This Event is For People of Color - Ages 16 and Up
By María FernandaWe leave our leather. Finding a spot on Miya’s
living room floor, we untuck our bound things:
a borrowed yoga mat, a stretched hair tie,
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This is the city that I love
By Rosemary FerreiraHabichuelas bubbling on the stovetop. The kitchen door opens to our backyard. My father cuts out a piece of the campo and plants it here in Brooklyn. There are neighbors who knock on the door with a broom to let us know they’re selling pasteles. The train rumbles into a screech in the background, “This is Gates Avenue, the next stop is...”
we ask mama-n-em, “where is the motherworld?”
By Destiny Hemphilllisten.
it’s in, not at. in the whistle & hiss, the steam of your breath as you chant
we ready (we ready), we comin (we comin) atop of a jail
building in ruins. yes, it’s in your breath & in the never dwindling
kindle of your fingertips as you reach out & touch
Poem on Disappearance
By Kimberly BlaeserBeginning with our continent, draw 1491:
each mountain, compass point Indigenous;
trace trade routes, languages, seasonal migrations—
don’t become attached.
The Proper Way to Prepare the U.S. Flag
By Carmin WongStart with something simple: 13 loosely lingering light-hearted lines that eventually morph / into crowbars ★ corps ★ prison cells ★ bylines.
Bill Pay
By Janice Lobo Sapigaowe don’t know how to pay the bills on time
and we don’t know the password to your bank account
& in all of our languages I understand why you stacked
linens and face towels and rubber bands and plastic bags
in drawers and hallway closets
everything filled to the brim
DREAMers Mark Themselves
By Maricielo Ampudia GutiérrezWith each finger, I pressed on black ink, and one by one placed them on the transmitting screen. Following instruction, I rolled each finger, left to right, and slow—every quarter inch of skin recorded. On the display, perfect fingerprints glowing.
Birthday Poem
By Azia ArmsteadWe wait for the show to begin in an open field on a blazing summer night.
Fireworks are most lucent in the blackness of a sky with no sun which
makes me think of blackness as a metaphor, how colors shine brightest
when contrasted against it.
In Memory of Kamau Brathwaite
By Safia Elhilloi sat by the lake & ate five tiny oranges & every strand
of flesh & pith was my teacher
i grew warm & soft in the sun & from this ripening
made a poem to search for my teacher
What To Expect When Traveling with Your Arab Wife
By Shatha AlmutawaWhen they ask you
How many days were you away?
Don’t say two weeks
They want to know the exact number
Tell them 11 days