STC - Inhumanity

[DeepAsleep]

Deep?? I don't know of the Katy Genovese story, I don't think...

Could you just sort of make a list here of the facts in the case? That in itself might become a poem...

Thanks,
Boo

The basic facts are these:

Catherine "Kitty" Genovese was a 28 year old bar manager who lived in Queens, in a quiet, residential neighborhood. She was murdered on march 13, 1964. What becomes shocking about it is the way the murder went down.

The killer picked her because she was five foot one, weighed 105 pounds. He later said that he "picked women because they were easier targets," and that he "had an uncontrollable urge" to kill people.

Initially, she saw him and ran and he overtook her, jumped on her back and stabbed her several times. She cried out, "Oh my God! He stabbed me!" One man, named Mozier opened his window and shouted, "Hey,let that girl go!" and the attacker just walked off.

No one called the police. No one called an ambulance.

Kitty picked herself up and dragged herself along the wall of her apartment building until she got to a locked doorway, crying for help (Literally, from eyewitness accounts, "Help, I'm dying!"). The attacker returned, stabbing her several more times until lights went on in some apartments and he got spooked again and ran off. Kitty stumbles around to the back of her apartment building, into a small hallway, but falls down and apparently is unable to get up.

No one called the police. No one called an ambulance.

The attacker returned again, a few minutes later, because, "I knew I didn't finish what I started." He cut her clothing off, raped her, took fifty bucks out of he purse and stabbed her again, finally killing her.

The first attack was at about... Eh, 3:15 AM. No one called the police until 3:50 AM, and the guy who DID call the police called somone else first and asked their opinion about what he should do. Kitty was stabbed seventeen times, raped and killed, because no one wanted to pick up a phone, at least, not until she was dead.

So, yeah. that's the kitty Genovese story, at least in a fairly bare outline of facts.

This website, http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/kitty_genovese/

is a more in-depth look at the murder.

~D.A.

 

[average gina]

Dad gum it, Boo. I should have read this when you gave it to me initially. Something crossed my mind, but it would take me a couple of hours to sit in my bathtub to mull. Okay, maybe less than that--a girl can get really wrinkly--but I would need some time. I don't really expect to get a prize, but I need to stretch myself, so someone tell me that if I can get it in tonight that it will still be accepted.

Please...

Thanks for the rejection or the acceptance
me

Writing To Me

Thy paper and pen
They comfort me
Quite torturously.
Oh, clean slate I see
Whether expansive or wee
I want to make you dirty
By writing something pretty
Your emptiness stares contemptuously
As you tease and taunt and glare at me.
“Write! Write!” is your simple plea.
The request to gather words for others to see
Makes me cringe ever so slightly.
Thank you, word instruments, for testing me.

 

[The Mutt]

Boo,
I am posting this rather than sending you feedback because I hope it will encourage more people to read your poem. I was absolutely stunned! I read it as I was on the way out the door to work today, and it never left my mind. I couldn't wait to get home and read it again. Even the second time, it hit me like a baseball bat to the skull. The most heart-wrenching poem I have read here at Lit.
Because I have a penis, I don't feel that I am entitled to an opinion on the legallity of abortion. But I do feel that if anyone is to have an informed opinion on the issue, their opinion is not informed enough until they have read this stunning poem.
Brava!

 

[BooMerengue]

oh my god Mutt! Thank you so much!

I am SO against PBA that I think I would beggar myself to keep these babies rather than allow them to die in such a way. I do not believe in abortion but I feel its a woman's private issue and not for the courts to decide. But Partial Birth Abortion should never have been conceived of in the first place, let alone have to be banned. The ONLY reason I voted for Bush (ducking the tomatos) is because this ban came across Clinton/Gore's desk several times and they refused to sign it. We must all do all we can to keep this from EVER becoming legal for any reason again!

Thank you so much, Mutt, and thanks to all of you who read and voted/commented.

 

[champagne1982]

The Inhumanity poems that have been placed on the New Poems List to date, that I can see or that have been brought to my attention.

Inhumanity by lostandfounder

Raggedy Ann by tungtied2u

Inhumanity by BooMerengue

Danielle by Belegon

inhumanity africa's orphans by BlueskyBeauty

Inhumanity by Angeline

Inhumanity by Zanzibar

Inhumanity by DeepAsleep

Inhumanity (Dresden 1945) by champagne1982

Inhumanity by TheMutt

Inhumanity: Kosovo, 1999 by Lauren Hynde and since Lauren left comments off I'll comment here. Ethnic cleansing and the bombing of civilians have been around since mankind first decided to solve their problems through direct action rather than thought and conversation. Again, as upsetting as we find it, inhumanity becomes all too human.

Inhumanity by book_man_03

Inhumanity - Ulster's Red Hair by PatCarrington

 

[echoes_s]

she was young, gone missing
two drunken sitters
provided by the mother
before she left to party

boyfriend tucked in arm
laughing, halfway drunk
and greedy of getting drunk
flirting, fucking, free

he fed-up with her
free exhibitionist ways
slavering anyone on a play
arguing he left her
home to pack his things

found himself thick into this
she was granted immunity
for a testimony against him
no DNA tests of
the four found hair

i shudder to think
if innocent, he has
hardened to granite
with anger and hurt
betrayal for 10 years

worse yet
the monster that beat her
knocking her teeth out
choking her while he raped
broken ribs, cut lips

blood everywhere,
broken nose
then threw her in the river
still alive
until she froze

is still out there at lurking
possible this other friend
of the mother
who so innocently
has one final daughter with her

 

[ferociouskittycat]

I'm really spewing I missed this challenge

Could someone please, please, PLEASE PM me or my doormouse nick with the next one?

I haven't been to this thread for too long.

Off to read the poems now...

 

[Belegon]

Ya'Know, it wasn't until just now that I was reading Champagne's post over on the AH and then re-read the original posting here that I realized STC stood for Same Title Challenge.

D'oh!

Next time I will get it right.

 

[CharleyH]

The Inhumanity poems that have been placed on the New Poems List to date, that I can see or that have been brought to my attention.

A wonderful idea to post promo of this in the AH. I'd have forgotten about the challenge otherwise. I hope that you get tons of response, there are many terrific poems here. thank you all.

 

[Angeline]

Poets Against the War?
Is that a real org?
Where do I sign up?

Poets Against the War was started about a year ago by Sam Hamill, publisher of Copper Canyon Press. It's an excellent site and anyone can submit poems there. I have two there now (as do Lauren and smithpeter, I believe). And Maria has one submitted there recently that won a poem of the week award (go Maria!).

There's a UK counterpart to PATW, Voices in the Wartime, where you can submit poetry, art, essays, and even start a blog.

Here's my poem from PATW. I considered submitting it for this challenge, but I wanted to write something new (otherwise, wouldn't be much of a challenge for me, would it?).

Glossolalia

My voice is speaking
in tongues you cannot hear,
or will not listen
to voices crying over and over.

This is not glory.
This false hubris

is dead faces in gas masks
or bodies falling from boats
and filling the Atlantic,

where daddy was a medic in the
Third Wave.

There was no glory,
he said to me
or the night sky.

There was no honor.
Just death and surf,
and death and sand,
and death and death.

Innocence ripped
from exhausted boys,
knee deep in malaria
in north Africa and Bataan.

In Mei Lai the flames of children
screaming in Treblinka
or vaporized flash gone
in Nagasaki.

Children rolling over deserts
rife with land mines,
the legless ones who never walked,
hollow eyes in camps,
hordes hungering in mountain passes.

And even senseless children firing
the last of their innocence
at children sprawled
on the thorns of death
over art history and
organic chemistry books
on a warm spring morning.

We march into the unknown
only to discover
what mothers always know:

It’s just someone else’s child.

It’s all the same in the end,
all this marching
and cheering and waving
goes on and on and on,
but nobody ever owns
the world.

 

[BlueskyBeauty]

Poets Against the War was started about a year ago by Sam Hamill, publisher of Copper Canyon Press. It's an excellent site and anyone can submit poems there. I have two there now (as do Lauren and smithpeter, I believe). And Maria has one submitted there recently that won a poem of the week award (go Maria!).

There's a UK counterpart to PATW, Voices in the Wartime, where you can submit poetry, art, essays, and even start a blog.

Here's my poem from PATW. I considered submitting it for this challenge, but I wanted to write something new (otherwise, wouldn't be much of a challenge for me, would it?).

Glossolalia

My voice is speaking
in tongues you cannot hear,
or will not listen
to voices crying over and over.

This is not glory.
This false hubris

is dead faces in gas masks
or bodies falling from boats
and filling the Atlantic,

where daddy was a medic in the
Third Wave.

There was no glory,
he said to me
or the night sky.

There was no honor.
Just death and surf,
and death and sand,
and death and death.

Innocence ripped
from exhausted boys,
knee deep in malaria
in north Africa and Bataan.

In Mei Lai the flames of children
screaming in Treblinka
or vaporized flash gone
in Nagasaki.

Children rolling over deserts
rife with land mines,
the legless ones who never walked,
hollow eyes in camps,
hordes hungering in mountain passes.

And even senseless children firing
the last of their innocence
at children sprawled
on the thorns of death
over art history and
organic chemistry books
on a warm spring morning.

We march into the unknown
only to discover
what mothers always know:

It’s just someone else’s child.

It’s all the same in the end,
all this marching
and cheering and waving
goes on and on and on,
but nobody ever owns
the world.

and on and on and on...

that was beautiful sweet lady.

 

[Angeline]

and on and on and on...

that was beautiful sweet lady.

It's truth, just truth.

Thank you.

 

[champagne1982]

Inhumanity - Our Past and Inhumanity - Our Future by The_Fool

 

[echoes_s]

Reading a little at a time now, each one moving and depressing at the same time, but i have to say out of three i have read today, The Fool blew me away with "Inhumanity - Our Past"

 

[lostandfounder]

I was away this weekend and finally got a chance to read the inhumanity challenge poems.

Damn, so many different ways of looking at one word, and nearly everyone of them was staggering. There are so many good poets here it's remarkable. Thanks to everyone who took the time to write and thanks to everyone who took the time to vote and comment!

 

[champagne1982]

inhumanity and inhumanity, two by echoes_s

Two more! Thank you for submitting your poems echoes.

Well poets! I'm so proud of you. You definitely rose to this challenge, succeeding in visiting that dark place and moving us to become more concious of the power we weild with our words. Someday, someone may listen. That's all we can hope for.

Now go and write a full moon poem!

 

[average gina]

Well, it's not 'posted' in the list as of yet (to my knowledge) so I've taken another look at it and then decided to post it here.


I Screamed At Inhumanity

I screamed
My brain turned hot
My heart became a piston
Close to breaking its cocoon
I screamed
Angry
Saddened
Hurting
For my ancestors
For my relatives
For my offspring
I screamed
For the royalty that was stripped away from me
And my great, great, great, great grand people
To do the work of people who would not do it themselves
Kings and queens who were shackled and stripped
Turned from human to inhumane
From beautiful to black
Raped, whipped and stripped
From one to three-fifths
Then finally given freedom that was stolen
Only to be raped, whipped and stripped
Switching the torture from outside to inside
Switching the torture from physical to psychological
I screamed
Seeing my family
The kings and queens of centuries ago
Have relinquished their titles to honor much less
Drugs
Genocide
Ignorance
I screamed
Looking far
Seeing my cousins killing my other cousins
Not understanding why
But seeing my distant home being stripped of its jewels
The blood of my blood enriching the soil and poisoning the waters
Contrasts of black and white
Contrasts of beauty and fear
I screamed
Looking across the street
Seeing my cousins killing my other cousins
Not understanding why
Seeing my relatives being stripped of their inner beauty
The blood of my blood infused with drugs and abuse
Contrasts of black and black
Contrasts of beauty and ignorance
I screamed
At my children and their future
The evolution of man
From human to inhumane to nonhuman
Void of living
Void of compassion
Only an amalgamation of atoms
Swirled into a mass
Whose decisions, if based on the past,
Can produce the best of me
Can produce the worst of me
The blood of my blood flowing
From generation to generation
Hoping the atrocities will decrease
Knowing the atrocities may increase
I screamed
For the tragedy of slavery
I screamed
Remembering
Miss Evers’ Boys
The strange fruit
The Watts riots of the 60’s
The Watts riots of the 90’s
I screamed
For the degradation of visual, mental, and chemical genocide
I screamed
For the fear of what is to come
I screamed
Wondering if the towers were in Nigeria
Would the New York Times have posted the name of each dead person
I screamed
Wondering when the names of each soldier killed displayed in the news
Became renamed simply as troops
I screamed
Wondering when gross acts of humanity
Became normal and usual
I screamed
How inhumane
My brain turned hot
My heart became a piston
Close to breaking its cocoon
I screamed
I screamed
I screamed
Until all I could do was inhale
And hope

 

[ferociouskittycat]

Inhumanity - dona eis requiem


dona eis requiem ; grant them rest
light the torches; burn witch! burn!
inhumanity at its best
take your evil, ne'er return!

light the torches; burn witch! burn!
a witch's teat for Satan to suckle
take your evil, ne'er return!
beneath the flames, knees will buckle

a witch's teat for Satan to suckle
in Hell's wrath, foul blood will boil
beneath the flames, knees will buckle
ashen bones; earth's new found soil

in Hell's wrath, foul blood will boil
stakes are blazing, mouths run dry
ashen bones; earth's new found soil
Devil's sacrament, wither and die

stakes are blazing, mouths run dry
inhumanity at its best
Devil's sacrament, wither and die
dona eis requiem ; grant them rest

~~

It's late, but I couldn't resist having a go

It's pending, so don't find faults now LOL

 

[average gina]

Hey, y'all...

I feel the need to explain a couple of things about my inhumanity poem.

Boo had sent me the link for it last Friday, and, bum that I am, I didn't look at it until the next day. I mulled it over and then decided to write it Sunday. If anything, it is an unabridged form of the following poem:

I Screamed

I screamed.
I screamed at the whole, wide world.
I screamed at a handful of people.
I screamed at myself.
I screamed at the ruthless nemesis that lies within.
My scream opened at the dark, hovering, clouds
Getting some spirits’ attention.
My scream cracked the earth’s crust
Informing some demons to take notice.
My scream reached through time
Angry at my forefathers’ slack
Demanding my offspring that of excellence
Exclaiming one to have wanted more
The other to accept no less.
My scream reached
Through dendrites
Through capillaries
Through epidermis
To atoms
My scream adjusted spirit.
My scream adjusted soul.
My scream adjusted consciousness.
My scream shook them.
My scream funneled them.
My scream made them agree
That enough is enough.
That finger-pointing is no more.
That progress and discipline are psalms of praise.
I screamed.
I screamed.
I screamed.
I screamed.
I screamed.
Until all I could do was inhale.

I thought about some of the things that bothered me--slavery, the ignorance and genocide of Black people in America, and as you can see a few other things--and decided to use this preface. I would apologize for the length of the poem, but I knew it had to be over 100 words, and I just wanted to be sure it would be. As you can see, it fits that prerequisite by leaps and bounds!

Here is something that may not be obvious in the Inhumanity poem: I'm Black. The redundancy of the word 'great' refers to my descendents that may have been enslaved. It does speak of the other eras of Black history that may not be common knowledge to some people. The redundancy in other places refers to commonality.

As for breaking it up in stanzas, well, no. I wouldn't have done that and here is my explanation. You see the poem above is based on a true situation. As I was riding somewhere, I became sick with anger, so much so that after thinking about the stuff that was happening in my life (details would be irrelevant; safe to say I was and still am dealing with life/death issues) that I became hot within. I thought I would throw up and I felt like I would explode. I wish you could have seen what happened to me. The person driving (thank God I wasn't driving) became scared and I could barely hear him because of the fire in my brain.

It took all of my strength to keep control of myself as I asked him to pull over. When he did, I remember opening the door and exploding. When I realized that I was the person with the time-piercing scream, I stopped. I just cried and cried, trying to get back to me. After catching myself from falling and getting my breathing under control, I got back in the truck. When we pulled back onto the highway, another vehicle turned in. The guy driving told me that the truck pulling in had turned around from the other side of the highway to probably see if I were okay. I had screamed so loudly and so hard that people driving on the other side of the interstate-style highway could hear me.

I said that to say the screams that I refer to have no breaks. They have no moment to pause or reflect. If I were reading this to you, it would have been loud, hard and fast with barely a moment to inhale.

And yes, the last line on the poem bites. I removed it from my copy. I wasn't sure if I should have let it just hang or add something to it. My gut said let it hang at 'inhale'. Thanks for confirming my gut feeling.

I'm sure this was a long, drawn out explanation, but I felt a need to let you know the reasoning of my writing the poem as I did. In the future, you may see redundancy. It's something I do. Please, don't let this stop you from being critical about the stuff I write, I want to learn how to be better at writing.

Thanks for listening, if you read this.

me


I gotta learn how to make this a signature, dad gum it!

Thy paper and pen
They comfort me
Quite torturously.
Oh, clean slate I see
Whether expansive or wee
I want to make you dirty
By writing something pretty
Your emptiness stares contemptuously
As you tease and taunt and glare at me.
“Write! Write!” is your simple plea.
The request to gather words for others to see
Makes me cringe ever so slightly.
Thank you, paper, for testing me.

'Writing To Me' by average gina

 

[ferociouskittycat]

gina, go into your control panel (top of page)

Click on edit profile.

Then copy and paste to your signature. (about half way down the page).

 

[BooMerengue]

Gina!

Never apologize for speaking out; its a GOOD thing! Your explanation did make a difference. Someone here has said if you have to explain a poem then its not good. Someone else said he/she'd like to hear more about the background of certain poems. We want to hear what you have to say, and there are many here who will help you say it. Keep on, girl...

 

[BooMerengue]

P.S. Gina

go here...Test Your Posting Here

and learn all you need to fancy up your signature, and Av's and add pics etc.

Love,
Boo

 

[BooMerengue]

This just in...

NEW YORK (Aug. 26) -- A federal judge declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Thursday in the second such ruling in three months - even though he called the procedure ''gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.''

U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey - one of three federal judges across the country to hear simultaneous challenges to the law earlier this year - faulted the ban for not containing an exception to protect a woman's health, something the Supreme Court has made clear is required in laws prohibiting particular types of abortion.

The law, signed last November, banned a procedure known to doctors as intact dilation and extraction and called partial-birth abortion by abortion foes. The fetus is partially removed from the womb, and the skull is punctured or crushed.

Louise Melling, director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, said her group was thrilled by the ruling.

''We can only hope as we have decision after decision after decision striking these bans, saying they endanger women's health, that the legislatures will finally stop,'' she said.

On June 1, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco also found the law unconstitutional, saying it violates a woman's right to choose an abortion. A judge in Lincoln, Neb., has yet to rule. The three judges suspended the ban while they held the trials.

The three verdicts are almost certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court.

''We are in the process of the appeal of these issues now, which tells you exactly what we're doing and where we're going,'' Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday.

The government has already appealed the San Francisco ruling, said Monica Goodling, a Justice Department spokeswoman.

The ban, which President Clinton twice vetoed, was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade. But the Bush administration has argued that the procedure is cruel and unnecessary and causes pain to the fetus.

At trials earlier this year, doctors testified that of 1.3 million abortions performed annually, the law would affect about 130,000, almost all in the second trimester. Some observers suggest the number would be much lower - 2,200 to 5,000.

In his ruling, Casey said that there is evidence that the procedure can have safety advantages for women. He said the Supreme Court had made it clear that ''this gruesome procedure may be outlawed only if there exists a medical consensus that there is no circumstance in which any women could potentially benefit from it.''

At another point, Casey wrote that testimony put before himself and Congress showed the outlawed abortion technique to be a ''gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized medical procedure.''

Casey, who was appointed to the bench by President Clinton in 1997, was considered by some observers to be the best legal hope for the law's supporters.

''We were on pins and needles on this one,'' said Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. ''The judge was very aggressive in his questioning and very transparent in his articulation of his personal views on the matter. Fortunately, he chose to uphold the law.''

During a hearing earlier this year, Casey repeatedly asked doctors whether they tell pregnant women prior before an abortion that they will rip the fetus apart and that it might feel pain.

''Did you tell them you were sucking the brains out of the same baby they desired to hold?'' the judge asked Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, who performs or supervises hundreds of abortions a year in Manhattan.

At another point, Casey, who is blind, asked Westhoff whether a mother can detect in advance whether a baby will be born blind. ''Not that I'm aware of,'' Westhoff answered.

This just makes me sick...

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Inhumanity: Kosovo, 1999 by Lauren Hynde and since Lauren left comments off I'll comment here. Ethnic cleansing and the bombing of civilians have been around since mankind first decided to solve their problems through direct action rather than thought and conversation. Again, as upsetting as we find it, inhumanity becomes all too human.

Thank you, Carrie, for the great, thought-provoking challenge. I'm glad I had the opportunity to be a part of it.

I'm sorry for having left the comments off. I must have forgotten to do something. They're on now.