Letter from Minnesota: On Living in the Hour of Cities Under Siege

by Carolyn Forché

Literary Hub, January 29, 2026

It is a time of being sorted by skin and hair, by mother tongue,
as being from here or there, as pepper spray fills in the air
until the whole city stinks of it, and the men who arrived in rented cars
with out-of-state plates, with faces covered, begin their hunt
for carpenters, house maids, dish washers, kindergarten kids,
for anyone who, to them, looks like they aren’t from here.
They’ll pull you through the window of your car.
They will not tell you who they are, who is in command.
They wear a little of the alphabet and do not know
that ice out also means the date in spring when
it is forbidden any longer to fish on the lakes.
They tackle and beat and cuff. It is never enough.
This is where the people make their stand.
These are the city’s barricades and fires,
leaf blowers blowing the tear gas back.
Here are the bouquets left in the snow for the dead,
candles in glass jars guttering out, hymns once sung in church.
Anyone may be taken, and those who stand
in the way are shot in the head.
This is what should be said to the coming cities:
you’ll need gas masks, goggles, armbands, milk for your eyes,
the name of someone who will search if you disappear.
When the time comes, take in anyone who needs to hide,
bring pots of food to front lines everywhere,
hot soup and cocoa, a roast potato to warm the hands.
When the time comes, listen to the whistles, the car horns, the cries in the air.

THE EMERGENCY IS NOW:

On the Ground in Minneapolis, Across the Country, and Calls to Action

OUR SUBSTACK

from “The Emergency Is Now”

by Siri Hustvedt

In Minneapolis, forty-five minutes by car from my hometown, Northfield, Minnesota, ICE is terrorizing the city. While some people are more vulnerable than others—anyone who is Black or Brown or speaks with an accent—no one is safe. Children have been taken. ICE is threatening schools. Every person who leaves their house is afraid of being stopped. ICE has been given license to kill people, as the Vice President said, with “absolute immunity.”

Brutality is the language of authoritarianism. . .

To read the full essay, click here.

from “National State of Emergency: On the Ground in Minneapolis”

Diane Jarvenpa, Chair, WDA-Minnesota

Minnesota is now a land of vigils. Since June 14th, we have seen assassinations of a MN senator and her husband, an attempted assassination of a MN representative and his wife, a school shooting, the murder of a poet, mother, and wife Renée Good. And now Alex Pretti, brutally murdered on January 24th in the heart and soul of this city, a neighborhood that is rich in people from all backgrounds that celebrate life. We are also a place of rallies to help each other and to give voice to those taken away by vans and planes or by violence. Silence is not an option. Is our country watching? Is the world watching? Can we as Eavan Boland says in her poem “Child of Our Time” –“make our broken images rebuild” ?

To read the full essay, click here.

To read all writers’ contributions to “The Emergency Is Now,” see our Substack here.

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