Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Allison Pitinii DavisBefore him, stickers fade across the bumper:
LAST ONE OUT OF TOWN, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.
The last employer in Youngstown is the weather:
the truck behind him plows grey snow to the roadside
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 Patrick RosalA brisk sunset walk home: Lafayette Ave.
After weeks straight of triple layers
and double gloves, the day has inched
By Rasheed CopelandWe learned
from the book
of our fathers’ silence
By Lauren K. AlleyneWhere does a black girl go
when her body is emptied `
Of her? And her wild voice,
where does it sing its story
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