Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Jill KhouryThe boy across the street points at me and lisps—now I know what they mean in books when they say children lisp. He wears a red and white striped t-shirt, addresses my friend who walks beside me. I ask people to please walk on my left side. It’s the eye that’s not completely dead I say. They always move over.
By Tara Shea BurkeWhen we met we fell for each other like leaves.
Behind black curtains your bedroom was always dark
except for unexpected soft-yellow walls. Your dogs
By Saeed JonesAll throat now already brighter than the stars.
I could hold you in my song. Sotto voce, tremble
against me: a breeze slips in, cools my blood
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 Leona SevickInstead, I spotted our mother in a tiny
chair in the back row, her blue-black head
shining unnaturally. She was dressed in
By Lisa Suhair Majajbecause wind soughs in the branches of trees
like blood sighing through veins
because in each country there are songs
By Sonja de VriesSome days it’s in the grip of a hawk flying
up from the field, snake dangling from its mouth
writhing, writhing.
By Marie-Elizabeth MaliBalancing on crutches in the shallows
near her mother, a girl missing her right lower leg
swings her body and falls, laughing.