Black Matters
By Keith Wilsonshall i tell you, then, that we exist?
there came a light, blue and white careening,
the police like wailing angels
to bitter me.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Keith Wilsonshall i tell you, then, that we exist?
there came a light, blue and white careening,
the police like wailing angels
to bitter me.
By Keno Evolthe night i was to meet my brother for the first time in 23 years he ain’t show / absence is not what comes up from that memory / more it was the dusk in September / how fog can hide a growl
By Danez Smithwe who were born into conundrum, came into the world as the world was leaving, children
of the ozone, the oppressed, the overlooked, of obtuse greed, of oil overlords, of oblong
definitions of justice
By Dunya MikhailOur clay tablets are cracked
Scattered, like us, are the Sumerian letters
“Freedom” is inscribed this way:
Ama-ar-gi
By Ross GayRoss Gay performs the poem "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Allison Pitinii DavisBefore him, stickers fade across the bumper:
LAST ONE OUT OF TOWN, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.
The last employer in Youngstown is the weather:
the truck behind him plows grey snow to the roadside
By Jennifer Maritza McCauleyBefore they tell us how to look
at our kilt brothers' bodies:
Tell them we already know how to see ‘em.
By Ross GayThere is a puritan in me
the brim of whose
hat is so sharp
it could cut
your tongue out
By Dunya MikhailIn Iraq,
after a thousand and one nights,
someone will talk to someone else.
Markets will open
for regular customers.
By Fatimah Asgharam I not your baby?
brown & not allowed
my own language?
my teeth pulled