Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
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 Veronica GolosHave I stepped back in time, or forward?
A graveled road, hovering flags, the sound
of waves against chunk rock -- and
voices billow into birds,
By Marcos L. MartínezThere are immeasurable ways to count days: on the median the sunflower tracks UV streams: east to west then sleep; an acorn gets weeded out of the common area ‘til another live oak drobs a bomb then sprouts till, yanked away again;
By Heather Derr-SmithThe fish are opened up like salad bowls,
Slid between the metal bars of baskets,
Roasted in the wood-fired ovens, Iraqi style.
The flesh glows as if it were made of glass.
By Jee Leong KohMy grandfather said life was better under the British.
He was a man who begrudged his words but he did say this.
I was born after the British left
an alphabet in my house, the same book they left in school.
By Marci Calabretta Cancio-BelloI fell in love with a North Korean
by falling asleep on his shoulder
in a South Korean subway.
By Rasheed CopelandWe learned
from the book
of our fathers’ silence
By Sarah Maria MedinaLearn to attend the fire, learn that breath between stones & flames lets the fire burn. Notice her breath, give her breath from your mouth, heated from your pink tongue.
By Hanif Willis-AbdurraqibI think I am breaking up with memory. again. I live
by only that which will still allow me
to do the living. The flag, for example, reminds me
to either feel fear or sadness, depending on how high
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