A literary protest against creeping authoritarianism in the United States under Donald Trump.
This powerful anthology brings together 44 poems from voices across the country—and beyond—each one confronting repression, silence, and the slow erosion of democratic norms.
Record of Dissent is a curated collection of resistance poetry—raw, reflective, and unflinching. These are poems of protest, survival, memory, justice, and defiance. From personal reckonings to sharp political critique, every piece speaks to the urgency of this moment and the role language plays in pushing back.
Created by the Chaos Section Poetry Project, this collection amplifies the voices of poets who refuse to look away. Whether you're a longtime reader of political poetry or simply searching for something honest in an age of misinformation and apathy, this book is for you.
Sample Poems from the Book
They’ll Say They Didn’t Know
by Bartholomew Barker
I can imagine how it feels
to cross a border for a better future and not do the paperwork
to get pregnant and not want to have a baby
to live in a body not carrying the right gender
I can imagine how it feels
to be vilified — to be hunted
to be afraid of every stranger
and some friends
But I'm a straight white man in America
I can't truly understand it in my gut
but I can sympathize
So why then can't I imagine
what caused so many of my fellows
to vote the way they did?
Hopeby Rachel Armes-McLaughlinDays like today
it feels like all's about to end.
The earthquakes with thousands lost.
The floods, never seen before.
The fires consume forest and home.
Democracy gone.
Then nights like tonight, there's hope restored:
Cory Booker on the senate floor,
making history. A record broke.
Wisconsin, fighting back against purchased votes.
Blue Violets at the park,
and news of a new, unexpected home.
The battle, uphill—but hope.
Hope.
What We Tend
by Meridith Allison
The long and short of it is,
I’d rather not be listening to a podcast
about how democracies die
as I pull weeds on a Saturday morning
while the American flag on my neighbor’s porch
flaps loudly in the wind.
But this much I know: summer remembers both the gardener
and the absence of one.
The long and short of it is,
I have two sons, not yet caught up in the life ahead of them,
their days filled with Minecraft and marble runs,
chess openings and lightsaber duels.
But of this I’m sure: the empire of childhood, like all empires,
falls slowly at first, and then all at once.
And so I teach my gentle boys
of Napoleon III and the Reichstag fire,
Kent State, Selma, Tiananmen Square,
the rise of Mussolini and the fall of Rome.
We learn habeas corpus, coup d’état, la migra! la migra!, et tu, Brute?
And I ask them to notice
the bowl in the sink before the oatmeal hardens,
the sock on the floor, passed over for days,
the sirens, the scared, the hungry, the helpers.
Where do the lizards get their water?
The long and short of it is,
I’m still trying to figure this out for myself.
Do we fight fire with fire?
Look for the cracks, push where it leans?
Do we run, do we wait, do we garden, can we grieve?
I think:
you can only fight a tyrant where your feet touch the ground.
I think:
the roots that we tend will return in the spring.
