Every day this summer, a community of poets, artists, and ordinary folk have chosen to lament the death of anyone killed by police or a police officer killed in the line of duty with a poem. Brooklyn-based writer Carey Wallace is curating Lament for the Dead.
Today, I added my piece to it, grieving the death of Victo Larosa III, 23, in Jacksonville, FL who died for $60 of crack and innumerable lies about what matters in life. Poetry makes us vulnerable--and I'm no poet, so I feel a bit abashed--but the issues of violence in our country are more important and worth the risk. Here it is in full.
And the first three lines:
When did we decide sixty dollars of crack
was our thirty pieces of silver?
That we should take a life for so little.
More on Lament for the Dead's vision and purpose:
Lament for the Dead is an online community poetry project which will mark the death of every person killed by police this summer, and every police officer who loses life in the line of duty, with a poem.
The first lie that hate tells us is that any other person is not as human as we are.
This project resists that lie by recognizing each other’s humanity, even in the most difficult places.
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