‘Breaking Up on X’: Poetry as Civil Resistance

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/09/30

 James W. Gaynor is co-publisher of Pinfeather Press. His AIDS memoir, I’ll Miss You Later, is the subject of a documentary film by Annie O’Neil, to be released later this year. His most recent book, 40 Inappropriate Poems for Weddings + Funerals, is available on Amazon.

Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument in favor of citizen resistance against an unjust state.

Nola Saint James, also known as Rabbi Dr. Jo David, is co-publisher of Pinfeather Press. Her most recent novel is Love at Midnight: A Regency Christmas Romantasy.

Michael E. Tigar is a human rights lawyer, activist, and law teacher. His memoir, Sensing Injustice: A Lawyer’s Life in the Battle for Change, and his collection of essays, Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power, are available.

David Bergman is the author, editor, or translator of some twenty books, his latest being Plain Sight. He lives in Baltimore with his husband, John Lessner. He can be reached at dbergman@towson.edu.

A roundtable moderated by Scott Douglas Jacobsen gathers James W. Gaynor, Nola Saint James (Rabbi Dr. Jo David), Michael E. Tigar, and David Bergman to probe poetry’s purpose and power. They link lyric energy and condensed language to civic courage, weaving Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience through Gaynor’s collection whose sales benefit the ACLU. Pinfeather Press’s collaborative design intersperses poems with commentary, recipes, and resources, foregrounding women’s voices and humor amid authoritarian drift. Tigar recounts courtroom uses of verse and history; Bergman warns that bullies fear language and beauty. The panel champions listening, action, and storytelling as resistant arts, inviting readers to read, organize, and support rights.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: All right, today we are here with four distinguished poets and writers: James W. Gaynor, Nola Saint James, Michael E. Tigar, and David Bergman.  I want to start with an overview of everyone’s opinion, if they would like to share it: what is a poet, and what is the role of a poet?

David Bergman: A poet is a person who writes poetry. That is a straightforward answer, and it does not need to be more than that. But a poet is also someone trying to use language to convey something about the human spirit—the energy of the spirit, the energy of the person.

It is an odd thing for that energy to take the form of language. As with any artist engaged in a kind of transference—into painting or into music—the poet transfers energy into language. Because it is a transference of energy into language, it changes the language. It helps preserve what is best in the language, tries to eliminate what is worst in the language, and, I think, sets a long-term tone for the culture in which it exists.

Unfortunately, we have fallen short of this recently, if anything can be judged by the current administration’s use of language.

James Gaynor: To build on David’s point—something Nola and I were talking about not too long ago—poetry has a way of taking a word that is flat on a page and making music out of it. Poetry carries the music of language.

Sometimes, it is easier in a poem to hear the music and the poet’s voice. Emily Dickinson said she knew it was poetry if she felt “as if the top of my head were taken off.”

I do not go that far. But I do know that when I have a poem—or when I have encountered a poet I love—I hear a voice as I read. I listen to the voice.

There is something to that immediacy. What poetry does better than prose is to condense. Because it is concentrated into smaller pieces, you get a moment, a jolt of energy. That is part of the music of the word.

Nola Saint James: I have written poetry and had poetry published, alongside longer-form writing. One of my earliest memories is my father sitting me down—maybe I was five—and teaching me to recite the starting lineup of the Brooklyn Dodgers, before they moved to Los Angeles.

Back then, in baseball, the lineup was fixed. It had rules—just like poetry, or at least some forms of poetry. Saying the names had a cadence. The players had wonderful nicknames, such as Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider. My father would say the names, and I would repeat them after him. It became an incantation.

It was not just a list of names. It was poetry in its most distilled form. That experience stayed with me all these years, and it has helped me, as a long-form writer, understand how few words we actually need to communicate ideas.

Michael E. Tigar: You know that I am a lawyer, and I speak to judges and juries. I find that extracts from poetry can effectively convey an image that the listener—the one who decides—is likely to retain.

Because poetry is, in a formal sense, bound by rules—choice of language, structure, rhythm—all the things we say make a poem.

So when I talk to a jury about a case in which 170 people have been killed in a bombing, and I say, “The poet says, the world has no such joy to give as that which it takes away”—that is a lie. When Yeats begins the poem by saying, Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. That is heaven’s part; our part to murmur name upon name, as a mother names her child, when sleep at last has come upon limbs that have run wild—that is true.

When we talk about the idea of just deserts, Byron wrote: The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

All of those are images that, at one time or another, in more than fifty years of talking to judges and juries, I have said out loud, because it is simply a better way of saying things. And then, of course, I meet someone like James Gaynor, who takes the whole of the present set of disasters and, combining the poet’s good sense with the impulse to mock and with a little twist, brings us this magnificent book, which I think got us here this evening.

Gaynor: Yes, it is. And Scott, this is actually the first time all four of us have spoken together. Up to this point, it has been a one-on-one situation.

The book came together as a collaborative effort—this is the team. In a way, it is sort of all Michael’s fault. When the FBI took me away at the Hands Off march, I had committed to join every protest march. When I came back, Michael and I were talking on Zoom.

I said, “Next, I’m going to have to chain myself to the White House gates. And then it’s kerosene—I’ll bring out my Zen monastery robes. I spent some time in a monastery, and I still have fond memories of it. I’ve got the gasoline too.”

Michael said, “Oh, please, please—you’re a poet. Write something.” And I said, “Okay.”

So I went back and wrote. For one thing, it was very dramatic. But I admit I always look for an excuse to wear my robes in public. The reason I am not a Zen monk, although I did try for about five years, is that I had a sudden moment of complete understanding: nobody looks fat in a robe.

I realized I was in it for the wardrobe and the accessories. It was time to get back to a different model. But there we have it.

Jacobsen: How long was this process—from Michael’s early suggestion to the final production?

Saint James: About six months. Yes, this came together very quickly. When you have a publishing company, you can make things happen, which is very lovely.

Jim and I were very fortunate to have set up Pinfeather Press a couple of years ago—initially to publish my work and some of his. Unfortunately, the traditional publishing industry is beginning to crumble. Today, if you get signed—and I am not talking about big names who get pushed to market in six months, but ordinary writers—it takes about two years for your book to reach the shelves.

But Jim and I, along with David and Michael, cannot sit around and wait two years. It is ridiculous. We are all past seventy, which is all I will say. We want to get the books out.

And so this was very uncomplicated. The longest part of bringing it together was the design. We have a designer we use for all our books.

She’s wonderful. Once we all agreed on how this should look and what it should be, we got it out. With print-on-demand today, you don’t have to commit to printing 5,000 books, and that makes a big difference.

The only glitch we encountered was when Jim sent me the original manuscript—all the quotes in the book were by men, except for those of Hannah Arendt. I looked at this and said, “At least 50 percent should be by women.” Also, all the people whose wonderful quotes we had were dead. So I said, “We should include some people who are alive, and at least 50 percent should be women.” That became my contribution. In the end, there were no men.

Gaynor: And we lost Hannah Arendt—my favourite quote. Michael, not even knowing this story, was quoting her words to me, and it turned out to be the one that didn’t make it in.

Tigar: Yes, but the idea of including quotes from women remained. Remember, we’re writing about an administration whose leadership probably thinks Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.

Saint James: That is, unfortunately, very true. So, once we have the manuscript where we want it—and this has been true of our other books too—it usually takes about six months. It’s a swift timeline, and it works for us. I was so happy with this book because it’s such a beautiful production. Even though I had an issue with Jim’s poem about Fibonacci’s artichoke. In the back, I suggested to him that we add a note reflecting how food inspires us.

Jim had written, “Once the artichoke has served its purpose,” and I said, “But that isn’t correct. It should be, ‘Once the artichoke has been dipped in vinaigrette.'” Jim, being the poet, refused to change the poem. But we added an extra little section that included a colonial American vinaigrette recipe.

Gaynor: So it’s a revolutionary recipe. Vinaigrette that carries on. And Pinfeather Press, as we’ve evolved, has developed a couple of distinctive characteristics. For example, we always try to include books you might want to read after finishing whatever you’re reading.

In the novels that Jo writes, we include a glossary, because Regency Romance and 18th-century English slang can trip people up. And we also add recipes. I was once an editor at a national food magazine. Jo runs a test kitchen and is responsible for National Pickle Month in advertising.

We’re always curious about what our characters are eating, what that reflects, and whether our readers truly know what that food might taste like. I always remember my first novel that I tried to get published—it didn’t happen. However, I had a friend who sent it to William Morrow, and I received a lovely rejection letter from an editor named Bob Levine, who went on to praise the glories of Maria Callas’ expertise.

But I got a lovely letter from him saying, “There are two things I noticed about your manuscript. None of the doors ever seems to be completely closed. And you never miss a chance to ask for the recipe of whatever your character finds delicious.”

I was 21 at the time. Looking back, it was foreshadowing—much of what I still do. 

Jacobsen: What I’m noticing with Pinfeather is that the structure of the book is also unusual. I’ve seen a couple of experimental presentations of books, but here you have a thorough commentary, and then interspersed throughout are full-page poems punctuating the narrative. You’ve got commentary on civil disobedience, critiques of government, and then these poems pocketed in between. Was there a rationale behind that, or was it more of an aesthetic decision?

Gaynor: Actually, both. David and I have talked about this, because one of the reasons—and pretty much the only reason—I go to poetry readings is to hear the poet’s actual voice. But what I’m more interested in is the backstory.

It’s not enough for me if the poet says, “The spider going down the drain in the sink is my mother.” Tell me why the spider is your mother, why it matters, and what the story is. The metaphors are there, but I want the backstory.

So, when Michael suggested I put a collection together, I pulled out my 1968 copy of Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience. I was looking at my underlinings, remembering, and realized I missed him. But more than that, I realized there was a story behind it.

David talked earlier about how poetry echoes down through the ages. Well, Thoreau’s essay has echoed this as well. It is eloquent, sometimes florid—too florid at times—but still beautiful. I still see references to it in The New York Times today.

That was part of the backstory I wanted to include. And I’ve already had three people write to me—emails, letters, notes—saying they were glad the essay was included, because they’d heard of it but never actually read it. It’s a beautiful text, and I think it enriches the entire project, especially in the way our team—David, Nola, Michael, and I—collaborated on it.

Bergman: Another way it works together is that people often miss the humour in Thoreau. Your poetry brings that humour out in his work. He begins with a very libertarian, almost anarchist stance, saying there should be no government at all. But then he steps back and says, “Well, that’s not quite my point.” He’s wonderfully funny in the tone of the essay, even while being serious. There’s something campy about it, and the poems highlight that quality.

Tigar: There’s an excellent Provençal restaurant somewhere near Cannes. It’s a buffet. You walk in and see things you’ve had before, as well as things you haven’t. You say, “Well, I’ve heard of that, but I’ve never tasted it. I’ve had that, but maybe it would go better next to this.”

That’s the salad bar theory of a poetry collection. You put it all together and let the reader sample and arrange. It’s a smart departure from Dylan Thomas, who once gave a famous reading at UCLA and said, “They’ve asked me to explain my poems before I read them. I never do that, because as soon as I begin, my mind drifts to something else—like if a hermaphrodite were also a schizophrenic, which half would you take?” So I prefer the salad bar theory.

Saint James: I really did not hear that, Michael. It’s very—well, I was going to say—Talmudic. The Talmud has a great deal to say about various categories of sex; I believe it identifies six or seven. This text dates back to around the 500s of the Common Era.

But yes, in preparing for tonight, I kept thinking about the Rita Rudner quote I used in the introduction: she said she wanted her tombstone to read, “I tried everything, nothing was easy.” When I wrote that introduction six or seven months ago, it meant one thing to me. Today, it means something very different.

With what we’re going through now in the United States—freedom of speech issues, and prominent voices not only being cancelled but also threatened in unprecedented ways—we are in a time when nothing is going to be easy. But that doesn’t mean we don’t do whatever we can.

Gaynor: And what we can do—and Scott, this is really the point that brought us all together—is this book. We have a sense that this is something we can do.

By ensuring that the profits from its sales—so far, modest—go to the ACLU, we’re making the book more than literature. When people buy and share it, it says: You are not alone, wherever you are. And you are doing something.

The ACLU is one of the few organizations in this country that has not caved. Ultimately, many of these battles will end up in the Supreme Court, which will determine whether we end up with a more institutionalized authoritarian state or weather a tough time.

Whatever happens, this book channels poetry into action. Buy it for $20.25, and the profits go to the ACLU. Somebody says no. Somebody says no kings. Somebody says freedom of speech. That’s action.

Bergman: Significantly, your copy of Thoreau dates from 1968, because that was the year he returned as an important voice in America through the anti-war demonstrations. And all of us who are now 70 or older feel that this moment echoes the anti-war atmosphere of the past, when small groups could come together and make a change.

Jacobsen: What has been the efficacy of the ACLU—following from the financial contributions per book purchase—since the 1960s? What has its impact been? How is everyone’s Secret Service file looking?

Tigar: Well, I have a very long FBI file, and there are things in it that caused ripples in my life. But the ACLU—when the Vietnam War protests began, and as we were emerging from the lingering shadow of McCarthyism—they showed up for work.

Melvin Wulf was their staff counsel at the time. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who later became a member of the House of Representatives, was a lawyer there. And I, as a young lawyer arriving in Washington in 1966, saw it firsthand. Not only did the ACLU show up—they put resources into the fight. We won cases nobody thought we could win.

When César Chávez’s son, Fernando, refused induction into the military, he was tried before a Republican federal judge in Fresno, California. There was this magic moment in the courtroom when César himself came in and testified about how his son had decided to become a conscientious objector.

The prosecutor asked, “Now, Mr. Chávez, you say you are a pacifist. What would you do if a Russian soldier were raping your wife?” César paused for a full 30 seconds, then said, “Excuse me, I’ve forgotten your name.”

The prosecutor replied, “Allen. William Allen.”

Chávez said, “Mr. Allen, let me tell you about the struggle of the farm workers.”

Allen promptly objected: “Your Honour, this man is going to make a political speech.”

And the judge said, “Mr. Allen, I’ve spent a week trying to keep Mr. Tigar out of that. And now you ask that question? Well, we’re all going to sit here until Mr. Chávez is done answering it.”

The next morning, the judge tossed out the charges. Interestingly, 20 years later, I ran into that judge. I said, “Judge Crocker, how are you? Do you remember me?”

He said, “Yeah, I remember you. You probably think you won that case.”

I said, “Well, yeah.”

He said, “Well, you didn’t. That dumb son of a bitch lost it.”

So we profited from the over-enthusiasm of our enemies.

Bergman: Michael, you remind me of a similar case where Lytton Strachey, as a World War I objector, was asked, “What would you do if a German was raping your sister?” He replied, “I’d interpose my own body.”

Tigar: Yes, that is classic Lytton Strachey. During one of the trials—just one more story—the so-called conspiracy case, the U.S. attorney summoned the lawyers and said, “We found your clients are holding a bomb.”

I thought, “Oh, shit.” He brings out a World War II hand grenade.

A hand grenade that, of course, had no powder left in it. It was painted baby blue and had a little clip soldered to the top. One of the defendants said, “That’s a roach clip.”

The FBI asked, “What’s a roach clip?”

And the defendant answered, “Ask your children.”

So yes, there was this culture.

Gaynor: What Michael is describing shows that there was much more activity around resistance back then. But the ACLU stepped up.

Currently, it’s the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a few other organizations that are taking action. What we’re seeing today is almost preemptive caving—throwing money at the administration to settle because they don’t want to lose their merger.

Meanwhile, comedians who dare to make fun of recent events are silenced. That’s one of the statements this book makes: it gives voice.

And beyond the message, I love the design—the colours, the way the text is presented. I’ve spent much of my academic life studying how information is illustrated, which is also how I wound up in corporate communications for a global financial services firm.

This book is a very effective piece of communication. Let me turn the tables and ask: what poem, or what part of the book, spoke to you most? We have a manifesto, an introduction, a foreword, statements, sections, and poems.

Tigar: Yes, but you see, it really depends. You can dip into this book anywhere, and you’ll find the piece that fits. You might have to look, but it’s there.

My friend Monet painted the façade of Rouen Cathedral a dozen times, and each time it was a different façade. What you were talking about earlier—about law firms who crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning, if you’re a John Milton fan, or even if you’re not—reminded me of that. There are law firms that have courageously stood up. By the way, the one where I was a partner, Williams & Connolly, did precisely that, and I want to salute my old firm.

I’m going to answer your question. Here’s the poem. 

Late at night, first in the morning,

we’ve been together for a lifetime.

How is it we woke strangers,

wondering when we started sleeping with the enemy?

That’s for all the lawyers you mentioned just a few minutes ago. And I know I rattled on at great length, but that’s a function of age. You’ll get there.

Saint James: This is a fascinating conversation for me, as the only woman here. And I’m experiencing a lot of what I experienced when I first saw Jim’s draft.

How women demonstrate and fight back is very different from how men do. We are all warriors—or resisters, to use Michael’s word—of the 60s and 70s. I went to my first political meeting in 1966. It was an SDS meeting, and I was still in high school. I looked around, and it was just me and a whole bunch of men. And I thought, “I don’t belong here,” because it was very clear that their agenda and mine were different.

When Jim first gave me this excellent book with all the quotes—and only one woman, Hannah Arendt—I thought, wait. Jim is very much a feminist and supportive, the best partner I could ever have in the work we’re doing, but Jim, you’re still a man.

So I found myself doing what women do when we protest: first asking, “How much can we get back for our own?” That’s why I said at least half of the quotes should be from women. And Jim wisely said, “You pick them out.”

By the time I finished, no men were being quoted—it was all women. And we came to understand that in the way we put this together. A book about protest, with new voices—yes, we have Harriet Tubman—but women’s voices became another drumbeat, added to Thoreau’s words, to Jim’s poetry, to David’s manifesto, and Michael’s foreword. Together, it became something much bigger, and it was finally realized.

Tigar: I agree with you. But I want to take issue with one of the words you used: “warriors.” Given the level of political violence—the shootings, and the other kinds of violence going on—I think we have to think of ourselves as resisting, resisting the increasing autocracy of the government.

Saint James: I agree with you, David. Now, as a young, newly radicalized teenager in 1966 and 1967, that was the only word. When I suddenly realized what my life could be, and what I had been raised to expect, I—like so many women of that era—just wanted to kill everybody.

Because suddenly, we realized that what we had been raised to expect, first of all, was not reality, and second, was not fair. I will never forget Gloria Steinem, in an interview later in her life, saying, “We thought—and this is absolutely true—we felt that if we could explain to men what was wrong with the system, they would understand and be willing to change things.” Hearing her say that so many decades later rang true because all the women who were in that room laughed; we all had believed it at the time.

And then, when we saw that was not going to happen—that men were not going to listen to us, that they did not see us as whole human beings—we realized we were going to have to do drastic things. Shirley Chisholm said—and it’s in the book—if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. And we were going to have to bring in those folding chairs and then hit people over the head with them, because it was the only way to get attention.

There was no attention. At the first Women’s March in New York—I believe it was 1970—I was there. I recall that on TV, they didn’t think it would amount to much. They thought a few hundred feminists would walk down Fifth Avenue, and they set up barricades so we had just a small lane on that wide street. However, as the march grew, they had to dismantle all the barricades because there were so many women. We filled the avenue from storefront to storefront, thousands—hundreds of thousands—of women coming out to say, we’ve had enough; this has to change.

It was amazing, truly amazing. But the men did not take it seriously. They did not take it seriously on TV that night. I remember watching the news anchors—male anchors—who didn’t understand why we wanted to do this. Why were women doing this?

Bergman: May I interrupt?

Saint James: Please, David.

Bergman: Let me be a man in this case, and interrupt. I think we are facing another problem, one that is similar to what you mentioned regarding feminism. Most men back then did not understand feminism—indeed, the majority didn’t.

Now, we face a parallel situation. Many people today, and indeed the government—the regime that has taken over—are not going to listen. They want to silence dissent. There’s no way we can convince them to understand.

We thought for a while that if we could only communicate clearly, they would understand. But it’s now quite clear that they are sealed off.

What do we do then? They have created an atmosphere of violence because they will not listen. And that violence could be turned on us—all of us.

Jacobsen: A few thoughts here, if I may—if I can interrupt the interrupting. I notice the language being used a lot about the regime—”it”—about the current Republican administration. That’s very much object language rather than subject language, which may actually be apt. Because it, like a rock, doesn’t listen. So it’s probably an appropriate characterization.

On the use of the term warriors versus resistors, a lot of these terms have a duality. You could throw a little Timothy Leary–style acidic optimism into it and frame it differently: as advocates. By resisting, you’re also advocating for a particular set of values, because the values you are resisting are contrary to those you hold.

And, to reiterate the earlier point about the Women’s March: I was recently in Iceland for three weeks, examining some of their gender equality efforts, which are remarkably strong. When women marched there. People listened. Pay equity reforms were implemented quickly, alongside other conscious and progressive decisions.

But in most movements, it’s usually a majority of women and a significant minority of enlightened men that make such changes possible.

To return to James’s poetry, the poem that spoke to me the most is “Grieving” (page 27). My father was an alcoholic. He and I were estranged. He died last year. I was abroad for a seven-week trip. I returned near midnight in the Summer, and the next morning was his funeral—or “celebration of life.”

Grieving captured that experience. It goes:

Make a list. Write down what you hated. And then, ruefully smiling, read it aloud. Strike a match, light the paper, and then set the curtains on fire. Walk out the door, close it behind you, and then, from a distance, watch it all burn down. Change your name. Leave the country. And then, knowing what you know, start over.

For me, it was not the dramatic persona of the poem itself, but the line, one step at a time. That has been my process of grieving. That was why I took the seven-week trip before the funeral. One day at a time. One step at a time.

I also wanted to reflect on what Nola said about the baseball team chant. I noticed that rhythm in the poem as well—the repeated “and then, and then, and then.” It becomes a chant, almost incantatory. There’s rhythm in that repetition, and I see it connecting with the commentary that’s been raised here.

Tigar: Back in the sixties, when women’s issues were suppressed, women were told, “It’s not your turn. We’ll do this liberation first.” But the truth is, as Brecht said in one of his 1930s poems, “All of us, or none.”

I saw this dynamic in the profession I’ve been part of. My law school class had 300 graduates—only six were women. Today, at least half of law students are women.

When Justice Sandra Day O’Connor joined the Supreme Court, the quality of discourse underwent a significant change. And when Ruth Bader Ginsburg later joined, it was almost a quantum leap. Justice O’Connor, in particular, took male advocates to task in ways that left a lasting impression.

Let me share a story. She was the commencement speaker at American University’s Washington College of Law one year, when I was teaching there. The university president, Benjamin Ladner, a pompous man, came up to her and said, “How do you do? I’m Benjamin Ladner, president of the university.” He was wearing a necklace with medallions representing each college of the university.

Justice O’Connor looked at him and asked, “What in the world is that around your neck?” He explained that each medallion represented a college of the university. She replied, “Really? Do you wear it around the house to get a little extra respect?”

That was Justice O’Connor—direct, incisive, and transformative. These events altered the way people viewed women in law.

Jacobsen: To return to the original question: the import of the ACLU and the matter of personal “rap sheets.”

Tigar: The ACLU has had its lapses. For example, it struggled with the question of whether communists had the same rights as everyone else. When Dr. Benjamin Spock was indicted for draft resistance, there was significant debate within the ACLU about whether they could take on the case. Eventually, they did, writing strong amicus briefs, and all convictions were reversed.

I remember arguing it out internally, with substantial opposition to supporting that position. No organization is perfect. However, when the ACLU arrived for work, it was formidable. And I’ll admit—it was fun.

Saint James: Scott, to go back to your point about the language of fighting, resistance, and war: let me share a woman’s perspective.

When women get together these days, many of them speak, sometimes half in jest but also in deadly seriousness, about going to the White House and setting themselves on fire. It’s not likely we’ll see hundreds of thousands of women doing that. 

But the fact that so many feel compelled to say it shows the overwhelming rage at what’s happening in government, in women’s rights, and in women’s healthcare. It’s an expression of total frustration. People need to know: this is a serious matter.

When women are talking about immolating themselves, this isn’t good, not because they will do it. But because it creates a barrier between men and women. That’s why I bring it up. Women are not only hurting, but they are more furious than I can ever remember. (I wanted to add the following, but David jumped in. Use it if you wish, or take it out.) Every Mother’s Day, there is a cartoon that pops up on Facebook. It shows two 20-something young women looking for a card. One says to the other, “I’m looking for a card for my mother that says, ‘You did not waste your entire life fighting for women’s rights.’” For many women of my generation, this really strikes home.

Bergman: Yet, there are more women in this administration than in any other administration I’ve recognized. You have horrible women—dog shooters. What you are talking about, Jim, is only one of the people who have thought of setting themselves on fire. It is because of the frustration. Because this is an administration, it is not that it cannot hear. It does not want to hear. What do you do to break that? 

Saint James: Because of Michael’s association with Angela Davis and Jim’s association with Angela Davis—writing her in for any position where he did not like other candidates—I was inspired to find a quote from her for our book. One that really resonated with me is the one on page 41: “If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night.”That resonated with me because it is so much like Martin Niemöller’s poem, “First They Came,” from the Holocaust. It describes how they came for the labour unionists, and he did nothing because he was not a labour unionist. He goes through all of these different people who were taken away, and he was not one of them. Then, finally, they came for him. There are some variations of this—he himself wrote several versions of the poem.

This message is absolutely accurate and could not be more timely: when they come after Stephen Colbert, when they come after Jimmy Fallon. When Stephen Colbert’s show was cancelled, interestingly, they cancelled it but did not pull him off the air. All the other late-night hosts came together and issued a statement. And then, the other day, they not only silenced Jimmy Fallon, they pulled his show. Jimmy Kimmel, too—eventually, they will come after him. The thing is, it might be easy for people to say, “Well, they’re just performers, entertainers, it’s not important.”

However, these are some of the most outspoken voices that reach a wide range of people, not only in the United States but also, thanks to the internet and social media, around the world. 

Tigar: Think of Charlie Chaplin. 

Gaynor: This goes back to David’s point about how poetry endures. Poetry stretches across ages. That poem—about the horrors of an authoritarian state taking root—resonates with us right now. It resonates even more because of our distance.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it echoes. It doesn’t show us precisely what will happen, but it shows us what we can do. And on the darker side, we know from such poems what human beings are capable of doing to each other—and why we must act. March, support the ACLU, set yourself on fire—or at least talk about it.

Saint James: Don’t set yourself on fire. It makes it very hard to get up the next morning and do something positive.

Jacobsen: Right—and then we’ve lost another Buddhist.

Gaynor: Well, I was never much of a Buddhist. When I was leaving, I had an exit interview with the sensei. I said, “I’m not much of a success as a Buddhist.” He said, “Neither am I.”

Bergman: One thing we need to remember, as people in our seventies and older, is that our voices are not usually the ones people listen to. Still, we must keep speaking.

We can take risks—it’s unlikely that we’ll be the ones punished. And if we are, well, we’ve lived enough that we can take that chance. But remember: on the “Night of the Murdered Poets” in 1952, Stalin had all the major Yiddish poets under his control executed in a single night. Poetry itself is never safe from enemies.

Saint James: That’s an excellent point, David.

Jacobsen: What characterizes the enemy of poets?

Tigar: The ACLU reflects a principle deeply rooted in Anglo-American history—but extending beyond that. The principle is that those who wield power cannot be permitted to act with impunity.

This idea—that power must be subject to correction by law—began to take modern form around 1607–1608 with Sir Edward Coke. The familiar lawyers kept pressing the point, the king kept pushing back, and eventually they had to shorten him “by the length of the head” to make their point.

That principle still resonates today. The Nuremberg tribunals were created because Stalin wanted to line up Nazi leaders and shoot them. But Truman and Churchill insisted instead on a historical record, with rules and fair procedures. That not only set an example of how justice ought to work, it also placed beyond serious dispute the fact of the Holocaust itself. So this review, restraint, and didactic function—that’s what the ACLU reflects. 

Jacobsen: If people are willing to kill poets overnight—as Stalin did, for example—what characterizes the enemies of poets through time?

Bergman: People who don’t want the truth. Liars, humiliators, bullies. Bullies don’t recite poetry. I’ve never heard the president recite a poem, and certainly not at his inaugurations, has he not invited a poet to speak? Not that a poet would necessarily come, but he could find one.

They’re afraid of language used forcefully, where the vitality of language comes alive for people. They prefer slogans. Poetry also carries an element of beauty. And in many of these people, I see a hatred of beauty, a hatred of truth. There are many different forms of beauty, but authoritarianism seeks to impose an aesthetic that is antithetical to poetry. That is why poets get silenced.

Saint James: In Breaking Up on X, we included this excellent quote by Amanda Gorman. She says, “Words are a type of combat, for we always become what we refuse to say.” She’s magnificent.

She channels Maya Angelou. She’s so young, yet so wise. But this is true: people with an agenda don’t just suppress poets, they suppress speech itself. They fear discourse; they fear ideas. It’s almost as if in their minds they’re saying, “People should be seen and not heard.” Poetry demands to be heard.

Gaynor: And sometimes, Scott, poetry is also heard in its silences. One of the silences in this collection that I am most proud of is that there is not a single mention of the name of the figurehead puppet of this particular movement. He is noted only by his absence.

Saint James: This was a long conversation Jim and I had about how we wanted to frame the whole book and its promotion. When we put it together, we wanted it to visually convey—through visual poetry—what the book conveys in written form.

Gaynor: And the fact that this is going to appear among all of your other platforms, Scott—at The Good Men Project, because David, as you know, Scott, you and I both share editing experiences with the formidable Kara Post-Kennedy. That’s how we were all put together. We’re looking forward to seeing what we can do to help promote the book and encourage people to think about things they can do.

It’s not necessarily just about this book. It’s about acting. Michael said to me, “You’re a poet, write poetry.” So you’re a poet, write. That’s part of the message here as well.

Overall, one of the initial questions you asked was whether this is a different collection of poems. It is, because it is enveloped in text, history, and story. One of the things that Pinfeather Press, our organization, is about is storytelling. All literature, all mathematics—everything tells a story.

And that brings us back to the enemies of poetry, who are also enemies of storytelling. If they don’t like the story, you don’t get to tell it. However, this book stands as a counterpoint to that.

I’ve suggested to a few people that, with holidays coming up, this book might be an excellent resource to bring to family gatherings—especially where there are varying political differences. It might spark some reasoned conversation. What David was saying about resistance can also mean actively listening, because that’s something we desperately need to do.

Those of us on the coasts, for whom things are working relatively well in the new service economy, often fail to understand that this system isn’t working well for those in between. Why are they frightened? Why are they vulnerable to grifters? They’re angry, they’re scared. We need to understand that anger—not to excuse everything, but at least to listen. As Rodney King said, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Saint James: The resources at the back of the book include two children’s books. One is Stacey’s Extraordinary Words by Stacey Abrams. It’s part of a lovely series of children’s books she’s written about standing up for oneself and fighting against Injustice. The other is George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy, about his childhood experience in Japanese American internment camps in California during World War II. 

It’s a children’s graphic memoir—gentle but powerful—and it teaches personal agency in a way kids can understand. 

Bergman: I believe I read that Abrams’ book has been banned in Florida. I hope I’m wrong—but I fear I’m not.

Gaynor: The other thing, Scott—in that list, the second book is by America’s leading gay academic literature scholar, David Bergman. It’s The Violet Quill Reader, one of David’s works on the emergence of gay writing after Stonewall—who wrote what, with whom, how often, when. It’s a groundbreaking scholarship that is particularly important for gay and lesbian readers to know about. And David is right here, so—yay! Of course, Michael’s book, Sensing Injustice, is a riveting memoir of his development as a civil rights and human rights lawyer.

This note section is an extension of what Nola and I envisioned for Pinfeather Press, which is to tell stories. And so, if poetry leads you to read the memoir of a man who fought against the death penalty, and also a children’s book about internment camps in 1940s California, then we’ve created a wealth of stories that whirl together. 

That makes this different from a simple collection of poems. This book has layers—memoir, protest, history, poetry. All of it, we hope, reaches an audience that will support the ACLU—because, dear God, they’re the only ones really doing anything.

Talk at home. Talk with people. Think about what you can do. If the four of us could put together a whole book, then maybe you can too—or perhaps you can hold a yard sale, or possibly you can do something small in your own community. But it’s something to do.

One of the things I love about this particular collection is that it’s a genuine collective effort. We came together to make it happen. That makes it very special. I’m honoured to have my poetry appear alongside the work of Michael Tigar, David Bergman, and Rabbi Dr. Jo David—also known, of course, as the rabbi who writes Regency romance with recipes.

Jacobsen: Final words? Who gets the last word?

Gaynor: Since I’m the common thread here, let’s that be the final word — if that’s okay with everyone.

Jacobsen: Excellent. Everyone, thank you very much for your time today.

Saint James: Thank you so much, Scott. Really wonderful.

Tigar: Thank you, Scott.

Bergman: Thank you.

Gaynor: And look at us—the four of us in our seventies, still resisting!

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