Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Jasmine Reidi spread at my touch & clit
contemplating my beauty this Monday i live
the pleasure of my fingers
how i am in-the-making by hand
by pill by needle i am the perfect girl
professor, in fact, Chemical X is my love
in gradients of acidity i am
milkless except by oats, by meal made of itself
By Olatunde OsinaikeThree stories below,
you’d mosey in, depart
in the same way:
short of our buzz or us
letting you in.
By Jonny TeklitToday, the rain comes down in icy fangs. Tomorrow, the same. Nothing here escapes the physics of American violence, not even the weather.
By Ladan OsmanI enter: carpet, curtains,
large, framed pictures of robed white men,
a glassy glare over a forehead, below the voice box,
students in bland shades.
I don’t belong, the luxury of thinking,
the wealth of talking about thought,
privilege of ease among important people.
By Jaden FieldsIt is the steadiest “I love you”
Until the moon loses their footing in the sky
Which is to say - never
Or
I love you beyond time
Or
I love me beyond time
By Cynthia ManickHow does it feel to be something man hasn’t touched? Nothing
feeds your shape – how tall you want to aim, the texture from
root to tip, or the colors you choose to shake off like makeup.
It must be nice to have no load bearing walls – nothing to hold
you down or box in all you want to be.
By Kyle Carrero LopezIn 1994, U.S. Senator Bob Torricelli (D-New Jersey) introduced the Cuban Democracy Act, designed to “wreak havoc on that island.”
I’ll wreak havoc on that island I’ll ravage
that island I’ll plunder
that island see torn asunder that island
By Vievee FrancisA WOMAN AT THE BOOKSTORE READING
WONDERS HOW I MADE THE LEAP FROM MY FIRST BOOK
TO MY SECOND WHICH WON AN AWARD
She wants me to know how “different” my poetry is
one book to the next, preferring my second book that leaves her
blameless
By Arumandhira HowardWe are made shy / sun, kissing another heartless / night awake. We are made satin silking / pompon locs. Cotton, banana pudding, baby’s / breath. These cornbread thighs, our blessed butterfly / knives. We are made to de-stem hardened men like bull-headed / bougainvillea.
By Opal MooreA small bird built a secret nest
beneath my balcony. There must be
hatchlings there, out of view.
She flies back and forth, small prey
in her beak.
Some kind of wren, I think.
Small, brown and quick. No time for
singing midday. Duty
is her instinct.