Jose Padua: Reflections on a Lesson that Would Soon Be Made More Clear to Me by Gil Scott-Heron
In 1971 I’m
thirteen years old
watching a big
Vietnam war protest
on television
William Shakespeare: Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18 is the most famous and most quoted of Shakespeare’s lyric poems; it is a celebration of youthful beauty which concludes with an ironic joke about Shakespeare’s own burgeoning fame.
John Samuel Tieman: In Praise of Rage
So here’s what this old white history teacher learned
from Kelvin and the Black kids in the ghetto school.
Sandra McPherson: Landscape Painter, Salmon Creek, July 1991
Doesn’t everyone
covet an easel? — its smart little body
named after onagers and donkeys, ancestor
of art kept trim.
Michael Simms: Minneapolis
He died in Minneapolis on an ordinary day,
A day we’ll all remember.
We can’t turn away. It was a day
Like this one, a Monday, in Spring.
Elizabeth Romero: My Aunt’s Pantry
It took everything, every bit of strength I had,
To say, The others will be missing us.
He turned on his heel and left.
Connie Post: Prime Meridian
look down
and watch the glaciers fall
the oceans rise
Michael Simms: Nigel
I’ve been reading an obituary
About Nigel
The lonely gannet of Mana Island
Who fell in love
With a concrete statue
Doug Anderson: The Dictator
He built a wall around himself and demanded
that his image be painted on the inside of the wall
looking back so he could imagine the shouts
on the outside were cheers for him
Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Protest
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many.
Arlene Weiner: A Photo of Jalen, Age 12, in a Batman Costume
Say yes, sir when the officers stop you
for the fourteenth time, looking
for somebody
Gaby Garcia: Heat
When the world burns, we will be like the women
of Pompeii who left their bread loaves to bake—
our laundry mid-cycle, newspapers turned
to the op-eds, windows open to catch a breeze.
Michael Simms: And Jesus Wept
Our friend Christian, an African-American and one of the best men I know, told my wife that when he saw the video of the murder of George Floyd, he wept for hours.
Stephen Dobyns: Fly
They can hide. What’s the point of hiding?
They can run. Why bother running?
They feel defeated by the world’s terrors.
