Aubade with Gravel and Gold
By Sally Wen MaoI’m sick of speaking for women who’ve died
Their stories and their disappearances
bludgeon me in my sleep
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Sally Wen MaoI’m sick of speaking for women who’ve died
Their stories and their disappearances
bludgeon me in my sleep
By Melissa TuckeyUnable to sleep,
the blankets wrapped in waves, waves
as tall as dreams,
the dream world trying to make sense
By Lena Khalaf TuffahaBehind the walls of your jails we wait
heartbeats audible now, muffled thuds
above the current of blood running thin
By Amanda GormanThere’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
By Caits Meissnerof course there were gaps I kept my eyes
shuddered up my curiosities strapped
amnesia on as a mask but only the dead do not dream.
By Destiny O. BirdsongOr maybe you weren’t. Whenever I’m frightened,
anything can become a black woman in a granite dress:
scaffold for what’s to come: blue lights exploding
like an aurora at the base of the bridge;
By Claire HermannGod separated the light from the darkness,
but I have a light switch.
Once there was morning and evening,
but now someone has torn the heart out of a mountain,
By Zahara HeckscherThis is a love song
to the invisible waves
that travel through the air
finding the antenna
By Remica Bingham-RisherI am almost convinced this morning by the volley
of verses on each frequency, roughnecks telling it
like they want it to be, intoning You bad, baby