Raphael Montañez Ortíz-poetry

Bio: Raphael Montañez Ortíz

Raphael Ortiz is Director of Visual Arts (Mason Gross, Rutgers University). He founded and was the first director of the El Museo Del Barrio in New York City in 1969. His sculptures are included in many museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he has twice been included in the Whitney Biennial. He has created mixed-media ritual performances and installations for museums and galleries in Europe and Canada and throughout the United States. His computer-laser-video works are in numerous museum collections, including the Ludwai Museum in Cologne, Germany, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. His video Dance Number 22 won the Gran Prix at the 1993 Locarno International Video Festival of Switzerland. He is considered one of the USA’s most creative visual artists, performance artists, and poets.

(Photo by Josephine Barreiro)

The LIBERTY IN A TEMPEST TEAPOT Poem

(The Emma Lazarus’s “New Colossus” Variation)

THE STATUE THAT ONCE WITH ARM HELD HIGH

LIT THE WAY TO LIBERTY NO LONGER SIGNALS THE WAY

THE WHIRLWINDS OF POLITICS

LIKE A FRANKENSTEIN NOW POSSESS HER

WITH LOWERED ARM AND EXTINGUISHED TORCH

SHE WIELDS THE TEABAG SYMBOL OF THE TEMPEST

THAT LIKE THE EVIL GENIE BECKONED FROM THE TEAPOT

NOW DROWNS OUT THE VOICE OF LIBERTY

A LIBERTY WHOSE GOLDEN VOICE ONCE SHOUTED

“GIVE ME YOUR TIRED YOUR POOR YOUR HUDDLED MASSES

YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE THE WRETCHED REFUSE OF YOUR

TEEMING SHORE SEND THESE THE HOMELESS TEMPEST TOSSED

TO ME”

DRIVEN BY PHOBIC WINDS THE CROWD OF

FRIGHTENED AND HATEFUL VENTRILOQUIST VOICES

NOW SPEAK FOR HER

SHOUTING PUNISH THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

DEPORT THEM PUNISH THEIR FAMILIES

PUNISH THEIR CHILDREN PUNISH THEIR EMPLOYERS

MAKE IT SO HATEFUL FOR THEM

THEY WILL NOT WANT TO COME TO THE LAND OF THE BRAVE

AND HOME OF THE FREE