Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Malik ThompsonMidnight is my first emotion, then starscream, bloodlust—
an impulse to sink my fangs into the nearest man’s
neck. Shotgun shells explode beneath my window,
dragging me from the grip of a ragged slumber—
the winds of this rotting city drenched in gunsmoke.
By Reuben JacksonI still call
The year 1963
Season of Nightmares
After Medgar Evers
Was killed I
Would lie awake
And wait for
My uncle Joe
To get home
By Jasminne MendezIt isn’t easy / to look / at what I have / cut. Which is to say — / wounded / from the body / of a tree / or a woman / or a child.
By Jonathan MendozaYou ask me for my name,
and I say, “It’s pronounced Mendoza,”
and again, the Spaniard spits it out my throat,
pats me on the tongue,
tells me I have been a good subject,
and again, I have traded this empire
for my former one.
By Hakim BellamyNo one woke up, that Saturday, mourning. / No one woke up that Saturday morning with intentions of becoming a back to school vigil. / No one woke up not expecting to finish out a sophomore year...that had barely be- // gun.
By Lupe Mendezdon’t even know where to start.
you notice when you walk into the shelter — no joke —
a new war.
By Gabriel RamirezI gotta call my barber Eric to
let him know I’m pullin’ up. Yo hello?
Yea yea who this? ahhhh yo what up homie?
How you been kid?
By Laura Da'I do desire—Chillicothe, Piqua, Lima
that you remain—Shawnee, Lawrence, Olathe
Wyandotte, Tecumseh—on the other side
Junction City, Fort Leavenworth, Lenexa—
of the river.
By Franny ChoiA wall of cops moves like a wall of water on a barge no beauty.
A wall of iron swallows the woman who falls to the ground and keeps
falling. There’s a video. The picture stays intact (again).
It’s not pretty, meaning it’s hard to watch.
By Steven Leyvaa lobby shaped like a yawn, lined with lodestone
leftover from making the marquee. The congress
of picture shows and pulp flicks it seems
named this movie house, the Senator.