Teenagers not old enough to vote shared their hopes and concerns about the upcoming presidential term, contributing poems, letters, and essays to a book entitled, Dear Mr. President: Teen Voices from Across the Country. The anthology includes contributions from six teens in Washington state, and is published through the organization Write It Out Loud. 100% of sales will benefit the nonprofit Rock the Vote.
One of the contributors, 15 year old Jillian Jackson from Sammamish, and the book's editor, Write It Out Loud founder Ingrid Ricks, shared more about the book and the young writers who took part.
CLICK HERE to download a copy of Dear Mr. President: Teen Voices from Across the Country
CLICK HERE to order a print copy
CLICK HERE to learn more about Write It Out Loud
Here is the poem Jillian contributed to the anthology:
Melting Pot Mother Tongue
Dear Donald Trump,
You seem to speak in your own language,
an ancient dialect of discrimination.
It is a language that marks women as
your ornaments, accessories, and conquests.
It is a language that labels minorities
in one-dimensional stigmas.
It is a language that proclaims that marriage
is not an unalienable right for all.
Some of us speak a tongue of tolerance.
Can we teach you?
We agree “women belong in the House,
the Senate, and in protecting
the sanctity of our own bodies.”
We are all temples of formidable rock,
ornate but never merely ornamental.
Our columns are not for you to chip at,
our doors not for you to enter without asking.
The voices emanating from us may be soft
or clanging of Clinton steel.
But no temple is “nasty.”
We declare that “Black Lives Matter,”
unapologetically affirming self-worth
of somebody you see synonymous
with the name tag of Inner City Born.
I will not let you label them,
in a thick Sharpie too quick to judge
and too permanent to erase.
Identifies are sometimes composed of color,
sometimes of gender, sometimes of orientation,
but they are not yours to write.
We sing “Love is Love”,
and though our voices crack with
hate crimes committed at night clubs,
we keep our hymns playing.
The tentative strings of tolerance and
the overwhelming orchestra of acceptance
grow in American voices.
And even if you cut our vocal chords
in the form of Supreme Court reversals,
we will still be louder than you.
We speak so many languages.
Spanish “r”s roll off some tongues,
others elongate the “a”s in the Arabic alphabet.
You remain in your linguistic imperialism,
labeling those who struggle with English as broken.
But language does not snap off like a bone,
it morphs and twists like a muscle.
These are our temples, our declarations, our songs.
This is our melting pot mother tongue.
I hope you become more fluent.
