Benjibopper

"[Poetry] lets the shadowy forms of thought and feeling out into the light, where we can take a good look at them and perhaps come to a better understanding of who we are and what we want, and what the limits to those wants may be." --Margaret Atwood

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"Africans returning from the wealthy world often perpetuate these myths that life there is easy and money very easy to come by. They may not wish to divulge that they earned their salaries by cleaning bathrooms, suffered humiliating insults, and that they did not live like kings while abroad. Few in Africa have any idea of just what squats and slums and hardship really await the unskilled or the sans papiers (illegal) immigrants in Europe or North America. Some are shocked when they learn that in major European and North American cities there are homeless people living on the streets. Few people seeking visas seemed to want to listen to me list the constraints they would have to adapt to in the wealthy world, where competition is extreme, taxes must be paid and where time is money and thus king, ruling every minute of the day. From their perspective, these issues were all irrelevant. The important thing was a steady income that would provide funds to help support the family back home and could be saved towards a more secure future. A minimum wage job in Europe or North America could bring in more than a teacher or even a doctor earns in much of Africa."
--Joan Baxter

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The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees--all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related. --Thomas Berry

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