Academy Of American Poets Poem A Day Series Features Poetry By Monica Youn Titled "Four Freedoms Park" About Roosevelt Island - "A Reminder That, In the U.S., Freedom For Some Has Always Come At The Expense Of Incarceration For Others"

The Academy Of American Poets celebrates April as National Poetry Month. A poem by Monica Youn titled "Four Freedoms Park" about Roosevelt Island is featured as part of their Poem-A-Day series.

Then—as if someone had switched on a black light in the sky—

the traceries of dread just visible all around her, the curving
trajectories of each possible disaster

once seen, now indelible

––Monica Youn@MonicaYoun #PoemADay https://t.co/MNfxGuDKU4

— Academy of American Poets (@POETSorg) April 20, 2024

According to the Poem-A-Day website:

“In my son’s early infancy, I was staying near Roosevelt Island and spent many afternoons taking the tram over and circumambulating the little island. The FDR Memorial in Four Freedoms Park, a luxurious geometry of honed granite, is the play/picnic ground for local families, many of whom are Asian American and drawn by the island’s sterile high-rise condos and the promise of a car-free, crime-free New York City neighborhood. The ubiquity of Asian American faces sharpened the many ironies of FDR’s Four Freedoms, a speech he gave in the same year in which, caving to wartime racism, he signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry. The memorial also abuts the ruins of the Smallpox Hospital, and ties into the island’s long history as a site of segregation and confinement for those deemed criminal, insane, or poor––a reminder that, in the U.S., freedom for some has always come at the expense of incarceration for others.” ––Monica Youn

Ms Youn recites her poem, Four Freedoms Park

Academy of American Poets · Monica Youn: "Four Freedoms Park"

Click here to read the text of the poem.