Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Janice Lobo Sapigaowe don’t know how to pay the bills on time
and we don’t know the password to your bank account
& in all of our languages I understand why you stacked
linens and face towels and rubber bands and plastic bags
in drawers and hallway closets
everything filled to the brim
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By Trevino L. Brings PlentyArms, face, scrotum – dark brown.
The kind of brown to drive
monsters to exterminate
bison to starve
a people.
By Safia Elhilloi sat by the lake & ate five tiny oranges & every strand
of flesh & pith was my teacher
i grew warm & soft in the sun & from this ripening
made a poem to search for my teacher
By Shatha AlmutawaWhen they ask you
How many days were you away?
Don’t say two weeks
They want to know the exact number
Tell them 11 days
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By Darius Simpsondangerously good at freeze tag, like ghost good
drenched in red puddles, but on his way
down by the gutter river
By Azura TyabjiIf the meaning of the prayer was not passed down to you,
find it through holier means than translation.
Cling to the rhythm instead.
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-SamarasinhaI wish you swift wind.
I wish you a changed phone number
that stays changed.
By Trevino L. Brings PlentyTo acknowledge so-
cietal micro-systems
as a poet means I
will continue to be
emerging within an on-
slaught of the macro-
system submergence
operations.
By Safia Elhilloi was invented by them the women
steamed & sweating in the kitchen
soft bellies a memory of money
fallen princesses headdressed in rollers