Ten months after their nomination as Peterborough's Poet Laureate, Ziysah von Bieberstein appeared before Peterborough City Council to deliver a powerful speech about the fears of the future, and those who grant optimism by offering free meals and standing up against the ongoing genocide being committed against the Palestinian people.

Ziysah von Bieberstein was named Peterborough’s Poet Laureate year on April 24^th, 2023. According to Electric City Culture Council Peterborough’s Poet Laureate is “an honourary position established to recognize the excellence and outstanding achievements of local professional poets” and is meant to “enhance our civic identity.”

Von Bieberstein’s speech to city council was one of their duties as part of their role, presenting four works as an integral part of Peterborough’s municipal identity. Von Bieberstein’s work ranges from publications in various magazines, three self-published poetry collections, and co-founding Take Out Poetry, an organization which offers custom, hand-delivered, typewritten poems.

Mayor Jeff Leal introduced von Bieberstein to city council and stated that their presence at city council “a great honor.”

Von Bieberstein’s speech opened with a recalling of their struggles with preparing this piece, asking “How can I wish you a happy new year?” 

How could they wish anyone a happy new year, when “homelessness, addiction, and illness are rising as fast as disease”, “isolation has driven so many of [their] friends to despair to poverty to the streets.” 

Von Bieberstein struggled to wish anyone a happy new year as they witnessed the despairing state of global politics, seeing democracies decay, the looming threat of climate change, the murders of Queer and non-White children, and “a Hiroshima’s worth of bombs continue to drop on Gaza.”

In their own life, von Bieberstein explains that “most days I can’t get out of bed,” they said as depression “grinds [their] bones to dust.” 

Von Bieberstein evoked a tender moment, holding one of their elders as they fell asleep. They call upon “a tender hand that has been feeling for 101 years nestled into my palm.” 

Wondering if they fell asleep, von Bieberstein watched their eyelids open, full of tears. They learned from this that “all grief wants from us is our presence — it doesn't need us to pretend we are happy.” 

To those struggling through grief, they offered this poem, to tell them “your presence is beautiful, is everything. Your attention to the pain in this world is necessary. I'm here to tell you that your tears are medicine.”

Von Bieberstein later explained that the reason those grieving feel paralyzed by their grief, why they are “sinking under so much weight” is because they “know a better world is possible.” Grief is crushing through the power of absence, but also through deep yearning for a better world, they added.

For them, this yearning is optimism. Von Bieberstein explained “optimism is the radical knowing that we can rise to the occasion.” They feel feel optimism through acts like Peterborough’s construction of new modular housing units to account for its homelessness crisis, the free meals provided by the Peterborough chapter of Foods Not Bombs, a demonstration organized by the Jewish Voice for Peace, where Jewish anti-Zionists shut down New York’s Central station clamoring “not in my name”, and Peterborough’s own blockade on Safran Electronics, for its manufacturing of weapons technology for the Israeli army.

These actions grow von Biberstein’s hope for the future. Their optimism is not "a denial of the challenges that face us”; "There will be no return to normal, no end to the wildfires. The glaciers will not miraculously grow back. No protests will single handedly put an end to genocide.”

The power of dreaming, of imagining a better world is von Bieberstein’s optimism, their “radical knowledge that we can rise to the occasion.” Empathy and solidarity drive von Bieberstein’s optimism; the tears we cry on behalf of people we’ve never met are proof of our interconnection, proof that our capacity for transformation is at least as great as our capacity for destruction.

They went on, evoking solidarity as the driving force of their optimism; “so we paint signs together, we say none are free until all are free. We say a just world is possible. We say there is enough here for everyone.”

Von Bieberstein did not wish anyone a happy new year, but they did wish those in attendance “a new hope for a time in which all is shared, all are fed and all are free.”

They concluded “on the days I am able to rise from my bed, on those days, my friends, I will see you in the streets.”

Their speech was met with unrelenting applause from those in attendance, including Foods not Bombs staff clad in traditional Palestinian keffiyehs, city council and city staff, and members of the press.

Mayor Jeff Leal reservedly praised the speech, calling it “inspirational.”

Councillor Joy Lachica vehemently celebrated it, noting “it’s said that knowledge is power, but if power has no voice, it is nothing.” For Councillor Lachica, von Bieberstein’s words arose from their great knowledge, empathy, and power.

She echoed von Bieberstein’s acclaim for the anti-Zionist movement, thanking them for their calls for city governments to acknowledge the ongoing assault on Palestine and its people. Councillor Lachica recalled her own calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, and directly thanked Foods not Bombs for their work on this issue.

She directly thanked von Bieberstein: “as your Town Ward Councillor, I thank you for your words, your art, and your power” before another round of thunderous applause broke out.