Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
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By Tarik DobbsChorus: Like a bridge over troubled water…
For years, settlers longingly, vertical, build over us, Starbucks has no sinks. Will we go? Lately, the bridge, their throne. When even these are somewhere to watch from, to drop a knee & propose somewhere to feel for a bank.
By Maren Lovey Wright-Kerrwhen the makeup aisle stops at “caramel”
it means
the makeup industry just thinks you already too pretty to need they products
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-SamarasinhaI wish you swift wind.
I wish you a changed phone number
that stays changed.
By Diana TokajiHere in the mud
of my history
beneath the rage
is counsel.
By Justice Ameer/ he asks me how it feels /
it’s no simple curiosity
nor a question without consequence
phantom of longing lingers so
subtly on the last syllable
By Shira ErlichmanThe Former Poet Laureate of the United States
wrote an eighty-nine line poem about clouds & I
want to write about clouds but all I can see
is this bruise on the inside of my inner-elbow the needle left
when posing a question about my toxicity level.
By Elana BellWhat else to call the way the bare branches
I’d bought at the neighborhood bodega
came back to life that winter.
By Nicole Homerno: what other name could a god have:
I named my son after my dead
grandfathers: blood and not blood
gather around the bent-corner Kodak
altar:
By H. MeltWhether it’s raining
or snowing, midnight or
you’re awaking from a nap,
working an eight hour shift
or watching reruns,
By Reuben JacksonI still call
The year 1963
Season of Nightmares
After Medgar Evers
Was killed I
Would lie awake
And wait for
My uncle Joe
To get home