Once Upon a Riot

Once Upon a Riot insists upon the necessity of resisting forms of oppression such as fascism and economic exploitation, while exploring both the challenges and the moments of beauty in raising a young child in our current political moment. Children and movements are both birthed, and the poet is always attuned to the music of the experience: lyrical, prosaic, experimental, narrative. The book traverses street protests often pejoratively labeled as riots by commercial media, labor strikes, playing at the beach, decorating apartments, LED light displays on bridges, James Baldwin, Taylor Swift, the Wisconsin Uprising, the film Poor Things, scraped knees, the French revolution, immigrant rights, a mother’s circumstances raising a child in the present, a mother’s own childhood, and global happenings. All is context. All is fodder for shaping what is and what is to come.