Renée Nicole Good and Facundo Jones Huala: Poets on fire
Like Sirius and Procyon: Stars Burning in the Night
Introduction — Yagán Legend: Stars of Fire
Every culture has its own bedtime stories, its lullabies, and original tales. They often arise from looking at the sky, amid fears, hopes, cold, and silence. In these dark times marked by wars and environmental disaster, a return to the stars ensures that navigators maintain a fundamental understanding of their position. Because the stars shine brightest in the darkness, we use celestial navigation to interpret recent global events: two stars are demanding justice.
According to a legend of the Yagán people, after naming the elements and places, and the moving and immovable beings, the Yoalosh brothers—timeless beings who created the Earth—decided to ascend to the sky and transform into Sirius and Procyon. Before that, everything was eternal. With the end of creation, death was also born. The two brothers, leaving their material bodies, ascended to the sky. Since then, their light continues to shine as a guide to their people. ¹
While the sun’s fire warms, the fire of the stars has always been a guide across the open ocean. This is the purpose of incendiary poetry: to warm souls and make visible what others would leave in darkness. Today, Sirius and Procyon have two new names: Renée and Facundo. One, murdered. The other, imprisoned. Both are powerful guides in these dark times through their poetry. Their lives ignite the protests of human rights defenders at the beginning of 2026.
Renée — Poetry and Whistles as Symbols of the Uprising
Renée Nicole Good, 37 years old, mother of three, was killed on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent during a migration control operation. She was in her car, in a residential neighborhood, when the agent shot her three times. ² Official reports try to accuse her of violent acts, but the video evidence speaks for itself. Her weapons were pen and whistles—sounds, not arms. These whistles were not weapons but instruments of solidarity, designed to empower communities to document and resist federal overreach. After her death, the whistles transformed into a potent emblem of nonviolent resistance.
Her death lit fires across the United States: Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C. Thousands demanded truth and justice. Over 1,000 protests under the banner “ICE Out For Good” were planned for the following weekend, with an estimated tens of thousands marching in Minneapolis.
life is mere
egg and sperm
and where the two meet
and how often and how well
and what dies there. ³
Facundo — Poetry Catching Fire Against Colonialism
Facundo Jones Huala is a poet and lonko, a political authority of the Mapuche people. ⁴ For the Mapuche, defending the Mapu Ñuke (Mother Earth) is not environmentalism, but identity, piuke (heart), care, and sacred relationship. Words are inseparable from action: to narrate is to resist. Giving one’s word is a sacred act.
On February 2, 2025, he presented the book Entre rejas. Antipoesía incendiaria (Behind Bars. Incendiary Anti-Poetry) at a library in Bariloche. Shortly after, he was imprisoned. His poems became charges against him. Like Renée, he is accused of violent acts: his words ignite fires.
Facundo’s book speaks to those who listen to his poetry by revealing a profound spiritual truth: no compromise in the defense of Mother Earth. His book denounces colonialism, the expropriation of ancestral lands, the violence of colonizing religion, security forces, transnational systems—including Benetton—and settler landowners. ⁵ From prison, Facundo issued an international spiritual call for the defense of Mother Earth. ⁶ His detention reveals the government’s fear of poetry catching fire—words that ignite and awaken:
Firebird
You, my rest, my comfort
Free and luminous
Firebird
Take me on your wings
Melt me into your dreams. ⁷
Sirius and Procyon, two burning stars
Two poets, from North to South America, armed with pen. She was standing in solidarity with her neighbors. He is standing in defense of nature. Their words and lives light the fires of protest and are a call to human and environmental rights defenders seeking justice. Governments that attempt to suppress protest end up feeding the fire, transforming artists’ lives into martyrs who spread the fire across the Americas, rather than managing social conflict.
Here we have two poets: one murdered, the other deprived of liberty. These two poets are bound together and “catching fire” like Sirius and Procyon. Their lives remind us that fire is a contradictory force—destructive and generative—embodying both danger and the potential for transformative change through dignity, love, and resistance.
Art, words, and poetry illuminate what others seek to censor.
We are witnesses to the legacy of these two poets: kindness, love, and advocacy for a better world. Perhaps this is the calling of the stars today—to be our guide, the community’s call for compassion over fear. Not to extinguish the fire, but to let it spread.⁸
Notes
1-The legend of the Yoalosh brothers belongs to the oral tradition of the Yagán people and was collected by Grandma Cristina Calderón. Among her publications is also a book of Yagán legends and stories, titled Hai Kur Mamašu Shis (I Want to Tell You a Story). In the full version of the tale, the two brothers also have a mother, represented by the star Betelgeuse. The Yoalosh brothers, Sirius, and Procyon, together with Betelgeuse, form the well-known Winter Triangle, an asterism visible in the northern hemisphere night sky from December to March. In the southern hemisphere, the Winter Triangle appears inverted and can be easily located by pointing toward Orion’s Belt, culturally known in Latin America as the “Las tres Marias.” – Info in Italian: https://www.labottegadelbarbieri.org/america-latina-la-difesa-delle-lingue-native/ – Info in Spanish: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.es/news/2022/3/la-lengua-menos-comun-del-mundo-el-yagan-se-extingue-por-completo
2- Murder of Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026, ongoing investigations on the ICE operation by Human Rights Watch:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/01/09/us-minneapolis-killing-by-ice-unjustified – Report: Renee Good was an ‘ICE Watch Warrior’ who was trained to monitor and resist federal agents before ICE shooting: https://www.oann.com/newsroom/report-renee-good-was-an-ice-watch-warrior-who-was-trained-to-monitor-and-resist-federal-agents-before-ice-shooting/ – “We had whistles. They had guns” Renee Good, Killed by ICE, Was Standing in Solidarity with Her Neighbors: https://labornotes.org/2026/01/renee-good-killed-ice-was-standing-solidarity-her-neighbors
3-Renée Nicole Good, On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs, Academy of American Poets Prize 2020:
https://radurapoetica.com/2026/01/08/una-poesia-di-renee-nicole-good/
4-The Mapuche people, history and identity of the “people of the land,” by anthropologist Olivia Casagrande:
https://www.gfbv.it/3dossier/ind-voelker/mapu.html
5-Il mondo (dei Benetton) alla fine del mondo, investigative book available in free digital version:
https://www.heraldo.it/2020/07/08/il-mondo-dei-benetton-alla-fine-del-mondo/ ; Spanish link: Nación Mapuche. La lógica mafiosa de los Benetton: desde Italia a la persecución contra los mapuches y Maldonado: https://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2022/05/30/nacion-mapuche-la-logica-mafiosa-de-los-benetton-desde-italia-a-la-persecucion-contra-los-mapuches-y-maldonado/
6- Facundo Jones Huala, message from Rawson prison on the defense of the Mapu Ñuke / Mother Earth:
https://mapucheit.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/il-messaggio-del-lonko-facundo-jones-huala-dal-carcere-di-rawson/
7- The unpublished book in Italian/English is available only in Spanish: Facundo Jones Huala, Entre rejas. Antipoesía incendiaria. Contact in Italy: RETE INTERNAZIONALISTA PER IL POPOLO MAPUCHE fb riedpm https://www.facebook.com/riedpm/ – translator contacts seeking an Italian publisher for printing/distribution: ecomapuche@gmail.com
8- “ARTISTS NEED TO CREATE AT THE SAME SCALE THAT SOCIETY HAS THE CAPACITY TO DESTROY” — Sherrie Rabinowitz, 1984.
From the same author, a manifesto on the role of art in the face of social destruction:
https://www.ecafe.com/museum/about_festo/84manifesto.html
