Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Hieu Minh NguyenIf things happen
the way they are supposed to
my mother will die before me.
By Sarah BrowningAfter the great snow of 2016, my car sits
locked in icy drifts a week, green fossil
of the oil age preserved in graying amber.
By Lena Khalaf TuffahaBehind the walls of your jails we wait
heartbeats audible now, muffled thuds
above the current of blood running thin
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By Ruth Irupé SanabriaMy grandfather asked me: could I remember
him, the park, the birds, the bread?
I’ll be dying soon, he said.
By Amanda GormanThere’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
By Camisha JonesWhat you know bout ballin'
your every fiber into a tight fist,
letting the naps of history
that birthed you unfurl
By Caits Meissnerof course there were gaps I kept my eyes
shuddered up my curiosities strapped
amnesia on as a mask but only the dead do not dream.
By Destiny O. BirdsongOr maybe you weren’t. Whenever I’m frightened,
anything can become a black woman in a granite dress:
scaffold for what’s to come: blue lights exploding
like an aurora at the base of the bridge;
By Claire HermannGod separated the light from the darkness,
but I have a light switch.
Once there was morning and evening,
but now someone has torn the heart out of a mountain,
