Zyklon B
By Julie EnszerThe painters call before we move into the new house. Ma’am, they say—
I am not old enough to be a ma’am, but I don’t correct them—
Ma’am, they say, we smell gas.
I dismiss their concern. I say, Keep painting.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Julie EnszerThe painters call before we move into the new house. Ma’am, they say—
I am not old enough to be a ma’am, but I don’t correct them—
Ma’am, they say, we smell gas.
I dismiss their concern. I say, Keep painting.
By Joshua WeinerToday is Sunday.
Today, for the first time, they let me go out into the sun.
And I stood there I didn't move,
struck for the first time, the very first time ever:
By Karen SkolfieldBalloon, then papier mâché.
Gray paint, blue and turquoise, green,
a clouded world with fishing line attached
By Allison Adelle Hedge CokeIn a room facing chimneys
over the place Nancy Morejón rests
between sleeps lining free lines
she whispers to hearing DC:
By Jennifer ChangThe daffodils can go fuck themselves.
I’m tired of their crowds, yellow rantings
about the spastic sun that shines and shines
and shines. How are they any different
By Teresa ScollonLook how you've carried these small bodies
across the ocean, looking for the next one
to hear the story. Look how gently you laid
these children down at the fire where stories are told.
By Simki GhebremichaelInstead of Most Wanted
by the FBI, each week
they profile the life
of a dissident, a former
By Kevin SimmondsI can write a poem
to the limbs of a grandmother
seeded in a scorched field
where her house stood
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.