Kurt Brown: Road Trip
Once in Kansas, I stood in a field and watched
the stars on the horizon revolve around my ankles.
People are always moving, even those standing still
because the world keeps changing around them, changing them.
Brett Wilkins: 6 Mississippi ‘Goon Squad’ Deputies Plead Guilty to Torturing Black Men
Anyone surprised by this, at this point, can only be a willful denier of what Black people have said—and continue to say—about the broken culture of policing in America.
Dawn Potter: Play Clothes
How many summers
did that red and white sundress last?
It was my mother’s before it was mine
Baron Wormser: Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Epitaph”
By tradition, poets have the authority to write epitaphs. It goes with their famous license, their claiming the verbal right to confront death in whatever context death presents itself while using poetry’s concision to arrive at a just, incisive summary.
Elizabeth Romero: Prayer
Heavenly Father
Who looks down on us
With all our confusions
Barbara Hamby: Ode to My 1977 Toyota
Engine like a Singer sewing machine, where have you
not carried me—to dance class, grocery shopping,
into the heart of darkness and back again?
Edgar Lee Masters: Conrad Siever
…here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years
Norell Edwards: Seeking Safety as a Black Woman in New Cities
Certainly, policing cannot be the solution for the safety of Black women, who must navigate the line between white supremacist violence and its toxic violent byproducts that overwhelm the Black community.
Richard Foerster: Aspens
This morning three trees lay felled,
the roots exposed like hacked bones
in opened graves.
E. Bailey Norwood, Courtney Bir: 10% of Americans Don’t Eat Meat
The number of Americans who are vegans or vegetarians has doubled in recent years.
Judith Sanders: The Sabine Woman
But history leaps from the bushes, grabs your throat.
Your sisters’ screams explode in your chest.
Thatch is burning, sacks slit, lentils spilled.
Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Street Art in Pittsburgh
Although Pittsburgh is home to a number of major museums and art galleries, the region’s streets often tempt residents to create their own art.
Video: The Agent
A C-list talent agent walks through the world all but invisible… until he enters a pay-to-play audition room.
Bhikshuni Sukka: The Way Back Home
Look at me. Even on the darkest night, I could show you where to find enough light to make your way back home.
