The thread that runs through the poems is a conversation I have with my uncle and namesake, Irwin Lee Moskowitz, who was struck and killed by a truck in Clairton, PA, in 1929. He was only 4 years old. Irwin’s death changed the arc of my family history in ways that are being felt to this day; it led to my mother’s birth and eventually my own.

Being named for one who died so young and so tragically is a heavy emotional burden to carry; I hope that comes through in these poems. May Talking to Irwin offer some succor for families with similar stories in their own histories waiting to be told. Please purchase the book and follow my posts here, Facebook, Blue Sky and LinkedIn for updates on public readings in Louisville, Lexington, and of course, my hometown of Pittsburgh.

The front and back covers of Talking to Irwin

You can also check the publisher’s blog at kelsaybooks.com for updates. Also, if you have any feedback or suggestions for reading venues, just drop them in the comments.

I hope you pick up a copy of Talking to Irwin. May it provide some comfort or inspiration to families that harbor similar stories in their histories.

life is merely
to ovum and sperm
and where those two meet
and how often and how well
and what dies there.

—Renee Nicole Good, from her poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs,” winner of the 2020 Academy of American Poets Prize

Poets who write of rocking chairs and tercet-singing insects
never shift from reverse to drive, rev their engines, run down ICE.

Too terrified, as her mother said.

Domestic terrorist, Noem said of her without a full investigation.

Domestic terrorist? Then I say back:
the way Garcia Lorca was done away with by Spanish fascists in an undisclosed location
(and Trump is fine with fascist tags, or so he told Mamdani);
the way 13 Jewish poets were shot to death within a Moscow prison’s walls.
(Traitors, so Stalin called them; thinkers, so we recall them.)

So really, she was no domestic terrorist, though maybe she would seize the term, put it to verse,
wryly thanking Noem for inspiration. Poets, you know, do wage wars with pens
and souls and words, bearing witness as legal observers,

observing legally, they see domestic terrorists, as she perhaps did, the ICE man raising his gun to shoot.

That, poets can do.

Killing poets should be a sin, even if you never read them (or even this), for they have much to say and seek new ways to say it. Even when shot and killed, they say it;

memory becomes their ink;
truth becomes their paper;
we remain their readers.

Editor’s note: Though the media identifies her as Renee Nicole Good, she signed her prize-winning poem as Renee Nicole Macklin, taking the name of her late second husband.

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Crowd of Trump supporters marching on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.)

When Donald Trump pardoned us, I rejected the pardon. Accepting that pardon would be lying about what happened on January the sixth. I am guilty, and I own that guilt….”
 —Pamela Hemphill, “MAGA granny,” who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. 2021

Can you still see them climbing
through the busted windows?
Stalking prey on a Pence hunt
through Capitol corridors, 
leaving their patriotic feces behind?
Can you hear the cop—dragged,
beaten, tased—telling the mob
he has kids while one vandal says
shoot him with his own gun? 
Do you close your eyes to the sight
that can never be brainwashed 
of the bearded American clad
in a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt?
Do you still sit by the TV for hours,
frozen by the sight of this sea
of human screeds refusing
to let America be America, 
fed lie upon lie to make them defy?
Do you wonder when the cavalry
will come in their camouflage?
This is the Capitol, for God’s sake!
Do you recall the congressmen
FaceTiming from their safe places, 
crouching in the House gallery,
one with a pen at the ready
like a makeshift bayonet?
Do you hear wives and kids crying?
Do you feel democracy dying?
Do you sense the citizens trying
to make sense of the melee they see
here—here—in the land of the free?
Day turns to night 365 times a year,
but January 6 never leaves.

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Sandra Day O’Connor warned that the thinning of civics education would have a negative impact on the country. (public domain photo)

“The practice of democracy is not passed down through the gene pool. It must be taught and learned by each new generation of citizens.”
—Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

And when it isn’t taught, you might get an American public that’s just fine with kidnapping the leader of another country.

That, I fear, could happen in the wake of this past weekend’s U.S. military assault on Venezuela, the nabbing of its president, Nicolas Maduro, his rendition to American soil to stand trial for narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine-importation conspiracy and weapons charges, and President Trump’s announcement that the United States will run the country (and its oil) “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” Whatever that means, and however long that is, is anyone’s guess.

Early polling shows the public opposed to the action. That’s reassuring, but many lawmakers, including at least one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, along with many Venezuelans living here are celebrating the raid.

But one thing is certain. No U.S. president, especially one hellbent on being an absolute ruler, can commit armed forces alone. Congress has the real power. (See the War Powers Resolution of 1973.)

Which brings me back O’Connor—a Supreme Court justice appointed by a conservative Republican president—and her warning about civics education in this country, or the lack thereof.

She worried justifiably that schools were (are) not teaching—at least, not enough—civics, the study of the workings of our democracy, and warned we would pay dearly for it.

A 2024 policy brief by the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy, “When and Why Did America Stop Teaching Civics?”, spews out a litany of disturbing figures, bringing into focus how a growing number of Americans haven’t a clue as to how our government works:

· A study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found 70 percent of Americans failed a basic U.S. civics literacy quiz. “One in three respondents did not even know that there exist three branches of government, much less what those branches are and what they do.” according to report.

· A survey from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 5 percent of the U.S. adults surveyed—let that low percentage sink in—could name all five First Amendment rights. Twenty percent couldn’t name any.

· The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” showed that for the first time civics scores of U.S. eighth graders had declined.

Arguably, the devolution in civics literacy corresponds to declining trust in government, according to the policy brief, which can explain, in part, the rise of Trump.

None of which would be OK with O’Connor, who died in 2023.

“Without basic civic education, we cannot expect to preserve or improve our system of government,” she once said.

The state of civics literacy in America leaves me with a disturbing question but the Venezuela raid and where it will lead: Do the American people care?

That’s the $64,000 question. As I said earlier, initial polling shows Americans opposed, but could that change in a week? A month? If oil prices go down further, will we choose our gas tanks over our democracy? Is it always the economy, stupid? Will we continue to give a wit if the president flouts international law, and ours, greenlighting Russia to do the same in Ukraine and China with Taiwan?

I don’t know what happens next, but I know the world just got more dangerous, and all because our president sidestepped our democratic process and could try it again.

For O’Connor’s sake, stay engaged. Don’t tune out.

Editor’s Note: I first published this story to my Substack last September as public opposition to Donald Trump’s war on American democracy grew stronger and louder. Since then, more than 8 million Americans turned out on March 28 for No Kings rallies across the United States while Trump’s public support continues to plummet, according to successive polls. In light of this success, Indivisible, the pro-democracy organization behind No Kings, has announced that its next act of protest will be a nationwide general strike. I just felt the time was ripe for reposting this piece.

Could America be on the brink of a nationwide general strike? Other democracies have had them

Say whatever you will about Israelis, but they sure know how to go on strike.

That’s a lesson we Americans must learn – and fast.

Before Hamas’ criminal attack of Oct. 7, 2023, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in nationwide protests, pushing back against an out-of-control national government attempting a hostile takeover of the courts. Israelis rightly felt the independence of their judiciary – the one check on their government’s excesses – was at stake.

So, they walked out. Flag-waving Israelis of every stripe – young and old, Jew and non-Jew, observant and secular, conservative and liberal – marched in the streets, lending their voices to a chorus of dissent that was heard in Jerusalem and around the world.

The Histadrut labor union called for a general strike nationwide, bringing much of the country to a grinding halt. Businesses closed; highways were blocked. Ben Gurion Airport and the seaports at Haifa and Ashdod all shut down. Thousands of military reservists threatened not to report for duty. Even doctors said they would strike.

Universities canceled classes. Diplomatic staff, both in Israel and abroad, walked off their jobs. Firehalls and hospitals stayed open, but only for essential services.

At the time, I was the U.S. liaison for an Israeli NPO founded to build bridges between the Galilee’s many religions. My director joined the protests.

Israelis felt a camaraderie and passion for the fight to save their country from encroaching authoritarianism.

It worked, at least for a while. (The regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has renewed its efforts to take over the courts). Still, this general strike riveted world attention on Israel like few other actions short of war can do. It’s no wonder that Israelis, repulsed by their governments brutal war in Gaza and the low priority it attaches to freeing the remaining hostages, have been taking to the streets again in massive numbers.

The point is clear: When the people of a country – any quasi-free country – stand up and strike – they get noticed.

Now is the time for Americans to do the same, as a growing chorus of American leaders are saying.

Asked what recourse Americans would have if the Trump administration systematically defies court orders, Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, didn’t mince words.

“We’ve got to shut down this country,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Massachusetts, echoed the same sentiment: “We can’t just sit back and let our democracy just fall apart. What we need to think about are things like maybe a national strike across this country.”

And Sara Nelson, head of the Association of Flight Attendants, said American workers now have “very few options but to join together to organize for a general strike.”

When Americans no longer feel safe, or even free to speak, in their own cities because armed soldiers and federal agents are walking the streets, grabbing people (including citizens), and whisking them away to unknown locations without any due process, it’s time to break the glass and pull the alarm.

Merriam-Webster defines a strike in many ways, one being: “a temporary stopping of normal activities in protest against an act or condition.”

Nothing is normal about the time in which we live, so our activities shouldn’t be normal either.

Organizing a general strike wouldn’t be easy, and let’s keep in mind that Israel is a country of 10 million people compared to 340 million in the United States. A nationwide walkout that pulls together every facet of American society here would require considerable planning, promotion, cooperation and execution.

A tall order, but not impossible.

We’ve seen general strikes before, on smaller scales: Seattle, 1919, when 60,000 people walked out for five days in support of shipyard workers; the West Coast Waterfront Strike, 1934, a violent labor action by west coast longshoremen that left nine people dead, approximately 1,000 injured and 500 under arrest; Occupy Wall Street, an anti-corporate greed movement of 2011, that started in New York then morphed into some 1,000 protests across the country.

The June 14, 2025, No Kings Day, a nationwide protest against the Soviet-style military parade in Washington on Trump’s birthday, drew 4.8 million people to 2,150 actions in all 50 states, proving that Americans will still turn out en masse. Just weeks ago, on March 28, the third No Kings Day drew more than 8 million demonstrators to 3,300 events in all 50 states, including a growing number in rural areas — normally Trump strongholds.

So, what would an American general strike look like?

First, maybe call it something else. Jeremy Brecher, author and activist, prefers “social strike” to general strike, differentiating between a popular action and a purely labor one. Writing for wagingnonviolence.org, an NPO that covers social movements, Brecher said a social strike would still require broad labor support and grassroots organizing.

Participants would have to prepare themselves for reprisals. With armed National Guardsmen and masked federal agents on the streets, government repression can’t be discounted. Also, a big segment of the MAGA, conservative, vigilante population would likely see a social strike as some sort of leftwing threat and take matters into their own hands.

This is not without risks. So, before we stop going to work or school, before we boycott anyone or anything, before we gather in public spaces to voice our discontent, let’s make sure we go into this with a strategic plan and our eyes wide open.

But never forget that the people have power, great power. When we choose to use it, the powerful get nervous.

Which is exactly what happened in Israel. True, the protestors there have yet to achieve their goals as their government remains defiant, but they continue to turn out with their flags, bullhorns and signs, demanding that the prime minister listen.

They haven’t given up. Neither can we

Israelis launched a nationwide protest in 2023, opposing their government’s effort to take control of the courts. (Wikipedia photo, in the public domain)

“Have cane, am able!” the silver-hair Sloane said as he defiantly raised his walking stick in the air.

Sloane, twice mayor of the city from 1973-77 and again from 1982-86, was the marquee speaker in an all-star lineup of speakers at a Saturday’s Fight for Medicare and Medicaid rally in Jefferson Square Park. He was joined on stage by former Louisville Metro Mayors Jerry Abramson and Greg Fischer, former U.S. Rep John Yarmuth, and the current congressman from Louisville, Morgan McGarvey.

They were there to sound the alarm against the catastrophic effects that funding cuts to Medicaid and Medicare in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act will have on the neediest Kentuckians.

A physician who came to Kentucky in 1964 as part of President John F. Kennedy’s Appalachian Health program, Sloane saw firsthand how many Kentuckians in the eastern counties had little to no access to healthcare.

He said Medicare and Medicaid, pushed through by the Johnson administration in 1965 with the rest of the Great Society initiatives, changed all that.

“It was a time of total excitement, and we were able to start the Park DuValle Neighborhood Health Center at that time because of that support.” Sloane founded the center in 1966.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or the One Big Ugly Bill as its many detractors call it, erased many of those hard-fought-for gains.

“Most of this is gone now, folks,” Sloane said. “It went away. We really didn’t understand it when they had these bills before us.”

Laying out a three-step response plan, Sloane warned the crowd to first “know what’s going to happen.” Many parts of the new act don’t take effect until 2026 or 2027.

Second, “we’ve got to fight,” he said to rousing applause. “If we don’t fight, we don’t win.”

Third, “we’ve got to vote, not only at the federal level, but at the state level to bring about change.”

Despite his age, and the fact that he spoke while seated, Sloane sounded invigorated by thought of the fight that lays ahead.

“It’s so exciting for me to be here and be a part of this beginning,” he said, “this beginning of this fight to reestablish what we’ve had and what we should have in the future.”

At 89, Sloane goes into this fight thinking not just of the people who need these programs now, but of future generations, including those in his own family.

“Folks, I don’t want my [great-]grandchildren to ask me, ‘Grand Harv -- that’s what they call me – what did you do when the great deluge happened, when everybody lost all their healthcare? I don’t want to say, well I watched television, and I swore to myself. No, we want to say we did something.”

Although “1.2 million Kentuckians rely on Medicaid,” as a stark black and white sign on the stage made clear to everyone, some sources quote even higher figures.

Rep. McGarvey, who led off the speakers, put in stark terms what’s at stake in the fight to turn back the cuts:

“With the cruelty of Donald Trump’s bill, 133,000 of our rural neighbors are going to lose their healthcare,” he said. “Thirty-five of our rural hospitals will close. That’s more than any state in the country. You don’t think this impacts you? It impacts every single one of us.”

“Y’all, this is important,” McGarvey warned. “This is not some political rally; this is life and death! Medicaid isn’t a budget line; it’s a lifeline, it keeps our friends and neighbors safe. It’s keeps them healthy; it keeps them going to the doctor.”

The Louisville Democratic Party sponsored the rally. “We need people to fight for Medicaid at every single level of government,” said Logan Gatti, the party chair.

As he wrapped up, Sloane, a proud Democrat, couldn’t resist taking a shot at U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, who made an infamous remark about his constituents while urging his Republican colleagues to support the bill.

“We can’t be like what our senior senator said, ‘well they’ll get over it.’ Well, I’m not getting over it, are you getting over it?”

A chorus of “no’s” echoed back.

“We’re not getting over it,” Sloane concluded, “and in Jefferson County, the fight is starting right now.

Former Louisville Mayor Harvey Sloane, seen here in red, urged hundreds of demonstrators Sunday to fight to get back healthcare benefits stripped away by the One Big Beautiful Act. He is pictured on stage with former U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth (left) and former Louisville Metro Mayors Jerry Abramson and Greg Fischer. (Lee Chottiner photo)

I'm Lee Chottiner. I'm a journalist, an editor, and a poet. I've spent most of my life chasing stories — sometimes across state lines, sometimes across kitchen tables.

This Substack is a place to keep doing that work — not on assignment, not for clicks, but just because the stories are out there, and I want to tell them.

You'll find:

• Stories to make you feel, think, or smile

• Commentary on American and Jewish life

• Reflections on politics, culture, and identity

• The occasional poem, when the moment calls for it

These won't be hot takes. They'll be thoughtful ones.

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