F.U.B.U.
By Tara BettsI am sitting in a café with my boy
that I have known longer than my
students have been alive, before the birth
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Tara BettsI am sitting in a café with my boy
that I have known longer than my
students have been alive, before the birth
By Purvi ShahUnder sky massaged by sun, from a comfortable chair, I watch
the rain stroke a myrtle tree. Naked
rain, my father says. Naked,
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 Vincent ToroLike a charm of goldfinches we will gather. We will gather at the sea
crest and inside toppled cubicles, drawing upon this horizon of shady
treaties and chemical weapons depots as if cajoled toward the coast
By Jan BeattyJan Beatty performs the poem "The Kindness" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Craig Santos PerezCraig Santos Perez performs the poem "Spam's Carbon Footprint" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Ocean VuongOcean Vuong performs the poem "Ode to Masturbation" 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 Luis Alberto AmbroggioPoetry might never have seen
that categorical word,
but in its charged belligerence
of emotions and in its profound determination,