A constellation of mint
By Kevin McLellanThe blur of
bodies
scattering
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
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.
By Simki GhebremichaelInstead of Most Wanted
by the FBI, each week
they profile the life
of a dissident, a former
By David-Matthew BarnesI remember the rhythm at night:
Your hips wanting mine,
to grind our street-smart
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