What We Do—Now
By Ellen HaganWe mourn, we bless,
we blow, we wail, we
wind—down, we sip,
we spin, we blind, we
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Ellen HaganWe mourn, we bless,
we blow, we wail, we
wind—down, we sip,
we spin, we blind, we
By Heidi Andrea Restrepo RhodesWake. Wake.
These the nights we sing. These the folds,
unborn reverie, ambition marbled mud & shine,
raging anthem born like diamonds out darkest ash & rain
By Naomi Shihab NyeNaomi Shahib Nye performs the poems "My Father, on dialysis" and "Shoulders" at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Julie EnszerThe painters call before we move into the new house. Ma’am, they say—
I am not old enough to be a ma’am, but I don’t correct them—
Ma’am, they say, we smell gas.
I dismiss their concern. I say, Keep painting.
By Allison Adelle Hedge CokeIn a room facing chimneys
over the place Nancy Morejón rests
between sleeps lining free lines
she whispers to hearing DC:
By Lisa Suhair Majajbecause wind soughs in the branches of trees
like blood sighing through veins
because in each country there are songs
By Nicholas SamarasWhat is that red throbbing over the sound of engines?
Why is a distant war still being talked about in the media?
I can't see my home or Iraq or the Middle East
outside this bowed rectangle of blue altitude.
By David MuraThere are 150 first languages in our schools
and so many aliens even E.T. would go unnoticed,
though if your tongue moved one way in the land of your birth
By Lisa L. MooreWord got out about the bad bill.
College students packed up their bikinis,
went back to Austin to tell those men why
By Jericho BrownThey said to say goodnight
And not goodbye, unplugged
The TV when it rained. They hid