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.
Search Results
on meeting a brother for the first time
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
Do You Speak Persian?
By Kaveh AkbarSome days we can see Venus in mid-afternoon. Then at night, stars
separated by billions of miles, light travelling years
to die in the back of an eye.
Vox Populi for the Marooned
By Vincent ToroLike a charm of goldfinches we will gather. We will gather at the sea
crest and inside toppled cubicles, drawing upon this horizon of shady
treaties and chemical weapons depots as if cajoled toward the coast
Spam’s Carbon Footprint
By Craig Santos PerezCraig Santos Perez performs the poem "Spam's Carbon Footprint" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
By Ross GayRoss Gay performs the poem "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
Enough!
By Luis Alberto AmbroggioPoetry might never have seen
that categorical word,
but in its charged belligerence
of emotions and in its profound determination,
There Is a Lake Here
By Clint SmithThere is a lake here.
A lake the size of
outstretched arms. And no,
not the type of arms raised
2001 Mill Road, Alexandria, VA
By Marcos L. MartínezThere are immeasurable ways to count days: on the median the sunflower tracks UV streams: east to west then sleep; an acorn gets weeded out of the common area ‘til another live oak drobs a bomb then sprouts till, yanked away again;
Attribution
By Jee Leong KohMy grandfather said life was better under the British.
He was a man who begrudged his words but he did say this.
I was born after the British left
an alphabet in my house, the same book they left in school.