Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Vincent ToroA lung lit like diesel
is not fable or fodder.
Is not sewage siphoned from stern
and starboard. Cuffs, not slapdash plums
plunge from your garden
By Fatimah AsgharThe names of my family members swirl
like dust in my lungs. I try to write about birds
& only pull from my pen animal skin.
My bones alive & a lament of dignified grief
By Galway KinnellGalway Kinnell performs the poem "To the States" by Walt Whitman at the 2008 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Cornelius EadyCornelius Eady performs the poem "My Body Elizabeth" at the 2010 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
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By Cacayo BallesterosChapas is what cops are called
in my country
who threw the too tortured
in the lion pits
of the Military Academy zoo
By Kathy EngelKathy Engel performs the poem "Inaugural" at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Marilyn NelsonMarilyn Nelson performs the poem "Millie Christine" at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Tim SeiblesTim Seibles performs "One Turn Around the Sun" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Shailja PatelShailja Patel performs "The Cup Runneth Over" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Carolyn ForchéCarolyn Forché reads "The Museum of Stones" at the 2008 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
These are your stones, assembled in matchbox and tin,
collected from roadside, culvert, and viaduct,
battlefield, threshing floor, basilica, abattoir–
stones, loosened by tanks in the streets