For the City that Nearly Broke Me
By Reginald Dwayne BettsA woman tattoos Malik’s name above
her breast & talks about the conspiracy
to destroy blacks. This is all a fancy way
to say that someone kirked out, emptied
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Reginald Dwayne BettsA woman tattoos Malik’s name above
her breast & talks about the conspiracy
to destroy blacks. This is all a fancy way
to say that someone kirked out, emptied
By Rachel Eliza GriffithsI pick you up
& you are a child made of longing
clasped to my neck. Iridescent,
lovely, your inestimable tantrums,
By Alison Roh ParkMy daddy's hands were scarred
and through the smallest details escaped
years ago I remember them a strong
brown like here is the axe that missed
By Susanna LangShe had planned to offer peaches with the tea.
August was warm; the fruit had ripened to perfection.
She’d placed two paring knives on the cutting board,
set out the teapot with nasturtiums painted on the side.
By Karen FinneyfrockMy feet have been wilting in this salt-crusted cement
since the French sent me over on a steamer in pieces.
I am the new Colossus, wonder of the modern world,
a woman standing watch at the gate of power.
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 Fatimah AsgharThe names of my family members swirl
like dust in my lungs. I try to write about birds
& only pull from my pen animal skin.
My bones alive & a lament of dignified grief
By Galway KinnellGalway Kinnell performs the poem "To the States" by Walt Whitman at the 2008 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Cornelius EadyCornelius Eady performs the poem "My Body Elizabeth" at the 2010 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Cacayo BallesterosChapas is what cops are called
in my country
who threw the too tortured
in the lion pits
of the Military Academy zoo