Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Catherine KlatzkerThe world was always a place of silence,
of congenital shame—even before those days
in 1967, four years before you met your love. Your
strength grew belatedly, fertilized as it was in the
knowledge that you were nothing. Your life did
not matter to anyone, except to hurt you.
By Ross GayThere is a puritan in me
the brim of whose
hat is so sharp
it could cut
your tongue out
By Fady JoudahDoes consciousness exist only when
you name it? Was the double helix a
stranger, the nucleus the first brain?
I feel therefore I am. This is more
By Rachel Eliza GriffithsI pick you up
& you are a child made of longing
clasped to my neck. Iridescent,
lovely, your inestimable tantrums,
By Alison Roh ParkMy daddy's hands were scarred
and through the smallest details escaped
years ago I remember them a strong
brown like here is the axe that missed
By Andrea GibsonAndrea Gibson performs the poem "For Eli" at the 2010 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Tim SeiblesTim Seibles performs "One Turn Around the Sun" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Claudia RankineClaudia Rankine reads an excerpt from "Citizen" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
By Rosa ChávezRi oj ab'aj xkoj qetal ruk'a k'atanalaj ch'ich'
Xk'at ri qab'aq'wach //
Las piedras fuimos marcadas con hierro candente
quemados nuestros ojos //
We, stones, were branded by hot iron
our eyes scorched
