Nancy Scott Verse-Virtual 2017 October

October 2017

I began writing fiction forty years ago and it took me forty years to get the same work published recently in several different millennial journals. Goes to show timing is everything. I've been luckier with my poetry. I am the managing editor of U.S.1 Worksheets and author of nine books of poetry, most importantly those poems about poverty and social justice issues, but also about men and humor and travel. www.nancyscott.net

On a Recent Visit to Montreal

In early August, we stayed at a hotel near the Olympic Stadium,
oblivious of what was going on there. In this cosmopolitan city
we thought nothing of sharing a café with a group of Haitian men.

We walked over to the Stadium, ghost of its former authority, when
in 1976 impossibly fit athletes were cheered on by admiring crowds.
Deserted, or so we thought, until we heard Latin music piped in

from somewhere, and, a little farther on, we discovered
colorful tents erected outside the main entrance to the Stadium,
strings of lights canopied over the scene—women with strollers,

older children chasing about, men milling in clusters, a ground swell
of fear which prompted them to flee with practically nothing
from a country which no longer wanted them, the color of their skin or

country of origin. While we spent the next few days enjoying the beauty
and civility of Montreal, more Haitians arrived. It came into even
sharper focus how America preferred to protect white supremacists—

what the world will remember us by.

first published in Poetry24 uk

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