SELF-PORTRAIT OF THE BLK GIRL BECOMING THE BEAST EVERYONE THOUGHT SHE WAS
By I.S. Jonesthe moon is my first emotion then beast then happy rage
depending on a zealous appetite
i pull bobby pins from the kitchen of my scalp tear out nails
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By I.S. Jonesthe moon is my first emotion then beast then happy rage
depending on a zealous appetite
i pull bobby pins from the kitchen of my scalp tear out nails
By Carlos Andrés Gómezwhisper through tear gas—
remind of the original
patrols, ruddy-cheeked
By Darrel Alejandro HolnesOnly beasts are supposed to hibernate.
But this brother has been lying there
for years. Truth isn’t a news headline.
By Yesenia Montillaonce at eight years old I nearly gave myself a concussion running
my mother would braid my hair and wrap the ends in the heaviest
hair ties with the biggest colorful glass balls; they were lethal; as
By Amy M. AlvarezI keep thinking about Breonna Taylor asleep/ between fresh sheets/ I keeping thinking/ about her skin cooling after a shower/ about her hair wrapped in a satin bonnet/ I think about what she may have dreamed that night
By Carmin WongStart with something simple: 13 loosely lingering light-hearted lines that eventually morph / into crowbars ★ corps ★ prison cells ★ bylines.
By Kyle DarganThis poem is guilty. It assumed it retained
the right to ask its question after the page
came up flush against its face.
By Darius Simpsondangerously good at freeze tag, like ghost good
drenched in red puddles, but on his way
down by the gutter river
By A. Tony JeromeStanding in line, waiting to go into the Library of Congress
a black woman stands two people ahead of me and
a white security guard says to her,
It’s a beautiful day.
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