Ann Fisher-Wirth: Two Inaugural Poems
Before I lived in the South I had never
smelled road kill, that sweet sick
that climbs inside your nostrils
and colonizes your brain, so had never
thought about vultures.
Gerry LaFemina: Last Report Card before High School
Do I have to say I never kissed her?
Sure, I could solve for X but still nothing
seemed to add up. That was the sum of my knowledge.
My whole life then was about what I wasn’t doing.
Desne A. Crossley: Rolling in the Aisle
In Nashville in 1950, my mother boarded a city bus. She didn’t go to the back. She didn’t act like her place was the outermost fringe of a world ruled by whites.
Kathryn Levy: Tomorrow & The Subject of Flowers
And the children who run
from hiding place to
hiding place? Let them
cover their eyes and
count out their seconds,
as the wagon man watches
Martin Luther King: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Therese L. Broderick: Beautiful Uses | The Compassion of James Crews
This book’s enduring beauty and daily usefulness can cradle and help to heal our broken hearts.
Stephen Haven: Roadside Portals
I see roadside altars that open portals.
I see drivers slipping by those mounds
of cardboard signs and paper flowers
Ed Simon: The Pennsylvanian Period
There must be stones in Frick Park
that no human hand has ever touched.
The stratified Conemaugh, of Ames
limestone, sandstone, shale, and
Duquesne coal.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: “And you as well must die” (Sonnet 19)
And you as well must die, beloved dust,
And all your beauty stand you in no stead;
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
This body of flame and steel, before the gust
Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,
Adam Patric Miller: Last Lesson
teaching will gut you—
but in a nourishing way
like scraping out a cantaloupe
with a big silver spoon
Baron Wormser: The Missing Poet
Reasons abound for Republicans to not think twice or to dismiss poetry as elitist or more identity politics or whatever pejorative comes to mind. Much more important work is waiting– or so we are told.
Elizabeth Jacobson: Love, I Am
what am I
to myself:
two feet on
some land
when upright
Ma Yongbo: Train to the Snow Country
This is a journey without an end,
Who can tell you what to do
After the fairy tale ends?
Lisa Zimmerman: Thinking About Dean Young and the Anthropocene & Another Country
I’m doing my best, balancing hope on the head of a pin,
following those other steadfast travelers exiting the shop, holding
their buzzing phones, their many cups of Joe.
