Fred Maus: New Mexico, Devisadero Loop
. We walked together six hours, uphill from the road to the wooden sign at the trailhead, then up the trail, . straining to breathe thin air, thinking about our … Continue reading
Jose Padua: On the Half-life of Memory and All the Lives Lost in the Process
After you’ve invaded someone’s country enslaved its people tortured its citizens insulted and belittled its culture and beliefs it’s a little late in the proceedings and in the course of … Continue reading
Vanessa German: My First Police Memory
My first police memory is of 1980’s Los Angeles being 7 or 8 in the back of the big van my mama drove us all around in. her 5 kids. … Continue reading
Vanessa German: Go in Ferocious
Go in ferocious. make the eye contact. make the eye contact and tell every sister you see that you Love her. say.i love you. find every embrace and meet it … Continue reading
Djelloul Marbrook: Poetry as a haunting ley-line system in the service of human evolution
A ley line is a fairy path to the Irish, a dragon line to the Chinese, a djinnway to Arabs, a spirit line to the Incas, a songline to the … Continue reading
John Keats: This Living Hand
. This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Speaking of Sorrow
My son is seventeen years old, and he has a broken heart. Of course I also had a broken heart when I was seventeen, but what does that matter? My … Continue reading
Jose Padua: A Better Tomorrow
My Dad was the caretaker of the Philippine ambassador’s residence for several decades but the day when he seemed to take the most pride and joy in his job was … Continue reading
Vanessa German: Of Art
i believe in the power of art. and that’s mostly all. but good news is i find it everywhere. like there is this one man on the street and he … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: On Having
After my mother died in 2001, I found myself un-layering years of accumulated expectations. One of those expectations, and what I haven’t achieved, was to have a middle-class life, get … Continue reading
Video: Lucille Clifton reading two poems at the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival
Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) reads “What Haunts Him” and “Sorrows.” A prolific and widely respected poet, Lucille Clifton’s work emphasizes endurance and strength through adversity, focusing particularly on African-American experience and … Continue reading
Chana Bloch: Fortress
. Silence is a strenuous language but we have chosen it. A shut door, a shrug, stone upon stone. . The stones have a history. They were pulled from the … Continue reading
Jose Padua: The Real Deal
Sometimes when I wake up to a foggy morning in our small town I remember that episode of The Outer Limits where a man who drinks liquor in the morning … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: An Ars Poetica
In the dark of the jeweled cities, below the mirror
buildings, in the wind that funnels up the street canyons
blowing hats off and women’s hair sideways
poets are passing a small flame from one pair
of cupped hands to another.
