Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Nicholas SamarasWhat is that red throbbing over the sound of engines?
Why is a distant war still being talked about in the media?
I can't see my home or Iraq or the Middle East
outside this bowed rectangle of blue altitude.
By Michelle Regalado DeatrickWhen I sweat in a Midwest January
and wish to God it was a hot flash but know
it's greenhouse gasses--read the news:
By Kenji LiuSharp tenure of boots in this callow country
grown from open skulls. A raw harvest of bullet casings
arranged in a perfect ring around you,
By Patricia MonaghanThey were always taught that all guns were loaded.
It was a way, he said, to keep them safe.
Don't you notice, he said, how people get shot
By Samiya BashirBrother I don't either understand this
skipscrapple world that is--these
slick bubble cars zip feverish down
By Jamaal MayHold a pomegranate in your palm,
imagine ways to split it, think of the breaking
skin as shrapnel. Remember granada
By Richard BlancoThe Gulf Motel with mermaid lampposts
and ship's wheel in the lobby should still be
rising out of the sand like a cake decoration.
By Merna HechtThis morning I am remembering you, how as honored guest
you talked with my students who had recently arrived in America
from refugee camps where borders are stacked with blood and bullets.
By Jonathan B. Tuckerpardon our appearance
as we grow to better serve you
says the sign on the fence