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 Bonnie NaradzayLunch today for the inmates means white bread
and a slice of baloney. Dinner is more of the same.
The limit now - two meals a day to stay in budget.
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 Kim JensenYou know the economy's bad
when people are lined up around the block
to apply for the job
of the wicked witch.
By Persis M. KarimTheir sons who speak of a cause
As if it were their two feet
beneath them. That they could hold an idea
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 Rashida James-Saadiyawe scatter
dodge words that rip into flesh
hide from clenched fist
