Ars Poetica

By Kevin Simmonds I can write a poem
to the limbs of a grandmother
seeded in a scorched field
where her house stood

Sticking It to the Man

By Jan Beatty Lateeka's working, my favorite teller--
she's got wild nail art & fire red/
feather extensions.
In line: young guy in hi-tops w/ipod,

By Kamilah Aisha Moon When you're gay in Dixie,
you're a clown of a desperate circus.
Sometimes the only way to be like daddy

By David Tomas Martinez It's not water to wine to swallow harm,
though many of us have,
and changing the name

By Joy Harjo This city is made of stone, of blood, and fish.
There are Chugatch Mountains to the east
and whale and seal to the west.

By Franny Choi How'd you get so slice?
Razor pinch all flat-like? All puff
& sting? What's your allergy?

By Brenda Cárdenas This body always compost--
hair a plot of thin green stems
snowing a shroud of petals,

By Danez Smith one is hard & the other tried to be
one is fast & the other was faster
one is loud & one is a song

By Tess Taylor The ridge a half mile down from Monticello.
A pit cut deeper than the plow line.
Archaeologists plot the dig by scanning

By Natalie Diaz In the Kashmir mountains,
my brother shot many men,
blew skulls from brown skins,