love isn’t
By Pat Parker (d.)I wish I could be
the lover you want
come joyful
bear brightness
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Pat Parker (d.)I wish I could be
the lover you want
come joyful
bear brightness
By Aracelis GirmayYou, selling roses out of a silver grocery cart
You, in the park, feeding the pigeons
You cheering for the bees
You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats
By Danez Smithwe who were born into conundrum, came into the world as the world was leaving, children
of the ozone, the oppressed, the overlooked, of obtuse greed, of oil overlords, of oblong
definitions of justice
By Aracelis GirmayAracelis Girmay performs an excerpt from the book "The Black Maria" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Ross GayRoss Gay performs the poem "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Dominique ChristinaDominique Christina performs the poem "Mothers of Murdered Sons" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Clint SmithThere is a lake here.
A lake the size of
outstretched arms. And no,
not the type of arms raised
By Taylor JohnsonBless the boys riding their bikes straight up, at midnight, touching,
if only briefly, holding, hands as they cross the light to Independence.
Bless them for from the side the one on the red bike looks like me
his redbrown hair loose against the late summer static heat.
By Rasheed CopelandWe learned
from the book
of our fathers’ silence