Happy 2021, readers! And happy Feast of the Epiphany, too. As of this writing, it appears that both Democratic candidates for Senate have won their runoff elections in Georgia, giving us the slimmest majority in the new administration (51-50 with VP Harris’ tiebreaking vote). Big thanks to Stacey Abrams, the NAACP, Movement Voter Project, Swing Left, and other folks who worked hard to bring progressive and minority voters to the polls. Gerrymandering and voter suppression have long made the South seem more conservative than it has to be. Next stop, Mississippi?

My two writing projects this fall were 30 Poems in November and those get-out-the-vote missives for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. This mashup was the result.

100 Georgia Postcards Make a Poem

Turning the Senate blue? Don’t write our cause off:
Time to work your ass off in the runoff for Jon Ossoff.

Rev. Warnock too, though hard to rhyme his name,
Could represent the state without taking his cross off.

Incumbent Loeffler saw stocks about to dive,
Pandemic inside knowledge, sold to write her loss off.

Perdue — no relation to the chicken man —
Is scared to tell any campaign-donor boss off.

The lame-duck fascist fears the winds of change
Will blow his toupee’s pumpkin-colored floss off.

While Giuliani sues to throw out ballots,
His flop sweat streaks his TV makeup’s gloss off.

Democrats hustle to get out the vote,
Thousands of names to register and cross off.

My hand’s still sprained from the November race,
Like a cat’s paws when the vet has pulled its claws off.

Nonetheless I will write one hundred times —
Like a bad schoolboy dusting his blackboard chalks off —

“Dear Georgia voter, it all depends on you!
Sincerely, Jendi, a volunteer for Jon Ossoff.”