Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Alicia OstrikerJust finished folding laundry. There's the news. A slender prisoner, ankles shackled, nude back and legs striped by a brown substance you might take for blood but which probably is feces, hair long, arms extended at shoulder level like a dancer or like Jesus, walks toward a soldier with rolled-up pants and a gun, posed legs akimbo in the tiled corridor. I cannot say from the image if the soldier is smiling, too few pixels to tell.
By Scott HightowerLike a dancer covered in nothing
but white powder, then sponged
with coarse brown makeup;
By Persis M. KarimTheir sons who speak of a cause
As if it were their two feet
beneath them. That they could hold an idea
By Margit BermanThe day Obama decided enough was enough
and turned off his TV and slept well for the first time since 2007,
and Nancy Pelosi decided enough was enough
By Rich Villarlacking a proper entrance
into a poem
about Arizona Senate Bill 1070
By Yael Flusbergafter the first three hours
the temperature dropped to visible breath.
my fall coat no longer protected and my toes
By Tiffany HigginsI shall build a city upon a hill
and upon a hill and upon a hill and upon a hill
I am a little shepherd piping low
By Jaime Lee JarvisWas it the rush of words in that language
we understood only when we cocked our heads,
speaking on the slant, slurring our way
By Chris AugustAmerica, don’t we love like oil?
Don’t our slippery arms
Pave the pores of those who need us?
By Remica L. BinghamI enter to find all the students in uniform
occupying a small room.