Amanda Gorman's Minnesota Elegies--National Poetry Month 2026

                            Amanda Gorman. 

The murders of Renee Nichole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti at the hands of Federal paramilitary goons galvanized national attention to the brutal occupation of Minnesota and the massive resistance in the streets thousands of ordinary folks defending their neighbors.  Some will roll their eyes that once again it took White blood and brains to stir folks up who barely noticed Brown and Black victims.  Fair enough, I guess.

But Neither Good or Pretti set out to be martyrs and symbols.  They met their fates almost accidently.  Wrong place, wring time.

Amanda Gorman, the youthful Biden inauguration poet, Pulitzer Prize winner, and fashion icon has become a self-appointed Lauriat with pointed words for those who need to hear them.  Much to chic for a rebel in the streets and an anti-firebrand style,  she none the less speaks to many.

For Renee Nicole Good 

Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026

They say she is no more,

That there her absence roars,

Blood-blown like a rose.

Iced wheels flinched & froze.

Now, bare riot of candles,

Dark fury of flowers,

Pure howling of hymns.

If for us she arose,

Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,

Crouches our power,

The howl where we begin,

Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater

Of the worst of what we’ve been.

Change is only possible,

& all the greater,

When the labour

& bitter anger of our neighbors

Is moved by the love

& better angels of our nature.

What they call death & void,

We know is breath & voice;

In the end, gorgeously,

Endures our enormity.

You could believe departed to be the dawn

When the blank night has so long stood.

But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone,

When they forever are so fiercely Good.

            --Amanda Goreman 

More Minnesota Resistance inspired verse coming up.