Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Rosa ChávezRi oj ab'aj xkoj qetal ruk'a k'atanalaj ch'ich'
Xk'at ri qab'aq'wach //
Las piedras fuimos marcadas con hierro candente
quemados nuestros ojos //
We, stones, were branded by hot iron
our eyes scorched
By Lois BeardsleeWhen I asked my mother
If she could remember
What her mother's mother called December
By L. Lamar WilsonShe ambles about this Mickey-Dee kitchen’s din,
unmoved by the hot grease threatening
her ¿puedo tomar su orden? mask.
By Peter J. HarrisSaturn's rings was all nappy
spread out from her head
like she just woke up
took a shower & aint dried them yet
By Julie EnszerThe painters call before we move into the new house. Ma’am, they say—
I am not old enough to be a ma’am, but I don’t correct them—
Ma’am, they say, we smell gas.
I dismiss their concern. I say, Keep painting.
By Nadia SheikhI let Shane Kennedy
reach back in his desk
to fondle my calf,
soft and buttery
By Joshua WeinerToday is Sunday.
Today, for the first time, they let me go out into the sun.
And I stood there I didn't move,
struck for the first time, the very first time ever:
By Allison Adelle Hedge CokeIn a room facing chimneys
over the place Nancy Morejón rests
between sleeps lining free lines
she whispers to hearing DC:
By Sam TaylorAnd someone in a field found an old car
from the year black with beetles, eaten like lace,
and the sky fell into it, a private thing.
And everyone had a kitchen or a fold-out bed
By Wendell BerryWe forget the land we stand on
and live from. We set ourselves
free in an economy founded
on nothing, on greed verified