“Entitlement”

Group home kid
trying to figure it out—
how to get by,
how to become a grown up
who she can respect
because she sure has met some
whom she can’t

She asks questions,
She advocates.
Group home kid is told
“You have an entitlement complex.’ 
She objects.

She is no object.
She is Subject
To herself, her life
Her plentitude (Freire, 1970/2000).

Sometimes she wrestles
with herself,
her hopes, 
her dreams, 
her fears 
The Rules, 
the lies
the walls, 
the barriers.

She cannot count on someone to rescue her.
Nobody can do it for her. However, 
somebody can meet her in “comradeship” —
not fighting for her, 
but with her.
Her story is
“Minha vida. Minha luta” (Freire, 1970/2000)

To become fully human
is to risk an act of love.

NaPoWriMo – Day 17

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was “Today, I challenge you to find, either on your shelves or online, a specialized dictionary. This could be, for example, a dictionary of nautical terms, or woodworking terms, or geology terms. Anything, really, so long as it’s not a standard dictionary! Now write a poem that incorporates at least ten words from your specialized source. Happy writing!” My poem is based on the Pedagogy of the Oppressed dictionary of critical theory terms (No, it doesn’t really exist, but I have definitely incorporated at least ten words form my specialized source).

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Notes from Pedagogy of the Oppressed:  Chapter One

To become fully human
is to risk an act of love.

The oppressed,
in freeing himself,
fights . . .

NOW PUBLISHED IN this book.

. . .

Minha vida.
Minha luta.
Strive towards plentitude!