Past Tense
By Sam TaylorAnd someone in a field found an old car
from the year black with beetles, eaten like lace,
and the sky fell into it, a private thing.
And everyone had a kitchen or a fold-out bed
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Sam TaylorAnd someone in a field found an old car
from the year black with beetles, eaten like lace,
and the sky fell into it, a private thing.
And everyone had a kitchen or a fold-out bed
By Wendell BerryWe forget the land we stand on
and live from. We set ourselves
free in an economy founded
on nothing, on greed verified
By Danez SmithI am sick of writing this poem
but bring the boy. his new name
his same old body. ordinary, black
dead thing. bring him & we will mourn
By Ruth Irupé SanabriaI am the daughter of doves
That disappeared into dust
Hear my pulse whisper:
By Jenny BrowneWheeled onto the jet leaving
my town, another soldier
whose pruned body echoes earth
liberating itself from gravity.
By Elizabeth HooverÑuul, the teacher says and smacks his knee to show
where the stress falls. Ñuul, the children repeat each
starting at a different time so they sing a sour chord.
By Persis M. KarimTake their limbs strewn about the streets—
multiply by a thousand and one.
Ask everyone in Baghdad who has lost
By Khaled MattawaNow that we have come out of hiding,
Why would we live again in the tombs we’d made out of our souls?
And the sundered bodies that we’ve reassembled
By Najwan DarwishFado, I’ll sleep like people do
when shells are falling
and the sky is torn like living flesh
I’ll dream, then, like people do
By Nicholas SamarasWhat is that red throbbing over the sound of engines?
Why is a distant war still being talked about in the media?
I can't see my home or Iraq or the Middle East
outside this bowed rectangle of blue altitude.