I’ve always carried an assumption about activism — that it must be bold, loud, and actionable. That it must involve raised voices and raised fists. But I am not loud. I am not quick to anger. I am a writer, which means I’m content to spend a few hours a day with my butt in the chair.
But the times we are in, I believe, ask more from each of us. Or rather, they ask us to show up in ways we may not have felt called to do before, but at the same time, are uniquely suited to do. Not many of us can be someone who they are not for very long, especially if one wishes to avoid burnout, resentment, stress-induced ailments, and so on. So, what I’ve been interested in figuring out is this: what does a sustainable social justice practice look like with regard to writing? How might we, as writers, be able to use our talents and experiences in this moment?
The purpose of this brief article is to share with you some of the ways I’ve stretched myself as a writer, not because I think anything I did is extraordinary difficult or even very laudable, but rather that it might generate even more ideas going forward and encourage that same kind of elasticity in thinking about the tools and experiences that might also serve this moment — and are unique to you. Perhaps also, I hope to challenge any unhelpful ideals of what activism looks like in your own mind if indeed they are limiting the possibilities that are no doubt hovering around you waiting to be noticed and manifested into reality.
Creating Community
In November 2024, I had recently finished reading Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals (a terrific “manual-ish” book for re-imagining the narrative you’ve told yourself about yourself). Of course, November 2024 is memorable for another and far more consequential reason. The first thing I did on November 6, 2024 was to sit quietly and write some poems to myself (mostly bad ones). The second thing I did was to start sending poems via text or email to other people, some of whom read poems regularly, most of whom do not. These were not poems I’d written, but poems written by others in history whose words felt comforting, inspiring, courageous, lived. I received a lot of enthusiastic responses. “This is just what I needed.” “This is really helping me.” “Do you have any more poems to send?” Of course, I could do that. I didn’t have an MFA and a MA for nothing!
It began to dawn on me that what I was doing, sending poems that spoke to the moment, to the feelings and issues that were arising in many people, was a service, and dare I say, a kind of medicine for the soul. And it was not a heavy lift for me, personally. That is an example of what Burkeman calls a “life task,” which is identifying something that takes some effort, but is also something you can do with whatever you have on hand, meaning your skills, experiences, resources, etc. I committed to sending a group of roughly five poems based on a theme that resonated with the current moment and I wrote a brief, friendly introduction about why I chose them as a way of welcoming readers, particularly those who don’t read poetry, into the fold. I have not stopped writing these messages filled with poems since then. I also have chosen to keep my own political views apart from it, choosing to put the focus on the common humanity expressed by the poems themselves.
That community of readers grew and it became Poems to Carry You, a Substack with the aim to inspire and console, and it will always be free for however long I continue to write them, which is to say, however long it may be needed or desired. You can sign up here.
Teaching in Community
Buoyed by the reception of Poems to Carry You, I began to think about: what other experiences do I have that might be useful to meet the moment? I began to teach again after not having done so in about six years. (I was a former public high school English teacher for many years, but when I spoke of burnout earlier, it is because I am familiar with it). Still, I do love teaching and know I have an ability to connect with students, so I decided to create a course that responded to the need I saw in my own community. Many of my neighbors were recently laid off federal employees. I created a course titled Containers of Light and Dark: Reading and Writing the Poetry of Resilience at the Politics & Prose Bookstore, open to any adult, but for recently laid off federal employees, I did not take a salary.
Showing Up Differently in Community
Once again, I was stirred to action by another event. In early 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Vladimir Putin. This was of significant importance to me as the daughter of a Cuban immigrant. My mother immigrated in 1960 when she was nine years old. And it means something if you’re Cuban to see the United States formally meeting with the Russian government that propped up the Castro regime for decades and helped to create that initial mass exodus in the 1960s. That meeting felt like a huge betrayal and I felt that now I could finally go back to my MAGA mother and say “See, look what this guy you voted for did?” Surely, she would see the light now. My grandparents, her parents, were rolling in their graves.
To say that she did not see the light is an understatement. I yearned to be heard and understood in writing and poetry was not the right vehicle for these words. I wrote an essay and then another and another. But to publish carries some risk and anonymity in my opinion seems to plant doubt in the reader. So, I chose, like many writers before me living in an oppressive time, to write with a pen name. I want to remind writers of that tool as well: writing essays or op-eds under a penname, because as Renee Good and Alex Pretti have shown us, there are real dangers in resistance and a pen name is perfectly valid right now.
Final Thoughts
What I have learned through all these pathways of activism is that: it is important to be true to oneself when finding your own writing path in social justice activism; it is also important to stretch oneself (but not overstretch); and that building and sustaining community is an effective antidote to this oppressive regime. Yes, I still make my protest signs and march, and no, I don’t make it to every protest. I believe my most important work, aside from raising my children, is using my pen.
Lastly, I want to leave you with consideration for the roles of writers and how you might fit or stretch yourself into one of these roles. Are you a mage — a writer who uses their imagination to conjure alternatives that threaten the status quo? Might you be a muckraker — someone who exposes corruption and grievances? Are you a writer of witness or of elegy for all that is being lost in this moment? Perhaps you are an explainer — a writer who connects the dots for others? Maybe you are passionate and gifted as a speechwriter or an op-ed writer? I think we cut ourselves short when we limit ourselves to genres or occasions, and more importantly, we all might miss out on reading that for which you are uniquely gifted to write about at this moment.
I’d love to hear if any ideas are percolating for you after reading this article or any other ways you have used your writer tools for social justice activism!
Sara R. Burnett is the author of Seed Celestial (2022), winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize. She has published or has publications forthcoming in Barrow Street, Copper Nickel, PANK, Prairie Schooner RHINO and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland, and a MA in English Literature from the University of Vermont. She also writes picture books and Poems to Carry You, a bi-weekly Substack where she curates 3-5 poems on a theme that speaks to the collective moment. She lives in Maryland with her family. Her website is: www.sararburnett.com.
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