MAY OUR LOVE BE TENDER BUT WITH TEETH
Jacqui Germain
October — December 2019
“This is an invitation to be brave—to cultivate a love brave enough to challenge the ideologies and material powers that feast on us and on the planet. The project of empire is one of theft. Its allegiances are to dominance, deliberately constructed war, and deliberately constructed inequity. American empire—though it sometimes parades in benevolence and peace-keeping—is participant and leader of that effort both domestic and abroad.
To resist and dismantle a project that massive calls for us to be equally deliberate with our care and with our relationships; with our language, our art, and our work; with our resistance and with our love. So, I invite us to be brave—to cultivate a love that fiercely protects the most vulnerable of us, a love that does not shy away from anger or principled conflict. May our love be tender but with teeth. May our love be brave enough to demand more of ourselves. We cannot build a better world without becoming better people.”
About Jacqui
JACQUI GERMAIN is a published poet and freelance journalist who believes deeply in denim and pointy fingernails. She currently serves as a 2019 Artist Fellow with the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission, and poetry editor and contributing writer for several publications. Germain is author of When the Ghosts Come Ashore (2016), and has received additional fellowships from Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the Poetry Foundation’s Emerging Poet’s Incubator, and Jack Jones Literary Arts. Visit Jacqui's website to learn more.