the poet Dot Devota

Author of PMS: A Journal In Verse; The Division of Labor; And The Girls Worried Terribly; The Eternal Wall; Dept. of Posthumous Letters. My personal views.

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

What is a poet in the age of mass extinction?

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

“Let Us Out”: ICE Detention of Kids Sparks Protests at Immigration Jail in Texas https://t.co/QfDoEdMxuY via @democracynow

[Kelly @broadwaybabyto]

The first photo is Liam Ramos last week when ICE kidnapped him after pre school.

The second photo is Liam Ramos after a few days in an ICE camp.

2025 was the deadliest year on record for ICE.

The conditions are appalling.

Liam’s health is deteriorating.

Let him go.

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

"This is my message: the lawyers need to visit the prisons."

[Mohammed El-Kurd @m7mdkurd]

A Palestinian who was just released from Israeli prisons testifies that the Zionist regime is subjecting Palestinian political prisoners to brutal treatment, including sexual assault and rape.

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

do not revise, but translate the poem

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

I discovered 6-7 meaning...

ADONIS, Arab Poetics:

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

Abū al-‘Alā’ al-Ma‘arrī, trans Ameen Rihani

The Prophets, too, among us come to teach,
Are one with those who from the pulpit preach;
They pray, and slay, and pass away, and yet
Our ills are as the pebbles on the beach.

[Séamus Malekafzali @Seamus_Malek]

I interviewed @wasimsaidharbid, author of @1804Books "Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide", about current conditions in Gaza, the process of writing a book amidst a genocide, and his critiques of popular narratives about Palestinian resilience.

Link in the next tweet. ↓

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

NOUR ABDEL LATIF, Gaza

But a voice born of truth
is never laid to rest.
It lingers—
in the dust, in the wind,
in every heartbeat that dares to remember.
One day, it will rise again—
not as a whisper,
but as a storm.https://t.co/ivXfNtxscK @truthout @InterlinkBooks

[WasimSaid @wasimsaidharbid]

I speak mostly to souls, not to bodies.

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

"this genocide has stripped us of our dignity, and has exported to the world an image that does not resemble our truth
an image of humiliation and abasement.
I begin to write…"

[WasimSaid @wasimsaidharbid]

Two o’clock after midnight.
The rain is falling. My tent sways right and left. My little brother beside me is shivering. Dogs are barking, and my hands tremble from cold and from humiliation.
I argue with myself: Now I will sleep. Enough wakefulness. I must sleep to escape the hell I am living.
It answers me: Are you fleeing from one hell to another?
The souls of those I love are waiting for me there.
I cannot sleep.
I take my pen and paper; the faint glow of my phone lies beside me.
Lightning stirs the tent—thunder from the sky, and the thunder of planes.
I decide to write that this genocide has stripped us of our dignity, and has exported to the world an image that does not resemble our truth an image of humiliation and abasement.
I begin to write…
Suddenly!
A torrent of water destroys the tent, floods me and my brother as we lie on our bedding, and ruins everything I own.
I continue writing on my phone after losing my papers. It is three in the morning, inside the tent of one of my relatives. The stench of his little daughter’s urine chokes me—he is unable to provide diapers for her; he can barely feed her. It is the only tent in our camp that is still usable.
Twenty of us are inside it.
My clothes are soaked. I shiver, and I remember…
How the water forced its way in from the right side of the tent and destroyed it.
How it drowned us.
How my brother jolted awake in terror, shaking.
How he called me by my name—pleading, afraid, in need.
And I was silent, trembling, powerless…
Powerless.
Powerless.
Powerless.
My father’s face. My mother’s screams. My siblings’ cries. The pleas of our neighbors in their tents, the crying of their children.
The sounds of rain, of thunder, and of the thunder of planes.
What was I like as I stood in the middle of the camp’s street, the rain pouring down on my head—or, to be precise, it was the bombs of the sky that were pouring down on us. As for the rain, that was what used to fall on our trees, when I was in my home, with my family gathered around our heater, watching it and enjoying it…
The water reached just below the knee.
A man screaming at the sky, begging it, asking for its mercy—then breaking into hysterical laughter.
A wife screaming at her husband to take their newborn child and protect him…
He shouts back at her to be silent and wait for the verdict of fate…
His shouting to conceal his helplessness.
A cold, trembling hand pats my shoulder: Come on, my son.
Come back to the tent—you’ll fall ill if you stay.
My father walks ahead of me.
I walk behind him.
The sound of our feet struggling through the water.
The sound of our thoughts struggling.
I could hear what was turning in my father’s head
exactly what was turning in mine.
We enter the tent. Before me are my younger siblings, my mother, my grandfather, my relatives—everyone soaked, bewildered, broken, crushed, despairing…
Suddenly!
All the sounds around me fall silent, even the sound of my thoughts,
even the trembling of my limbs and the pounding of my heart.
And one question echoes:
Am I human?
Are they human?
And it is still echoing….

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

MAHMOUD DARWISH

I love you unto weariness,
your morning is fruit for songs
and this evening is precious gold
the shadows are strong as marble.
When I see myself,
it is hanging upon a neck that embraces only the clouds

https://t.co/prgq7sXYb8

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

DARWISH

I dont want this poem to end ever
I dont want it to have a clear aim
I dont want it to be a map of exile
Or a country
I dont want this poem to end
With a happy ending or death
I want it to be as it wishes

- trans Mohammad Shaheen @InterlinkBooks

[Mahmoud Massri | مَحْمُود 🇵🇸 @MahmoudMassri15]

The echo of violent explosions is being heard across the entire Gaza Strip. Pray for us—we are dying from extreme terror and fear right now, and the sounds of warplanes flying overhead are terrifying as well.

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

DARWISH trans Mohammad Shaheen @InterlinkBooks

[Makdisi Street @MakdisiStreet]

🚨 NEW EPISODE 🚨

"We are not defeated" w/ Mustafa Barghouti

We welcome Palestinian politician, activist and medical doctor @MustafaBarghou1 , Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, and presidential candidate during the 2005 elections in Palestine.

[Mahmoud Massri | مَحْمُود 🇵🇸 @MahmoudMassri15]

The shelling in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis is insane right now.

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

"I'm calling on all of you to help the steadfastness of the Palestinian people." @MustafaBarghou1 @MakdisiStreet
https://t.co/LZxt1g1kt0

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

"now i can’t believe—"

Renée Nicole Macklin, poet murdered by ICE. Her award-winning poem here:https://t.co/0rmnvjs5wa

[the poet Dot Devota @meadowasylum]

BELA TARR: “You know, when I say I am ‘teaching,’ it’s not education. It’s liberation.”