[the Writing of Kuypers]    [JanetKuypers.com]    [Bio]    [Poems]    [Prose]


video Enjoy this YouTube video from 4/27/24 of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Choices We Make” for its appearance in the “2024 Animal Tales” book anthology during the 2024 Tablerock Poetry Festival for the “2024 Animal Tales Anthology Launch” at Tablerock of Salado, video TX, which also is in her CyberWit.net 2024 book “The Universe is in Your Hands” (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).
Also enjoy this as a Facebook live video stream, filmed from a Samsung S9 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading #janetkuypersfeature #janetkuypersveglife #janetkuyperstheuniverseisinyourhands
video Enjoy this YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her v347 7/74 cc&d issue/book “Liberty” poems “Choices We Make” (+ images 1, 2, & 3), “Only Eating Human Flesh” (+ The Universe is in Your Hands front cover image & poem image), “Otherwise Never-ending Saver of Life” (+ Arecibo images 1 & 2, video & bamboo images 1 & 2), & “Ever Elusive Happiness” (+ Bay of Bengal image), which also appear in the CyberWit.net Summer 2024 Janet Kuypers poetry book “The Universe is in Your Hands”, to start her “Poetic License 7/7/24 global open mic” she hosted through Zoom & a Facebook event page (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).
Also enjoy this as a Facebook live video stream that was filmed & streamed from a Samsung S9 camera w/ a Color Film filter; on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading #janetkuyperstheuniverseisinyourhands #janetkuyperspoeticlicense

Choices We Make

Janet Kuypers
1/5-6/24

I wiped my saliva inside my scuba mask to avoid fog
underwater, for with only a snorkel I eventually held
my breath and swam past the people, started counting
the white-tipped sharks sleeping in a perfect row along
the bottom of the Pacific. 1, 2, 3... 8, 9, 10... 28, 29, 30.

I stopped counting as my swim mates feared for me,
swimming with so many sharks. But my only fear
was for their safety from the infringement of mankind—
after stepping in the water at the then-desolate Paradise
Island, where baby sharks and barracuda swarmed my feet,

I rescued fish otherwise caught for food, and rescued cats
from violently abusive homes. I proudly choose their lives —
the Orcas and Humpback whales whose families swam to
Deception Island’s WWII bases, to Sea Lions rushing past me

in the Pacific near a mess of Marine Iguana carcasses at the
Army’s Baltra bases. To Buffalo segregated by electric fences,
to the mass-farmed animals mankind slaughters when they
choose to consume death. When faced with death, I choose life.






Copyright © Janet Kuypers.

All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.



Like Janet Kuypers’ writing on any of these links below:

Add to Twitter    Add to Facebook    Add to digg    Add to Del.icio.us    Add to Google Bookmarks    Add to Mister Wong    Add to reddit    Add to Stumble Upon    Add to Technorati





my hand to an anim of jkchair



Kuypers at Artvilla


scars publications


Kuypers writing