Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Gordon CashYou scream your bullhorn lies, intimidate,
Harass, respect no law of man. You speak
Of scalpels, sutures, and sterility,
Dismemberment, death by regret, all lies,
And bear false witness with each one against
By Catherine KlatzkerThe world was always a place of silence,
of congenital shame—even before those days
in 1967, four years before you met your love. Your
strength grew belatedly, fertilized as it was in the
knowledge that you were nothing. Your life did
not matter to anyone, except to hurt you.
By Abby Minor1. [July 2013 Millheim, Pennsylvania]
This is how you miscarry on purpose, with pills:
this is how you eat a sack of tattered peonies.
With stippled petals in your mouth, this is how
you set the little sunset-
By Anna Maria Hongout of this world & out of time & out
of love & out of mind & out of the
pan & out of butter, out of anger
& out of mother, out of the cradle
By Amanda JohnstonThe Outdoor Afros guide promises our eyes will adjust.
Moonlight is enough to see the beauty in the dark.
Without entering the woods, I see our blackness
pull the grassy hem over our bodies.
By Dawn Lundy MartinThe American middle class is screwed again but they don’t know it.
Politics is a gleaming nowhere. Žižek fantasizes about Capitalism’s
inevitable end.
By Ross GayThere is a puritan in me
the brim of whose
hat is so sharp
it could cut
your tongue out
By Sholeh WolpéLast night a sparrow flew into my house,
crashed against the skylight and died:
I want to write a love song.
By Dunya MikhailIn Iraq,
after a thousand and one nights,
someone will talk to someone else.
Markets will open
for regular customers.