Prayer for those who run
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-SamarasinhaI wish you swift wind.
I wish you a changed phone number
that stays changed.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-SamarasinhaI wish you swift wind.
I wish you a changed phone number
that stays changed.
By Safia Elhilloi was invented by them the women
steamed & sweating in the kitchen
soft bellies a memory of money
fallen princesses headdressed in rollers
By Nicole Homerno: what other name could a god have:
I named my son after my dead
grandfathers: blood and not blood
gather around the bent-corner Kodak
altar:
By H. MeltWhether it’s raining
or snowing, midnight or
you’re awaking from a nap,
working an eight hour shift
or watching reruns,
By Reuben JacksonI still call
The year 1963
Season of Nightmares
After Medgar Evers
Was killed I
Would lie awake
And wait for
My uncle Joe
To get home
By Jonathan MendozaYou ask me for my name,
and I say, “It’s pronounced Mendoza,”
and again, the Spaniard spits it out my throat,
pats me on the tongue,
tells me I have been a good subject,
and again, I have traded this empire
for my former one.
By Hakim BellamyNo one woke up, that Saturday, mourning. / No one woke up that Saturday morning with intentions of becoming a back to school vigil. / No one woke up not expecting to finish out a sophomore year...that had barely be- // gun.
By heidi andrea restrepo rhodesfor you are made of light & flesh, voice & shimmer
no amount of scrubbing will eliminate the shine, you
luminesce, your tired heart
lingers in the dusky dawn liminal, blue
is the color of your name, a shade
in view now, harnessed in the eye centuries
By Lupe Mendezdon’t even know where to start.
you notice when you walk into the shelter — no joke —
a new war.
By Gabriel RamirezI gotta call my barber Eric to
let him know I’m pullin’ up. Yo hello?
Yea yea who this? ahhhh yo what up homie?
How you been kid?