A Poetic Profile of the 2019 Voqal Fellows: Game the System

April 12, 2019

Start the weekend right with another installment of this year’s Voqal Fellowship poem, Cooperative and Collaborative Politics of Change. As we’ve mentioned before, this poem was created by Adrian H. Molina through a process called Live Scribe Poetics that took place during the Fellowship convening back in January.

IV. Game the System

“See, I got this fellowship, in addition to this other fellowship,
which compliments my other other fellowship,
which is a backed up by my other other other other fellowship…”

1. There is funding for an idea: Make it up.
2. There is funding for proof of concept:
So get the money to create it.
3. The third dimension then is to RE-CREATE it: The money.

What is sustainable, beyond awards from funders?
Where are the gains beyond the game?
How do we get paid on the higher road
to transforming the system?

What is the balance between idealism
and the reality of capitalism?
Only within your own universe
can you begin to answer this question.

Question the money. Get comfortable
in the loneliness of your questions and ideas.
Build confidence through the work.
Invest in it, because you are the work
and it will return to you.
Check in with your mentor.
Then return to the work with your bravery.

“We believe in the intersectional.”
“We believe in love.” “We know
that the world will be redrawn in 2020.”
The game now is to bend the market to our visions.

Design your thinking. Design the future world.
Money is made up. Capital is made up.
Everything is made up. Who is ready
to make up the new economy? Who will find life
within your designs?

Learn more about Adrian and his work at molinaspeaks.com

Interested in learning more about the Voqal Fellowship and the 2019 Voqal Fellows? Visit Voqal’s Fellowship page.