English Words
By José B. Gonzálezmy mouth agape for these english words made of stone
their sharpness could split my tongue, but one by one
i’ll use them to build a wall, one by one
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By José B. Gonzálezmy mouth agape for these english words made of stone
their sharpness could split my tongue, but one by one
i’ll use them to build a wall, one by one
By Ellen KombiyilWe are on the plane now
crossing ocean. The pressurized
air is sweet not stale never
stale, the cabin set for
By Kaveh AkbarSome days we can see Venus in mid-afternoon. Then at night, stars
separated by billions of miles, light travelling years
to die in the back of an eye.
By Dunya MikhailOur clay tablets are cracked
Scattered, like us, are the Sumerian letters
“Freedom” is inscribed this way:
Ama-ar-gi
By Zeina Hashem BeckZeina Hashem Beck performs the poem "Naming Things" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Holly KarapetkovaThere never was a garden
only a leaving:
miles and miles
of footprints in the dirt.
By Marcos L. MartínezThere are immeasurable ways to count days: on the median the sunflower tracks UV streams: east to west then sleep; an acorn gets weeded out of the common area ‘til another live oak drobs a bomb then sprouts till, yanked away again;
By Heather Derr-SmithThe fish are opened up like salad bowls,
Slid between the metal bars of baskets,
Roasted in the wood-fired ovens, Iraqi style.
The flesh glows as if it were made of glass.
By Jee Leong KohMy grandfather said life was better under the British.
He was a man who begrudged his words but he did say this.
I was born after the British left
an alphabet in my house, the same book they left in school.
By Marci Calabretta Cancio-BelloI fell in love with a North Korean
by falling asleep on his shoulder
in a South Korean subway.