Kelly Recalls 1963
By Reuben JacksonI still call
The year 1963
Season of Nightmares
After Medgar Evers
Was killed I
Would lie awake
And wait for
My uncle Joe
To get home
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Reuben JacksonI still call
The year 1963
Season of Nightmares
After Medgar Evers
Was killed I
Would lie awake
And wait for
My uncle Joe
To get home
By Hakim BellamyNo one woke up, that Saturday, mourning. / No one woke up that Saturday morning with intentions of becoming a back to school vigil. / No one woke up not expecting to finish out a sophomore year...that had barely be- // gun.
By Lupe Mendezdon’t even know where to start.
you notice when you walk into the shelter — no joke —
a new war.
By Gabriel RamirezI gotta call my barber Eric to
let him know I’m pullin’ up. Yo hello?
Yea yea who this? ahhhh yo what up homie?
How you been kid?
By Steven Leyvaa lobby shaped like a yawn, lined with lodestone
leftover from making the marquee. The congress
of picture shows and pulp flicks it seems
named this movie house, the Senator.
By Marjan NaderiIn first grade, I told kids my name was Sarah.
Saw the way Sarah lifted the curtain
But never cleared the confusion
white enough for no one to ask questions.
By Kenneth Carroll IIIwe ride in on the red line
our laces coming undone as we float over fair gates
until we fall into a night
ripe
with everything our tongues have been yearning for
By Pacyinz LyfoungThe day I learned to speak my grandmother’s tongue
An Eastern wind shifted the earth
While the western walls were whisked away…
And the mountains of Laos rose on the horizon,
By Savannah SippleIn the beginning was the word and the word was FAT
in the beginning I was fat in the beginning I was lean &
long carried two weeks past due & wore preemie clothes & then I
chunked up baby fat a fat baby baby I grew big