Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Leslie McIntoshImal, direct action protest visible from satellite is time travel, is binge-watching the future. Your optic nerves can reach where no lung has emptied, and speak back with authority, so what is the meaning of witness? Imal, when I see your lover’s face, I am seeing what it has become, in spite of you, and everyone. And what does he see?
_139_134_c1_smart_scale.jpg)
By Jessica JacobsArkansas is aspic with last-gasp summer, making running
like tunneling: the trail’s air a gelatin
of trapped trajectories.
By Lauren Mayme and all of my selves
we run like we’ve been here before
like we know what’s waiting here
and it's nothing
nothing for us
anyway
By Shauna M. Morgantell her the new fragrance is nice but she doesn’t have to bathe in it
assert that sarcasm is a talent
tell her that her salwar or lappa is weird and take her to the mall for khakis
do so until she stops wearing that colorful garb
By sam saxsometimes i wonder what happens to people’s hands when they disappear
in their pockets. of course, my rational brain knows they go on being hands
but there’s still the question. i wonder if object permanence isn’t the biggest
trick of them all, a scam, a way to ground the brain in its thin bath of liquid
By Kay Ulanday BarrettIn summertime, the women
in my family spin sagoo
like planets, make
even saturn blush.
By Raquel Salas Riveralos blancos en sus casas lloran
porque han tenido que desahuciar a sus huéspedes.
los apellidos y las propiedades lloran
porque han quemado los títulos de propiedad
de los gusanos.
***
the whites cry in their houses
because they’ve had to evict the guests.
the last names and the properties cry
because they’ve burned
the worms’ deeds.
By Laurie Ann GuerreroYou must start small as our mothers were small,
our fathers, too, small.
In a pillowcase whip-stitched with roses
or in an old coffee can, collect your abuelos’
teeth; assure them you will not bury them
near the bones of the dog that froze
By Amir RabiyahAs the sun sets—we set our plan into motion.
Our sole purpose to overthrow
any assumptions, to change
the course of ordinary thinking.
By beyza ozerthis is not terrorism
this is toxic masculinity
made in the USA
when my mother hears
about orlando
she doesn't look at me