Poetry from Rukshona Rasulova

Teen Central Asian girl with dark hair and a white collared shirt.

My grandmother left us today

My grandmother left us today

She flew to the skies, my love

When will you come back?

Come quickly, dear grandmother.

What will your children do now that you are

You didn’t attend your grandchildren’s weddings

At weddings, eyebrows are raised 

You did not sit in the nets.

My father left you 

You cheated and cheated 

Advising and praying

You have gone to the second world.

70 against the spring

You did the work

After the Prophet’s age 

You have entered heaven.

My child is my child

You made everyone happy

Your love is overflowing

You escaped three times.

Your daughter is Gulshanoy

Your son is Wahabjon

All your children

Grandma is waiting for you.

Be happy when a guest comes

You said write a table

He hugged the guest

You are welcome.

How much pain from your head 

You had a good time, grandma

When I say I have recovered 

You are gone, grandmother.

For children

My grandmother couldn’t get enough

At grandchildren’s weddings

He did not sit down, my dear.

May you be blessed in the hereafter, my grandmother

May your place be in heaven, my dear

May your heart always be bright

God bless you my god.

Rasulova Rukhshona Vahobjon’s daughter was born on October 16, 2008 in Rishton district of Fergana region. In 2015, she started studying in the 1st grade of school 34 in this district. Currently, she is a 10th grade student at this school. Rukhshona Rasulova is interested in participating in various competitions, writing poems and stories, and reading many books.

She regularly participates in school and district competitions and takes pride of place. She has also participated in many online contests and earned international certificates.

She is a member of various creative teams and the winner of the 2024 Science Horizon project and the owner of the badge “Follower of the Great Fighters”. She won 2nd place in the district stage of the intellectual game “Zakovat.”

As a young artist she has unlimited goals in her heart. Her biggest dream is to become a “young reader”. Rukhshona Rasulova’s poems were published in one of the most prestigious magazines of Great Britain “Raven Cage” and “Kenya Time” in Thailand. And she has participated in various anthologies covering artists across the Republic. Her creative works are included in the collections “Travel to the land of happiness”, “Young talents”, “Youth of Uzbekistan”, “Heart lines”, “Stars of the sky”, “Ijod va me”.

She also published a number of creative works in the international anthology “Buyuk jadidchilar izdoshi” almanac-anthology, which was held across the Republic. Currently, she is the head of the “Young creatives” circle at Ruhshona 34 general secondary school. At the same time, her creative works were also published in the newspaper “Tong ystziri” published throughout the Republic. And Shijoat is the regional coordinator of the free volunteering organization. We hope you will enjoy reading some of her works.

Poetry from Stephen Jarrell Williams

Dream Swept

So tired

as night sets in

laying back

my head on the pillow

alone

in my room

my last dollar

gone

and I tell myself

tomorrow will be better

when I walk down the highway

and hitch a ride

to the city in the sky.

Saint

Beautiful lady

wind soft in your hair

looking to the sky

clouds like puffs from your lips

believing in yourself

like your mother said

kindness to everyone

will keep you safe

even the thunder protecting you

rain washing all sin away.

Heavenly

At night

where does the music come from

far

floating in sleep

notes whispering

from when you were a child

the meaning

in everything

your heart guiding

thoughts of love

a majestic hum

from God

above.

Essay from Barnoxon Ruxieva

Barkamol Avlod Children's School. Large urban looking building with large glass windows and big gold letters. Some trees and a concrete walkway in front.
Jumayeva Aziza, Director of Barkamol Avlod Children's School
 
A place where talented people are trained

Studying the interests of talented boys and girls studying in general secondary schools and their "BARKAMOL AVLOD" children's centers are launched in the regions in order to educate their abilities.

Their main goal is to make children creative and artistic according to their needs and interests to develop their abilities, to teach them diligence, initial training and vocational training inculcating skills, the history of the country, archeological and cultural heritage is deep
study, familiarization with the natural resources of our country and ecology and environment acquisition of basic knowledge in the field of protection, promising development of science and technology
by organizing the study of technical tools and computer technologies in accordance with the directions is to develop children's technical creativity.

Here are culture and art, tourism and ecology, technical construction and modeling, specializes in crafts and manual labor, physical education and sports, and learning foreign languages.

There are dozens of circles.
Pedagogical staff of the school meet the state requirements for extracurricular education and are established organizing the educational process on the basis of approved training manuals and programs. They carry out educational work at a high level, improve the content of education, and teach actively participate in the creation of tools. In children qualities such as hard work, kindness, compassion formation, loyalty to the Motherland, to the state language, national and universal, historical and cultural
respect for values, parents and older people, care for the environment. 

Educating in the spirit of relationship is also important.
The pedagogue constantly assumes the level of his theoretical knowledge, pedagogical skills and professional qualifications
takes the responsibility of constantly improving and working on himself. 

To the relevant information of higher educational institutions and vocational colleges, as well as professional individuals with training and high moral qualities. Taking pedagogical activities at the center
Also, in necessary cases, those who do not have relevant pedagogical education, but are professional training and high moral qualities and "Master", "Master of Sports" in technical and tourism
"or persons with the status of "Candidate for Master of Sports" also with pedagogical activity at the Center can be involved.

Poetry from Taylor Dibbert

Forever London

London isn’t fuzzy 

And his memories

Of her 

Aren’t fading,

His forever London

Is here 

To stay.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, was published in May.

A. Iwasa reviews Josh Fernandez’ memoir The Hands That Crafted the Bomb

Image of a middle aged shirtless Latino man with a bald head and tattoos. Book is red, gray, and black. Title reads "The Hands That Crafted the Bomb: The Making of a Lifelong Antifascist" by Josh Fernandez.

Reviewed by A. Iwasa

What’s it like to be an antifascist college professor facing termination for “soliciting students for potentially dangerous activities” while military recruiters have free range on your campus?

If you’re generally critical of academics, one thing you’ll have to understand about Josh Fernandez is that he’s hated teachers his whole life.  If you have any doubts, in this book Fernandez will take you back from fighting the community college bureaucracy he works for over their Campus Antifascist Network, Bash Back! and an off campus Antifascist Fighting Club he hosted, to the kindergarten classroom of a certain Mrs. Clark.  Though Clark maybe a changed name or composite character, you’ll get the drift.

Like many anti-authoritarians forged in post-industrial schools and equally dysfunctional families, Fernandez lays it all out going back and forth in time from his adult struggles to his wild upbringing.  Many people say one or both of their parents were crazy, but Fernandez’s biological father actually was.  I’m not trying to imply this an inherently bad thing, just a reality people frequently don’t take for the actual weight of the situation.

You’ll steadily follow Fernandez down what seems to me the well trodden paths of juvenile delinquency, but I think they’re largely the only ways to have any agency when you’re 12-15 years old or so in our society.

Skate boarding and punk rock fandom start to balance things out a bit for Fernandez, along with some relatively healthy family life aspects as a well intentioned step father enters his life.

The adult narratives move around in time also, back in time in the case of the day of Trump’s selection by the Electoral College when Fernandez attended a comically bad conference on diversity and education that day in 2016.

The youthful account contains a first hand telling of the show a Nazi stabbed Aragorn from Little Black Cart at.  I was shocked to read Aragorn’s roommate at the time, Paul, died the next day from a Nazi inflicted stab wound at that show.

A lot of young people seem to think this kind of brawling is all fun and games, and need to know these sort of stories.  Aragorn told me once he considered this part of his life to have been a waste of time, though I didn’t know any of the specifics until after he died.

The Hands that Crafted the Bomb is full of brutal truth that frequently borders on Too Much Information.  Though some accounts like this strike me as bragging or bravado, I’m strongly under the impression that Fernandez is just being painfully honest.  From the lows of physically fighting his bio father to trying speed, to the highs of becoming a father himself or punching bigots in the face; all the cards are laid out, good and bad alike.  Frankly, if Fernandez or his editors held anything back, I DO NOT want to know what it is!

Eventually working out in general, running in particular, college and 12 Step Meetings come into play as Fernandez gets it together in a somewhat conventional manner, without selling out.  But staying sober (and possibly employed or sane even) continues to be a daily struggle.

By Part 13, a part of the Investigation narrative at his work named “How to Say ‘Fuck You,'” Fernandez recounts one of the more recent and infamous antifa action in California, and a talk he had with Aragorn at the time.  Like talking with me around then, he told Fernandez it was a “Waste of time.”  Knowing what I know now about Aragorn’s youthful antifascism, it’s a conversation I wish I could have been a part of.

Later Fernandez ponders the bitter irony of being threatened with heavy charges for militant antifascism, when really people should be getting awards for it.

I don’t want to spoil it all for you, so please pick it up if you find this at all interesting.  I’ve sometimes wondered if hooliganism is simply baked into the coming of age of most young men.  If it is, I suppose at least some of us got on the right side of the barricades back in the ’90s and it was nice to read a lengthy, personal, and perhaps most importantly self critical account of someone who stayed true to their youthful, antifascist roots.

You can read more about Aragorn here: https://crimethinc.com/2021/02/13/remembering-aragorn-a-poem-and-a-zine

You can order Josh Fernandez’ book from PM Press here.