judgement call
By Amber Flamelike heartbreak, you are sure
that your story is different. felt
not worst but not exactly
explainable to anyone else
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Amber Flamelike heartbreak, you are sure
that your story is different. felt
not worst but not exactly
explainable to anyone else
By Anna B. SuttonThis morning, there is an angel hanging by a thread,
cartoonish and carved out of soft wood. She twirls
circles above me, manipulated by the pulse
of a ceiling vent.
By Bettina JuddLucy didn’t scream like most. Though sometimes she
would moan--deep, long and overdue. I’d wake
thinking death. It’s her, knees curled under, head face
down, her body trying to move out of itself. Anarcha
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 Nadia SheikhI let Shane Kennedy
reach back in his desk
to fondle my calf,
soft and buttery
By Sara BrickmanThey do not want me to be a river, but I am unstoppable.
I am the perfect instrument. Capable
of every sound, but here the only sound you hear under
me is No. Is, Please. The men
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 Jody BolzFirst, take away light.
Leave time—but make it dark,
disordered. Make it sleepless.
Not day, not night.
By Deborah AgerIn Florida, it was raining ash because the fire
demanded it. I had to point my car landward
and hope the smoke would part, but it was a grey sea
absorbing my body. Cabbage Palms were annihilated.