Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Faylita HicksCrawling out from between the legs of a woman
with my name still wetly slathered across her chin,
I cradle the lewd silk of our venom
up against the hot swell of my caged chest, wade out
through her front door, into the murky billows
of the damned and the damnable,
By Rio CortezJust as close to living as you are to disappearing knowing
my limits you locate the tender spots without.
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By Peggy Robles-AlvaradoShe insists three kids are more than enough
Puerto Rican Tías are missing wombs
Tells me I’m still young, more than “just a mom”
By Shauna M. Morgantell her the new fragrance is nice but she doesn’t have to bathe in it
assert that sarcasm is a talent
tell her that her salwar or lappa is weird and take her to the mall for khakis
do so until she stops wearing that colorful garb
By Tatiana Figueroa RamirezI wake up to the alarm clocks
of cocks & gallinas struggling
for their corner of the callejón.
Step out
on the preheated concrete.
By Purvi ShahYou had a name no one
could hold between their
teeth. So they pronounced
By Sylvia Beatofor years you told no one
how you cried yourself to sleep
after the doctor held your hand
By Barbara Costas-BiggsBefore I was grown and called lovers
lovers. Before I was a mother and called
momma. Before I considered myself anything
By Gordon CashYou scream your bullhorn lies, intimidate,
Harass, respect no law of man. You speak
Of scalpels, sutures, and sterility,
Dismemberment, death by regret, all lies,
And bear false witness with each one against
By Catherine KlatzkerThe world was always a place of silence,
of congenital shame—even before those days
in 1967, four years before you met your love. Your
strength grew belatedly, fertilized as it was in the
knowledge that you were nothing. Your life did
not matter to anyone, except to hurt you.