This past winter, I was invited to read a poem at @UMich President Santa Ono's inauguration and given the impression that I could determine the poem's content. I pitched a poem about my single mother returning to college in her 40s as a non-traditional student. 🧵

In response, I received these new guidelines from a member of the Office of University Development

The idea of writing a “gift” for a high-level administrator I’d never met didn’t sit well with me, nor did the idea of an inaugural poem celebrating the president vs. collective issues and ideals. I politely declined.

(I want to add, here, that the inaugural poet who was chosen did a beautiful job. Though I don’t know what instructions that poet received, her poem gracefully evaded what the above guidelines demanded and instead celebrated the student body.)

But as the @geo3550 strike has courageously continued despite escalating attempts at intimidation from the administration—and now, as friends and colleagues of mine who are current grad student workers will be paid only $100 for the month of April...

due to the administration’s preemptive docking of pay and lack of good-faith efforts at negotiation—I keep returning to the inaugural poem ask, to the phrase “a gift to him,” to the pit in my stomach—a deep discomfort that I couldn’t, then, fully articulate—

at being asked (to perform uncompensated labor) to celebrate an institution that views and treats its grad student workers as disposable.

I graduated from U-M last April, so I have not GSIed since winter term of 2022, but the greatest honor of my MFA experience was working to support @UMich undergrads as they developed their own voices and visions as writers and people.

Grad workers can't afford, on the current wage of $24k, to live in Ann Arbor. So I call upon President Ono and the administration to affirm their own words — to create a “new beginning” and “new energy on campus” by accepting @geo3550's latest proposal...

for a living wage. If you have the means, please consider donating to the strike and hardship fund: givebutter.com/GEOStrikeFund. These funds will be allocated to the grad workers who most need them. #UMich #OnStrike