The Kindness
By Jan BeattyJan Beatty performs the poem "The Kindness" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Jan BeattyJan Beatty performs the poem "The Kindness" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Patrick RosalA brisk sunset walk home: Lafayette Ave.
After weeks straight of triple layers
and double gloves, the day has inched
By Denice FrohmanBy now, you know their names, their cheekbones—
the tender hands they offered when you walked in.
You know the quivering strength of prayer and the art of making God listen.
How faith can summon weary backbones into pyramids.
By Anna Maria Hongout of this world & out of time & out
of love & out of mind & out of the
pan & out of butter, out of anger
& out of mother, out of the cradle
By Dawn Lundy MartinThe American middle class is screwed again but they don’t know it.
Politics is a gleaming nowhere. Žižek fantasizes about Capitalism’s
inevitable end.
By Jan BeattyI see you’re publishing:
straightman/straightman/white white white how
nice.
Are you kidding me?
By Leslie Anne Mcilroy(1) to form by heating and hammering; beat into shape, as in the child’s back
burning, shoulders of flame, ribs of shame till she is no longer what she
was, but what you want her to be; 2) to form or make, especially by
concentrated effort, as in pride, see the girl, my girl, take credit, look what I
By Ellen McGrath SmithI wanted bad to advance to Washington, D. C.
I wanted to be anyone but me.
The nun who had trained me for the spelling bee
needed a ride, and I was so worried all the way across town
By Kelli Stevens Kaneblueberry blackberry as always
bleeding, back road or boulevard,
our boy crowned with baton,
By Jill KhouryThe boy across the street points at me and lisps—now I know what they mean in books when they say children lisp. He wears a red and white striped t-shirt, addresses my friend who walks beside me. I ask people to please walk on my left side. It’s the eye that’s not completely dead I say. They always move over.