Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. This episode features Christopher D. Sims.
Sims is a nationally recognized poet who has presented on labor issues with the Contras Labor Center at the University of Southern Maine and the Georgetown University Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. An established writer, his poems are in solidarity with marginalized communities all over the country and the world. Sims performs in many cities across the U.S. His poem "To (Em)power Palestine" is featured in the recently published anthology of poems "Poppies For Palestine."
Sims is now an Associates Fellow with the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University and will be leading a spoken word series there next fall for African American, Indigenous, and Afro Indigenous poets and spoken word artists.
Sims was Poetically Yours’ first contributor. The debut poem was called Minneapolis is Burning. It was written after George Floyd was murdered. Today’s poem is a sequel to that one. It’s called “Minneapolis is Burning Again.”
Friends, Minneapolis is burning again.
The winds have changed, a strange
Burning sent to occupy the people,
the people. An evil has landed in
Minneapolis. Minneapolis is burning
like Mississippi in the 50s and the
60s.
Are you with me? Are you aware
about what is going on there? There?
They’re saying prayers in churches.
There is civil unrest. Youth and children
are nervous, are nervous.
Are you in service? Are you fighting,
igniting, writing, providing your voice
right now?! Now!
Minneapolis is burning again. It is
A trend that began again in 2025.
How are we going to survive if
Minneapolis is burning again?
More than a trend, this is a becking
call. I am calling all
activists, organizers, strategizers,
professors, ministers, preachers,
atheists, seekers to say what is
Going on is wrong! Is wrong!
Minneapolis’s streets burn,
burn, burn! The structures
Holding these states of ours
together burn, burn, burn!
From previous tragedies we
Should have learned, learned!
The streets of Minneapolis might
As well be one big urn holding the
Ashes of the lost, those we have
lost to death.
Oh Minneapolis, why you? Why
you again comrades, friends?
Why must the burning reach you
at this time? The Minnesota nightfall
Finds warriors and soldiers in your
streets.
Fascism must face a defeat!
These are flames from the elite!
Minneapolis must know peace, peace,
peace, peace, peace, peace, peace,
peace.
Minneapolis is burning again.
Minneapolis is burning again.
Minneapolis burns again, again,
again. What are we going to do about
it comrades, friends?
Christopher D. Sims
01/17/2025
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