How Hard Is It to Write a Love Song?
By Sholeh WolpéLast night a sparrow flew into my house,
crashed against the skylight and died:
I want to write a love song.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Sholeh WolpéLast night a sparrow flew into my house,
crashed against the skylight and died:
I want to write a love song.
By Ariana Brownyou said you held a gun first / then a girl / & both begged for mercy / & you are afraid / of your own
body / of the hands that are their own haunting / the coal / bursting through / your glowing skin / black
By Darrel Alejandro HolnesIn the film, both parents are Mexicans as white as
a Gitano’s bolero sung by an indigena accompanied by the Moor’s guitar
bleached by this American continent’s celluloid in 1948
when in America the world’s colors were polarized into black & blanco.
By Lauren K. AlleyneJust like that the day is black
and blue, bruised with hate.
Just like that my skin, black
as fine leather stretches so tight
By Fatimah Asgharam I not your baby?
brown & not allowed
my own language?
my teeth pulled
By Heidi Andrea Restrepo RhodesWake. Wake.
These the nights we sing. These the folds,
unborn reverie, ambition marbled mud & shine,
raging anthem born like diamonds out darkest ash & rain
By Katy Richeymust be tight
spiral wound
corset of rope
be body and
undertaker be
By Dominique ChristinaWhen the sun is pitiless
When the girl is a gust of get out fast
When the boys are forced to mingle with the forest
When the baby, still nursing leaves her mother
By Rigoberto GonzálezFulgencio's silver crown--when he snores
the moon, coin of Judas, glaring
at the smaller metals we call stars
my buckle
By Tanya OlsonWhat else should I want. But to
be a boy. A boy. At his mother’s hip.
A boy between. His father
and the plow. A boy to remain.
What else.