Minneapolis Blocks Anti-Trump Poem, “A Prayer For P*ssies,” From Public Art Exhibit

City Cites Inappropriate Sexual Content

The city of Minneapolis won’t allow an anti-Donald Trump poem titled “A Prayer for P*ssies” to be displayed as part of a public art exhibit. 

The poem, by acclaimed African-American artist Junauada Petrus (pictured), was written in response to Trump’s vulgar remarks in a 2005 “Access Hollywood” videotape, in which the president-elect condoned sexual assault by saying, “Grab them by the p*ssy.”

Petrus told the Star-Tribune the poem was intended as a celebration of the female body, in defiance of Trump’s remarks. But city officials say it isn’t “appropriate” for display outside the refurbished downtown Nicollet Mall because it contains two references to female genitalia.

“If he can feel bold to not only say the word ‘p*ssy,’ but make it a philosophy to grab for women, I can fricking write a poem that is adding sacredness and having love around the idea of praying for p*ssies,” Petrus told the newspaper. “It really is a kick in the gut and the womb to have somebody who has this attitude towards women holding the highest office.” 

Mary Altman, Minneapolis’ public arts administrator, praised Petrus as “an amazing artist” and called the poem “extremely powerful,” saying it might have been approved for display “in another context.” 

“The content is very sexual, and to have really sexual content on a retail strip on the city where families hang out, where families go into Macy’s to look at the Christmas displays, it just didn’t feel to me to be appropriate,” Altman said.

In an open letter responding to the city’s decision, Petrus lamented that “an addiction to the failing and falling phallus of white supremacy has TAKEN presidency.” 

“Right now a pantheon is being assembled to protect and empower the right for deranged thinking, soul-lessness, rape culture and white supremacy to CONTINUE to be central to ‘American’ identity and its experience,” she wrote. “That was the America claimed by ‘the forefathers’ and the one attempted to be ‘Made Great Again.'”

Read the full text of the poem below.