Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Alicia OstrikerJust finished folding laundry. There's the news. A slender prisoner, ankles shackled, nude back and legs striped by a brown substance you might take for blood but which probably is feces, hair long, arms extended at shoulder level like a dancer or like Jesus, walks toward a soldier with rolled-up pants and a gun, posed legs akimbo in the tiled corridor. I cannot say from the image if the soldier is smiling, too few pixels to tell.
By Scott HightowerLike a dancer covered in nothing
but white powder, then sponged
with coarse brown makeup;
By Reginald Harriswalk long enough
with a pebble in your shoe
and walking with a pebble becomes
normal
By Margit BermanThe day Obama decided enough was enough
and turned off his TV and slept well for the first time since 2007,
and Nancy Pelosi decided enough was enough
By Dan WilcoxThe lunch counter TV is busy.
My sandwich is slow, but
sitting feels good after standing
By Patricia MonaghanAfter the nightly news and four martinis
he quietly begins to draw the inner workings
of the bomb, knowing the explosion needed
By Tiffany HigginsI shall build a city upon a hill
and upon a hill and upon a hill and upon a hill
I am a little shepherd piping low
By Jeff GundyA good day for late wildflowers--daisies and burrs
leaned out into the path for a better view, brilliant
blue somethings with tiny blooms on tall stalks.
By Camille T. DungyPause here at the flower stand-mums
and gladiolas, purple carnations
dark as my heart.
By Jody BolzPages flit above the ruined bookstalls.
Blank or dark with words, it doesn’t matter:
paper is as dangerous as ink—as thought.