Baron Wormser: A Poetry Proposal
There is no shortage of poems and no shortage of strategies to deliver the poems. The failing lies in our wariness. It’s true: to embrace poetry is to embrace a degree of uncertainty. Yet what else is life?
Bhikshuni Vijaya: Keep Going
Sometimes the most direct path is not a straight line.
Melanie M. Kirby: Nectar Nomad in the Land of Enchantment
What bees taught me about building community.
Kavita Babu: What is fentanyl and why is it behind the deadly surge in US drug overdoses?
Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in nonmedical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl.
Wendy Mnookin: Celebration
I’ll fill my wedding vase
with deep-veined lilies, harlot asters,
pollen will dust the table
where I mass them every week.
Anita Gonzalez: A white librettist wrote an opera about Emmett Till – and some critics are calling for its cancellation
To me, the backlash against the white librettist is ultimately a waste of time. Not only is there room for works done in collaboration with Black artists, but cross-cultural, interethnic collaborations also add to the richness and versatility of performed storytelling.
Kristofer Collins: Jack Teagarden Buries Louis Armstrong’s Oriental Strut, Mesa, NM, ca.1926
lifting the tarnished curve of his horn to papery lips, Jack
Teagarden somewhere in 1947, his heart piled up with booze
and debt, but still a suppleness to his mouth, a flash
of something dangerous in the hard set of his jaw
Rajan Menon: The Economic Consequences of the War
The conflict in Ukraine Is a disaster for the poor of this planet.
Cristina Peri Rossi: Three Poems (with translations)
The Arabian poets say
that fate is the lurch
of a blind stray camel.
Toi Derricotte: Holy Cross Hospital
would our bodies be the same? could we hide among the
childless? she always reminded me of a lady at the bridge
club in her mother’s shoes, playing her mother’s hand.
Jim Daniels: Strawberry
the final time I saw my mother
she was trying to find
the last strawberry on her plate
Video: The Breathtaking Courage of Harriet Tubman
Escaping slavery; risking everything to save her family; leading a military raid; championing the cause of women’s suffrage; these are just a handful of the accomplishments of one of America’s most courageous heroes.
Jose Padua: Puñeta
Mother, you were the history
that never made the books,
the woman who fed us
chicken flavored with garlic
and ginger, sweet pork with
soy sauce and rice
Vox Populi 