How to Rise
New York, NY
2023, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Climate Hero: Elizabeth Yeampierre, UPROSE
the symphony of the Brooklyn streets
ricocheted,
ricocheted,
throughout her apartment
as she shuffled out of bed.
the thick air
s p r e a d
through her lungs,
an unstoppable infestation of
smog.
yet the cars on the Gowanus Expressway never stopped.
Elizabeth knows
that climate change is
intergenerational.
it is convenient to blame
those before us,
but the power
we can harness together
is greater than this resentment.
Elizabeth knows
that climate change doesn’t follow
a one size fits all policy.
the people hurting the most from
the fuels
the plants
the pollutants
aren’t the ones to blame.
they had to tread
so lightly
that their carbon footprint
was barely there.
no, they aren’t the ones to blame.
her father developed asthma.
her mother developed lung cancer.
Elizabeth developed a bilateral pulmonary embolism.
and Elizabeth grew sick of this injustice.
becoming a civil rights litigator
would have to wait.
Elizabeth turned to those who knew
the viscosity of polluted air
all too well.
she decided that she would stand for those
who would not be protected otherwise.
she stood to the people at
Sage Paris 2015,
2016 GRI Amsterdam,
the White House Forum on Environmental Justice,
to tell them how
racial equity and environmental justice
aren’t simply connected
but intertwined.
she looks to the next generations
not to follow her footsteps,
but to walk alongside her,
to join her in making the lawmakers of our country
see through the smog
and recognize how the
jagged teeth of climate change
gnash and gnaw
with the incisors
of racial injustice.
when they saw the conundrum as a whole,
UP
they
ROSE.
Reflection
Reflection
When writing "how to rise," I started by researching environmental justice advocates in New York City (my hometown) and came across UPROSE, and thus, Elizabeth Yeampierre. I already knew that I wanted to express my research through poetry. While researching what UPROSE has accomplished in New York, I was highly impressed. Additionally, Ms. Yeampierre's stories of how she began to work in environmental justice reflected highly upon her resilience and strength. Once I finished my research and wrote to Ms. Yeampierre's assistant, Esperanza Lima, for more information, I began to draft "how to rise." A couple days later, I sent a draft of the poem to Ms. Lima, and she passed it on to Ms. Yeampierre. Then we scheduled a Zoom call to go over it and make any revisions that Ms. Yeampierre would like. We met on Zoom on June 12, 2023 (a day before the deadline!) and had a greatly empowering conversation. Ms. Yeampierre is as kind as she is wise, and I am very happy with my choice of which climate hero to write about. I have learned through the theme of this year's competition how environmental issues affect people of color even more than I had previously assumed. I think that all environmental advocates should be facing their biases and make room in the environmental movement for others who are less likely to have a seat at the table.