrought
on the world, you can safely say,
we are taking down the terrorists.

So I look, I look for these
So-called terrorists.

Everywhere I turned, I looked,
Do you know what I saw?
American soldiers, American bombers.
And at the feet of these “heroes”
were thousands of dead.

I see all this and I, no, we,
are the terrorists? Through your
words of hate, thousands die
through terrorism, and it is not us

Turn and look in the mirror,
and you will see the face
of terrorism.

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LIT160 Introduction to Literature, Spring 2007

Published with permission
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I give this poem 5 stars (out of 5). Excellently done. =]