Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Amir McClamWhen my need for care moves from six
weeks to eternity, who can keep up?
Unknotting my hamstrings, beloved soothes
“you refuse to be rushed,” says it's something
they admire. If only they knew: when given a choice
need or fear— sometimes I’m wrong.
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By Arianna Monetand I keep mistaking the screen for a
mirror. By which I mean, I too was once
adolescent and unconquerable:
purple hair; a body unmarked by pain.
Then, the bright unholiness of onset.
By ChrysanthemumI hate the question: What would you say to your younger self? Too inexact. With what means? Through which technologies? Landline? Lie detector? Telepathy? Is it automatic? Call dispatch? Concierge? What’s the cost?
By Jimena LuceroI go out in public &
cis people tell me I risk my visible self too much.
But I think I’m just co-existing.
Earth practices liberation.
This is how I’ve led my body.
Naturally, I am bold!
By Cai SherleyBlake Brockington committed suicide in 2015 & last week the New Yorker’s crossword puzzle said “part of some transitions, colloquially” & i thought of bridges. i told my mother i would read the bible this year & she mailed me her mother’s copy with a note – please read with/for love & slipped a green flag into Book of Ezra & Psalm 23, where god lays me down in a green pasture & restores my soul. the answer was “HRT”, each line an arrow pressed into my soft throat.
By Monica SokA daughter of survivors stands in the grass among tattered military tanks. She is the only one in her family who wants to visit the museum. Siem Reap, Cambodia. Nov 2016.
“Loud little weed eater.” A worker cuts the grass and the noise activates the scene of a battlefield.
By YanyiThe teacup with the broken
handle: no longer missing.
Arriving in my mother’s hand
as she sets it down for service.
Then the dish in the air touches
down at its place on red carpet
and the Fisher Price karaoke mic
rights and repairs itself.
By Taylor Alyson Lewisthere once was an island love or magic resurrected
where they could go to rest and look at
each other plainly and hold one another’s
hands and play music in their cars so that
the bass reverberated through the mountains
and down into the ocean and live.
By José Angel AraguzI knew nothing about poems
when I was introduced to
the woman selling seashells by
the seashore. Placed in a
remedial speech class, told
my S’s served no one,
I felt set aside in
the silence of clear hallways
where I walked slow, savoring
not being where I belonged.
By Jasmine Reidi spread at my touch & clit
contemplating my beauty this Monday i live
the pleasure of my fingers
how i am in-the-making by hand
by pill by needle i am the perfect girl
professor, in fact, Chemical X is my love
in gradients of acidity i am
milkless except by oats, by meal made of itself