Intervention
By ChrysanthemumI hate the question: What would you say to your younger self? Too inexact. With what means? Through which technologies? Landline? Lie detector? Telepathy? Is it automatic? Call dispatch? Concierge? What’s the cost?
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By ChrysanthemumI hate the question: What would you say to your younger self? Too inexact. With what means? Through which technologies? Landline? Lie detector? Telepathy? Is it automatic? Call dispatch? Concierge? What’s the cost?
By Ezra FoxThey say I killed you,
say they can pry o pen
my / your
dead / name
like a mussel finds nothing
but the ocean's black silt.
By Lehua M. TaitanoHere are the ones I think will come: Wren, chestnut backed chickadee, hairy woodpecker, scrub jay. Words of a dream retold dissolve into pulp, into seed glue. Into chips of memory. This morning, I’ve a soft waxwing in hand. We are both stunned. His eye is cast beyond currents or cadence.
By Jalynn HarrisAt the entrance, six copper pillars stand tall as a wave
as once did six-fingered Lucille. She lived here, too–
The light alone enough to fill the lake. I walk the park
because I’m weak. All flesh and fur needing
to get out my bark. My rough squeeze of please please
A red bird. Another mile. My feet eat the concrete.
By José Angel AraguzI knew nothing about poems
when I was introduced to
the woman selling seashells by
the seashore. Placed in a
remedial speech class, told
my S’s served no one,
I felt set aside in
the silence of clear hallways
where I walked slow, savoring
not being where I belonged.
By Jasmine Reidi spread at my touch & clit
contemplating my beauty this Monday i live
the pleasure of my fingers
how i am in-the-making by hand
by pill by needle i am the perfect girl
professor, in fact, Chemical X is my love
in gradients of acidity i am
milkless except by oats, by meal made of itself
By Ladan OsmanI enter: carpet, curtains,
large, framed pictures of robed white men,
a glassy glare over a forehead, below the voice box,
students in bland shades.
I don’t belong, the luxury of thinking,
the wealth of talking about thought,
privilege of ease among important people.
By Jaden FieldsIt is the steadiest “I love you”
Until the moon loses their footing in the sky
Which is to say - never
Or
I love you beyond time
Or
I love me beyond time
By féi hernandezSimultaneously I am
alone and crowded, this…
the pulsing wound of being extinct,
whole
enough for a morning forage,
yet scant for the onlookers
of lineage,
of nation,
myths in the mulberry tree.
By Aliah Lavonne TighEveryone in Anatomy pairs up,
receives a small baby pig.
The scalpel shines like water or a mirror—if you look, you see
yourself: gloved hand pushing a blade to open
the other animal’s chest. Someone drops
a knife, shouts,
Clean it up. This is how we learn to
dissect a body.