Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
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By Tarik DobbsChorus: Like a bridge over troubled water…
For years, settlers longingly, vertical, build over us, Starbucks has no sinks. Will we go? Lately, the bridge, their throne. When even these are somewhere to watch from, to drop a knee & propose somewhere to feel for a bank.
By Daria-Ann MartineauI find myself noticing you again
eight years later,
you coming out of the earth, pale,
erect, shadow over men.
You can’t be buried.
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By Darius Simpsondangerously good at freeze tag, like ghost good
drenched in red puddles, but on his way
down by the gutter river
By Maren Lovey Wright-Kerrwhen the makeup aisle stops at “caramel”
it means
the makeup industry just thinks you already too pretty to need they products
By Eve L. EwingThis poem is in PNG format accompanied by an image description of the text.
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 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 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 Alexa PatrickHeads heavy with 1’s and 2’s,
they perch outside the grocery,
sucking teeth at new neighbors
rushing home with La Croix boxes,
neighbors who don’t make eye contact,
By Kenneth Carroll IIIwe ride in on the red line
our laces coming undone as we float over fair gates
until we fall into a night
ripe
with everything our tongues have been yearning for