Michael T. Young: The Need to Believe | The Poetry of Lisel Mueller
This is the power we need in a post-truth world, where political forces claim the right to manipulate our perceptions through distortions of language.
Fred Shaw: The Pass
In the pass, a testy chef chews his lip
while zesting an orchard of green apple
over a peppery dish of risotto,
squinting his way to soigne by slicing
a plump of roast duck into a shingle
Sandy Solomon: Making Soup
Who would have guessed before this year
how cheerful this simple chore would feel
now that the sick room’s silence starts
beyond the swinging kitchen door.
Michael Simms: America
Beside the highway outside McKeesport PA
a state trooper has pulled over a black man
who leans against his rusty Ford
palms flat, feet apart
assuming the position
as we say in America
Helge Torvund: The Hand
This poem contains
all the poems I have felt
moving inside me
but never wrote down
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: You Belong
It’s not true our hearts are our own—
they’re symbiotic as meadows in spring.
The heart exists for who grows in it.
Alison Luterman: Snowy Plover
Their wild wheelings trace the shape
of wonder and grief moving inside us,
pewter, then platinum.
It goes away like that; it comes back.
It carves a black, moving river in the air.
George Yancy: Remember What Audre Lorde Told Us — The Oppressor Doesn’t Determine What’s True
To navigate these terrible times, we need Audre’s Lorde’s audacity: Protect the public sphere. Refuse to be silenced.
Barbara Crooker: The Vultures
Will we
recognize the bones of our constitution after they’ve been
picked clean, or will we be too baffled to recognize their white
gleaming?
Charles Davidson: Resistance
The time has come for massive nonviolent resistance.
Jane McCafferty: In the Winter of 2025
Who is making time for you/ who knows/ time is clay/can be shaped/ into bowls/ placed on wooden tables/ under sky/ that is impossible/ to love/
Barbara Hamby: Nose
Suddenly, I feel as if I have no nose, like Gogol’s Kovelev
riding around St. Petersburg looking for his proboscis.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The Partners
After thirty years, she knows
he will speak with his mouth full.
He knows her stomach will gurgle
in the silence before they sleep.
Michael Simms: Thinking of the Rapture at Castriota Metals and Recycling
frying pans fence posts
whole bags of rusty nails
even shoes hanging by
the metal aglets
at the tips of their laces
