Paul Laurence Dunbar: Invitation to Love
Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd’ning cherry.
Minnita Daniel-Cox: The brief but shining life of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a poet who gave dignity to the Black experience
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Julia Conley: Thousands in Midwestern GOP Districts Attend Sanders’ First Stops on Tour to Fight Oligarchy
“The energy around what Bernie is doing is insane….”
Sean Sexton: Meditation Upon Dutch Boy General Purpose Paste Flux
See the plastic screw-capped container of
Dutch Boy General Purpose Paste Flux, left
by the man summoned to tear out a wall
of our bathroom closet
John Zheng: Poetry as Enchantment by Dana Gioia
“If poetry is the most ancient and primal art, if it is a universal human activity, if it uses the rhythmic power of music to speak to us in deep and mysterious ways, if the art is a sort of secular magic that heightens the sense of our own humanity, then why is poetry so unpopular?”
Julie Bruck: Two Poems
Whose earth is this?
It’s borrowed, leases are revocable,
minute to minute. Just ask the man
on a rooftop in Gaza
George Yancy: Black History Testifies to the Impossible Creative Power of Black Resistance
Literary scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin discusses how Black yearning keeps surviving in the face of racist violence.
Amal Ahmed: Rebuilding Food Security After a Wildfire
A coalition in Oregon is fighting to expand access to food assistance—regardless of immigration status.
David Kirby: Inexhaustible
You’ve seen the photo: the marine
on the right straining like the statue
of a Greek wrestler as he hauls the flag
into place, the five on the left pushing
from their side.
Baron Wormser: Salvation
On Flannery O’Connor, Donald Trump, and American Violence
Meg Kearney (Two Poems)
When he was dying my little brother
said cancer was “the sins of our mother”
visited upon him. What’s also true:
her heart was the stone rolled away from the tomb.
William D. Hartung: In Stunningly Bright Colors
Enrico Muratore Aprosio’s Cry for Common Sense and Common Humanity,
Robbi Nester: Still Standing
At first glance, I think she is a teacher
drawing on the chalkboard. One finger
rests on the crevice where the chalk is kept.
The other arm sweeps wide, into an arc
on the board’s murky green surface,
where transparent moon-jellies swarm
Michael Simms: America
Beside the highway outside McKeesport PA
a state trooper has pulled over a black man
who leans against his rusty Ford
palms flat, feet apart
assuming the position
as we say in America
