Following the murder of Renée Good at the hands of ICE agents in Minnesota, quite a few poets wrote and dedicated poems to her memory, and I celebrate each one. However, I hadn’t seen any poems for Alex Pretti, and so when this poem came to me (in the process of writing something Whitmanesque), I decided to dedicate it to his memory.
I have since seen another poem honoring Pretti, written by one of my favorite contemporary poets, Joseph Fasano: “For Alex Pretti”
Enjoy!
Irredactable
after Whitman
in memory of Alex
Live life with the passion—hunger, fury, juggernaut love—
your every action shouts your name, an unmistakable yawp.
While others hide beneath black bars of ink—
or are secured, in time, behind dusty bars of steel—
emblazon your name, live life unimpeachable,
defending truth, justice, and the weary, battered rest.
Be who you were meant to become, to be, to have been,
not for glory, nor for power, but for life.
© 2026.