Til the Taste of Free in Our Mouths (Brown Baby Lullaby)
By Heidi Andrea Restrepo RhodesWake. Wake.
These the nights we sing. These the folds,
unborn reverie, ambition marbled mud & shine,
raging anthem born like diamonds out darkest ash & rain
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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
Nonstop from Fruitvale to Ursa Major: Threnody for Los Desaparecidos* of The United States
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
The Last New Year’s Resolution
By Kazumi ChinThe very last mammoth was just like the others,
except more lonely. The very last tortilla chip
makes me feel guilty.The very last line
of the poem changes everything about
from “Citizen”
By Claudia RankineClaudia Rankine reads an excerpt from "Citizen" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
dear white america
By Danez SmithDanez Smith performs "dear white america" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
So, that you are always sir, dear sir
By Kenji LiuAsk me again why I am here
with this pine, this wild oyamel,
their great succulence of reason
You, machine lyric
and State, every state,
A Small Needful Fact
By Ross GayIs that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
Theodicy
By Joshua BennettWhen yet another one of your kin falls,
you question God’s wingspan, the architecture
of mercy.
Elegy
By Rachel Eliza GriffithsI remember the boys & their open hands. High fives
of farewell. I remember that the birches waved too,
the white jagged limbs turning away from incessant wildfires