Poetry

Two Persian Poems from Afghanistan

By Elyas Alavi

Spring 2020
Elyas Alavi

Illustration by Elyas Alavi from the series Waking Dreams Translator’s note: Few voices are more distinctive in the world of contemporary Afghan poetry than Elyas Alavi. The...
to hide here and kiss a beloved is not sin enough

By Merve Çanak

Winter 2020
Merve Çanak

Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy/Unsplash the human soul is a dark place, leviathan. so much that my eyes begrudge the light. I sense the dark upsurge. I can’t find a hole large enough, can’t liv...
A Poem

By Bailey Hoffner

Winter 2020
Bailey Hoffner

Ruth Loveland, Inferno, 36x36 inches, mixed media on wood, 2017 is the last thing I want you to become as in late in life your lover looks at a picture of the day you met a sudde...
Three Poems from Rojava, Syria

By Taha Khalil

Winter 2020
Taha Khalil

Taha Khalil, Untitled, acrylic on canvas Scapegoat And the knife is in your hand You look just like Abraham, our prophet I’m your old, old Ishmael. Captivity Late at night As if...
Parallels

By Lauren Camp

Winter 2020
Lauren Camp

Kristin Marie Enns-Kavanagh / Flickr Agnes Martin, Eye Hill Rural Municipality No. 382, Saskatchewan The land moves without qualm in billows and degrees o...
Two Tunisian Poems

By Abdelfattah Ben Hammouda

Winter 2020
Abdelfattah Ben Hammouda

Photo: Evie Shaffer / Unsplash A Funeral Wash me with warm water and soap made of fresh olive oil anoint me with amber and camphor water with rose geranium and orange blossom water Swaddle...
Activism & Poetry: A Brief Report

By Brenda Hillman

Autumn 2019
Brenda Hillman

Illustration: JR Korpa / Unsplash Sometimes i’m called an “activist-poet,” maybe to make my aesthetically odd poetry seem more relevant or marketable to audiences other than...
If

By Ashanti Anderson

Autumn 2019
Ashanti Anderson

Photo: Michael Day / Flickr July 10, 1040: Lady Godiva, wife of the Earl of Mercia, rides naked on horseback to force her husband to lower taxes. July 10, 2015: Sandra Bland was p...
Hot in the Striped Boy’s Heart

By Jan Beatty

Autumn 2019
Jan Beatty

Photo: Faungg / Flickr It’s hot in the loading bridge, hot in the birth canal, it’s hot in the striped boy’s heart – we’re two women driving to D.C. for an abortion in my beater sea-gree...
Three Tracks from Brown Girl Mixtape

By Barbara Jane Reyes

Autumn 2019
Barbara Jane Reyes

You Will Grow Together in Your Rage, illustration by Meg Lionel Murphy “You’re the One,” by Fanny (1971) Hell yeah, let this Brown Girl sing because I know what I kno...
Rima Refuses the Question, April 8, 2012

By Mohja Kahf

Autumn 2019
Mohja Kahf

Saad Merie / DeviantArt to Rima Dali, with love Rima Dali in her red raincoat reaches downtown Damascus, silently steps into the intersection stands tall as traffic holds high a r...
Two Wayuu Poems

By Lindantonella Solano Mendoza

Autumn 2019
Lindantonella Solano Mendoza

Miktlanziwatl (Lady of Death) © Cara Romero. All Rights Reserved. Abyayala Full of Questions América, I don’t invoke your name. When I bare my heart to the sword...
There Was No Plot

By Coral Bracho

Autumn 2019
Coral Bracho

Photo: Analusie Gamboa / Unsplash There were neither plots nor characters, only places. Neighborhoods sliced in half. Terraces and corridors between roofless rooms. Profiles only. Stagger...
We Are Millions

By Mikeas Sánchez

Autumn 2019
Mikeas Sánchez

The Weapon is Sharing (This Machine Kills Fascists), by Cannupa Hanska Luger, ceramic, 2017. Photo courtesy of the artist. The Zoque and Spanish originals of this poem appear in Mike...
Pity the Nation

By Wang Ping

Autumn 2019
Wang Ping

Photo: Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie after Ferlinghetti Pity the nation whose freedom melts faster than Arctic ice Whose justice defends sex predators & puts children in jail. Pity t...
Do you know what time it is?

By Vickie Vértiz

Autumn 2019
Vickie Vértiz

Photo: Centrifuga / Flickr after a photograph by Sally Mann and Detention Center Concentration Camps
Family Trees

By Craig Santos Perez

Autumn 2019
Craig Santos Perez

The endangered Serianthes nelsonii sapling on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. More than forty of the endangered tree species saplings were planted around Andersen by biologists from the U...
Moments Hard to Piece Together

By Duane Niatum

Autumn 2019
Duane Niatum

Photos: “Skedee” and “Cherokee National Holiday — Tahlequah,” from In The Territories, by Shane Brown American Indians should stop weeping over the cruelty of the trail of tears and th...
Those Who Are Leaving

By Nancy Morejón

Autumn 2019
Nancy Morejón

Photo: Lucas Poisson / Flickr Leave. No two ways about it, they leave heading out toward night. Desperate, a coastal patrol will look for t...
We Shall Endure: A Poem

By Simon J. Ortiz

Autumn 2019
Simon J. Ortiz

Illustration: Dustin Mater March 1973 Forever. Always. Never-ending. Continuing. It was snowing in the Southwest, and the wind was cold and harsh the past few days. We...
Bless This Land

By Joy Harjo

Autumn 2019
Joy Harjo

Winter Sun, 2017, oil on wood panel, by Kay WalkingStick. Courtesy of the artist and June Kelly Gallery Bless this land from the top of its head to the bottom of its feet F...
Finger in the Operating Room

By Fatemeh Shams

Autumn 2019
Fatemeh Shams

They had to remove it and off we went: A transparent image of bones chained together; Half face, three-quarters, full face of the fingers stretched out, fingers without recognizable lines, i...
52

By Frank Paino

Summer 2019
Frank Paino

Fin whales in the Svalbard archipelago / Photo by Guillaume Baviere / Flickr “52” is the moniker given to an unidentified whale (most likely a blue or fin) whose high-pitched voca...
Banaras

By Kedarnath Singh

Summer 2019
Kedarnath Singh

Temple in Varanasi / Photo by Saurabh Chatterjee / Flickr Spring descends on this city suddenly and when it does a whirl of dust rises from Lehartara or Manduadih and coats the tongue of...
Three Poems from the Philippines

By Rina Garcia Chua

Summer 2019
Rina Garcia Chua

Photo: Courtesy of the Author As she pleases after Tropical Storm Ondoy, 2009 If only words dilute sediments at the bottom of my gut; if only a tongue can let this pain hydroplane...