You’ve Arrived! Welcome to Poetry Friday!
Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to the Poetry Sisters’ challenge for the month of MARCH.
Here’s the scoop: we’re writing tight little bundles of poetry called Ovillejos! That’s exactly what the word means – a bundle of yarn. This Spanish form bundles together ten lines, made up of 3 rhyming couplets interspersed with three verrrry short lines, and a quatrain. The last line is a “redondilla,” a “little round” that collects all three of the short lines and casts off the poem, as it were. The Ovillejo plays with repetition in a way that will allow some cleverness and wordplay. I’m excited to dig into a new-to-me poetic form, first popularized sometime between the late fifteen hundreds by Miguel de Cervantes (he lived between 1547-1616 so it’s been a minute – may as well make it popular again) – and might even throw in a Spanish word or two, just to challenge myself. Are you in? Good! Take this week to craft your creation and share it March 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. This form looks like fun, so we hope you’ll us!
The events of January, 2026 were the crucible from which formed the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church’s Singing Resistance, a Minneapolis-based, grassroots movement using song to protest the illegal federal agent activity in that state and throughout the nation. Time after time in our nation’s history, protest singing has been a tool for organizers, as a form of embodied protest – from “Yankee Doodle,” sung in protest against British imperialism in the 1700’s to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” sung by marching suffragists and labor organizers, to “We Shall Overcome” sung through the years by protestors for civil rights in the early 1900’s to “No nos moverán” sung by Dolores Huertas and the UFW movement, and more. Every major sea change in American politics and society has come with a soundtrack of people singing together.
However, in the past several decades group singing has waned outside of religious circles. Even in some religious spaces, singing has largely become a competitive reality TV type of thing where “the best” is elevated and ‘the rest’ are meant to sit in properly awed silence. In today’s atmosphere, the commonly sung American folk song had all but vanished. Dorian Lynskey, author of “33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs,” theorized in an interview that American individualism in music also has its role in this musical shift. Older songs used the word “we.” “We shall overcome.” “We shall not be moved.” Or, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” He observed that the spirit of “we” as found in community and cooperation is largely absent in modern pop music.
…but now as the old protest songs are being taught to new voices, and as new troubadours arrive, necessary change is coming with them. Now we’re reaching across aisles, across cultures and preferences, trying to anchor ourselves, our country, and each other.
A song heard at almost every singing protest, many of you are already familiar with Heidi Wilson’s “Hold On.” The words are simple, the tune adapting easily to harmony, and it has reverberated – from the U.S. to Cornwall to Wales and Ireland to Australia and beyond. A new generation of singers is carrying this song with them, and like a stone dropped into a pond, its message of quiet, almost prayerful endurance is rippling outward.
And when you learn from writer and composer Heidi Wilson the impetus behind the song she wrote in 2020 (thank you, Liz, for sharing this), you’ll understand what a gift it truly is. In the words of the Spiritual-turned Southern-ism (or vice versa), “Trouble don’t last forever.” Or, from the Christian Bible in the book of Psalms, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” So, while everything looks rough, feels rough, is indisputably rough – hold on.
Hold On
Hold on, hold on
My dear ones, here comes the dawn
– Heidi Wilson,
Plainfield, VT 2020
(Sheet music free at the link above, but please compensate and support the musician as you can.)
A song is simply a poem set to music, and this one is a direct, unrhymed lullaby that grounds us in persistence and courage. It’s a seed to pull us through the last, dark days of winter, a promise of renewal and green sprouts, baby goats and, someday, an end to this moment. This is a song that calls us to community. I am challenging myself to find other song-poems like this – and I hope you do so, too. And as you do, hold on, dear ones. Hold on to who you are, what you know to be right, and how you live – with open hands, helping your neighbor and community, and uplifting sanity and kindness. Hold on – to each other, too, to community, and to creating the world we want with our hands linked. And in doing so may we each in our own ways hold up our arms to carry the dawn as it comes.
Happy Friday, friends; you are so well-loved.
Power in the simple: words, community, being present. No wonder we turn to music and poetry for healing. As always, thank you, Tanita for deep reflection.
@pjnunz: Thank you so much for being here.
Oh, Tanita, this post (you, Heidi Wilson, this community!) makes me feel so much hope. Thank you for being a beacon of light, again and again. Lots of love, friend. Here’s to “we.”
@Karen Edmisten: Yes. May WE be the answer to Us v. Them and all of the waspish, warmongering othering, forever and ever, amen. ♥
Tanita, that last paragraph you wrote is just so powerful and encouraging and hope-reviving. Thank you, and thank you for hosting. I do believe in community is our strength and what will bring us back. Here’s to more “we.” Thank you for the Minneapolis video. I just got back from spending a week there. The news cameras have gone away, but they are still standing with, shopping for, protecting their neighbors who are still not feeling safe in their own community.
@Denise Krebs: What a gift to be able to spend time with folks who are in a tough place and lift them up in person. I hope your time in Minneapolis grounded you in hope and the reality that the news spin likes to obscure – that most of us are trying our best and not out to get each other. May we life in community and not in fear. ♥
Hey Tanita, thanks for gathering us in these warm inviting spaces, in community, in song! Maybe we can drowned out some of the daily chaos…Thanks for hosting, and wishes for a renewing Spring filled with song, all kinds of it!
@Michelle K: Drowning out the chaos is a good plan! Today I’m going to feed the birds in the yard, in hopes of eliciting louder birdsong. Thank you for coming by today. Sing on!
Thank you, Tanita, your post brings good feelings after this past, another week, of turmoil and heartache. I love the added information about protest songs and the new one, “Hold On”. My brother is his church’s music director and I’ll be sure to share this with him, too! Thanks for hosting!
@Linda Baie: Our choir has had the gift of being able to sing at protests with a few local churches and it’s amazing to sing this one in harmony – creating a roadside cathedral. I hope this keeps a song in your heart this week.
Oh Tanita! Thank you for sharing this video and for this connection to songs of resistance through time. I want to wrap Minneapolis in a big hug for their heart and courage. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
@Marcie Flinchum Atkins: My favorite heart-song in these moments is one you introduced me to – I still hum “Keep Marching” so frequently and think of the suffragists and the appalling conditions they worked under – and know that this is part of the work, and part of the reason to keep singing, too.
So glad you visited today. ♥
Thank you for sharing this uplifting post and the power of music, Tanita. Also for hosting Poetry Friday this week.
@Rose Cappelli: You’re so welcome! Thank you for being here today!
Thank you for hosting us, for holding us in your arms and your words, and thank you for the beauty of the Singing Resistance. Big long distance hugs!!
@Cousin MaryLee: It’s been a privilege to be a part of a choir in this moment in the world – singing with strangers creates something and I want to draw everyone into that. Big hugs back! ♥
Thank you, Tanita, for hosting this week and offering up a place to share our voices. I’ll come back for a closer read in a bit; appreciations for this fulsome post. And thanks for the poetry challenge invitation – you had me at “bundle of yarn”! :0
@Robyn Hood Black: The ovillejos are going to be so fun! I am hopeful they’ll be something I can knit into my NPM project.
♥Thank you for being here today.
Hi Tanita,
I’m fortunate to have time to start reading PF posts this evening (east coast). Thank you for this very thoughtful post. I have a dear friend who is a music therapist, and the power of music to heal, and more, is not to be underestimated. Thank you for highlighting lyrics this week. It’s helpful. I have had moments of being stuck in frustration and sadness. Singing helps. I also didn’t know the backstory of Wilson’s song. I think I need to go listen. And, thank you for hosting this weekend. PF is a bright spot in my week.
@Linda Mitchell: Tabatha’s post today meshes so well with the heart-lifting power of singing – or even just humming. Our poetry practice is an art that’s also one of the things that loosens the bands around our souls just now, and I’m so grateful for it. Thanks for being here. ♥
The PF community is definitely a haven away from the madness. Appreciate your inspiring and hopeful words about the power of song to bring people together in grief and purpose. Didn’t know the backstory about Wilson’s song, so thanks for the link. It’s true that there is less “we” and more “I” and “them” these days. Happy Spring and thanks for hosting this week!
@Jama-J: As soon as I read that line about the focus of where our music is now, it made sense, and flowed backwards — not collective song, but solos. I love a good solo, of course, but realizing that we’ve rejiggered our perspective to There Can Only Be One, and a focus on The Best instead of community, it really hit me how simple it could be to take the first steps to changing that. And singing… together, as a we, instead.