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Letting the Emptiness Become My Government  ~Marcus Jackson Within me, the sipped, iced bourbon enacts the sense of a slow, April rain ...

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. ~Maya Ange...

Thinking of Frost  ~Major Jackson I thought by now my reverence would have waned, matured to the tempered silence of the bookish or reve...

Pledge ~Wendy Xu The diagnosis was god, twice a day until the spirit untangles itself. I took a trip into unscripted days past, teenage...

From Fifth Avenue Up ~Djuna Barnes Someday beneath some hard Capricious star— Spreading its light a little Over far, We'll know y...

Prompts (for High School Teachers Who Write Poetry)  ~Dante Di Stefano Write about walking into the building as a new teacher. Write you...

in lieu of a poem, i’d like to say  ~Danez Smith apricots & brown teeth in browner mouths nashing dates & a clementine’s underfl...

I Don’t Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We’ve Done to the Earth  ~Fatimah Asghar so I count my hopes: the bumblebees ...

Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror  ~Kelli Russell Agodon The night sounds like a murder of magpies and we’re replacing our cabi...

The Rules  ~Leila Chatti There will be no stars—the poem has had enough of them. I think we        can agree we no longer believe there...

Cling  ~LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs             Child with continuing cling issue his No in final fire                                      ...

Before Quiet ~Hazel Hall I will think of water-lilies Growing in a darkened pool, And my breath shall move like water, And my hands be...

Untitled [Executions have always been public spectacles]  ~mónica teresa ortiz Executions have always been public spectacles. It is New Y...

Brief Interval  ~Cheryl Clarke I knew what I was about stroking your lovely neck in the perilously brief interval at the intersection...

They Don’t Love You Like I Love You  ~Natalie Diaz My mother said this to me long before Beyoncé lifted the lyrics from the Yeah Yeah Y...

We, Made of Bone ~Mahtem Shiferraw These days, I refuse to let you see me the way I see myself. I wake up in the morning not knowing ...

No, Kanye, it’s not LIKE we’re mentally in prison  ~Erica Dawson            for my grandfather We don’t have heirlooms. Haven’t owned t...

I hope to God you will not ask ~Esther Belin I hope to God you will not ask me to go anywhere except my own country. If we go back, we wi...

Another Day ~Craig Morgan Teicher It should be difficult, always difficult, rising from bed each morning, against gravity, against d...

Hunger  ~Ama Codjoe When I rose into the cradle of my mother’s mind, she was but a girl, fighting her sisters over a flimsy doll. It’s...