Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Kyle DarganNaturally, the gun is purchased from a farm in Virginia—pulled from a bushel of barrels
by a tremorous hand, a young man’s. His other fist proffers sweat-wilted dollars. The
farmer, compensated, keeps his gaze down as to remember nothing of the boy’s face.
By Taylor JohnsonWhen I again take out more than I have available in my bank
account and I know I shouldn’t to make the rent
I am grateful and lucky to pay there is
a woman on the bus who is the mother or aunt or some loved one of
By Mahogany L. Brownethe best time i had as a teenager
included a bottle of cisco and a sideshow
at the uptown gas station.
after Kenny’s body was bludgeoned by his girlfriend & her two brothers
By Ellen HaganWe mourn, we bless,
we blow, we wail, we
wind—down, we sip,
we spin, we blind, we
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.
By Abby Minor1. [July 2013 Millheim, Pennsylvania]
This is how you miscarry on purpose, with pills:
this is how you eat a sack of tattered peonies.
With stippled petals in your mouth, this is how
you set the little sunset-
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 Amanda JohnstonThe Outdoor Afros guide promises our eyes will adjust.
Moonlight is enough to see the beauty in the dark.
Without entering the woods, I see our blackness
pull the grassy hem over our bodies.
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.