Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Caits MeissnerI am 13 hours in the future & it is night / the rain is holding her breath
my friend, isn’t Penang opening to us! / a lotus unveiling a carnival
the paper lanterns are skirts / or balls pushed along by tiger’s nose
our smoke is a canon / dare devil on its way to an unnamed star
By Geffrey DavisDuring the last 50 miles back from haul & some
months past my 15th birthday, my father fishes
a stuffed polar bear from a Salvation Army
gift-bin, labeled Boys: 6-10. I can almost see him
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
By Alison Roh ParkMy daddy's hands were scarred
and through the smallest details escaped
years ago I remember them a strong
brown like here is the axe that missed
By Kathi WolfeIn an elevator trapped
between the fifteenth and sixteenth
floor of her apartment building,
Sunday morning, Elizabeth, her cane
By Sherwin BitsuiSherwin Bitsui performs the poem "The Northern Sun" at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Wang PingWang Ping reads "On a Playground in Park Slope, Brooklyn a Retired Neurologist from Beijing is Cursing" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Tim SeiblesTim Seibles performs "One Turn Around the Sun" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Eduardo C. CorralEduardo C. Corral reads "In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Venus ThrashEver since my next-door neighbor stopped
in front of the stoop, unfolded The Post
to her son's smiling face, I've been obsessed
with the Obits page.