Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Peasants’ Month” by Isabel Carlin.

---

Peasants’ Month

By Isabel Carlin

october: month

of peasant struggles

in this world fed

by farmers

saibaba wrote

i love so much

the sound of growing grass

saibaba whose imprisonment

curdled polio into untimely death

as the indian people still wrest

their trees and rivers

from imperialist hands

died october 12 2024

but no one can kill a people

thomas sankara: hero

of african people, african

women, african children,

african land and maize,

pan-african dignity

murdered october 15 1987

but no one can kill a people

sagay nine in your tent

you ate rice and ulam

grown in your fields that

once grew sugarcane

for export

sagay nine the government

blamed the people’s army

for your death that served

no one more than the landlords

whose profits you cut down

with your scythes and bolos

sagay nine bungkalan

was your only freedom

massacred october 20 2018

but no one can kill a people

---

Copyright © Isabel Carlin

Isabel Carlin is a poet and researcher living in Calgary, Alberta. Their work focuses on the political struggle of Filipino workers and peasants, and the movement of Filipino migrant workers globally.

---

Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!

---