Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Vincent ToroA lung lit like diesel
is not fable or fodder.
Is not sewage siphoned from stern
and starboard. Cuffs, not slapdash plums
plunge from your garden
By Kathi WolfeIn an elevator trapped
between the fifteenth and sixteenth
floor of her apartment building,
Sunday morning, Elizabeth, her cane
By Carlos Andrés GómezCarlos Andrés Gómez performs the poem " 'Juan Valdez' (or 'Why is a white guy like you named 'Carlos'?')" at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Lee SharkeyA man is lying on a sofa.
The man has been reading.
He has laid down the book beside him.
The man's form is waiting to be occupied.
By Anna B. SuttonThis morning, there is an angel hanging by a thread,
cartoonish and carved out of soft wood. She twirls
circles above me, manipulated by the pulse
of a ceiling vent.
By T. J. Jarrettits ruthless syntax, and the ease with which it interjects
itself into our days. I thought how best to explain this—
this dark winter, but that wasn’t it, or beds unshared
but that isn’t exactly it either, until I remembered
By Kendra DeColoIt is easy to believe
we are separate entities,
you and I
as I wait, a fish in the chasm
By Tara Shea BurkeWhen we met we fell for each other like leaves.
Behind black curtains your bedroom was always dark
except for unexpected soft-yellow walls. Your dogs
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.