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Split This Rock cultivates, teaches, and celebrates poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes social change.
Poem of the Week
Juan J. Morales
Content Notice: death, grief, refers to imperialism
Of Avocados
Like two hands pressed
together, they are twice as large
on the island. One feeds
the family meal, sending us to wonder
why are they so small
stateside? On our last visit to PR
we sat on my tío’s patio
to talk and drink cafecitos.
My dad stared down the giant tree
burdened with dark green fruit.
His brother didn’t offer him
a single one.
My tío died soon after
that visit. Dad kept bringing up
the abundance his brother never offered,
not as a grudge, but as a recollection
of what we still couldn’t get in the states,
of what was delicious enough
to keep all borders open.

Within the year, two more
of dad’s siblings passed away
and last week we lost him,
a man who planned to return for
one more avocado. For each of us,
he would have peeled away craggy skin,
parsed the flesh, and held out
those green wedges
on the point of his knife. We would have
accepted it
as one last gift
to savor in our mouths.

Listen as Juan J. Morales reads "Of Avocados."
About The Poet
Juan J. Morales is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father. He is the author of three poetry collections, including The Siren World and The Handyman’s Guide to End Times, winner of the 2019 International Latino Book Award. Poems have appeared in Acentos Review, Breakbeats Vol. 4 LatiNEXT, Collateral, Crazyhorse, CSPAN 2, Dear America, Pank, Poetry, Poetry Daily, terrain.org, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. He is a CantoMundo Fellow, a Macondo Fellow, the editor/publisher of Pilgrimage Press, and professor and department chair of English & World Languages at Colorado State University Pueblo.
Poet's Call to Action
Juan J. Morales invites people to support and amplify YWCA of Pueblo,
which serves the Pueblo, CO community by helping to empower women, eliminate racism, and addressing the changing needs of the southern Colorado community as established by the mission of YWCA USA. Learn more at the website of YWCA of Pueblo.
Poem used with permission. Photo above of Juan J. Morales by Patti Freeman Schreiber.

Photo Description: Close up image of Juan J. Morales that shows his face and shoulders. He is wearing a dark blue athletic top and grey beanie that has frost on it and says "Lighthouse." He is smiling.

Please note: We strive to preserve the text formatting of poems over e-mail, but certain e-mail programs may distort how characters, fonts, indents, and line wraps appear.
Share Widely, But Please Give Credit!
Please feel free to share Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask that you include all of the information above in this newsletter, as well as this request and a link to the poem at Split This Rock's website. Thanks!
Split This Rock Supports a Free Palestine
Split This Rock is behind the Palestinian community. We mourn the Palestinians whose lives have been lost, whose homes have been destroyed or stolen, whose land is under colonial occupation. Being in solidarity with Palestine is not an act of antisemitism. This is not a conflict, it is genocide. Israel is committing war crimes against Palestinians. This didn’t start last week. It’s been going on for nearly 80 years. We apologize for not saying this sooner: Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine.

As part of Split This Rock’s mission to cultivate, teach, and celebrate poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes social change, we invite you to attend Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI) Fest where a number of readers and presenters are Palestinian and of the Palestinian Diaspora. We invite you to support their work and hear from them directly. Learn more at RAWI's website.

To learn more about how you can help Free Palestine, check out the following action items and resources recommended from Palestinian community members:


Read Palestinian Poets:
Poems for Action, Grieving, Organizing, Teaching
[...]how do

we wipe
away tear--

gas and
blood? provide

shelter from
snipers? disarm

occupying armies?
#freepalestine--
-- Craig Santos Perez, From "understory"
Split This Rock staff offer poem categories in The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database in support of public action, grieving, organizing, teaching, or opening meetings. In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we encourage you to explore poems by poets within these communities at The Quarry.

We also invite you to explore work by all the poets in The Quarry by searching poems by content and author identity, including:
Community Updates
If you have events, a call for submissions, or other opportunities you'd like to share with the Split This Rock network, send us the information via our Newsletter Updates Request Form. If the online form is not accessible to you, please contact us at [email protected] for an alternate method of submission.
$5,000 Artist Relief Grants Available -- Apply by May 31!
To support artists during the COVID-19 crisis, a coalition of national arts grant makers have come together to create an emergency initiative to offer financial and informational resources to artists across the United States. Artist Relief will distribute $5,000 grants to artists facing dire financial emergencies due to COVID-19. "Dire financial emergencies” is defined as the lack of or imminent endangerment of essentials such as housing, medicine, caretaking, and food. The fund will operate through June 2021 and will fund at least 100 artists per month. To apply and learn more, visit the Artist Relief website.
The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant
The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) has created a temporary fund to meet the needs of experimental artists who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through FCA's Emergency Grants COVID-19 Fund, one-time $2,000 grants are being offered to eligible artists who have lost income from an engagement that has been canceled or postponed due to the pandemic. This fund is focused on providing support to composers, choreographers, playwrights, directors, visual artists, and poets, and cannot support artists who were working on a canceled or postponed project of work that is not their own. The Foundation's panelists have been prioritizing losses from non-commercial opportunities, rather than losses from potential sales opportunities. Artists who are interested in applying are encouraged to read the eligibility guidelines at FCA's website.
Virtual Lamplighter Literary Arts Summer Writing Institute
Northfield Mount Hermon School is launching the inaugural Lamplighter Literary Arts Summer Writing Institute online in July 2021 to support middle and high school fiction writers, poets, journalists, and scriptwriters. Workshops are capped at 15, with two instructors in each. Morning or night sessions are available to accommodate all time zones. The tuition fees are $900 for two weeks and $450 for one week. Scholarships are available.
For application and details, please visit the Lamplighter Literary Arts Summer Writing Institute webpage.
Furious Flower Virtual Legacy Seminar for Educators, June 21-25
The Furious Flower Poetry Center will host its fifth legacy seminar, "Groundwork: The Legacy of Poet and Editor Haki Madhubuti," June 21-25, 2021. The seminar will be virtual, and Haki Madhubuti will be joined by Carol D. Lee, Michael Simanga, Kelly Norman Ellis, and Diane Turner. There will also be a publishers panel with W. Paul Coates, Parneshia Jones, Lisa Lucas, and Patrick Oliver as moderator. The registration fee is $50. To learn more and register, visit Furious Flower's website.
Please Welcome to the Stage...: A Drag Literary Anthology Seeks Submissions by November 30
House of Lobsters Literary is looking for submissions for Please Welcome to the Stage...: A Drag Literary Anthology. They are accepting poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art for this collection celebrating the art of drag. Submissions can be any genre and style, but drag must be a notable component of the piece. For more information and guidelines, please visit House of Lobsters Literary's website.
Help Us Sustain Split This Rock
"Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth." 
-- June Jordan

After we published a statement in defense of Black lives in June 2020, a major donor withdrew a critical $55,000 annual funding commitment.

Help us keep Split This Rock community-funded so we can keep centering poets and poetry that speak truth to power. Split This Rock's Board has set a bold challenge to replace this lost funding. If 1,000 people contribute $5 per month, we can replace the lost $55k in one year. If 11,000 people contribute $5 per month, we can replace the lost funding in one month, hire more staff, and fully fund Split This Rock to sustain the work long term, ensuring year-round stipends for Teaching Artists and Featured Poets, honorariums for the Poem of the Week Series, accessibility services for events, and equitable pay to honor the tremendous work of our small staff.

Please consider becoming a sustaining donor for as little as $5 per month. A monthly donation at any level increases stability as we face an uncertain funding landscape. If you aren't able to donate right now but this work means something to you, please help us share the poetry, the resources, and this call for support.

Visit Split This Rock's website to make a one-time donation or become a sustaining monthly donor today.

To mail your gift: 
Send a check payable to "Split This Rock" to: Split This Rock, 1301 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 600, Washington DC 20036

We are grateful for the steadfast support of our audiences and communities and look forward to more brave work with you in the weeks, months, and years to come.
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