Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Lena Khalaf TuffahaBehind the walls of your jails we wait
heartbeats audible now, muffled thuds
above the current of blood running thin
By Andrea AssafAndrea Assaf performs the poem "Light Me Up" at the 2017 Freedom Plow Award Gala Celebration.
By Lauren CampThe soup cooks for an hour while vultures and buzzards pluck the market.
My father wipes his forehead with a white cloth.
Once, each day began with khubz and samoon
By Kaveh AkbarSome days we can see Venus in mid-afternoon. Then at night, stars
separated by billions of miles, light travelling years
to die in the back of an eye.
By Dunya MikhailOur clay tablets are cracked
Scattered, like us, are the Sumerian letters
“Freedom” is inscribed this way:
Ama-ar-gi
By Safia Elhilloi was born in the winter in 1990 in a country not my own
i was born with my father’s eyes maybe i stole them he
doesn’t look like that anymore i was born
in seven countries i was born carved up by borders
By Dunya MikhailIn Iraq,
after a thousand and one nights,
someone will talk to someone else.
Markets will open
for regular customers.
By Fady JoudahFady Joudah reads "Tenor" at the 2010 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Naomi Shihab NyeNaomi Shahib Nye performs the poems "My Father, on dialysis" and "Shoulders" at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
