Dewitt Henry: On Grace
Economy and naturalness,
as in ballet, or basketball’s dunk,
or skater’s twirl, leap and glide.
Body’s flow seems effortless.
Dorianne Laux: Spirit Level
I see how my whole life has been a dream,
one she built for me from the ground up,
her daughter, my mother the axe, beautiful
tool with which she shaped me, a house
much like the one she lived in, but smaller
Rashida James-Saadiya: Anti-ICE Organizing Is Creating Counter-Institutions Based on Care
The task now is not to burn brighter or faster, but to build the collective capacity to withstand what’s coming.
Delmore Schwartz: O Love, Sweet Animal
O Love, dark animal,
With your strangeness go
Like any freak or clown:
Appease the child in her
Because she is alone
Theia Chatelle: Indigenous-Led Collectives Are Keeping Minnesotan Communities Safe From ICE
Members of the American Indian Movement and the Many Shields Warrior Society are patrolling the streets of Minneapolis.
Ma Yongbo: Three poems for Helen Pletts in English & Chinese
No one can walk here,
save shy deer, save wind and rain,
save those invisible wings
that can gently lift the whole garden
up to the constellations.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Lassitude
the stars barely visible above the oil rigs off the coast,
aglow like phantom ships
Robert Hayden: Those Winter Sundays
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Video: Bruce Springsteen | Streets Of Minneapolis
This is the song heard round the world.
James Crews: The Slightest Kindness
We were walking the icy streets,
talking about the ways our country
has betrayed us again—promises
unkept, laws broken beyond repair.
Michael T. Young | The Secular Sublime: An Appreciation of Gerald Stern
Stern’s poems are deceptively simple. He writes in a language completely devoid of pretense and yet dignified with the elegance of profound meditation.
Alison Hurwitz: On Resilience
In 8th grade English class my son’s assigned
a sonnet, asked to find an image, select
one metaphor that can expand to bind
disparate thoughts together.
William Blake and Catherine Boucher: Four Images from The First Book of Urizen
The globe of life-blood trembled
Branching out into roots:
Fib’rous, writhing upon the winds:
Fibres of blood, milk and tears
Chard deNiord: Meadow Altar
So, he spoke
to his horses, now loosed from the wagon and grazing
nearby with heads bowed to the fescue and rye,
as if also praying, which, of course, they had no need
to do, blessed and saved as they were already
