Adrian Blevins: Portrait of my X
I met him nearly twenty years ago in an early morning college yard and in all this time he has changed very little. Nothing about being alive exasperates me more … Continue reading
Naomi Shihab Nye: Different Ways to Pray
There was the method of kneeling, a fine method, if you lived in a country where stones were smooth. The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards, hidden corners where knee … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: You in the Mercedes
You in the Mercedes with a phone clamped to your ear honking at the farmer who’s had the temerity to drive a tractor, slowly, in a no-passing zone, in front … Continue reading
Michael Simms: The Master Potter
Today I visited my friend Bill Foglia who’s a master potter. He’s a founding member and the landlord of Penn Avenue Pottery, an artists’ cooperative located in the Strip District, … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: The Overcoat
I carried that coat until the end, pockets stuffed with all I could not throw away: an open knife that cut my hand when I reached in for it, a … Continue reading
Sarah Browning: This Is the Poem
. I am on the Parkway with Fred, driving home from Baltimore to DC. We’ve been to a packed . and riotous tribute to Ms. Lucille Clifton at the public … Continue reading
Bob Lange: On Looking at the Night Sky
The whale knows nought of the sequoia, who knows nought of the aspen, who knows nought of the plankton, who knows nought of what is called Jupiter nor cerebellum nor … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Every Process of Living Begins with Short Steps
A hint of yellow shine appears at the window while the weak ticking of the clock is heard again between mumbled words. Our house is like an old man humming … Continue reading
Video: ‘Dregs in a Bottle’ by Kate Tempest
Kate Tempest performs “Dregs in a Bottle.” This video was filmed and recorded by Kim-Leng Hills in the poet’s house in November 2010.
Eduardo Galeano: Sacrilegious Women
. In the year 1901, Elisa Sánchez and Marcela Gracia got married in the church of Saint George in the Galician city of A Coruña. Elisa and Marcela had loved … Continue reading
Major Jackson: A Mystifying Silence — Big and Black
Nigger, your breed ain’t metaphysical. —Robert Penn Warren, “Pondy Woods” Beginning in earnest his long and preeminent literary career in the 1930s, it is safe to say poet and novelist … Continue reading
Matthew Thorburn: Two Poems from “A Green River in Spring”
First Light . The sun breaks like an egg over everything east of here. Stop stop, enough enough, the sparrows say—or that’s what Lao Wen says . they say in … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: The Torturers
Took their break after they finally broke a man and made him lie, implicate his friends and cause their deaths. They washed off the blood, sat smoking in the shade. … Continue reading
